adimatis Posted August 17, 2017 Share Posted August 17, 2017 Hi everyone! I've been watching the forum for a while now and tried to assimilate as much as possible about this keyboard, as I am interested in getting an arranger and this one looks very promissing to me. Of course, there are so many questions that can only get an answer when you see, touch and hear the instrument itself, but to some others I found good answers here. So thank you all for being a good support group and very helpful resource for people like me. My name is Adi btw. I do not know how often I will post here, for the moment at least, but please bear with me and hopefully soon I myself will be able to answer questions about X500. I am still trying to understand... 1. How many different samples are used for a tone, under the factory content? For drums for instance, are there one or two or three velocity-response samples? 2. How can be used the "extra" samples when creating a style? I reffer to these... Has anyone tried them? 3. The USB connection will allow both data transfer and MIDI signal? 4. Are there any instrument definitions for major DAWs? 5. Is the screen glare or mate? Thank you so much guys and... keep up the good work! Adi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Saucier Posted August 17, 2017 Share Posted August 17, 2017 1) Some of the newer drum samples can have as many as 4 velocity layers. For example, a snare in standard set 1 has different samples mapped to velocity ranges 0-49, 50-99, 100-114 and 115 to 127. 2) Any factory or user tone can be used to make a rhythm style. 3) Rear USB is for midi and sample manager application connection. Side USB is for thumb drive use to store and transfer files and record audio. 4) None that I am aware of. The MZ has it's own 16 track sequencer. 5) Matte Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adimatis Posted August 17, 2017 Author Share Posted August 17, 2017 Thank you Brad for your reply! Much appreciated. In about two or three weeks I will hopefully get to play X500. I am particularly curious about the keyboard feel. I have an M-Audio Keystation 61 controller and I think if the Casio's keys are anything like that one, I would be happy. As I am not expecting some weighted action or anything... I will continue to read the new posts here. All the best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Stirling Posted August 17, 2017 Share Posted August 17, 2017 I created an instrument definition file for Sonar. You can find it in the files section here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adimatis Posted August 18, 2017 Author Share Posted August 18, 2017 Thank you Rick. I myself use Studio One, but had little use of such .ins files, as I use a single MIDI controller and VSTs inside the program. A while ago I had a Roland E60 and then a Korg Pa50... Bur for two years or so I had no arranger keyboard. And I miss it. Do you think this could be adapted for Studio One? I will have to look into that later. Of course each DAW has it differently, but I guess there might be some files out there to help the start. MZ X500 is interesting to me and like I mentioned, I hope I'll soon get to try in person how it sounds and feel. Have a good day everybody. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Stirling Posted August 18, 2017 Share Posted August 18, 2017 (edited) I've always had the feeling that Studio One strengths were not in the MIDI domain. ;-) If you search the internet there was a utility that could take a Sonar INS file and create the equivalent for Studio One, but I think that it was only for an earlier version of Studio One. Good luck. You can start a search here ... http://answers.presonus.com/12251/studio-one-3-external-midi-hardware-devices-patch-names Edited August 18, 2017 by Rick Sterling new link Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adimatis Posted August 18, 2017 Author Share Posted August 18, 2017 Much appreciated it, Rick. Are you using Studio One too? I think it is a very good piece of software, complex but easy to grasp. It is my personal favourite. It is not a MIDI paradise, but in fact, for the simple setup I have (single controler, VSTs but not in a multitrack/multitimbral setup necessarily) will work very well. And actually it has a very comprehensive and complete MIDI editor and a lot of improvements in the latest versions. For now, I am still only dreaming, or contemplating the idea of getting the X500. I hope it will happen at some point. I will then worry about making it a good fit to my computer setup. Happy music-ing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Stirling Posted August 19, 2017 Share Posted August 19, 2017 Adimatis: I use Sonar now. It has decent MIDI editing capabilities and of course you can use the X500 instrument names in the editor with the INS file I created. Also with the INS file all instruments on the X500 can be accessed directly not just General Midi tones. My remark about Studio One midi was primarily due to several remarks I read by users online that instrument definition files could not be used. I've just downloaded Studio One 3.3 and find the interface not very intuitive. I loaded a MIDI file and the program doesn't automatically route MIDI to a MIDI port. Still haven't found how to tell the program which MIDI port to use let alone how to define instrument definitions. Looks like a lot of diving in the manual will be required. ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Stirling Posted August 19, 2017 Share Posted August 19, 2017 Adimatis: OK ... I got Studio One talking to the X500. ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Stirling Posted August 19, 2017 Share Posted August 19, 2017 Uninstalled Studio One ... definitely not MIDI friendly. (IMHO) ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlenK Posted August 19, 2017 Share Posted August 19, 2017 Studio One lasted all of 35 minutes on your computer. Not exactly a ringing endorsement! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Stirling Posted August 19, 2017 Share Posted August 19, 2017 AlenK: I guess Sonar has set my expectations up a few notches when it comes to midi support in DAWs ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adimatis Posted August 20, 2017 Author Share Posted August 20, 2017 Well, this is the beauty of diversity. Just like with the arranger keyboards. Some will put their bets on Korg only. Nothing else will do. Or Roland. Or Yamaha of course. While some others will be very happy with X500. I do not believe Studio One would be great for 16 multitrack/multitimbral. For the simple one channel VST will do very nicely on the other hand. But it is really down to personal preferance and feel. I quite like the "squareness" of Studio One, just as Cubase before it. To me, Sonar did not cut it, even thou I did give it a try years ago. I actually own an old version of X1 I think. But probably because I started with Cubase, anything else (except for Studio One years later) didn't really feel at home. But like I say, I think is great to have so many options these days. So thanks again. Who knows, maybe this will be a great opportunity to try Sonar again. Btw, do they still have some LE version available? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Stirling Posted August 20, 2017 Share Posted August 20, 2017 I'm pretty sure you can buy the Artist version outright for $99, or pay $10 per month to own it in 12 months. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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