Majek Skateboards

https://www.gearnews.com/superbooth20-home-edition-visit-the-synth-show-from-your-sofa/ ...from this site on April 23 at 2:00 PM. CET Of course it will be virtual later this month so we can’t go to the show and touch the products. There’s no doubt that AiX will become the defacto standard engine in any machine over $100 USD that doesn’t already have it.

Thanks so much!!

I think I can find a good 1/8” mic for that. Thanks!!

Actually I really don’t know. i am so used to modifying tones in the DAW when record so I stopped menu diving in keyboard. There could be a way to modify a sound setting. If I get any mid level DAW at $99 and up, then I could then use any USB Casio and call up a Prophet 5 sound and change the settings in an old school analog way via oscillators and filters in software and literally get the exact sound.

Anyway I am going to work with the great prophet 5 sound on my CT-X which has more depth in the AiX sound chip. The older AHL sound chip is still pretty usable in the WK and CTK series and live there’s very little difference. The closest WK tone I have found so far is a brass with synth bass, #270, and the above video calls the Prophet 5 patch “soft brass”.

Everybody helped me finding the needle in the haystack Prophet synth tone at the beginning of the attached video on the CT-X700, but where is the similar sound in the equally vast WK-245? There are just so many tones and it’s harder finding anything without a tonewheel.

Even though all my recordings are outside patches, of course live it’s easier to use the Casio patches. Any manufacturer makes great sounds in their keyboards but mostly they’re all designed for live instead of recording. Modern recording seems to like a simple bare bones naked patch, often the opposite of a finalized keyboard arranger patch, but then a DAW loves to come in and dress it up. Right now you could use patches from wherever and humble analog signals and use powerful digital technology to edit it. This recent NAMM brought USB 2 and the dominance of keyboard controllers with the goal of working with outside software or modules.

Thanks!! I have a sound bank program I could put it into right next to some Korg Krome Mellotron files. I am building a file in the PC as well as the iPhone. My recordings for YouTube when controlled are done through the Casio WK or CT-X, but the preferred sounds are all outside software patches since there’s so much out there.

I definitely like those drums sounds, too. I could utilize that well since it goes with that prophet 5 sound and can be used pretty seamlessly for many songs. I tend to like simpler analog sounds better than the very specific and direct DX-7 or Korg M-1 sounds. But I grew up on many of those sounds, too with that Yamaha and Korg.

I will look into it. I got so lost in GB’s eq section and it’s ridiculously addictive. I record pretty dry and then digitally manipulate later. I will then send off my files to someone with nuendo, ableton, and Cubase and will soon hear the full sonic potential after they go deep into the mixing and mastering.

I will probably record the sound audio into GarageBand then fool with its internal eq to nail the sound. I don’t want to do that specific song, but get that specific keyboard-synth-like brass sound or basically what I think of when I think of Sequential/Yamaha/Dave Smith Instruments “prophet 5”.

I wasn’t aware it had that many sounds, like let’s say the DX-7. Anyway Phil Collins solo and Genesis “Coming in the Air Tonight”.

Which ct-x700 patch does the prophet 5?

I know that software, hardware, repair, and mods are all different skills but amazing when put in the context of keyboards.

That is so cool but way beyond my understanding. But people like you change the world!! My roommate in school was not a primary software guy, either, but would do similar hardware things and really researched things that many others never thought of. I truly thought maybe his ideas would never be seen but eventually they put him in charge of small research team at Toshiba and they turned a thousand dollar solid state drive with almost no storage into super affordable thumb drives. It paid off, his curiosity, but that took decades to the point where now you get those flash drives for free now on keychains. My neighbor lady, on the other hand was all software and not a hardware type. She was a key person in taking artist conception drawings, like Lara Croft, and making them into moving figures on the computer that would do justice to the artists and creators. But being near San Jose, it’s almost impossible not to run into somebody not involved with the PC, iPhone, Android, computer games, wired homes, routers, WiFi, or anything techie. It takes tens of thousands of people in each sector and each and every one plays surprisingly important roles. My college alum cofounded SGI and the other techie lady across the street is VP of Adobe. But then growing up here you get surprised when you run into somebody from a similar one industry town and you hear about almost any town in Texas where football is big and literally every high school has NFL or big college alums. It’s stunning. Or you see somebody from Watkins Glen, NY and everybody is connected in some way to car racing.

Really I know it’s quite hard but I am impressed with your skills. I so do not personally have hardware skills!! I was on the software side of gadgets with Microsoft networks and Cisco routers back in the day and I got washed out of the hardware PhD program at University of California. The challenge was huge in the late 1990s-early 2000s at the time and a few companies wanted to do the impossible which was make faster routers and switches, and offer them to companies at unheard of low price points in a distribution chain that had to be quadrupled in its speed. Pay for hardware techies was amazing then so many people flooded the programs and hardware router engineers were being trained closest to my house. They wanted people exactly like you in the program who could modify stuff electronically and in return the school gave you a very low cost dual MS-PhD in return subsidized by a few companies like MS in Mountain View, Juniper, and Cisco. So in the first day of class like most this level of techies near San Jose, the instructor doesn’t speak English and starts scribbling Nash on the board and these kids (mostly from areas outside the USA where STEM is still important) are eating it up. Ok, lol, I never returned to class. I was one of the dumb Americans there!! I am sure there was a Dave Smith type in that crowd who probably went on to work on electronic musical instruments. LOL!

Thanks!! The JU at $399 being two full synths is such a great price that I won’t worry about its known limitations. Sure the $799 Korg Wavestate or the $1099 MD-X500 all do way more with more sounds but it’s hard to beat $399. on monophonic units, many have done well with just that anyway so I will live with at least one machine like that. I have pictured Fender simply putting in more turns into all Fender strats on the bridge pup like the current MIM Jimmy Vaughan signature strat does. The weakness of the strat is that the bridge pickup is too thin sounding compared to the other two.

I wish I had you here to mod my stuff. 1) make my Roland JU reissue (which is likely my next purchase and because Wavestate is too pricey) stand alone module to be wireless. The companion keyboard is too small and limited. 2) mod monophonic units into polyphony as an option (many would want this) 3) build a warmer yet punchier Stratocaster bridge pickup sound with some sort of electronics as a simple third party add on similar to an orange drop capacitor

Right now before my first external module I am running the Casio through guitar pedals through an amp (low as not to blow the speaker) and it sounds like some Eurorack stuff. Since the pedals are not designed for this it’s very easy to lose control and get lost. It’s certainly a lesson in subtle changes when turning the knobs. But until I get my first (probably low cost Behringer module), I may find it easier to control when it’s a dedicated module. But who knows, it may be as difficult to control. But the challenge makes it fun. And also it allows me to do music I would have never thought of.

Thanks Brad i looked on some DIY sites learning how to get the feel of Eurorack and they said try running a keyboard or synth through guitar effects. Going through a guitar digital delay pedal with the synth patches on the Casio CTK-2500 is a ton of fun but terribly hard to control. On guitar I can navigate through it but with keyboards and of course more access to more sounds and more notes on keyboard, it’s hard to control and predict. It’s a beast for sure. So just when I think I am getting the hang of it I try changing a sound patch and then it’s just a hot mess. The ambient keyboard stuff with rich effects is a lot harder than “regular” music. I’m hooked and I can’t wait until I get some synth modules hooked up to my Casios.

Casio rules but that won’t stop me from hacks and modular games with my Korg synth, and then there’s that tiny Roland JDXi calling my name as well as possible new Yamaha Reface and new e series arranger, oh and Subsequent 25 entry level Moog. i am a sucker for any affordable or entry level products from all the companies. There are those who will buy that $6000 dollar Casio Celviano or $6000 Yamaha Genos but that’s not my cup of tea and I enjoy those from a distance. I could imagine all workstation, synth patches, accompaniment, and true piano sound and feel could all be satisfied if one bought those two.

That sounds terrible for an all in one. I totally expect this type of thing or much worse from a modular rack setup with different makers, but people go in knowing that. But those types of intermittent issues shouldn’t happen with a single maker all in one system. Does it otherwise work?

And Piano Man Chuck:

This just in for Casio and NAMM over here in California: