Ideas for Casio's Next Synth Platform

[Mr_Spaghetti]

All I want is a polyphonic sythesizer. I bought the G1 glancing at the 64 note polyphony feature and said "It's 2014, of course it's polyphonic" After doing lots of reasearch, watching the clinics and other videos, I somewhow completely missed all the obvious references to "monophonic synthesizer" that were right under my nose.

 

I wonder if some hardware mod could be done to make the XWs polyphonic...

[Jokeyman123]

Keyboard and music equipment manufacturers have always been years behind computer technology development-for a simple reason-there is much more money to be made selling computers than music equipment, We as musicians are almost off the economic grid entirely. The irony is that as is evident even in this forum, many musicians are also computer wizards (my father was literally a rocket scientist who worked in the aerospace industry but liked to play guitar and introduced us to classic music early on  My Uncle Vinny (Allfrey look him up I'm not kidding on this one)  was a pioneering geneticist, played classical repertoire on his Steinway for us kids and had and played one of the earliest synths just for fun, a definite influence on me as a kid!

 

We as musicians are almost always at the cutting edge of technology with computer and programming skills plus brains geared towards creativity and organizing (yeah I know sounds like a resume!)  but it is a rare company that can stay up on the latest computer tech and incorporate it into their products, since the 2 industries have almost always gone in different directions, and usually for strictly economic survival-look at all the music keyboard companies that didn't make it, even with the best technology of the time. Companies like Casio, Yamaha and Roland survive because they have such a huge product base outside of us poor musicians  (wanna buy a Roland industrial printer or Yamaha tractor or motorcycle?) they can afford to.

 

That being said, with competition being so close in this field, even if Casio implemented all these developments-are there enough of us who would buy it to pay for the overhead in manufacturing and labor? Look at Ensoniq, Generalmusic, Sequential, Crumar, Seil even Kurzweil had to re-organize financially to stay afloat.. Doesn't take much for a music instrument manufacturer to bite the big one-one mistake and kabloowey! (Not a real word except in cartoons). So unfortunately for us who know what we want, and what has already been achieved, at best we will get incremental updates in products-why I grabbed the XW because it had so much technology in it and for so little (relative) expense. But how long did it take Casio to bring this to market? Almost too late for some of us old CZ codgers (where's my glasses d***it!)

[Gnomo Alegre]

But how long did it take Casio to bring this to market? Almost too late for some of us old CZ codgers (where's my glasses d***it!)

 

LoL

[MaliceCooper]

All I want is a polyphonic sythesizer. I bought the G1 glancing at the 64 note polyphony feature and said "It's 2014, of course it's polyphonic" After doing lots of reasearch, watching the clinics and other videos, I somewhow completely missed all the obvious references to "monophonic synthesizer" that were right under my nose.

 

I wonder if some hardware mod could be done to make the XWs polyphonic...

For what it's worth the XW-P1's hex layer is a pretty good polyphonic synth.

[Null]

My next synth purchase is going to be years from now I imagine.

 

Hopefully by then Casio will be producing something like one of these.  At least these engineers are living in the present, not 15 years in the past.

 

http://musiccomputing.com/studioblade

 

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

Those are some truly horrible ideas

 

No display?

 

Tied to a cellphone? (Brand and OS and version specific?)

 

Subscription based? Ick.  Why would I pay good money to RENT my keyboard?

 

I would NEVER shell out one thin dime for such a keyboard.

Wifi is brain destroying radiation and should be banned by law!

Mobile communication is the radium of the 21th century. And I *do not want* to be spyed out by my own apliances and home entertainment hardware. NSA lurking in every TV, light switch and digicam thanks to wireless connectivity is an atrocious idea! Any device containing a radio transmitter combined with software controllable microphone or camera is a spy bug. So stop this wireless insanity!

[Chas]

Wifi is brain destroying radiation and should be banned by law!

Mobile communication is the radium of the 21th century. And I *do not want* to be spyed out by my own apliances and home entertainment hardware. NSA lurking in every TV, light switch and digicam thanks to wireless connectivity is an atrocious idea! Any device containing a radio transmitter combined with software controllable microphone or camera is a spy bug. So stop this wireless insanity!

 

This will make it all fine 

 

[Jokeyman123]

Doesn't work, i tried it and look at what happened to me. i can play arpegios with my teeth now. And my toes have morphed into a 10-step sequencer.

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

Wifi and mobile phone radiation uses microwaves. Although they are too weak to cook you alive, they can form freak waves in human tissue because cells act as bad lenses and so can fry neurons by local hotspots and cause DNA damage.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2009/sep/23/freak-waves-spotted-in-microwave-cavity

It is all a matter of physics, but the mobile phone industry lobby does everything to ridicule this to avoid spoiling their billion dollar business of selling pocket chernobyls to the human race.
 

[MaliceCooper]

Wait, wha... 

[Jokeyman123]

Hello again CyberYogi I'm with you on this one, almost always use "speakerphone" function on my cellphone to keep it away from me. I studied radio propagation, microwave design (antennas, transmitters and related circuits) for my ham radio license KB2IKH) back when the microwave frequencies were still open to amateur radio ops and very experimental-no cellphone companies had bought up the frequency bands yet. Microwave frequencies can be very dangerous. Looking at the transmitting beam part of a microwave transmitting antenna while a radio operator is transmitting can destroy your eyes in an instant, and antenna radials can give you serious burns if you were to touch one while transmitting at high power. Since cellphones are 'relatively" low power transmitters (milliwatts not watts) there is a debate as to how harmful this can be. High power "handy-talkies " used  in the commercial bands (lower than microwave) such as used by first responders usually push at least one watt or more-and a handheld mic is usually used to keep these away from your head for any length of time. Pushing 5-10 watts will definitely do damage-hams will always use remote mics with these.Cellphones are miniature ham radio transmitters. I flip on my laptop and my FM radio completely loses signal. And the remote for my new infrared room heater turns on my TV (seriously!) So yes I would keep wireless away from music instrument design as much as possible, There is enough interference on the bands already.

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

The higher the frequency, the easier the energy can concentrate on small spots and produce heat (like a burning glass) or damages molecules by resonance effects. E.g. I own a small theremin (about 500kHz, tiny SMD output transistors) which I don't worry much about to play it. Old radio technicians report that a 1KW medium wave transmitter barely caused feelable heat at the antenna because so little is absorbed by flesh. But only few watts of microwaves can cook your retina since it concentrates so much. And effects like freak waves in irregular dense materials with "bad lens" properties (i.e. human tissue!) make microwaves even worse and biologically unpredictable.

I am convinced that in 50 years people will talk about the modern age's wifi and mobile phone craze like us now about the 1950th idea of installing small nuclear reactors and plutonium batteries inside every automobile, domestic heating apparatus and appliance. Integrated point-to-point lasers with tiny amounts of visible light should replace digital radio transmitters; these will aim automatically only at the receiver lens instead of radiating energy spherically into environment and our body like nowadays mobile antennas do. I hope these can be implemented without need of software controlled beam tracking webcams in every device (NSA is watching us...).

And sufficiently large displays aren't expensive anymore and surely will (not least due to smartphones) become even cheaper. E.g. Chinese MP4 media players with 3.5 inch TFT cost 5 or 10EUR on eBay. Place a plastic fresnel lens or spherical mirror in front of it would allow in music keyboards a fairly large colour screen without high cost. And the CPU is surely fast enough to handle an at least C64 to Amiga grade user interface for synth control (look what cheap Chinese Megadrive-On-A-Chip pocket game consoles can do). So nobody needs to install this atrocious wifi rubbish to make an affordable synth with nice display.

I expect that cheap future instruments will be constructed similarly like the "Paper Jamz" toy instruments; a large foil covered touch sensitive surface senses controls, and everything is connected to either a small PCB or contain a single-chip CPU inside that foil, of that some areas form a large OLED touch screen. Other foil parts reach under keys and buttons to make them touch sensitive (permitting theremin-like near-field controls). Such a capacitive user interface unfortunately will also need some RF radiation, but if well designed (think of the changing hum intensity of approaching hands to a microphone plug) very little EM energy at fairly low frequency is enough to make it work. Bad is that foil PCBs may become quite unrepairable (bad for circuit bending), but they may be the cheapest method of mass producing an inexpensive digital synth with many controls.

[Null]

Back in the 1920's shoe stores used self serve X-Ray fluoroscopes to measure people's feet for shoe fittings! :D

 

I can't for the life of me imagine why they fell out of fashion

 

Anyway, while there are new interfaces for musical instruments released almost every year at the trade shows, the truth is that musical arts are heavily grounded in traditional instruments and interfaces.

 

While everything from guitars and bassoons to drums and pianos have been MIDIed up by technology, the basic user interfaces have changed glacially in the past 500 years.  A guitar is still a guitar and a flute is still a flute.  A few quirky new instruments have shown up in the past few decades like the Chapman Stick and the Hang Drum, but almost no one can perform a virtuoso performance on any of them.  As long as conservatories keep turning out traditional musicians we'll still have a huge market for traditional style instruments.

 

Gary

[Joe Muscara]

While everything from guitars and bassoons to drums and pianos have been MIDIed up by technology, the basic user interfaces have changed glacially in the past 500 years.  A guitar is still a guitar and a flute is still a flute.  A few quirky new instruments have shown up in the past few decades like the Chapman Stick and the Hang Drum, but almost no one can perform a virtuoso performance on any of them.  As long as conservatories keep turning out traditional musicians we'll still have a huge market for traditional style instruments.

I was thinking about this just the other day. Look at the keyboard interface, which evolved very slowly over 100s of years or so. It's pretty good, but there have been several attempts to come up with alternative keyboard interfaces that make more sense. Reading Keyboard Magazine over the past 25+ years has exposed me to several of these. They are said to be easier to chord, transpose, and other things that take some skill on the traditional keyboard. Yet the traditional keyboard remains the most popular choice.

[Silvano Silva]

The industry evolves keyboards a bit in recent decades thanks to computing, multimedia computers mac or pc is forced companies to improve the tone, and programming features like pen drive, harddisk and samplers multilayers. Were obliged to do but fall into disuse. what remains is to invest in companies that offers good features at an honest price and beware of companies selling products reputed to an absurd price to justify the money. CASIO is on track and look forward to more new stuff to facilitate the musician's life whether professional or amateur.

[Larry]

My next synth purchase is going to be years from now I imagine.

 

Hopefully by then Casio will be producing something like one of these.  At least these engineers are living in the present, not 15 years in the past.

 

http://musiccomputing.com/studioblade

And it's ONLY $4499.00.

Well get 2 of them and Let me know when you'll be shipping the other one to me Gary, I'll even cover Shipping and customs to the U.S.

 

But realistically i would like the XW-G1 to be polyphonic with more sample memory and a bit bigger screen, at least to cover most of the pages.. say pages 1-4 on one edit screen.

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

I was thinking about this just the other day. Look at the keyboard interface, which evolved very slowly over 100s of years or so. It's pretty good, but there have been several attempts to come up with alternative keyboard interfaces that make more sense. Reading Keyboard Magazine over the past 25+ years has exposed me to several of these. They are said to be easier to chord, transpose, and other things that take some skill on the traditional keyboard. Yet the traditional keyboard remains the most popular choice.

I would particularly wish pressure sensitive keys (aka polyphonic aftertouch) as a state-of-the-art standard function in every cheap ordinary keyboard. To me piano size keys feel too big - I rather would wish mini (i.e. Casio SA-1) to midsize keys (even medieval church organs had them), and instead of having many octaves, there should be one long key bar controller above and/or below the entire keyboard, that can be reached from everywhere with thumb or other fingers (like the space bar of a PC keyboard) to flip octaves or do other sound manipulations. In certain analogue Yamaha stage organs there was a horizontally slideable keyboard instead of a pitchbend wheel to modulate the timbre. Such things should be also possible with any normal state-of-the-art keyboards. When turned off, everything should behave as habited from normal keyboards to prevent deterring musicians.

Seeing how cheaply an average modern keys assembly is constructed (plastic + machine-made PCB + silicone contact strip), it certainly would be affordable to integrate more contacts, LED light barriers or Paper Jamz-style contacts for more capabilities. Check out how many details in game console controllers have changed from begin of 1990th till now to make them more responsive and versatile. We should have expected the same progress with average music keyboards, but since pitch and modulation wheel nothing serious has happened - why? Is it a music school dogma that requests how a keyboard has to look and feel like? The acoustic piano in its standard form is over 100 years old; isn't this pretty outdated?!? In 1980th there were innovative mass produced electronic things like the Suzuki Omnichord or Casio PT-7 foil keyboard. Come on and add such features to nowadays electronic home instruments instead of mimicking a 100 years old thump box!

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

Anyway, while there are new interfaces for musical instruments released almost every year at the trade shows, the truth is that musical arts are heavily grounded in traditional instruments and interfaces.

 

While everything from guitars and bassoons to drums and pianos have been MIDIed up by technology, the basic user interfaces have changed glacially in the past 500 years.  A guitar is still a guitar and a flute is still a flute.  A few quirky new instruments have shown up in the past few decades like the Chapman Stick and the Hang Drum, but almost no one can perform a virtuoso performance on any of them.  As long as conservatories keep turning out traditional musicians we'll still have a huge market for traditional style instruments.

 

People learn playing mainly on those instruments they have easy access to. I.e. no matter how great and expressive an exotic multi-thousand-EUR boutique midi controller may be, unless they coincidentally want to learn a new user interface just for fun or intellectual challenge and have the money, people won't buy it.

=>No access =>no new learners =>no new players!

Thus to be successful, new user interface functions must become part of those cheap home instruments those are to be expected in normal housholds and not an expensive add-on. E.g. the chance of making more people learn to play theremin is much greater once a theremin function comes for free with every motion sensing game console, than when people need to actually buy or rent a theremin (which average local music store has one installed for demo?!?) only to try it out.

So it makes no sense to claim that by low demand new user interface features are only worth to be integrated in expensive pro instruments. The opposite is true; the more cheap home keyboards come with touch position or pressure sensitive keys, the more people will get habited to these features. If advanced controls interfere with novice play (a violin e.g. is very expressive but also hard to play well by its sensitivity), there can be still a button to turn it off.

[Weder Clay]

Just a hobby idea, using the current design.
Probably the design of the new synths follow the current trend of LCD toushscreen and blue.

Just a joke, hehehe

[Dixie]

Wow  !!! Reeeeallly great oloking !!!!!!! Hoping one day casio will go on this direction....could be another big big success !! Great graphic job Weder !!!

 

[Weder Clay]

Thank you, Dixie.
I did this art with the parameters based on the iPad controller made by Mike Martin.

[Brad Saucier]

I might be the only one that will notice the effort you put into creating a new XW-VA name badge.  I dabble with graphic design myself.  You did a great job. The V and A match the original XW logo. Or did you find those already made? 

[Chas]

Great idea Dixie! I would love Casio to update the XW to include more real time control and also incorporate more of a VA synthesis. Now if they could also add in a CZ emulator with real time controls, that would be awesome!

 

Quick query on your VA section though, specifically the three filter types. What's an "LBF"? As going from the bottom to the top there is  "LPF" (Low Pass Filter) and "BPF" (Band Pass Filter), surely the top filter should be "HPF" (High Pass Filter) not "LBF"?

[Weder Clay]

On 05/07/2016 at 4:03 PM, BradMZ said:

I might be the only one that will notice the effort you put into creating a new XW-VA name badge.  I dabble with graphic design myself.  You did a great job. The V and A match the original XW logo. Or did you find those already made? 

BradMZ, I do not know if I entienti your question, infeliamente my English is very weak and I use the translator.
I drew based on the XW. If you look, the V and A are derived from the letter W, only a little thicker. I put the picture of the earth in the background, to refer to the old synthesizers ads, giving a technological air, but retro.

[Weder Clay]

On 07/07/2016 at 3:34 PM, Chas said:

Great idea Dixie! I would love Casio to update the XW to include more real time control and also incorporate more of a VA synthesis. Now if they could also add in a CZ emulator with real time controls, that would be awesome!

 

Quick query on your VA section though, specifically the three filter types. What's an "LBF"? As going from the bottom to the top there is  "LPF" (Low Pass Filter) and "BPF" (Band Pass Filter), surely the top filter should be "HPF" (High Pass Filter) not "LBF"?

It must have been my inattention in time for assembly, hehehe