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Editing a CZ-230S: Mission Accomplished!


rsaintjohn

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I'm doing such a happy dance tonight. I picked up an old CZ-230S a few weeks ago, simply because I thought it would be fun to have a light and combined version of the CZ, RZ and SZ. I bought it knowing that it was "preprogrammed" with 100 non-editable tones, but what I'd seen on the web and in the user guide about tones 96-99 being able to be edited using an external computer intrigued me.

 

I tried a bunch of things this week, but so much of the software is out of date and/or not compatible with my MacBook. One small application (CZ Editor, I think) was written just a few years ago specifically for the Mac and the 230S, but I can't seem to get it to run.

 

Anyway, I remember that the guy at Coffeeshopped who did the CZ Touch editor for iPad had also done a standalone Mac application called Casio CZ-101 Patch Editor, but that he wasn't sure if it would work with the CZ-1 or the 230S. I decided to give it a shot anyway, and after about an hour fiddling, I cracked the secret formula.

 

It doesn't help that the 230S is so weird with its MIDI settings, and that the manual for it is such a mess. But in the end, something I read in it about powering it on while holding the Solo button made me realize that that was putting the 230S into another mode for MIDI. I did that, assigned tones 96-99 to MIDI channels 1-4. I fired up the 101 Patch Editor and started fiddling.

 

Eventually I discovered (stumbled upon, really) that as long as Tone 96 ("Computer Game") was on Channel 1, and if the program was looking at Channel 1, it could retrieve and send messages to the keyboard. 97-99 wouldn't work, and neither would the other channels. Just click a preset and it loaded. And the 230S even retains it after powering it down.

 

Then I thought, "Well he must have structured the CZ Touch app in a similar way, let's try that." Sure enough, as long as I followed my rules, it worked. It was even easier to test because you can send a note from the app to the keyboard, and instantly hear the new tone.

 

A small victory to be sure, but a fun experience. And I'm going to see if I can get the other 3 writable as well, since there doesn't seem to be any reason that 96 would work, but not 97-99. And the other nice thing is how instant the feedback is with the CZ Touch. You edit the tones very visually, and by hitting "random" you can get some really extreme, almost circuit bending -like sounds with it. And I haven't even tried it with my 101 or 1000 yet.

 

Anyway, just wanted to share it with some of the only people in the world who would care. I'll update if I find out more, and I'm going to try to make time to do a YouTube video tutorial showing both processes as well.

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  • 1 year later...

RSJ, is there any way that you can copy and then save the patch in number 96 to the other numbers (97 - 99) from the 230S front panel? Or is it that the 230S allows no saving of patches at all from keyboard itself (which I think is the issue with the 230S)? 

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  • 1 year later...

Hi, for anyone still looking for information, you can send any CZ-101 compatible sysex files to the CZ-230-S. The patches from http://czounds.com/ works well.

If you're on windows, you can use the following tutorial to load sysex(.syx) files to the CZ-230-S : http://www.kasploosh.com/projects/CZ/how_to/midiox-cz101-send.html

Now, to load in the other memories (other than the default 96), you need to modify the sysex code.

To do so, in midi-ox, you go to view>sysex, then in the sysex windows you go to "command window > load file.."

The .syx code should then be loaded in the editor and the beginning should look like this :
 

F0 44 00 00 70 20 60


I'm gonna explain part by part what each of these numbers mean
F0 : Start a sysex message...
44 00 00 : ... for a Casio synth
70 : ...using midi channel 1... (72= midi channel 2 etc..)
20 : ...to send a patch...

60 : ...to preset number 96... (61=preset number 97 and so on...)
And the following data is the actual patch data (I guess).

After you've done the modifications to the midi channels and/or preset number, you can go to "Command window > send sysex" and the patch should be loaded in the right spot.

Also, I got most of the info for this sysex code from this page : http://www.kasploosh.com/projects/CZ/how_to/midiox-cz101-receive.html

The rest I translated for the CZ-230-S using trial and error.

Cheers,

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