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So you had you're Xw for a while what would you suggest for a update?


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In the hope that someone at Casio (hello, Mike!) is reading this particular thread and taking suggestions to heart, here's another improvement that I believe would significantly enhance expressivity and should be easy to implement: Add a note overlay flag and its inverse to the list of controllers in the modulation matrix (virtual controllers) section of the solo synth. In other words allow a destination to be modulated according to whether or not more than one key is being pressed at the same time (legato play). This simple addition would allow two different sound variations to be programmed for legato and non-legato play. For example, I could cause my tone to bring in a noise element and have no portamento only on non-legato play, while for legato play I would have portamento but no noise element. While I can do this now with the footswitch, it's much easier and more expressive to do it based on playing technique, as you would with a "real" instrument.

While some of the suggestions I have made in this thread would require significant work to implement and some perhaps more DSP power than the XW architecture has available (the Casio engineers have surely scraped the ceiling as it is), some of them are almost trivial and would add a menu item or two to the interface at most. At the very least Casio should keep these suggestions in mind for the next synthesizer models. I have absolutely no doubt that more and better are coming. They're back in the game to stay, I think.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, I wrote in my first post what updates I'd like to see...

 

A better, higher-quality keyboard; not so "clunky." 76 keys would be awesome;

 

More work put into the PCM tones, making them more usable standalone. They're okay, but really need to be combined as compound sounds because no sample is outanding in its own right;

 

A 2nd/more powerful CPU, so that edits don't require a keypress to hear the results. That would also make it more of a performance synth;

 

Absolutey NOT try to turn it into a "workstation." Save the R&D and programming for what it does best- a performance synth;

 

AFTERTOUCH! Please!

 

And lest you think I'm trying to have Casio make a be-all and end-all synth, it's in an arsenal of a Korg Triton-Rack, a Yamaha Motif-Rack, a Korg N1r, a Roland XV-88, a Kurzweil K2500 and a Korg Kronos 88. Everything I have compliments everything else. These enhancements would make the XW-P1 a real contender in the synth market because of Casio's target market pricing strategy.They could robably bring that to market with a street price right around a grand, and that would make serious inroads to the other makers, considering Roland's Jupiter-50 doen't even have aftertouch and is twice that price.

 

I was an early owner of the venerable CZ-1- that was an amazing instrument, only now starting to be appreciated for what it was capable of - and for some reason Phase Distortion synthesis was someting I "got" right away, and could pretty much do anything I wanted on that. But, it was the culmination of the evolution of the CZ line. I hope we see the same growth within the XW lines.

 

..Joe

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Hello:

I have found a few drawbacks:

The screen is small and the menu lacks agility. The screen is small and that makes that information is very limited. And the menu is little intuitive as performance synthesizer.

The XW missing agility to navigate in the menus.

 

Thank you.

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David, you found only a few drawbacks? The XW synths have many. But they do an enormous amount for what you paid. If you wanted a synth with a better display and menu system and with far fewer drawbacks you should have bought a Kronos or something like that (I'm not advocating that particular keyboard, just using it as an example). And you know what? You'd still encounter some drawbacks and limitations. Nothing is perfect.

Don't like the menu system? Then try the free data editor. It's actually pretty good. It won't help you edit sequences, but then I don't myself find the front panel UI bad for that (editing of synth tones is another matter entirely!) Don't want to put a laptop beside the XW? Soon you'll be able to try Mike's new solo synth editor for the iPad. From the sneak peek he posted it looks like its going to be pretty sweet. Don't have an iPad? I can't help you there.

For what it's worth I view the XW as a challenge. My approach is to push it right up to its limits as soon as I can and then see if I can find a workaround for wherever it doesn't seem to want to go. Many older synths were never fully appreciated until after they were considered by most to be obsolete, when people started pushing them beyond what the manual said they could do. I say, why wait until then? I'm not a gigging musician, just a techno-dabbler, nor do I have a stack of other keyboards at my disposal (just one other - for now) so I have both the luxury of time to experiment and the desire to get the most out my equipment.

And it's all a matter of perspective. We've become spoiled. What the XW can do is FAR more than what the first wave of digital synths that came out could do (trust me, I have one), which was in turn more than what the analog synths that preceded them could do (although of course the _quality_ of sound was different). And with our computers and DAW software we can potentially create multi-track compositions far, far easier than musicians could in the dawn of synthesizers. Monophonic analog synthesizers, multi-track tape machines, hardware step sequencers and some primitive-by-today's-standards outboard effect units were all they had back then (I'm talking about the 60's and 70's) yet masterpieces like Wendy Carlos' "Switched-On Bach" and Larry Fast's (Synergy) "Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra" resulted. (Just in case an anal retentive wants to correct me, Fast did use a Mellotron sparingly on a couple of the tracks of ERFRO.)

Speaking of the manual (up there in the third paragraph) it does a passable job of explaining the features of the XW but I would not call it good. What it lacks completely is telling you how and where you might want to use a feature. Even the PX-5S's so-called "tutorial" manual doesn't do that, despite its name; it's more like an advanced parameter guide and it's still just as obtuse as the XW manual. Casio really needs to hire better technical writers.

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Joe, about your post #28:

I agree with you about not trying to turn the next version of the XW into a workstation. Meaning, primarily, leaving a traditional multi-track linear sequencer off of it. That said, I'd still like to see something like what Casio put into the PX-5S in addition to the XW's step sequencer.

Since the PX-5S doesn't have a step sequencer (not really suitable for a stage piano) they added a way to chain phrases together instead of step sequences and called that a song sequencer, not to be confused with the song sequencer on the WK-7500 (I don't own one), which is actually a traditional linear sequencer. Note to Casio: Please don't reuse the same term for two different things!

But from what I divine from the PX-5S's obtuse manuals you can save mixer data, including tone assignments, along with a song (chain of phrases) and the song sequencer seems to be multi-track. At least, you can select different tracks when you edit although I don't see anywhere a mention of how many. Mind you, I could be completely misreading the PX-5S's manuals and since I don't own one I can't actually do any experiments to find out. But if I'm right this would make the song sequencer similar to the pattern sequencer on the WK-7500, but without all that arranger rigmarole about "intro", "fill", and "outro". (And not to be confused with the XW's step-sequencer patterns - there we go again with the re-used terms, Casio.)

I think this would be a nice compliment to the step sequencer. Maybe they could even be integrated in some way - exactly how I don't know, but the Casio engineers seem to have major talents in that direction.

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Hello:

I explained that according to my style to use a CASIO XW-P1. I need agility to use the menu. I have to move fast to create menu. The DataEditor is going well, but I don't use iPad or tablet.

I have to change things from the menu of the arpeggiator, from the menu of the tone, etc. And all the while I compose. CASIO has create a program exclusively for the step-sequencer, make it more versatile, full.

My style is improvisation and experimental. I need everything to flow.

Thank you, AlenK.

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