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Why does the XW-PD1 have the Solo Synth?


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I was very excited that the XW-PD1 had the Solo Synth and almost purchased a used iPad while waiting for the XW-PD1 to be released in expectation that the XW Midi Designer could be used with it to control the parameters of the Solo Synth.  Since that isn’t the case and it appears that this won’t be changing in the future as there isn’t user files for saving Solo Synth sounds I truly wonder why the Solo Synth is a part of the XW-PD1.  As it is, the Solo Synth seems nothing more than PCM waveforms to me but hopefully I can be enlightened otherwise.  Currently I am thinking that it would have been more beneficial to have included 100 more PCM Melody waveforms than including the 100 sounds of the Solo Synth.  This would have also eliminated the restriction of the Solo Synth only being used in Bank 1 as the PCM Melody waveforms can be used in any of the 4 banks.

This isn’t intended to be criticism of the full blown Solo Synth.  I was expecting the full blown version in the XW-PD1 and couldn’t wait to tweak sounds on it for hours on end as I think very highly of its flexibility and really like the way it sounds.

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I can't speak for Casio's engineers, but my guess is that one of the main considerations was reuse of the custom VLSI chips from the XW Keyboard line.  ie. They had them in stock in large quantities and it was cheaper than designing a new chipset from scratch.

 

Gary ;)

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The solo synth tones are great for use in building beats.  I have already used several of the preset solo synth tones in my own experiments.  They are very useful and I totally see why Casio gave use these.  Bank 1 on the Trackformer is used for solo synth tones. The notes you desire to use can be assigned to the 16 pads and played/recorded as part of a groove.  Or....a phrase converted from a midi file can be used to play the solo synth line.  The phrase can include the midi CC events Scott pointed out in the MIDI Implementation chart above.  This can make for some complex and unique sounds that can be added to a groove with the tap of a pad.  

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  • 4 weeks later...

I don’t have plans on not using the Solo Synthesizer of the XW-PD1 I just don’t really get why Casio included an extremely limited/locked version there of.

 

Using thick solo synth leads/bass are  staples of EDM. Using the pads or phrase sequencer your can crank out some nice melodies or bass lines with the solo synth or PCM sounds.. So it gives you those to play with.. using the effects and filters you can tweak the sound a lot.

 

The more I play with the PD1 the more impressed I am at what it can do. I'll have some screen shots of the data editor posted later to show the depth. 

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