PCM

[Leonh]

When comparing keyboards Korg Pa 600 often comes as direct competition to MZ now I asked before and maybe some of you know what is the size of pcm samples in MZ knowing that PA got 96 mb of memory and yes size is not everything they say😁 but it would interesting to know.

I read that XW P 1 had about 30 mb of pcm for example.

[Brad Saucier]

Casio does not publish those specs. "XW-P1 30MB" must be speculation.   Currently the only published megabyte specs are for the MZX-500 and 300 which has 256MB and 128MB of user sample expansion memory respectively.  The reason these numbers can't be used for comparison to other products is things like various data compression and sample construction techniques.  There is a certain amount of skill and artwork to this craft.  Some are more efficient at it than others. For example, Casio has designed a proprietary data compression system that is lossless. I have estimated this reduces data size by roughly 50%.  That would allow the MZ-X500's 256MB of expansion memory to contain something like 512MB of uncompressed sample data.  Couple that with skillful sampled instrument construction techniques and you can go a very long distance with that memory. 

[AlenK]

1 hour ago, BradMZ said:

"XW-P1 30MB" is purely speculation. 

 

Strictly speaking "30MB" is indeed speculation. But we can be reasonably certain that it cannot be more than 32MB because that is the size of the Flash memory IC's in the XW-P1, for which we have photographic evidence (and can be confirmed just by opening a unit up). (Two of these ICs, in fact.) Since the XW-P1 stores other kinds of data structures in addition to PCM not all of that 32MB can be used for PCM data. The speculation concerns only how much.  

 

It's frankly amazing how far the XW-P1 gets with so little PCM data. If the same clever memory-stretching techniques are invoked in the MZ-X500, and there's no reason to think they weren't (although hopefully applied a little less drastically), the MZ-X500 has all the PCM space it needs to make high-quality sounds. 

[Rudolph R-N R]

AFAIK, every manufacturer that states how much memory they use in their boards put it in terms of the equivalent memory if it was not compressed, presumably in WAV 44.1 format.  

[Silvano Silva]

In fact the MZx Line is the one that less falls in the quality of conversion of samples. This is indisputable.
But it hurts in its small Preload of 32Mb for both the MZ-X300 and the MZ-X500, as well as the disappearance in the samples when loaded into memory.
Dozens of reports from friends with the same problem, I have 40mb on my MZ-X300 and I'm afraid to add more samples to your memory.
I have 128MB of sample memory that I can not use in full.
Casio has to solve this or give us a position if there will be corrections.
The MZ-X line is great but Casio has to listen to its customers who work in the PROFESSIONAL AREA of ONE MAN BAND Musicians and not to donate MZ-X to endorsers who use the keyboard as controllers without internal sounds or ZTN samples.
I'm sorry, Brad. But we have to stop talking about good keyboard things and be real.
For Casio to really go against KORG PA600, YAMAHA S770, KETRON and ROLAND EA7 have to solve these bugs.
I sent word to Mike Martin and so far he has not answered me.
I emailed Casio Brazil and so far there was no response.