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Why do you like CASIO instruments?


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There's a few things I like about Casio products.

 

First of all there's the price.  Casio has exposed the last two or three generations of wworking poor, students and young people to affordable keyboard instruments and helped promote an interest in learning music like no other manufacturer out there by supplying decent sounding, well crafted electronic keyboards for amateurs on a budget.

 

Secondly I appreciate that Casio is also smashing the price barriers in professional gear these days, selling hardware for prices which other companies would double or triple before they sold them in the music stores.

 

Thirdly I appreciate the fact that Casio really knows how to support their products online, with people like Mike Martin and Jared Beaney doing their utmost to nurture and grow a dedicated community of users who are all willing to bend over backward to answer our technical questions.

 

My only real beef with Casio though, is that they should immediately fire whomever's been writing their user manuals and replace them with real. seasoned, professional technical writers who actually know how to string two pages together.  It may be, in fact, that Casio initiated the push in social media after they saw what ginormous failures the XW manuals really were.

 

All in all I think Casio's doing a great job, but nobody stays on top in this business by standing still.  In years to come they had best remain vigilant, keep releasing new and exciting products and by all means get their technical writing staff to learn proper writing.

 

Gary

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I love my CTK7200 because of the drawbar organ sliders for the Hammond simulation. To me that's the point which makes the difference.

If it also had 4 more sliders for a Vox Continental simulation that would be just perfect...

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I agree with pretty much all that's been said above.

 

I also like Casio for other reasons.

 

Value for money: This is a big one - you always get way more bang for your buck compared with almost any other keyboard/ electronics manufacturer.

 

Under Dog status: Many so called pro musicians turn their noses up at Casios because of their 'toy' and 'home organ' reputation. I like nothing better than giving them a blast of just what some of the more powerful Casios can do and seeing their faces of disbelief.

 

Reliability: Casios are very well put together and very dependable. I have numerous old Casios from the 80's, and other than the odd dodgy switch or scratchy slider, they work just as well as they did when new. The only Casio I had fail on me would have to be one of the rarest (an HT6000). It just died on me one day and there's no obvious reason as to why it stopped working. I will get it fixed one day, though I managed to pick up another for a good price so all is not lost!

 

Fun Factor: Some people call it cheese, other people find the onboard features and functions fun and inspiring to play with. Take the MT65 - the rhythms and drums are excellent and great fun! Then add the on board analogue filter on the similar MT400V and CT410V and you have a very unique keyboard.

 

Gotta love Casio!

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Amen to all the comments and Casio Kudos. Many times musicians and audience members comment on the WK-7500 and tell me that the keyboard costs at least a $1000.00. They are dumbfounded when the hear the retail price.

 

I only wish that Casio could give a firmware update so that I can use the organ sliders on the WK-7500 the same as on the WK-7600. The 7500 is performing well and the difference between the two is minimal for my performances, but, hey, I'm willing to pay for a software update if needed. Are you listening Mike Martin and Casio engineers? Hello?

 

Geria

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hey you hoo sed about bad manuel, i rote the manuel n did a spankin gud job, I think so. Look, if u can't tell the differunce between page 4 an pg 200 who's problem izit? I no 10 langruages and rote the manuls 4 many producks alreddy-most of who u wouldn't know bcause they went belly-up, not sure Y! My credneshuls are impeckarable! Enough comedy...seriously though, as complicated as the XW is it is still an amazing instrument-almost every technology available is there, except sampling and a linear sequencer which can be worked around for someone who is motivated to explore which is half the fun for me. OK, not exactly a Hammond B3 either but then it doesn't weight 500 pounds with a leslie, that lost it's charm awhile ago. I love the fact that Casio has taken some of the most interesting features from the last 30 or so years of keyboard tech and put these in a few instruments-i could have covered any of my past gigs with just a PX, an XW and a decent keyboard PA system. There is innovation at Casio in how features are made available to musicians who may not be able to support the thousands in bucks some of us have already had to spend to stay up on the technology. and Casio dares to be a little different-CZ competed against FM and after playing both, Casios did have a unique sound (now in the XWs). if I were just "coming up" as a younger musician/performer, I would be in the enviable position of hearing the history of music technology coming from just a relatively few performance tools and wouldn't have to take out a second mortgage to use them. Remember the Synclavier. They went out of business because only a few people could afford them-50,000 to get in the door, then added sample boards and sequencing tools could drive it past the 100,000 dollar range. it constantly broke down (ask anyone who owned one-check your nearest mental institution) and you had to have a tech roadie travel with you just to get it to work again. And it still played weaselfarts! I can play weaselfarts on my XW all day and still pay me electric bill besides, great! Now back to trying to program my VCR, I've heard there is something called CDs is this true? Eek........I accidentally accessed the wrong wi-fi network, now Homeland Security is here asking to see all my .zpf, .ztn, .zsy etc. files-I won't tell, i don't care what they do to me! AAAAghhhhhhhhh!

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PS-re the HT-6000-check the capacitors from the power supply jack to the rest of the electronics, these can deteriorate over time and it isn't always always obvious-look for differences in color and smell-if it shorted or is failing it may smell funny-seriously i've done this and is one of a tech's tricks for fsiling components if you can't use a multimeter or scope. Also-check the tiny solder connections at the power jack-even a hairline crack can make an instrument appear totally dead and can be repaired with a little solder or even a small jumper wire-I've done that repair with several instruments including an older Casio where this happened after not too much use-it's a common problem with power jacks (and other jacks soldered directly to 'boards) and is called a "stress fracture". You might even need a powerful magnifying lens to see it-I use jeweler's loupes and magnifying headsets to check and repair these hairline fractures, now if only i could repair my hairline, and coming to think of it my fractured sense of reality which needs more than some solder.........see y'all later.

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PS-re the HT-6000-check the capacitors from the power supply jack to the rest of the electronics, these can deteriorate over time and it isn't always always obvious-look for differences in color and smell-if it shorted or is failing it may smell funny-seriously i've done this and is one of a tech's tricks for fsiling components if you can't use a multimeter or scope. Also-check the tiny solder connections at the power jack-even a hairline crack can make an instrument appear totally dead and can be repaired with a little solder or even a small jumper wire-I've done that repair with several instruments including an older Casio where this happened after not too much use-it's a common problem with power jacks (and other jacks soldered directly to 'boards) and is called a "stress fracture". You might even need a powerful magnifying lens to see it-I use jeweler's loupes and magnifying headsets to check and repair these hairline fractures, now if only i could repair my hairline, and coming to think of it my fractured sense of reality which needs more than some solder.........see y'all later.

 

 

Jokeyman, when my HT6000 died I tentatively pulled it apart to check for anything that could be obviously wrong i.e. I have a basic level of electrical understanding, mainly from working with old school Auto electrics. There you normally check for power going to a component, and see if the earth is present. If one, or both are missing, the component won't work. Simple! Much beyond that and I am out of my depth... Anyway, back to my HT6000. I took it apart, which was tedious to say the least as there are SO many screws in this beast. From memory, when looking at the circuit boards there appeared to be small separate power board where the DC PSU connector went into. I plugged in the PSU, and with my multimeter I could locate and record the correct amount of voltage going to this circuit board. I then seem to remember following the tracks from the DC socket, and from these the small PSU connector board went to one of the main boards. I again used my multimeter and located the correct voltage getting through to this main board. 

 

At this point, my electrical expertise has reached its limit. Power is getting through the PSU connector board, and then following to one of the main circuit boards. Therefore to my logic, the fault must  lie somewhere in the main board itself. One possible culprit could be the auto power off feature, as that may have failed in the 'off' position. Either that or something more major has failed internally. I sadly do not have the knowledge to be able to diagnose and fix any further, as anything I do from this point is likely to do more harm than good.

 

As mentioned, the HT was working absolutely fine, and it was whilst I was using it and manually tweaking the filter it just suddenly died. No sparks, no 'pop' sound, no smell of burning component(s). One minute it worked, the next it didn't. Luckily I picked up another for a good price as it was bundled with a Korg i4S (and a two tier stand). After selling the Korg for half what I paid for the whole deal, I ended up with an HT6000 and two tier stand for way, way below the going rate. However, with its rarity, I would like to get my dead HT6000 fixed one day. Then I will have two working HT6000's!

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I think Gary said almost just what i would say, so yes- What Gary said. :)

 

Also, for me this year i was looking for a new keyboard, but i did not want one that the main focus was on "Piano" i wanted a keyboard that you could make up your own sounds AND it has to have a Mod wheel, no If's, and's or butt's i don't care what the price.

No MOD wheel- NO GO!

 

The XW-G1 is just what i was looking for, and i'm a vary happy camper.  :)

As far as i know, i do not think any one has a keyboard quite like the P1/G1.

When i tell friends what i have at home, they laugh and say "you walmart sucker" then when they come over and take a look and test drive on the G1, i get the last laugh :P

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Chas-good troubleshooting skills-since voltage is getting to the mainboar) guess you are right-without an oscilloscope to check signals coming out of ICs, pretty hard to diagnose at this point. Does the HT have a backup battery or caps that could be storing a scrambled operating system? if so, I would disconnect any power or battery for at least a day although if you see no signs of life at all this is probably not it. Rare that ICs go bad. If there are power transistors in the mainboard or power section or voltage regulator chips that are not obviously bad but marginal-the mainboard could be getting power but not enough amperage (juice) to boot the keyboard. any shorted diodes could do this too although if this takes a wall-wart that wouldn't be it. A "zener" diode is usually in a circuit for auto-power off functions or could be a 555 timer chip or something similar, easy to get at Jameco if you are motivated. These are small op-amp ICs. But sounds like a job for "supertech" takes incredible amount of patience, even for the pros (I am not)-wonder if Casio would repair it for a decent price. The Ht series are very nice-was just eyeballing an HT-3000 and HT-700 on eBay, very interesting instruments.

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i would guess this is not Mike Martin doing another product demo or tutorial. I would suppose also this is not the video to the Doobie Brothers "Taking it To the Streets".  Or are we looking at the future for Sir Elton John in his "reclining" years?  Arf arf arf! I'm sorry, I can't help myself, too many bad jokes on the bandstand.

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  • 1 month later...

Love my 5s because (no particular order):

1) price

2) quality of sound

3) weight & portabilty

4) 4 zones!

5) hexlayers

6) tech support

7) Mike M's live chats

8) this forum (& all you helpful people!!!)

9) cool, neverending downloads

10) programability

11) realistic piano feel keybed

12) sliders & knobs

13) usb drive

14) mod wheel & bender

15) the 5s portal

16) usb & midi outs!

17) arpeggiator

18) the look of the keyboard...cool, different

19) editor program

20) stage setting concept...(r u kidding me?...AWESOME!)

I really love this keyboard...can't u tell?

Darin McNabb

Bad Axe, Michigan

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  • 3 weeks later...

I am collecting home and toy keyboards and document the hardware.

What I particularly like with 1980th Casios is the unusual waveforms. Especially early stuff is based on partly layered and filtered multipulse squarewaves and stairwaves (Consonant-Vowel synthesis) found nowhere else. When they came out, certainly some people thought they were unrealistic and worse than its competitor Yamaha, but nowadays its the special timbre that makes old Casios much more recognizeable than their Yamaha counterparts. The later "PCM" Casios used a unique softsynth-on-a-chip that had (at least before CTK-1000) very good interpolation to blend between key split zones and remove aliasing noise (many modern Chinese tablehooters still fail here). Small Yamaha AWM keyboard (I down't own others) had much more noticeable coarse steps and other irregularities. Also the program loop synthesis (algorithmic) timbres of Casio SA-series variants are quite unique.

With modern Casios I find the XW-G1 synth most interesting (I don't own one). It can sound e.g. like a massive polyphonic version of Commodore C64; I know no other complex synth keyboard sounding like that.

 

As mentioned, the HT was working absolutely fine, and it was whilst I was using it and manually tweaking the filter it just suddenly died. No sparks, no 'pop' sound, no smell of burning component(s). One minute it worked, the next it didn't. Luckily I picked up another for a good price as it was bundled with a Korg i4S (and a two tier stand). After selling the Korg for half what I paid for the whole deal, I ended up with an HT6000 and two tier stand for way, way below the going rate. However, with its rarity, I would like to get my dead HT6000 fixed one day.

The HT-6000 contains 2 PROMs instead of ROMs. May yours have died of bitrot? The rom dump can be found on elektrotanya.com, but if yours are faulty you will need someone with an eprommer to burn these on 2 eproms and replace the bitrotten PROMs with IC sockets for them.

When I got my own HT-6000, it had some cracked panel PCBs, so I had to solder wires to patch broken traces. May these have a general problem with mechanical tension during transport? (E.g. also the Casio KX-101 keyboard boombox PCB tends to shatter very easy when the instrument fell on its protruding switches. I fixed 2 with the same damage.)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Mahmoud >>>

 

So you went shopping for a drum computer today and ended up buying an XW-P1 on an impulse?

 

Did you use due diligence for your research?  Did you download and read a bit of the manual before laying down your cash and walking out of the store with it?  Did you watch any of the Youtube Tutorials that Mike Martin has done before making your decision?

 

From your posts in the last couple of threads I've received the impression that you had very specific needs from your new purchase and now you are experiencing buyer's remorse because you are not certain if you made the right decision at all?

 

First of all, the XW synths are both far more and at the same time far less than a glorified drum machine.

 

They are marketed as performance synths, but if you're looking for outstanding PCM "bread and butter" sounds then you won't find them without a fair bit of tweaking.

 

The organs are pretty good right out of the box, and the synth section holds its own against any comparably priced VA synth on the market while the Hex layers allow for some marvellously creative voices with the push of a few buttons and sliders.

 

If you're looking for neck tingling sax or realistic concert grands or the sound of Jimmy Page's Les Paul, however,  then I think you may have made an error.

 

The PCM sounds are literally the weakest link in these synths and only with hours of editing and fiddling will you be able to produce all your "top 40" tunes which seem to be your top priority.

 

If you wanted a basic ROMpler, there are better synths out there for double the discount price, and perhaps that's where you should be looking.

 

If you wanted a basic drum machine, there are others out there for less money that are more easily configured and better suited to the task.

 

You said you based your decision on value for money and outstanding reviews but at the same time rant about how you hate techno and wished there were more "classic" performances in the reviews you could make your decision on.

 

Did it never occur to you that techno and new wave are the areas where the XWs excel and that's why it was marketed that way?

 

Could you perform the Brandenburg Concertos on an XW-P1 or G1?  Sure!  But would it sound as good as a Korg Kross 88 or PX-5S?  Probably not, but they both cost twice as much. 

 

And for most of us XW fanboys here on the forum, we'd rather hear Wendy Carlos' Switched On Brandenburgs than a note for note classical version on a Bosendorfer grand.

 

Most of us here will fight to the bitter end to convince you that the XW-P1 is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I can already tell by your tone that you are experiencing buyer's remorse.

 

Perhaps the wisest thing you could do is return the XW back to where you bought it tomorrow and use the store credit to buy that Korg Monotribe you were originally shopping for.

 

Just my $0.02

 

Gary :(

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@Mahoud one thing is for certain the XW wont compose automatically for you, You've have to do it yourself on the XW and I've used my G1 for a year now and. If not for using the synth section the step sequence and performance is easy to learn setting up an accompany down.

 

There was an article reposted on this forum from some music website the author of that article made a complete pop song with the P1 in a DAW it sounded awesome. Keyboards will always have their pro's and con's the result they put down is what count. (here the link its just a sample of variety one can do with a synth)

 

http://www.rockshop.co.nz/community/blogs/keyboard-blogs/laboratory-tests-of-the-casio-xw-p1/

 

For that I think the P1 is better for you the tone quality is more then the G1 it has more tone's then the G1 like better piano sounds and the Hexlayer when programmed right creates sound to fill in any of you're repertoire if desired. Although the G1 has lots more drum kits and waves for the synth.Making music requires lots of time on any keyboard or synth.   

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