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CTK 7000 sounds like question


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Hi, I am new to the forum and had a question. Has anyone made a list of what Casio CTK/WK sounds come close to other famous keyboard sounds besides the Hammond B3 reference in the drawbar organ sounds. If someone has done this I think it would be helpful as it is a lot of work going through 800 sounds to find one! Is there a sound close to the Vox Continental? The Farfisa etc? Are any of the synth sounds based on the Casio CZ series? Thanks in advance for the help.

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  • 3 months later...

Bump. I'm still curious. With a blue million sounds on this thing and only the Hammond identified wouldn't it be a good idea to make a list of "this setting sounds similar to this popular keyboard from this era of music"?  I know this isn't a modeling amp but guitar modeling amp forums (Vox Valvetronix for example) go to great lengths to describe what amp that they think "preset A" sounds like. I am a real novice and think that this kind of thing would be helpful. 

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I'm also in the search for a Vox Continental sound and, the closest I've got with my CTK7200 is, on the standard organ bank, the patch number 11 (Elec. Organ 3). I've also tried to mix it with other more aggressive organ patches, as the Pure Organ (patch number 39 on the drawbar bank), and the result is just OK.

 

I wonder when will Casio engineers and marketers realize that a Vox Continental simulation, exactly as the current Hammond B3 one for the CTKs, would be a top seller for sure, being also probably the way to make the kind of people who spent 1500 € on a keyboard to take Casio's name seriously.

 

If creating the full simulator with the original 4 Vox drawbars may require some engineering time, I don't think that sampling a basic one (for example just a patch with the Doors Light My Fire sound) for the actual line of CTKs could be that difficult, and would be a great present for us all.

 

;-)

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Does the CTK create layers? Some of us with the XWs have gotten pretty close, but I think there is more programming possible with the XWs. Also using the hex layer functions to simulate bringing the Vox drawbars in and out.

 

Consider the Vox and Farfisas (I've played both years ago, what monsters, would drop pitch sometimes but sounded wonderful yeah I'm that old!)-made with transistors and other old technology which helped create it's distinct sound and temperamental nature. Used very "thin" sounding oscillators-sort of a poor man's Hammond B-3. And the keys-eeeek! you could hear the springs clanging when you played, amplified by the very hollow bodied plastic cases. I think it was designed by the guys who made the Chevy Corvair. Or the AMC Pacer. It looked like one. Just add some wheels. Nice.

 

Can you program on the CTK? If you can select waveforms, the old CZs actually had some waveforms that could come pretty close if you knew how to program but with only 2 waveforms per tone wasn't complex enough really, the XWs have these CZ waves. And listen to the Dave Clark Five-very cool use of the Vox Continental, both as lead and comping instrument, pretty much created their sound with the sax and drums. And of course endless surf music (listen to "California Sun"-the original by the Rivieras not the Ramones notice the use of vibrato) although I'm not sure if this is a Vox, Farfisa or Hammond which could of course be set to get the Continental sound. Very cool.

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Bump. I'm still curious. With a blue million sounds on this thing and only the Hammond identified wouldn't it be a good idea to make a list of "this setting sounds similar to this popular keyboard from this era of music"?  I know this isn't a modeling amp but guitar modeling amp forums (Vox Valvetronix for example) go to great lengths to describe what amp that they think "preset A" sounds like. I am a real novice and think that this kind of thing would be helpful. 

A full list of tones are available on this PDF:

http://support.casio.com/storage/en/manual/pdf/EN/008/07H2APPEND_WL_1A_EN.pdf

While they don't list specific brands of keyboards, you find a lot of synths represented in these sounds as they are sampled from the actual keyboards.

I would also advise looking at the XW-P1. That synth can has a lot of layers and editing as well as the drawbars and has more waveforms from synths. While they are not names, you can tell from the name where they probably were sampled from.  :) 

http://support.casio.com/storage/en/manual/pdf/EN/008/07S1APPEND-WL-1A_EN.pdf

 

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I am still not very certain how useful such a list would be for the CTK/WK units, as they are, primarily, "ARRANGERS".  Arrangers emulate, for the most part, real acoustic instruments - pianos, strings, brass, woodwinds, guitars, drums, etc.  When it comes to electronic instruments, arrangers typically emulate various generic types of electronic instruments - epianos, organs, clavis, etc.  If they do get specific with their electronic emulations, it is usually one or two favorite sounds from popular vintage keyboards.  Most arrangers offer one or two sounds from the Yamaha DX7 and one or two voices from the Roland D50, along with a smattering of generic FM synth sounds, but the specificity pretty much ends there.  Emulation of specific sounds made famous by popular keyboard artists or bands on specific hits is generally the demesne of the "pure" synths like the Casio XW's.  I think you might be hard pressed to find any sound on a CTK/WK instrument that was deliberately engineered by Casio to emulate a specific sound from a hit recording, or as is the popular saying in the literary field, "any similarities are strictly co-incidental".  This is not to say that you could not "tweak" an existing sound to get close to a desired sound, but here again, the sound "tweaking" capabilities of the current crop of CTK/WK units is extremely limited, to say the least.  That is just not the market they were intended for.  Anyone interested primarily in "popular" sound emulation might do much better to look into the XW synths or similar units from other brands.

 

 

Jokeyman

 

To answer your question from above: The CTK/WK units allow the layering of two tones - two presets, or two user tones, or one of each, but editable tone parameters are very limited.  Aside from pitch detuning and various LFO and FX parameters, the only editable envelope affecting parameters are attack, release, and cutoff.  Editing the decay, sustain, and resonance parameters is not possible, but as I stated above, full voice editing capabilities is just not the market these units were targeted at.  Hence, the reasonable price for what they were intended.

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Thanks Ted, I'd stick with the XW for emulating sounds for covering songs. There used to be a website with mp3 examples of the most famous "hooks" either made that way by a hit song, or a popular keyboard sound such as the DX7 tine piano, Korg M-1 "pole" etc. Could be useful to some here.  I can't find it so far in my websearching. I think it was posted by Keyboard magazine a few years back. If I find it I'll post the link here.

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