PCM piano tones

[bodisattva]

I own a WK-6000 as well as a XW-P1.

The WK piano sounds, even though they (seem to be) proprietary Casio tones, sound FAR better than those on the XW-P1.

The XW piano tones all sound muffled. Not horrible, like I said, the WK are far, far better.

What gives?

Any chance there are new downloadable PCM tones?

Thanks

[Null]

You can't install new PCM samples into an XW-P1 however you can accomplish a lot by tweaking the equalization and filter settings and then saving those as new tones or performances.

 

Take a look in the file section here.  I believe there may be a few tweaked piano tones available for download from other users.

 

Gary

 

EDIT:  Here's a piano tone I found here in the file section.

 

 

http://www.casiomusicforums.com/index.php?/topic/4696-echo-grand-piano/

 

You might want to load it up in the editor to see what tweaks were done to it.

[AlenK]

Interesting observation. Previously in the forum here Mike Martin said "The piano sample in the XW-P1 is most similar to what is in the WK-7500/CTK-7000 although I can not say for certain if they're identical.  It is a three layer stereo piano sample."

 

From what I have read about the differences between Casio's current arranger models I had assumed that the "WK-6000" (did you mean the CTK-6000?) uses the same piano samples as the WK-7500/CTK-7000. Maybe that's not true. Or maybe the XW-P1 isn't using the same samples as either (that would surprise me, however).  Or the difference could be due to equalization.

 

Perhaps other forum members who use an XW-P1 and one of these arranger models could post their observations in this thread. Or we could make another thread titled "The Great Casio Piano Sample Shoot-Out."   We could throw in some Privia models as well, both old and new. Why not? Let's find out how badly (or how well) the XW-P1 fares in such a comparison.

[- T -]

I have the CTK-6000, the WK-7500, and the XW-P1 and have noticed a three-way split on the performance of the piano voices, with the 7500 being best of the three and the XW-P1 the worst.  The "Technical Specs" sections for each of these units on the Casio website show the CTK/WK-7XXX with three element voices and the CTK/WK-6XXX with two element voices.  This would seem to be in keeping with the 64 vs 48 voice polyphony difference between the two model lines.  That does not necessarily mean the samples themselves are different, just that the 6's use only two while the 7's use three.  My guess is the XW's, typical of most "synths" that have some acoustic instrument samples thrown in, use the old "GM" type single element samples for the acoustic instruments.  That would seem to explain most of the sound quality difference we are hearing, not to mention what different effects processing is being applied to the "stock" voices in the various units.  This does not necessarily mean the XW samples are bad.  Roland's later single element GS/GM2 units with large samples sounded pretty good.  It is just that there is a noticeable difference when you compare them to multi-element units which typically sound "fuller".  That was supposedly the main selling point of the Roland Jupiter 50/80.  It offered top of the line samples for BOTH the synth voices and the acoustic voices, but the trade off was that you only get 3-part multi-timbral with massive layering vs the conventional 16-part in other units.  Their Juno-Gi synth takes an MOTL shot at this with high quality synth voices and a huge selection of good quality acoustic and electric piano voices, but some of the smaller sample voices, particularly the brass instruments, seem to go wanting.

 

ADDENDUM:  I just checked the "Technical Specs" section for the XW-P1 at the Casio website and it shows that the P1 DOES use three element voicing, at least for the stereo piano sample, but is it the same as the WK-7500 or a different (smaller) sample ?. . . AND . . . this probably does mean that with some careful tweaking, we should be able to coax every bit as good of a piano sound out of the P1 as comes stock on the WK-7500.  AHHH !  Nothing like a good challenge to while away the coming winter months (for those of us in the northern hemisphere, at least) !

[AlenK]

Yes, there is no question that the XW-P1's stereo acoustic piano tones use three stereo pairs of velocity-switched, multi-sampled PCM "waves" (so called "triple strike"). Mike Martin has said as much and the Appendix even names the waves in question. In fact, the Appendix reveals that most of the P1's acoustic piano tones, including some mono ones, use three velocity-switched layers. From what I can tell the exceptions are Rock Piano (P0-3) and GM Piano 3 (P1-4), which each use only one velocity layer. The XW-G1, as mentioned, uses only two layers instead of three for most of its acoustic piano tones.

 

What surprises me is that there would be any difference in the samples used by the P1/G1 synths and the CTK/WK-7XXX/6XXX series of arranger workstations. I would have expected the same root piano samples in the P1 that the CTK/WK-7XXX models use (triple strike) and the same root samples in the G1 that the CTK/WK-6XXX models use (double strike).

 

However, thinking more about this it's possible that the samples started out the same but Casio did some further editing for the XWs to fit everything in the available memory and that it is these changes that have negatively affected the XW's piano tones. Having designed embedded systems for commercial products before I believe it is possible and even probable that the same processing circuits with the same amount of memory resources are used in both series of products. It would not surprise me if they share some of the same actual circuit boards, Casio being masters of re-use (which is a great engineering skill to have and a key part of why they are successful).

 

If that is the case then they possibly needed to store more individual bits and pieces of data in the XW's ROM than in the arranger models since the XW has solo-synth waveforms and perhaps more PCM "waves". (Can't really be definitive on that last one because the CTK/WK-7XXX's Appendix doesn't list any of the waves, only identifying the PCM melody tones and the PCM drum tones in its preset drum kits.) There might then have been less space available for the piano samples. So they might have needed to truncate the loop length (seems to be a little less than a second in the XW-P1 and easily audible for sustained notes played in isolation) and/or reduced the number of multi-samples. 

 

ADDENDUM: Way back in April 2012 when the XW-P1 was just out "gneissnfunky"  posted some observations concerning the XW-P1's piano sound in Craig Anderton's Pro Review (still the best P1 review out there) here and here. I have quoted the relevant text below so you don't have to go looking. Initially he wrote:

 

However after your post I put my headphones on and played a few of my favorite piano tunes on the XW-P1. Let me start by saying I have a Privia, an older basic model one (PX-110), and am consistently blow away by the piano sound from that instrument - my neighbor has a parlor grand piano and I can honestly say the Privia sound is insanely realistic (note, I am not claiming to have a gift for analyzing the true sound and timbre of an instrument, just giving my opinion). So, back to what I think of the piano sounds, well, lets just say I'm gonna keep the Privia as my bottom tier. It seems to lack the "meat" I get from the Privia and a real piano, maybe what I'm trying to say is it's "light on fullness"?

 

(If he likes the sound of the PX-110 I wonder what he thinks of the latest Privia models?) Later in the thread he said:

 

I especially want to mention that I've gotten the piano sounds tweaked so that I can't tell if its my Privia or the XW.

 

So as Gary and Ted say, the piano can definitely sound better if you tweak it. I started a thread here in the XW-Series portion of the forums that simply points to another post in the CTK/WK/LK portion containing some tips that may help.

 

PS. I wonder if gneissnfunky (surely a fan of funk rock) kept his P1 and is perhaps here on this forum under a different name? He (or she - can't say) professed hope in that very post that one day there would "be a site where people can post their presets." This here is that site.

[AlenK]

(Moved to the General Casio Discussion forum.)