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Mixing with the Mixer


guanche

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Had a chance to build up few test songs with the Midi Recorder, and would like to use the Mixer to adjust the settings of each song's component tracks once they have been laid down. Changes made in the Mixer work fine in real-time, controller-style, but these changes only last till the song stops playing or is restarted.  When playing, say, in a loop, all tweaked settings are reset to their initial values as soon as the first bar is replayed.  Changes are not propagated to the recording itself, and in the Mixer view itself values that have been changed get overwritten with each track's original settings as soon as the song restarts.

Absent any mention of the issue in the manual, so far the only way I have found to ensure persistence of Mixer tweaks is to stop play-back before the song loops back to the beginning, and then laboriously re-record the first beat of the first bar of each track using Punch-in. This ensures that the desired Mixer values get written out to the Midi files, and consequently reflected in the Mixer view each time the song starts.  

Surely there must be a simpler way to persist Mixer adjustments, hopefully just a button-press or screen-tap away:  any new owners or Casio engineers got any answers out there?
 

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You are asking for a feature that overwrites the song header data (mixer settings: volume, tone, etc) without needing to re-record a track.  Older Casio models had a button called "panel record" which did that.  I'm not seeing this in the manual and don't have a PX-560 to confirm.  

 

Try this...make all of the mixer settings, to all channels, you want to change... while playback is stopped. Next, record something to an empty track.  Anything...one note... or a bender wheel move is all you need.  The header data should be overwritten with all of the new mixer settings for all tracks.  

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Thanks for a great response -  useful info on song header contents.   Unfortunately suggestion didn't work - after recording bender wheel and notes to a new track mixer changes are lost in the same way as described in post.    Furthermore, I discovered a previously unknown requirement for my work-around to work - a count-in of 1 or 2 bars must be specified, otherwise the mixer changes are overwritten as usual with pre-existing parameters from the song header,  or perhaps a separate track header.   I rechecked my assumption that it was necessary to re-record each track whose parameters you tweak in the Mixer and it proved correct:  changes made to parameters to other tracks were not saved, only those specific to the re-recorded track are saved.   Perhaps this suggests the structure of the song and component is slightly different on the PX 560 with respect to previous models?

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I haven't used the MIDI recorder on my PX-560 yet, but would suggest leaving an empty bar or two at the beginning and end of each song. I don't even know if it's possible to automate the controller in the MIDI recorder, but will have a play later and report back asap!  

 

If you're struggling to find a solution, you could export your MIDI files and edit the controller data in a DAW. 

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I don't mean to sound negative about this but does Casio really give a crap about any possible ideas to make there keyboards better? I believe that they make a good product. But that's as far as it goes. What you get is what you get, with no updates to make it better?

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Trying not to be a fanboy for Casio, I agree updates are important.

 

If you compare my older PX350 with the newer 360 or better the 560 you will see that t somebody is watching our comments and criticisms, here and maybe Facebook and have incorporated some of the features I sorely missed in the PX350-especially an easier way to set volume levels for splits and layers, having a "song sequencer" that is more like a real midi sequencer with control of volume, pan etc. on each track, quantize, a better "cut and paste" function and better control of the DSP settings, which many of us have been trying to find (not so successful and sometimes painful) workarounds for.

 

A better screen-many have complained about the lack of larger LCD screens with an easier, more accessible operating system and this has been addressed on the newest models.

 

At least this is not the computer world, where you are almost forced to upgrade the next 200 security patches just to make the OS safe, then it slows your machine to a crawl, and finally you have to junk the whole thing, get a new computer and are forced to upgrade your OS (Windows 10 anyone?) Please, don't go down that road Casio although I wouldn't mind an instrument that could upgrade it's entire OS by the user, if it worked and actually incorporated real improvements, not usually what happens in my experience. Keyboard manufacturers in the past claimed this was going to happen. I don't know any company that successfully implemented this though, only in bits and pieces. I strongly suspect marketing strategies are in play.

 

If every feature everyone needed (is that possible?) was completely built into the newest keyboard, how will we sell another one? My answer to that would be-if you built something like this, you could long run a consistent product that over time would build a a decent following and maybe that would turn a profit. Well, maybe not. The musician market is a fickle place. Look at the DX7 which sold real well, but eventually needed a whole new instrument design. I think rather than create a true "flagship" Casio model and hope enough people buy it to stay solvent in the keyboard market, they are diversifying, in the hopes of selling as many instruments to as broad an audience as possible. If Casio made one instrument with all the features I wanted, I wouldn't need the 3 I own now, much less all the others I've kept, for some decently compelling reasons. Each has it's own unique "signature". I can create an entire film score with what I have, so can others here and on other forums (some of us have). How do you sell to a market like that? What do you sell to a market like that? Not an easy question. And in the real world, if I have to gig constantly, what sounds do I really need to cover maybe 100s of songs from maybe 30-40 years or more-unless I let the DJ take the gig. And how well will it hold up to constant temperature changes, humidity levels, poor lighting and endless beer-farts? I digress. :P

 

Yes, updates can be important.

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ANSWERING USING THE MIXER

 

1) Record your main system track and use the "Balance" in the menu to select the volume for Upper and Lower voices;

2) Record your track 1 additional voice (MIDI recorder);

3) Once your track has been recorded, hit the "Monitor" button (top right), click on track 1 to select it and hit "Edit" and "Rename". Give this track a new name (i.e. voice);

4) Go to the main menu and select the Mixer;

5) At bottom left, the blue button displays "A". Click twice so you display "C";

6) Your track 1 voice shows first. Hit the volume display (third box from the top);

7) Using the knob, lower the volume to the desired level;

8) Once your volume is set, click and hold the STORE button next to the registration and click on the MIDI Record/Play button to save this new volume setting.

9) The screen will confirm that your song has been updated.

10) Repeat the above steps for all new tracks you are recording.

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