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Stage Settings and Tones


Mike Martin

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From the download page:

 

Instructions for loading:
This file can only be loaded directly from the PX-5S. The editor can not be used.


Put the download file on a USB drive in a folder called "MUSICDAT"
Put the USB drive in the PX-5S.
Press and hold the MEDIA button the PX-5S for 2 seconds.
From the display select LOAD, then scroll down and find ALL from the menu and press ENTER.
Use the No/Yes buttons to choose the file you want to load, then press ENTER.

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Hi Mike, that's sorta kinda helpful. I got my PX-5 a few days ago and I'm full on into rehearsals for a Taylor Dayne run of shows, I have absolutely zero time to muck around trying to navigate thru a new instrument. Is there any way it can be explained how I can grab some of my favorite tones (I already know a half dozen I love) and store them in "Stage Settings"? REALLY QUICKLY? I'm mystified, so far, how this works, I really don't get the concept yet. I'm hoping a realization will come. When one is in rehearsal with a high profile act, you really can't take any risks, so you have to play safe with all program choices, etc.

 

I'd really appreciate a "For Dummy's" language explanation if possible.

 

Thank you, Sam McNally, Australia.  

YOU MUST DOWNLOAD THE EDITOR. It's easy to use!!

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I would like to point out that system settings->general->stage set filter, the compressor and eq are set differently on my unit. This makes it very confusing when you are trying to figure why they are in the same "area" of the synth and one is global and the other is not.

 

As for tone storage - just think of them as favorite "stored" settings of tones. When you choose them in the stage setting, the tone "settings" are loaded into the Stage Setting. Think of the Stage setting as a performance/combination/multi where you can have up to 4 zones of sounds, split or layered. The stage setting stores all of its parameters so you don't need to have any extra tone information.

 

This is like the old Roland edit buffer where all the parameters were in the edit buffer for all parts. Well at least that's how I see it.

 

You never play a tone directly, you always hear the tone "settings" in the context of a Stage Setting. So when you choose a tone in a zone of the stage setting, all the keyboard is doing is loading the zone settings into the zone of the stage setting. I might have made things worse! :mellow:

----------

OK, now I found out why everything is so confusing. Choose a zone, press DSP, now change the DSP setting.

Now on almost every synthesizer when you want to save any changes, you press WRITE. Now the PX-5S asks you to save the TONE. This reinforces old ways of thinking that you need to save a tone because - duh, every synth works this way and you are being prompted to save the tone.

 

Instead of pressing write, simply press exit and hear your modified stage setting. Now press write, choose stage setting instead of tone and save your stage setting. All the DSP changes are saved. Very quick!

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  • 3 years later...

Hello,

 

great thread. 

 

Is anyone still on here? 

 

How do you save user tones. If there is a tone I like, and I want to make adjustments to it, can I only keep one or the other? and can I save this new one as a tone? How do I do this? Where are they stored, how do I access them??  Thank you. :)

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1 hour ago, Nat said:

How do you save user tones. If there is a tone I like, and I want to make adjustments to it, can I only keep one or the other? and can I save this new one as a tone? How do I do this? Where are they stored, how do I access them??  Thank you. :)

The short answer is, you can save any Stage Setting in any slot. It will have to replace whatever Stage Setting is in that slot. One thing Casio did was fill up all the available spaces with Stage Settings, which makes people nervous about saving them. Just find one you don't use and replace it. Meanwhile, the original Stage Setting will remain in its original spot unless you replace it with your new one.

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Hi Joe,

 

Thanks for getting back to me

 

I think I have a grasp on saving stage settings, and that you can have all sorts of different aspects to each individual stage setting ie knobs/sliders/ zones etc.....

 

It gets mentioned throughout this post, that if you wanted to use a tone that you have saved within a stage setting and replicate it in another stage setting, that you would have to save that tone independently of the stage setting. This gets mentioned a few times, that you would have to save it as a 'user tone'... I am just wondering how this is done, as opposed to saving a setup as a stage setting.

 

Very greatly appreciated if you or anyone else is able to help with this. 

 

Nat

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It's the same basic process as saving a stage setting.  First select the zone with the tone you want to save. Press the write button, but select tone from the write menu instead of stage setting, then proceed through the menus to name and finalize the process.  It will be saved as a user tone that you can select from the tone category buttons left of the screen just like preset tones can.  

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  • 7 months later...

Hello Everybody and above all to Casio management,

I do not understand that in ANY manual or guide it is CLEARLY indicated that it is impossible to create new stage settings without replacing the existing ones. There are 100 stage settings, not one more. On the other hand, you can create new tones by editing and saving them. They will be added to the existing tones within the categories.
These indications are of paramount importance. I have searched for hours and days (and I must not be the only one) to understand this concept. By dint of reading and rereading the instructions of Casio (which are gibberish) but especially by browsing the forums I finally understood.
Sorry but I do not congratulate Casio for this serious failure.
I think I have spent about forty hours reading, proofreading, testing, studying messages, retesting and others and I do not count the annoyances. So I'm going to send my invoice to Casio for all this lost time and this huge annoyance. 40 h X $ 50 = $ 2,000 + nervousness package $ 500 + 17% vat = $ 2,925.
Mike, can you take care of sending my invoice to the accounting department?
A big thank-you.
Phil

(fortunately for you it is a joke but this could be true. My lawyers are crying)

 

 

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Simply put, there are 100 Stage Settings, which are completely user configurable.  Making a change to one will overwrite it. All of the original Stage Settings are located here on the forum so there is no danger if you want to get one back.

You may wish to also try all of the Youtube videos on the PX-5S:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKGvhPn554s&list=PLOjemuASmXoMwo9rCtfKTOK_KJx3HV9g0
 

 

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17 minutes ago, cripiou13 said:

Hello !

My previous post had to say it is "NOT" indicated in any guide or manual. I think everyone understood.

Musically yours,

Phil

 

 

 

It's covered in the PX-5S basics manual. It describes the stage settings that can be used to save 100 of your own performance setups.  Further details on editing stage settings is covered in the PX-5S tutorial manual.  

 

Screenshot_20200430-115108.png

Screenshot_20200430-115750.png

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Brad, merci pour ta réponse.

J'ai déjà lu ces documents. Nul part il est indiqué qu'il est impossible d'ajouter de nouveaux réglages de scène aux 100 réglages existants. Donc, tout nouveau réglage de scène ne fera qu'effacer un réglage existant. Cela n'est indiqué à aucun endroit.

Bien cordialement,

Phil

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  • 4 months later...

The PX5S arranges locations this way...

 

TONES:

  • Acoustic Piano: 20 preset, 20 user
  • Keyboard Instrument (including Electric Piano): 60 preset, 50 user
  • Hex Layer: 50 preset, 150 user
  • Organ: 30 preset, 20 user
  • Strings / Brass: 70 preset, 20 user
  • Guitar / Bass: 40 preset, 20 user
  • Synth / Various: 80 preset, 50 user
  • Drum Sets: 20 preset, 20 user

STAGE SETUPS:  100 user

 

The confusion may have come from the fact that the 100 user-rewritable Stage Settings locations--instead of coming pre-filled with copies of the same one sound like the user locations within the tone categories are--instead come pre-filled with more sounds.

 

The manual does say that there are 100 rewritable Stage Setting locations... I guess what was confusing is that it does not specifically say they are pre-filled with sample programs, so you thought the 100 Stage Settings that were already there when you got it were some other set of permanent factory sounds? But also nowhere in the manuals is there any indication that there are more than a total of 100 Stage Settings in the keyboard. As you subsequently realized, there are no factory preset permanent locations like there are for tones, ALL locations are user writable.

 

It also may not help that sometimes they're called Stage Settings and sometimes they're called Stage Setups. 😉

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  • 4 months later...
26 minutes ago, gruuvinrob said:

Is it normal that hex layers can not be added to zones 3 or 4? On any stage setting, if I want a hex layer, it must be added to zone 1 or 2, because if I select a hex layer for zone 3 or 4, it gives me "invalid tone" error. Why is this?

 

It is normal.  Hex layer tones can only be used in zones 1 and 2.  

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Thanks Brad! I just finished reading all six pages of this thread,and I see you answered this question on page four; probably five years ago! Appreciate your gracious help! I'm sure there's an interesting reason for this limitation. I'll go hunt down the answer in a manual.

 

... Nope. Manual doesn't say why, but it is clear that drums only on Z2 and hex only on Z1 and Z2.

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  • 6 months later...

I think I would have saved myself a lot of heartburn if I had realized that zones are just a really bad name for layers, that hex layers are really just 6-oscillator synth patches, tones are just presets, and stage settings are just programs. It's as if the person who named everything hadn't really used many (any?) other keyboards before.

 

This is a really powerful instrument that could have benefitted from just a couple of tweaks: better naming of things, better button layout, expression pedal (all those assignable knobs and sliders, but no exp pedal??? Jeez...), and a quick way of assigning splits so when the band leader calls out Come Together and your left hand is playing bass, the upper notes aren't glaringly the wrong instrument.

 

Thanks to everyone on this thread that has helped clarify stage settings for me. It really could have been so much easier if things were named what everyone else calls them.

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I agree that the interface and button layout is confusing.

 

In terms of buttons, I've been bitten numerous times by the fact that there are two pairs of keys labeled with the plus and minus symbols (and there are also up and down cursor keys), and that button #1 in the Stage Settings section is actally the third button. Better legends and other demarcations would have helped, along with maybe putting zero at the end instead of at the beginning (though I understand there's always the basic MIDI issue of whether you're talking about 0-127 or 1-128). The thin black buttons that all run into each other also makes it easier to hit the wrong thing.

 

Small screen interfaces do tend to be confusing, and yeah, sometimes you'll "guess wrong" as to where you're likely to find something. There are also some things not immediately obvious, coming from other boards. One is that you generally do NOT want to perform by selecting sounds using the Tone buttons (the ones clearly labeled with instrument sounds); rather the tone buttons are how you access the library of sounds that you can place (by themselves or in combination) in Stage Setting locations, and THOSE "unlabelled" buttons are the ones you want to use for live patch selection. (Oddly, that section of the board is labeled "Stage Settings" while the manual describes them as "Stage Setups"!) But also, uncommonly, the tones withing the Stage Settings are completely independent of those in the Tone buttons, which can require a different way of thinking about things.

 

But as for terminology, while some confusion may arise from the generally different architecture of the board that I just referred to, the fact is, there is pretty much no standardization in the industry as to what these things should be called.

 

For example, you say "Stage Settings" should be called "Programs." But since Stage Settings can include multiple tones that are split and layered (not to mention MIDI zones), that's not typically what they would be called. Okay, on a Nord, they would probably be called Programs. But on a Kurzweil, they would likely be called Multis or Setups. On a Yamaha, they would probably be called Performances. On a Korg, they would generally be called Combis. On a Roland, they could be called Studio Sets, Live Sets, Performances, Scenes, Programs, or Registrations, and probably some I've missed. 😉

 

You say "zones" should be called "layers," but that's not what other boards generally call them. When it comes to external sounds, I think every board calls them zones. When it come to internal sounds, some boards likewise refer to regions with a specific sound assigned to them as zones, but that is not universal. Korg typically calls them timbres (i.e. in any of their workstations), Yamaha currently calls them Parts (in the Montage/MODX)... I'm not sure I've ever seen them referred to as layers, though. So learning a board's own terminology is nothing specific to Casio.

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@troyehallFirst, welcome to forum. You'll find a ton of information here. Also on the very active Facebook groups. We've also done a ton of videos and live webinars on the PX-5S. I'll be doing another one soon so please subscribe to the Casio Youtube channel.
 

On 9/11/2021 at 6:00 PM, troyehall said:

It really could have been so much easier if things were named what everyone else calls them.

Every manufacturer has different names for different things. 

Casio tone =

Yamaha Voice, Korg Program, Roland Patch


Casio Stage Setting =

Kurzweil Setup, Korg Combi, Yamaha Performance

 

That being said the Stage Setting concept is unique in more than a few ways. 

On 9/11/2021 at 6:00 PM, troyehall said:

hex layers are really just 6-oscillator synth patches

In its simplest form yes. But each layer has its own key range, velocity range and more. It is much deeper than just six layered oscillators. 

 

The closest comparison is a Kurzweil "Program" which can be up to in some use cases can be up to 32-layers. Multiple Kurzweil "Programs" can be further combined into a "Setup"

 

The Stage Setting concept is further unique because ALL of the tones used along with other things like Arpeggio patterns and more are all contained within that Stage Setting. This makes things very easy for sharing complex configurations. Tones that you use often like pianos, electric pianos - can quickly be added to a Stage Setting and if you make a slight variation on it for a particular song is stored in that Stage Setting without having to have duplicates of the original tone. 

 

2 hours ago, anotherscott said:

Stage Settings are completely independent of those in the Tone buttons, which can require a different way of thinking about things.

It is absolutely different, but powerful and unique. Casio broke some new ground here and sometimes that takes getting used to. The Tones are "ingredients" which you can use within your Stage Settings.  Interestingly though since the the release of the PX-5S several manufactures have released products that are all ways in a "Performance" mode. So the concept is solid. 
 

 

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  • 1 year later...

Hi! I Recently got a PX5s and did not yet have the time to dig deep into it. I've searched around but didn't find info on this specific question: Is it possible to use recorded audio to create new tunes for the PX5s? - I want to know in deep how the structure of a tune of it is (does it have an audio file in it, or is it entirely made of parameters that are interpreted by the board?, Is the software for PC capable of fully modifying the tunes?, Can I open them with a text editor and change parameters?).

 

If someone could point me to some online material regarding this topic, it would be of great help as well.

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