Saving a tone registration without saving rhythm or accompaniment

[Bob Krull]

The PX-350 manual is not clear about how to save a tone registration without saving either a rhythm pattern or accompaniment pattern along with it.  How do you save only a tone registration? If a rhythm pattern or accompaniment pattern are necessarily saved, how do you turn them off so that they don't start playing automatically?

[Jokeyman123]

Good question. As far as I can tell, there is no way to separate these functions-all you can do is turn auto-accompaniment on/off before you store a "registration".. I haven't tried this, but if you select a blank "user" auto-accompaniment pattern or rhythm pattern and then store the registration memory I guess this would do it, but seems a silly way to do this but it's all i can come up with. Getting around the PX-350 is confusing because it is trying to do so much, but with the same button layouts as digital pianos that do alot less. Sort of a cross between a real "workstation" and a strictly consumer "auto-accompaniment" instrument.  Killer piano though. Hope this helps, If anybody else here knows a better way, jump in.

[cpcohen]

My _guess_ is:

 

. . . If the rhythm (or accompaniment) is playing when you save the Registration, it'll start playing when you retrieve the Registration.

 

. . . If it's not playing when you save, it won't start playing when you retrieve.

 

So, before you save, make sure the "rhythm" light is out, and that the "auto-accompaniment" light is out.

 

I haven't had any problems with "auto-starting" rhythms, but I haven't saved many Registrations, either.

 

.              Charles

[Bob Krull]

Thanks for the quick replies.  I agree that the PX-350 is  both capable and presents some learnability issues because it uses some buttons for more than one function.  My Casio PX-3 and WK-6600 have more buttons relative to their number of functions, so they have fewer "moded" (the same button does more than one function, depending on the mode it is in) button sequences.  That makes it easier to figure out on the PX-3 and the WK-6600 which buttons to use for specific functions.

 

Anyway, yesterday I tried saving tones in registrations again and this time had no problem at all just saving tones without at the same time saving rhythms or accompaniments. I don't yet know why I had problems one day and not another.  Perhaps I had rhythm or accompaniment buttons lit the first time I tried it, as one reply to my prior note has suggested. 

 

A follow-on issue is that, while the PX-3 manual explicitly says that users can move through registration banks by pressing the up and down buttons, the PX-350 manual only mentions moving through the banks by repeatedly pressing the Bank button.  Hmm, There are 24 banks on the PX-350 and the only way to move through the banks is to go in one direction (from bank 1 to 24) only?

 

Hmmm, I have used a PX-3 for several years on gigs and was able to move back and forth between the two banks that held my favorite keyboard sounds.  Now to go between 3-4 banks of favorite tones I would need to go through many banks, most of which contain nothing, and in one direction only?  That probably is not correct, but the manual implies that that is what would be required.  It would have cost very little to have a technical writer add a clarifying sentence to the manual.

 

Still, I think that the Casio keyboards do a great job overall (light weight, excellent sounds, excellent action, etc.), which is why I have owned several different models over the years.

 

[Bob Krull]

I have found that I can save only the tone (and not also having a rhythm or accompaniment) for a registration if I am careful to not blunder into the presets area while navigating among banks.. 

 

The Px-350 does, in fact, let you use the up (^) and down keys to move among banks.  Once you press the bank key once, press either the down or up keys to move to the bank you want.  You don't have to press the bank key repeatedly and move in one direction only. 

 

After you have gotten to the bank you want, you can press the 1-4 keys for specific registration slots in each bank. 

 

After that the keyboard stays in the registration mode, though it doesn't have the Bank light lit.  The display will change to show the tone that is associated with that registration item.  If you have layered two tones for that registration item, the keyboard only shows the second tone, not the first. 

 

You can select other registrations within a bank without again pressing the Bank key.  If you want to access a registration that you have in another bank, you do need to press the Bank key first.

 

That there isn't a constantly lit registration light is a bit confusing.  On the Casio PX3, there is a constantly light registration light once you access the refistration mode. 

 

I'll deal with the problems of blundering into presets while trying to work on registrations in another note to this forum.