Resonant Filter and PCM/ HEX tones?

[Chas]

I'm sure this has been covered before, but I can't seem to find an exact answer. I've also tried to read the manual, though as we know it's not the most informative. My question is:

 

Can the filter, with resonance (as per solo-synth mode) be used on HEX layers and PCM tones? Some of these tones allow 'cut-off', but I can't seem to find any way of increasing the resonance. I'd like to be able to get some classic sounding filter sweeps, with maybe some self oscillating 'tweeting', on the PCM/ Hex tones. Is this possible?

 

Also, I found this from an article: 

 

"Here’s a gonzo feature I’ve not seen on any other keyboard lately: the ability to run everything through the same resonant lowpass filter and DSP effects at once. Yup—drums, arpeggiated or sequenced riffs, the sound you’re playing live, everything. In Performance mode, the mixer screen shows the option “mixer all.” Pick this, and the DSP effects applied will be those active on the current Solo Synth sound—plus that sound’s filter settings. This is great for DJ- or remixer-style mangling of the entire mix."

 

http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/casio-xw-p1/148766

 

Now, either I'm having a blonde moment or something, but I've tried putting each of my XW's into 'performance mode', hit the 'Mixer' button, yet there is no sign of a 'mixer all' option. Any idea how I can find this?

 

 

Lastly, if I can't use the XW's resonant filter with PCM/ HEX tones, my other option is to use my Korg Monotron, which allows auxiliary inputs to be fed through its MS20 style filter (it's pretty wild too, just like original MS20!) Only problem here is that the Korg is mono, whereas most of the PCM/ HEX tones are in stereo. Looking at the back of the XW there is a 'stereo in', so I wondered whether I could take the two 1/4" line-outs, connect them to the Monotron, then feed the output back into either the 'Mic In' or 'Inst In', have the stereo DSP's do their stuff and then take the audio from the 'headphone out' to the DAW/ PC. That way I might be able to still use some of the stereo DSPs, though I suspect I will cause a feedback loop in the process. Things could get rather extreme with the MS20 Filter coming into the equation...! Or maybe I should just resign myself to having the Korg filtered PCM/ HEX tones in mono, and adding stereo effects once the signal comes into the PC.

 

Any suggestions from the experts on how best to get resonant filter effects on the PCM/ HEX tones?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AlenK]

These threads may be helpful:

http://www.casiomusicforums.com/index.php?/topic/4759-filter-sweeps-in-hex-mode/

http://www.casiomusicforums.com/index.php?/topic/4790-external-filter-with-envelopes-for-hexlayer/

(You should remember the second one. )

You can't use the resonant filter on a Hexlayer tone because Hexlayer and the solo synth are mutually exclusive - it's one or the other. But you can use the filter with PCM tones.

Also, you can't route the XW's stereo input through the filter or the effects. It just mixes with the audio the XW generates. Only the mic and instrument inputs can be routed through filter and/or effects.

[AlenK]

BTW, page E-67 of the XW-P1 user manual says to use the part minus button in the mixer menu when you are on part 01 to access "part all". Pressing part minus again gets you to the master mixer settings and yet again gets you to the external input mixer settings. Pressing part plus from 01 will of course move you to parts 02, 03, 04, etc.

[Chas]

Thanks so much for the information and advice AlenK. I thought I'd read something previously about using the resonant filter with PCM/ HEX tones, and the link you gave proved that. I should've remembered, especially considering that I had actually made a post in the aforementioned thread...

 

I had a go with your suggestion and did indeed manage to get a PCM tone and also a sample tone through the filter. The result was, erm, interesting! I'm not sure if I was using the wrong sound or something, but bloody hell, that filter is harsh! It works better with single notes for sure, but starting to play chords and then sweeping the cut off (with a reasonable amount of resonance) seems to make the sound become very distorted. Not in an over-driven pleasant way, more just harsh distortion. I will try experimenting with more sounds and settings to see if I can get some better results, though for now I'm coming to the conclusion that the resonant filter is best left for the solo synth. 

 

I CAN get some nice polyphonic resonant filter sweeps using my Roland JX3P, Korg DW8000 and of course my Casio HT's. Heck, even my CZ's have a waveform that replicates filter sweeping though it's not real time controllable. Personally I still think Casio should've incorporated a genuine analogue filter in the XW's, even if it was global/ paraphonic. They even had their own design of one in the HT's and FZ's, so no great deal to resurrect that design and add it as an option with the digital filter.

 

Plan B. I have a Korg Monotron with the wild MS20 filter. I've ordered some cables off Ebay and will see what kind of results I get feeding the XW's output through it. The Monotron also has quite a fast LFO for modulating the cut-off or pitch though unfortunately it only has one fixed waveform (appears to be a sawtooth). As such, the LFO won't sweep the filter up, and then down infinitely like a sine wave. That can still be done manually of course, it just would have been nice to have it done automatically by the LFO.

 

Still, it's all fun to experiment and learn what the XW's can do, and also to learn what we can add to them to make them even more interesting.

 

As for your second post, I'm off to find that 'Mixed All' function right now!

 

 

[AlenK]

I had a go with your suggestion and did indeed manage to get a PCM tone and also a sample tone through the filter. The result was, erm, interesting! I'm not sure if I was using the wrong sound or something, but bloody hell, that filter is harsh! It works better with single notes for sure, but starting to play chords and then sweeping the cut off (with a reasonable amount of resonance) seems to make the sound become very distorted. Not in an over-driven pleasant way, more just harsh distortion. I will try experimenting with more sounds and settings to see if I can get some better results, though for now I'm coming to the conclusion that the resonant filter is best left for the solo.

It seems quite easy to get nasty distortion with the XW. There are many volume controls that can affect the sound at various levels - one of them might reduce the volume of the PCM tone before it goes into the filter, which in turn might reduce the distortion.

[XW-Addict]

Thanks so much for the information and advice AlenK. I thought I'd read something previously about using the resonant filter with PCM/ HEX tones, and the link you gave proved that. I should've remembered, especially considering that I had actually made a post in the aforementioned thread...

 

I had a go with your suggestion and did indeed manage to get a PCM tone and also a sample tone through the filter. The result was, erm, interesting! I'm not sure if I was using the wrong sound or something, but bloody hell, that filter is harsh! It works better with single notes for sure, but starting to play chords and then sweeping the cut off (with a reasonable amount of resonance) seems to make the sound become very distorted. Not in an over-driven pleasant way, more just harsh distortion. I will try experimenting with more sounds and settings to see if I can get some better results, though for now I'm coming to the conclusion that the resonant filter is best left for the solo synth. 

 

I CAN get some nice polyphonic resonant filter sweeps using my Roland JX3P, Korg DW8000 and of course my Casio HT's. Heck, even my CZ's have a waveform that replicates filter sweeping though it's not real time controllable. Personally I still think Casio should've incorporated a genuine analogue filter in the XW's, even if it was global/ paraphonic. They even had their own design of one in the HT's and FZ's, so no great deal to resurrect that design and add it as an option with the digital filter.

 

Plan B. I have a Korg Monotron with the wild MS20 filter. I've ordered some cables off Ebay and will see what kind of results I get feeding the XW's output through it. The Monotron also has quite a fast LFO for modulating the cut-off or pitch though unfortunately it only has one fixed waveform (appears to be a sawtooth). As such, the LFO won't sweep the filter up, and then down infinitely like a sine wave. That can still be done manually of course, it just would have been nice to have it done automatically by the LFO.

 

Still, it's all fun to experiment and learn what the XW's can do, and also to learn what we can add to them to make them even more interesting.

 

As for your second post, I'm off to find that 'Mixed All' function right now!

 

 

I've tried that but that some high level tweaking you'll get spontaneously side effects from the DSP once you have a sound it can sound pretty nice tho but its true on xw the filter can be pretty harsh. Here a example from trying something out a while ago trying to get effects , filters only to the sounds I wanted to get more result I must edit existing PCM tone's that was much later. Even so to get such warm sound pretty time consuming. I've lost the patch but certainly put a demo and step by step description how I set it all up.

 

https://soundcloud.com/clay-louis-petty/darkhousepop-xw-g1

[Brad Saucier]

Here a example from trying something out a while ago trying to get effects , filters only to the sounds I wanted to get more result I must edit existing PCM tone's that was much later. Even so to get such warm sound pretty time consuming. I've lost the patch but certainly put a demo and step by step description how I set it all up.

 

https://soundcloud.com/clay-louis-petty/darkhousepop-xw-g1

 

Nice.  I was ready to hear more when the recording stopped.  

[Chas]

Nice.  I was ready to hear more when the recording stopped.  

 

Agree, it was just starting to really get going and then stopped - would like to hear the rest of it!

 

Also, that 'dark' intro sound is very CZ like. Was it using one of the XW's 'CZ' waveforms?

[XW-Addict]

Nice.  I was ready to hear more when the recording stopped.  

 

 

Agree, it was just starting to really get going and then stopped - would like to hear the rest of it!

 

Also, that 'dark' intro sound is very CZ like. Was it using one of the XW's 'CZ' waveforms?

It stopped because I ran out of memory on the Micro Br .   Sadly I don't have that patch anymore it got delete accidentally when things got messy and I though an all save could solve things yada yada long story short I had to start over again and I'm to lazy for that. 

 

That patch was a performance patch where I've combined Distort Organ and VA synth tone split this and a pad tone together while overlapping only two tone because I would use arpeggio on some tone and not all. The CZ like tone came of tuning the zone by which to have arpeggio , octave shift , touchsense, bend range, panning lots of settings tuning took me quiet a while to get it right.

 

I was trying to create a sound scape where each tone got it place in a stereo field I wanted three independent sound doing different things and succeeded but it seemed more a glitch by the limitations how much of the dsp  you can assign to each zone and what the arpeggio made of resonating two sounds because for some reason the pad sound I've assigned to a zone got arpeggio while that option was on off the effect on that is what you hear on the end when I play a melody one of the other tone's create its own melody panning from left to right I could not figure out if it was by the effect or arpeggio cause it wasn't assigned to that particular instrument tone. 

 

I wish to have recorded what happened next when I recorded this first example afterword I pressed the start button and the G1 gave a totally different sound on the drums sequence and performance tone playing so unreal it was like an sound engineer mixed all the sounds for me into one club like beat it was awesome I could not recreate that even going back into my steps it was gone...Oh now I remember I got frustrated and reinitialize the G1 and lost half of all the unsaved patches thinking an all save was sufficient,.