ampetrosillo

I used to be a piano player as a child, and I still have an upright piano at home I play once in a while. The piano action isn't a problem, although certain things are a bit harder to do of course (but since we're not doing fast leads and that kind of stuff...). The kind of stuff I do, people usually either get some vintage dodgy stuff (old, heavy, cheap "home organs" and keyboards) or they splash out on the real stuff (heavy, fragile, delicate Rhodes pianos and Farfisa organs). Since we're in 2018, I'd like to get something which is more dependable. The more I look at it, the more I like the MZ-X300/500 actually. I don't need the internal speakers, and the colour touchscreen scares me a bit (how long will it last?). But it seems to have everything I need sound-wise (the pianos seem to be the stuff you find on the Privia line, with better organs though). The thing is that it's got all those "arranger" features (the rhythm accompaniment section for instance). I basically need something along the lines of a Nord Stage, but I don't want to spend so much for something I don't even use *that* much (and I find Nord stuff to be steeply priced anyway, for what they do).

Thanks for your reply! So the organ engine on the PX-5S is tacked on and basically is a differently laid out hex engine, and not a true organ mode? Soundwise (YouTube doesn't really cut it) are there any material differences? What are the advantages of the drawbar organ emulation on the XW-P1 compared to the PX-5S, apart from dedicated controls? How is it more different? The manual is quite basic and doesn't really explain how powerful it is. It looks as though the PX-5S is capable of more effects, since the DSP is right "inside" the engine (and the first four layers can run their own insert effects). It would seem so, but I think you can sort of do that on the XW-P1, I think...? You can use the PCM samples as oscillators, right? And is there anything stopping me from recreating those Mellotron-stype patches on the XW-P1? Why is it overkill? It's a cheaper model and is more of a "home keyboard", apparently. What features does it offer that would serve my purposes better? The step sequencer could come in handy, actually, but that's not a big issue because I have a hardware sequencer (a very old Roland MIDI sequencer, runs on floppy disks!) that could be useful. Bear in mind that I need a jack of all trades, but since we make large use of organ sounds, I'd like them to be good. Not necessarily a real Hammond in a box, but good. If the Privia PX-5S is capable of organ sounds as good as those on the XW-P1 without the use of an expander (because it gets fiddly, unless you could route the output of the expander into the keyboard and make use of its master EQ and stuff), then of course it's a better choice for me, as the pianos are better too.

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum. I'll get straight to the point. I'm not a keyboardist first and foremost, I'm basically a bass player that plays keyboards now and again. I'm in a new band¹ (our own material) and my synths don't cut it (I have a Yamaha An-1x, a Blofeld and a Polivoks). We're after a more traditional sound and want to avoid anything electronic sounding, apart from the odd Juno-style string/lead patch (authenticity is not a priority). Basically the sounds I need are organs especially (drawbar organs, but also possibly Farfisa/Continental style organs and most of all pipe organs too), electric pianos, acoustic piano and mellotron-style sounds (strings, flutes but with that kind of character), with a few "GM" sounds too (eg. marimba, harpsichord, regular strings etc.). This is for live performances, not recording purposes (we must face it, any computer with decent plugins and sample banks is as good or better even than the expensive stuff) so I don't need total refinement. The Casio XW-P1 has a semi-weighted keyboard (which is ideal for organs and mellotron), it has a dedicated organ section with drawbars and bespoke controls, on the other hand it has the mono-synth section that I'd use really sparely, the hex layer engine which, again, I'd use sparely as a synth engine but could come in handy for organ sounds, and the PCM section which is supposedly passable (the acoustic and electric pianos are competent but lack the refinement of a piano board). The Casio Privia Pro PX-5S is a higher-end product overall, it has a larger and fully weighted keyboard (which is not ideal for organs, but the organ accompaniment is usually really basic, think chord accompaniment, no rock/jazz organ, slides and fast phrasing, so it may be immaterial), it lacks the mono-synth section (which is not a big deal, but... more later on), it carries over the organ section from the XW-P1 but without some of the hands-on features (for example, you only have six drawbars, instead of eight, so I'd have to program the patches beforehand, I suppose), it has higher polyphony (irrelevant), but it has much better pianos, both electric and acoustic (especially the grand piano, but it looks like the electric piano is smoother on the PX-5S, with more dynamic behaviour, as opposed to the XW-P1 where it appears to simply select one of three samples according to velocity with abrupt switching). It also has a sleeker look 😀 The thing with the PX-5S though is that it is impossible to program a layer as a pure mono layer, which makes it harder to play basses cleanly, and I don't know whether the organs are as good on the PX-5S as on the XW-P1. On the other hand, the strings and flutes and stuff seem to be better on the PX-5S (or maybe they're just more programmable). I've heard a very good mellotron flute patch somewhere on this forum for the PX-5S and I don't know if I could replicate that kind of editing on the XW-P1. I also don't know whether either of the keyboards has any decent/decently programmable pipe organs. As for effects and such, the PX-5S appears to have master compression and insert effects (including EQ), while the XW-P1 appears to have only master chorus, reverb and delay and I'm unsure about the rest. So, any recommendations? ¹ here's my band's new single, to give an idea of the kind of sounds we're after: