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How can I have more rhythms for Casio arrangers?


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I know that Casio has produced great arranger keyboards at great price.

 

However, one reason makes me hesitant to buy. Compared with Yamaha, there are too few rhythms for Casio keyboards. As you know, on the internet, it is easy to download so many new styles.

 

How can we have the same thing for Casio?

 

Thank you

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If you are talking about the Yamaha professionally designed and engineered styles that they sell on their Musicsoft website, most of them run between $7 and $9 USD, so the next question is - Would you be willing to pay Casio $7 to $9 apiece for professionally designed and engineered after-market rhythm files.  They are not cheap, as their creation is quite labor intensive.  I bring this up, as many (most ?) PSR and Tyros owners on the Yamaha forums are of the opinion that Musicsoft style files are too expensive, for what they are.

 

OR - are you talking about the vast thousands of style files that are available for free download from the "files" sections of the Yamaha forums ?  Those files  are user created and have nothing what-so-ever to do with Yamaha Corporation, so to criticize Casio for not having something similar is unfair, as the problem is with Casio users - not with the corporation.  To date, Casio users just have not shown the interest in user supported rhythm file libraries that Yamaha users have.  If you had a PSR or Tyros keyboard, and were to download these "free" styles (expecting vast new sounds), I think you would be quite surprised and thoroughly disappointed.  Most of those style files are subtle personalizing modifications (tweaks) to the factory presets - substituting a nice muted trumpet for a brash brass "blaster" or a drum kit with a nice mellow snare instead of a harsh banger.  This is in no way meant  to detract from the efforts put forth by those who contribute to these style libraries.  Even the simplest of modifications can sometimes take many hours to get the mix right, and in the past few years, there have been several new contributors, who are creating brand new styles from scratch - particularly in the Club/Dance and other contemporary genres, but here again, these are all user based and have nothing to do with Yamaha Corporate, and are currently still much in the minority of the style libraries,

 

If you are interested in Casio and are concerned about rhythm file expandability, I recommend one of the 7XXX units - either the CTK-7000/WK-7500 (now discontinued) or the CTK-7200/WK-7600 - firstly because of their advanced Rhythm Editors for serious rhythm "tweaking" similar to what the Yamaha users do with their top-of-the line PSR's and Tyros', and secondly because of their Pattern Sequencers, which are absolutely essential for creating new rhythms from scratch.  You can view a video tutorial by Casio's Mike Martin on this from here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVdFRBmNID4

 

 

For free download of 50 Casio designed after-market rhythm files for the CTK/WK-6XXX/7XXX models, see:

 

http://www.casiomusicforums.com/index.php?/files/file/1080-old-casio-ac7-rhythm-style-files/

 

 

For free download of 108 Casio designed after-market rhythm files, originally offered for the older WK-3XXX models, and importable into the newer models, see:

 

http://music.casio.com/e/data_ex4/rhythm.html

 

I would also recommend reviewing the brochures and specs on the recent MZ-X300 and MZ-X500 models.

 

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Great appraisal of Yamaha's Musicsoft style files available to buy.  In fact as you say a whole cottage industry has sprung up whereby enterprising Yamaha owners are creating and selling styles for PSR and Tyros independently in order to make money, but as you also rightly say this can be very time consuming.

 

 

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Furthermore, depending on your style of playing, whether you need complete accompaniment styles or just rhythm tracks I've noticed a lot of Pros' with say a two keyboard set up and maybe midi bass pedals just create their own rhythm tracks  preferring to add their own left hand accompaniment, like you would play an organ.  -Especially players playing dance music.

 

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