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Has the XW-G1 been discontinued?


Rusty Krash Baxter

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Indeed, many online dealers are showing "no longer available" for the XW-G1 (whereas they still show the XW-P1 as being available). I don't know if that is due to the XW-G1 being discontinued or just because those dealers didn't order many to begin with and decided it didn't sell well enough to order more. You might still be able to get one from someone. I'd phone around. 

 

Re NAMM, if they haven't announced a product already (the show opened over an hour ago) then it probably doesn't exist. All new products will be sitting in their booth at NAMM so they would out of necessity put out all press releases for those products at the start of the show.

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Still a few coming up on Ebay USA. The Dee and Ricky G1 is still available also - I wonder why :lol::lol::lol:

 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=casio+xw-g1&_sacat=0

 

As for being discontinued, stocks of both XW's seem to have been diminished for some time. The P1 seemed to make a resurgence of late, with a few online stores seemingly stocking them again.

 

Glad I got mine when I did.

 

 

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Guitar Center an Sam Ash used to have display models for a time but clearanced them. This was not an indication that they were discontinued just that they decided not to have store stock. Perhaps they weren't selling well. The Guitar Center closest to me doesn't have a lot of  keyboards on display. What they do have in pro boards are Yahama and Korg. A few Casio models , but the cheaper stuff. Sam Ash has a little more but not anywhere what they used to display. In fact, I never saw a PX5S to try at either Sam Ash or GC in all the years it has been out. It seems to be about Midi controllers DJ, and Guitar and Amp gear. Perhaps keyboards just don't sell very well these days and stores carry what sells best. Keyboards today are mostly purchased online. As far as I know, The P1 and G1 are still made but you have to buy online. You should be able to find used ones in good condition around $300 or less.

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  • 6 months later...

I just grabbed one on OfferUp today and it's' shipping from LA to JAX. Gonna have to show this west coast synth what the east coast is all about. Was looking for a new one at first but I've come across that same situation with the P1 being available new but not the G1. I almost went the route of the PD1 since I was mainly looking for the sequencer, but the live control aspect of the G1 with the knobs and buttons and having MIDI DIN ports was the better route to take for me.

 

Guy had it listed for $250 for a while but I had my eye on several other options in this price range and just hadnt pulled the trigger yet. Yesterday he dropped it to $199 and I had been watching so many videos about the step seq recently and figured what the hey. Basically, this beat out a Korg Kaosscillator Pro, Red Sound Dark Star XP (just because it's fairly rare and it was in the same $ range - I used to own an Elevata :) ) and a potentially dicey CZ3000. 

 

I honestly havent played a Casio since the mid 80s when my pops had a small MIDI studio in the basement. He had a CZ101 and I just remember having so much fun with it and being totally amazed at the sounds it created vs my toy MT100 - which was still loads of fun. He also had an Alesis HR16 and a few other various effects and such.

 

Cant wait for it to make the trek across this great land of ours to my very own doorstep so I can punish some oscillators. I've read in a couple places that the XWs can do CZ and FZ sounds as well?? Exciting if so...

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Well worth $199. (BTW, amusing that an ad for a used item would employ the inane practise of $X99 pricing. Why not just ask $200?) 

 

The P1 and G1 include some CZ waveforms but unfortunately not the Phase Distortion method of synthesis that the CZ models used. Hard to get close without that. Wrt the FZ, it is/was a sampling synthesizer but AFAIK neither the P1 or the G1 uses any original samples from it. 

 

Be sure to download The XW-P1 Companion from here. Sure, you have a G1 and some of what is in there will not apply to you. But enough of it WILL apply that you might find the document useful.

 

 

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14 hours ago, AlenK said:

The P1 and G1 include some CZ waveforms but unfortunately not the Phase Distortion method of synthesis that the CZ models used. Hard to get close without that.

 

Yeah, figured it was thru waveforms, but I am not all that concerned about getting true to form sounds from the past as much as experimenting with new ones. I  just really like the sequencer from the videos I've seen. I just missed out on a PD1 for $80 so that was a bummer...64 tracks is massive.

 

As I've been reading up on the XW in these posts here, I've noticed that more than a few users here have both the G1 and the P1. I've found another great deal on a P1, so if I end up liking the G1 as much as I suspect, I may grab that as well. Might need to sell something to make some room since I am getting short on real estate in the studio.

 

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As Alen stated, the FZ was primarily a sampler. They did also have a wave synthesis function, with some basic analogue style waves (saw, square, triangle etc.), plus you could even draw your own custom wave and use that. I also believe that the they used CZ style 8 stage envelopes. However, what gave the FZ its distinctive sound was the way it mashed samples so that they were slightly different to the original source, and also its distinctive filter, which was actually analogue. Combined, that's what gave the FZ its character, not any individual wave or preset.

 

As Alen also correctly pointed out, the XW'S have onboard waves that were named after and made to sound like a CZ raw wave, but the XW does not use any form of phase distortion synthesis. It was Phase Distortion and the 8 stage envelopes that gave the CZ'S their very distinctive sonic pallette and unique sound. Without these 8 stage envelopes,  and the unique "resonant" CZ waveforms, you can't get close to a more complex and or evolving CZ sound.

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Thanks for all the info guys. This is one of the best forums for talking synths that I've ever been on. Most of the time I see snarky interjections and otherwise unhelpful comments on other boards but everyone here seem genuinely interested in helping out.

 

I am somewhat famiar with the CZ series since my pops owned the 101. The FZ I had only played a few times about 15-20yrs ago and had actually forgotten about that little beast until I started reading the posts here regarding the XWs. I do remember it being quite different than most of the other synths I had played. Aside from an Ensoniq Fizmo, it was the most fun to poke at even with a lack of knobs (which is what most of my buddies hated.) Maybe I just have a soft spot for keyboards I can actually afford... ;)

 

 

PS: Since you've all been so kind as to remind me how awesome CZs are and can't really be replicated, I've found a working CZ1 in decent condition for $100. I definitely don't have enough room for all this but who cares.

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On 8/17/2018 at 7:48 AM, Dan Gray said:

PS: Since you've all been so kind as to remind me how awesome CZs are and can't really be replicated, I've found a working CZ1 in decent condition for $100. I definitely don't have enough room for all this but who cares.

 

If you have managed to get a working CZ-1 for $100, you have scored a bargain of the year! A good CZ-1 will normally fetch around double that, or more. Mine was $180 + shipping, though it was it was fully working and in very good to excellent condition, and it came with 2 x RA6 ram cartridges and 2 x RC rom sound bank cartridges. I really lucked out as the advert didn't even mention the cartridges, and the first I knew about them was when I opened the package when the CZ was delivered. A huge bonus as the cartridges on their own were worth almost as much as the CZ-1 itself!

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Yeah, that deal may have fallen through, but the CZ1 is still up for sale as of now, but he just has not replied since the first chat. Still working on it.....

 

Aside from all of that, I am really digging the G1. This thing sounds way better than I expected. I have been playing with some analog oscillator pedals that I normally blast thru my guitar amp and it really adds another level. Feeding that into the ext input and playing around with the osc and filter controls is a great time waster; now this beast is truly a "hybrid." 

 

The bass response is amazing for a digital synth, it almost blew the headphones off, literally - they wanted to rattle right off my head. I even really like the digital aliasing sound on the controls. I know that might sound strange, but mark my words, in 20 years someone will be selling a synth with "quantum processing that painstakingly recreates the original digital aliasing effect when adjusting knobs and faders...." - heh.

 

I also managed to hop thru about 20 hoops to get the MIDI Designer XW app to install on a first gen iPad and transmit over WIFI to the G1 using rtpMIDI. It's not the fastest solution in the world but I don't have an Apple camera kit nor an iPad MIDI dongle. Besides I am only using the app for easily sculpting out my sounds to save in the G1. Its nice to have the visual layout and see at a glance what all the parameters are. It's actually a lot better than I thought a touchscreen app would work in this respect.

 

I've watched Mike Martin's whole set of vids (and Funzie..?) on this thing a couple times before I even bought it and I am going to go thru them again today. What a hidden gem in  the digital synth world. Does anyone know what the rumors are about whats next from Casio?

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UPDATE: I was able to reduce the latency on the rtpMIDI setup by turning off all unnecessary MIDI traffic thru my DAW. There's still a slightly discernible lag when trying to use controls in realtime, but it has improved noticeably. Been busting out all my old pedals and getting ready to do some in depth experimentation with chaining pedals (and synths) together in strange ways and running that into the G1 external inputs, but that will be a new thread.

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25 minutes ago, Brad Saucier said:

I've used an iPad and rtpMIDI over WiFi with my PX-5S.  You might be able to reduce latency even more if your current WiFi band is 2.4Ghz and can be changed to 5Ghz.  Also, I haven't seen you mention it, but there is a computer data editor Casio provided for the XW series. 

 

Yes. I've installed the editor but haven't spent much time with it yet. My WiFi is dual band, but the iPad generally sticks to the 5ghz side.

 

I was actually just now reading up on your post about the sample loop points on square wav and I too was unaware of this feature and can't wait to sample some other synths. That and the external input filter section makes me now feel like this may be the best $200 I've ever spent on a synth. Will this thing never cease to amaze?

 

PS: This is the best user forum for any company I've ever bought a product of. You guys are all very knowledgeable and if you don't know the answer, you get to figuring it out right away. There's so much information that I don't know if there's any way that I can contribute anything new (AlenK - you're a flipping MONSTER at programming this thing - that duophonic solution is pure genius 💡), but if I ever have a XW question I'll know where to go.

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