KennyC

Think saxophone, guitar - both acoustic and electric, violin, other stringed instruments, sometimes works well on a shakuhachi, harmonica, synths, and others. I only bought the Pianoteq Stage, but will upgrade to standard latter on. Diffidently get the Steinway D. Steinway endorsed Pianoteq and the Steinway sounds actually have the name Steinway on them. They have a demo that you can download, small footprint as these are not sampled. The demo will have available all of their pianos, but some of the notes (about four or five) will be disabled and it will quit after 30 minutes or so and you will have to restart it. But it is enough to give you a taste of Pianoteq. In my book, the Casio PX-S3000 and Pianoteq are a match made in heaven.

I tried several keyboards at a Guitar Center before deciding on the Casio. To me the Casio had the best feel, and a feel that I really liked. The response between the black keys and the white keys is very even. When I tried it out, the GC only had a PX-S1000 available to try, but I knew since I liked it, that the PX-S3000 would be what I wanted because they have the same keybed in them. For piano, I use Pianoteq. For myself, Pianoteq gives a much better sound than the sampled pianos in Komplete, but I do use other sounds in Komplete. As far as the internal sounds in the Casio, I do not use them, I use the PX-S3000 strictly as a controller. The reason that I opted for the 3000 over the 1000 is that the 3000 has a pitch bend wheel and two rotary knobs that I can use for functions via MIDI. Some instruments just don't play right without pitch bend. I didn't want to use another piece of hardware to control pitch bend, I wanted it all in one unit, thus the PX-S3000 for me, not to mention that the user interface is also much better or easier to use on the 3000 vs the 1000. Personally, it is the keybed, the feel, the evenness, and the dynamic control that sold me on the Casio as a controller. I wish that Casio would come out with a great MIDI controller only, no internal sounds or speakers, etc...but for now the PX-S3000 is serving that purpose. I also found that the normal or default velocity curve works best for me. Hope this helps.

Yes, I'm happy with it. Yes, the different settings - light, mid-light, normal, mid-heavy, heavy - do apply to MIDI out also. At first I was using Local Control off. However since this setting is not retained by Auto Resume I would have to turn local off every time. Got tired of doing that so just turned the volume off (all the way down) on the keyboard and just use it like that as a controller. Whether note-off velocity is important or not, I can not answer for you. For some people this is an important factor and for others it really don't matter. I've never played a keyboard that sends note off velocity, so I really can't address that issue. I bought this keyboard thinking that it does have note-off velocity because the manual says so, but it does not have it. Still, it is a good controller. Particularly when I compare it to the Roland RD-1000 that I was using as a controller, wonderful wooden weighted keys, but poor MIDI implementation Of course the RD-1000 came out three years after MIDI standards were implemented, so what could one expect.

midipiano, I can confirm the following for you. It does transmit high resolution velocity. So if you have a VST that can receive high resolution velocity, it will work. It works on high resolution velocity with Pianoteq as you can look on the midi monitor within Pianoteq and see that it is in high resolution. It does not transmit 0-127 note-off velocity as the MIDI implementation chart shows in the manual. It only transmits value 64 for note-off velocity. It will repeat notes both slow and fast after a key is pressed without having to return the key all the way up. I would say it is somewhere around the 55 percent up. The feel and the dynamic control is what impresses me the most. For myself it works great with Pianoteq, and all of the instruments in NI Komplete, and a couple other software instrument I have. The form factor (small and lightweight) is a great benefit for me too. I am able to put it on the computer desk right in front of my monitor and use it to control my VSTi's.

Thanks kybdsammer. That (note off velocity 0 - 127) certainly is the way the I'm interpreting the MIDI Implementation Chart. Hopefully some Casio clarification will flow this way soon!

Had some time this evening to check velocity of Note Off in Midi-Ox. Same result as in Pianoteq, only one velocity parameter for Note Off and that is 64. So either the manual is wrong, I am really miss-reading it, I have a defective keyboard, or there is something that I don't know about.

Thanks Brad. Pianoteq does have a monitor window built in and as far as showing a note off value, it is always 64. See pic below. I will try and check with Midiox tomorrow and post results.

Just a note that the pedal settings that crimson noise described are retained with the auto resume setting. However, turning local off is not retained via auto resume. So I have to do that every time since I'm using this keyboard primarily as a VSTi controller. The manual on the two pages that show MIDI for the PX-S3000: under the Function column, Velocity, Transmitted: Note ON 09nHv = 1 - 127 and for Note OFF 08nHv = 0 - 127. Am I reading this correctly in that the PX-S3000 should be sending Note OFF velocity variable from 0 - 127? I ask this because when I am trying to set up a velocity curve in PianoTeq, all is fine in the Notes On, but when it gets to the Note Off part. It says after the End of NOTE-ON calibration - "Apparently, your keyboard does not send NOTE-OFF velocity when the keys are released, so we will skip that part, and proceed to the sustain pedal calibration." I've tried this several times and get the same message. So, am I miss-reading the MIDI chart or does the PX-S3000 indeed send MIDI NOTE OFF velocity? Thanks! Kenny

Thanks tkarl. I've watched the webinar video (one above) twice (even with CC) on, before posting my question. The answer to my specific question is not in this video. At any rate I did purchase the PX-S3000 and it arrived yesterday. So far I am happy with it as a VST controller.

The PX-S3000 and SP34 3-Pedal have been ordered - nice birthday present for me! After I receive it and spend some time with it, I will report back my findings about using it as a VST controller.

Thanks Brad.

Thank you Brad. While I don't know if this would provide the answer for me, do you know how a keybed triggers the internal sounds it has on-board? Is it directly tied to the internal sound engine (be it modeled or sampled) or does it first generate MIDI data and send that to it's own internal sounds? If it is the latter, then I would suspect that the smart scaling features would also be used in triggering external sounds via USB MIDI to VST's. I've actually never really thought about this and it could be that this varies from manufacture to manufacture, or maybe there is a standard. I'm clueless to this too.

Thanks Joe. See, even when I thought I was wrong, I was wrong about that!

Thank you Brad. Much appreciated. I also have another thread in which the answer has not been provided. Perhaps you could help me with this question. Does the "smart scaling" feature on the PX-S3000 affect not only how the action triggers the internal sounds, but does it affect how the action triggers external sounds (VSTi) over USB MIDI out into Painoteq or a DAW or Kontakt, etc...?

^^^^ I'm looking at purchasing the PX-S3000 and this would be a question that I too have. In addition, if I'm going to use the S3000 mostly as a VSTi controller, I assume there is a function for "local off" so internal sounds are not being played (if not then I guess speakers off would have to suffice), can that too be part of a registration and set as a default power on state?