spiro13 Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 Hi I recently purchased a CGP 700. I think it is a great Keyboard. The sound quality, functions and ease of use are unbeatable. The one function that is not good is the Auto Harmonize function. When engaged it sounds really bad, especially in Duet or octave mode. I thought it might be a defect in my instrument so I exchanged it for another but it is no better. It is hard to explain but when a key is first pressed, there is a note sounding before the first melody note but not the following notes until a change in chords and then it happens again. My reference is a DGX 640 in which this weird sound did not occur. I spoke to Casio Technical personnel but the people I spoke to knew almost nothing about the Keyboard. If anyone has a CGP 700 I would be interested to know if this is how the Auto Harmonize function is supposed to sound. Thank you. Tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Display Name Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 Hi Tony and welcome to the Casio Forums. How exactly are you playing with the Auto Harm on? It is designed to be played with a left hand chord and a single note with the right hand. It will then add harmony to the right hand notes based on the style selected and the left hand chord. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
- T - Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 Tony What you are hearing are timing errors. My CTK-6000, CTK-7000, and WK-7500 all have that same problem. When you have Auto-harmonize turned on, if you do not trigger the chord notes and the melody notes at exactly the same instant, then you get no harmony - just the base melody note. That is that "single" note that you are hearing. My Roland G-1000 and my Yamaha PSR-3000 never exhibited this problem, no matter how laid-back my playing was, but both of these are higher end arrangers. So I thought maybe this was a trait of the lower priced boards, but then I couldn't remember ever having this problem with my Yamaha PSR-E433. I paid $280 (USD) for it several years ago. It was released at the same time as the new Casio's, so we are talking the same age technologies. Just to be sure, I fired it up tonight and verified that it DOES NOT exhibit the problem. It is as rock solid as the G-1000 and PSR-3000. Since you mentioned the DGX-640, I drug my old Casio WK-3800 out of moth balls and was really not surprised when I verified that it DOES NOT exhibit the problem. I didn't remember ever having the problem with it. With the WK-3800, if my playing got really sloppy, I could hear the chord notes and the harmony notes coming at different times, but at least I got a full chord and full harmony, so it wasn't quite as obvious as this bit with the new boards. Based on this, and your comment about the DGX-640, I think we can say that at least, at one time, Casio knew how to design hardware and firmware that was able to handle this. What happens is you make a new chord and play a new melody note, but the timing is a bit off, so you do not get any harmony notes, but all subsequent melody notes under that same chord have harmony notes - until you make a new chord, then the problem starts all over again if your timing is not spot on. It's like all of these other boards, including the older Casio's, have some kind of timing correction algorithms that will make corrections within certain limits. With little effort on my older boards, I can sound like an experienced player, but with the new Casio board's, I sound like a rank amateur if I turn on Auto-harmonize, so I just use my own manual two and three part harmonies. If you want a good test for this, play the first phrase of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star over and over and over with Auto-harmonize turned on. I picked that song, because it changes chords on almost every note. I think you will find that, even at a modest tempo, you are missing the harmony better than 50% of the time. That makes the Auto-harmonize on these boards pretty much useless. Time to start learning to make your own right hand harmonies. Good luck ! Regards, Ted Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spiro13 Posted January 20, 2016 Author Share Posted January 20, 2016 Ted You hit the nail on the head with your description of the problem. Unfortunately your solution, precise timing while playing melody notes isn't in my playbook yet. Once again you are correct with your second solution. More practice learning right hand harmonies. I'm on it now.Except for the Auto Harmonize function, I am delighted with the GCP 700. Thanks guys for your help. Tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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