AlenK

I very much doubt that. AFAIK the PX-560 doesn't process MP3. And the memory required for WAV would be much more gainfully employed on samples, etc. I'm quite positive the demos are playing the internal sounds live using the equivalent of MIDI files (Casio uses its own format internally). Maybe Mike Martin can confirm.

Appreciate the posted music/sounds. Those string sounds are pretty good. Now, how's about a nice big FAT review after you spend two or three weeks with it? You don't have to make it 83 pages long or anything (whatever could I be thinking of?) but certainly juicy enough to fill in the largest holes most of us (ME, anyway!) have in our understanding of the instrument. Such as, how do those Versatile Tones work and sound? How does the bass synth differ from the other modes of the Hex Layer synth engine (Normal and Mono) apart from access to different waves? Stuff like that. Apparently, people want to hear the styles, too. (Who would have thought people would want to hear an arranger...arranging.)

No, not the Trans-X song from 1981/83. Just some relatively new videos for the MZ-X500 that finally show some of what it can do. Ralph Maten doin' his thang: Pop Music, a Russian music store (chain?) gives a nice overview. I don't understand Russian but the English translation seems okay. And I do grok notes, know what I mean?

The person who complained about posts being deleted was probably the person who got nasty on Facebook. Re Synth Zone: Yeah, it took awhile for Nigel to sign me up but he eventually did. News to me that they are no longer accepting new forum members. Despite its name it's very arranger oriented and, like most long-running forums, a little on the clique-y side. I don't feel like the CMF (Casio Music Forums) has reached that point but I might not be objective since I suppose I could be considered part of the CMF clique.

Nice to see a positively written review. But then there are two other MZ-X500-related threads where some of the comments are not so enthusiastic: http://www.synthzone.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/420423/Casio_MZX_500_Issues_Please_Re#Post420423 and http://www.synthzone.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/421219/MZ_X500_Ralph_Maten_sound_Demo#Post421219 Unfortunately, there's a lot of diss'ing and dumping on Casio and its products in evidence there. One poster even claimed posts HERE and on the Casio Facebook page were being deleted by mods because they included negative comments about Casio and/or its products.

Page EN-63 claims you can choose the file format (SMF or native ZMF) when you save the MIDI recording to a USB drive. The line you quoted says essentially the same thing. Were you not given the option for file type when you tried to save to USB? I don't have an X500 but I would be surprised if the manual is entirely wrong about that.

Much appreciated. Wow, indeed. Something that originally came on floppy disks! Yeah, newer doesn't necessarily mean better. At least when it comes to software a lot of times it really means bigger and slower.

Since the above post is over a year old I'm not surprised the link in it is dead. Is this free version of Cakewalk Pro still available somewhere?

Well, I picked up a Behringer BCR2000 yesterday. I had to special order it since the local music stores don't keep it in stock. It's nice. I lucked out, too, as all 32 of the encoders feel good. They don't all feel exactly the same but close enough: no overly loose or overly stiff ones, at any rate. (Those problems have been reported by others.) The pushbuttons all work too but one of them doesn't have much of an audible click when pressed. Given that everything else works great I will tolerate that. I have already mocked up some possible control assignments for the XW-P1. But that's a long way from actually programming them. I will have to use a third-party, donation-ware program called BC Manager to do that since the XW doesn't send out NRPN or SysEx when you adjust a parameter in either the solo synth or the Hex Layer editing modes (hence the BCR2K's learn function won't do much for me). I didn't expect it to. I intend to program an editor for Hex Layer and another for the solo synth. The latter would be applicable to the XW-G1 too but the G1 doesn't really need it given the way the sliders work on that model. However, the solo-synth editor will be a "simplified" implementation that will be accomplished with a single BCR2K "preset" and require only a single overlay (the latter in order to temporarily label all the controls for that preset). To do the entire all-singing, all-dancing solo-synth editor would require five presets and three overlays, which to my thinking is not practical. The simplified editor I am envisioning would still give you three oscillators (2 synth and 1 PCM) and the noise source, with a single simplified pitch envelope (three stages), an ADSR filter envelope, a single ADSR amplitude envelope (applies to all three oscillators and noise together) and two LFOs (one of them simplified). That's more than sufficient to do a lot of the "vintage" tones I personally like to emulate. I'll update this thread when I have more to report.

The rest of us need all the technological help we can get!

Would love to see more sound modules, rack-mountable or not. There was a time you could almost count on a module version of a keyboard synth. Those days are gone.

Well...I believe this is as professional as a Casio arranger will get. The PX-560 has a similar DSP structure, if I'm not mistaken. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they share some of the same core circuit boards. But two DSP effects in what is essentially a gussied-up stage piano is not as much of a problem as the same limitation on an arranger. IMO Casio should do four simultaneous DSP (insert) effects on all pro keyboards going forward. The competition has been doing more in comparable function keyboards for quite some time. PS. Four would be an absolute minimum in a performance synthesizer that can play four zones from the keyboard. Obviously, the more like a "workstation" a keyboard is the more desirable having more insert effects is; ideally at least one per multitimbral part (so, 16 for most keyboards). But this DOES cost money so I expect that Casio will continue to compromise the number of insert effects in favor of keeping prices down. We would like to think they have some magic that other keyboard manufacturers lack but it is really only clever engineering.

The XW synths are very rich in features so I understand your problem! And there are now a lot of XW-related videos so perhaps you are having trouble finding the right ones. There aren't as many videos specifically about the G1 as there about the P1. But since the G1 shares many features with the P1 (solo synth, most PCM voices, step sequencer, arpeggiator, phrase recorder, Performances, mixer and much of the UI) you can watch P1 videos and ignore the parts that don't apply to the G1. Here's a selection of videos you should watch, some for G1, some for P1, some for both:

It's been four months since I uploaded the first version of The XW-P1 Companion - A Guide to the Synthesis Capabilities of Casio's XW-P1 Performance Synthesizer. This is a revision of that document. I have corrected numerous spelling errors and other typos. I can't guarantee that it still doesn't have any but there shouldn't be too many now. I revised the wording in several sections to clarify them, to add the suggestions I received from Brett Myors, and to include the changes I mentioned later in the original XW-P1 Companion thread. I reduced the depth of the chorus effect described in section 6.3.3.2 in the context of attempting to emulate a Solina string synthesizer. The original values in Table 15 were too aggressive. I also added a new section that discusses emulating the dynamics of acoustic instruments. Update: This version has been deleted. See here for the latest revision.

I'd like to draw attention to a video posted by a certain Thomas (Tom) Piggot, who is a Casio Music Forums member but hasn't posted here much. In the video he demonstrates string-playing technique on three Casio keyboards: an XW-P1, a PX-5S and a Casio PL-40R. I'm sure you would agree he has great technique. He ought to, since he's been playing for more than fifty years. Here's a bio. It looks self-written but there can be no doubt that his professional history with synthesizers goes WAY back. He can be heard demonstrating the ARP Omni here (~1977). He plays but does not narrate. Here he can be heard demonstrating the Crumar Orchestrator (1978). He demonstrates the Synergy keyboard (circa 1982) here (side A) and here (side B). He has demonstrated at least one product for Casio (1981's Casiotone 201, here). For the last three synths he narrates the recordings in addition to playing the instruments. His bio claims he is writing a book. I'm sure it would be a good one but I don't know if we'll ever see it. I believe I may have posted an earlier video of his before that is also about playing string sounds, on an XW-P1. It's well worth watching again so here it is. The "It's a String Thing" video seems like it might be the "string phasing tips" that Tom promised at the end of this earlier video.

I have no experience with the BCR2000. But I have a birthday coming up so one may be coming. Personally, real knobs are always far better than images of knobs on a screen that you operate by sliding your finger or a mouse cursor. "Tactile-ness" is what music is all about, after all, and that extends to programming sounds. Tell you what: If I do get a BCR2000 (when, really, since I'm buying it even if I don't get it for my birthday) and manage to set up an XW control map before you do I'll post it here (assuming it can be extracted from the machine - haven't read the user manual yet).

+1 There just aren't enough decent videos or even audio-only examples of the MZ-X500 to get a feel for what the new elements such as the bass synth sound like.

I like the potential of the Behringer BCR2000, which Chas brought up In a recent thread in the XW General Discussion forum. The BCF2000 also looks nice. The former has 32 rotary encoders while the latter has eight rotary encoders and eight motorized faders. Either would make a pretty sweet control and editing surface for any synth/keyboard (potential build-quality issues aside). And, of course, you can share it among several different instruments. (Review here: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan05/articles/behringercontrollers.htm.) The only wrinkle is that Casio hasn't yet released a detailed MIDI document for the PX-560. There may be similarities with the PX-5S but there will certainly be significant differences as well. You can modify the standard MIDI control change parameters without such a document but it will be needed for any detailed editing achieved through NRPN or Sysex.

Really? Criticizing the line "thirty years ago" in something most people would recognize was intended strictly as humor? (BTW, I'm probably as old as you so I know what was around thirty years ago. I still have a keyboard I bought new nearly that long ago.) PS. For the benefit of retentive's I have revised the post. Forty years ago I was also aware of what was out there, when synths and keyboards in general definitely didn't include LCD displays. I rented my first synthesizer (a Roland SH-5) in 1976. As a high-school student at the time I couldn't afford to buy one! No display of any kind, of course, apart from a few red LED indicators but it DID have one knob or slider per function. If people want to complain about too few controls on keyboards then I am somewhat more receptive (although the PX-560's three rotary encoders are probably perfectly adequate for a stage piano). PPS. Changed it back. Principle of the thing, you know?

For the record I don't believe the MZ-X is in any sense (even theoretically) Casio's successor to the XW line. The arranger-specific features, as well as the internal speakers, are antithetical to the expectations of synthesizer customers. Besides which, Casio has unequivocally identified the MZ-X500 as an arranger, not as a synth workstation. There's nothing wrong with that and it doesn't mean the MZ-X500 can't be used for making any kind of music. But it does mean that the majority of people who want to buy a synthesizer will not even look at it. Unless Casio has decided once again to abandon the synth market there will be a true successor to the XW line.

(With apologies to Monty Python) "Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be usin' fancy touchscreens on our keyboards?" "Aye. In them days, we were glad to have a one-line LCD." "A SMALL one-line LCD." "Without backlighting." "Or even characters." "Under a filthy, cracked window." "That would have been nice. The best WE could manage was a row of little LEDs." "You had it easy. We used to play a keyboard with broken keys we found in a dumpster." "Keys? You were lucky to have keys! Our 'keyboard' had some buttons for keys. And half of them were missing!" "You were lucky to have buttons! *We* used to have to short the wires ourselves to make a sound!" "Ohhhh we used to DREAM of shorting wires! We used to have to press the circuit board directly to make a sound." "A circuit board? Looxery. We used to have to hold the transistors in our hands in just the right way to make a sound." "But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'." "Nope, nope."

Scott, that is a seriously good example and perfect proof. The SA-46 is literally a kid's toy (that's how Casio markets it) but look what can be done with it (and some ancillary audio recording gear, of course). Anyone with the kind of keyboards we discuss most often in the Casio Music Forums should, in theory, be able to do at least as well. BTW, I didn't recognize the tune despite it apparently being a "classic." It sounded like it came from the 80's so that surprised me, with me being such a huge (YUGE!) fan of 80's music in general and especially of "alternative," "new wave," "new romantic," "synthpop," and "post-punk" from that era. It's a cover of Flesh by A Split Second. I hadn't heard the song before or even heard of the band. Thanks Scott, what a pleasant surprise.

Repeated post by mistake. Just learned you can't delete them!

Same skool done taught me how to spel. Hmmm, maybe I compared the wrong products. But the numbers are constantly changing so today's are different than yesterday's. And, apparently, you can vote every day. That's what I've been doing and from multiple internet addresses. But even fourth place is high enough to get coverage in the magazine, although we may have to wait a while for it. The present top three are givens anyway. They didn't need a vote to know there is massive interest out there for those. We're just reminding them about the will of the Casio Nation.

Makes one appreciate the job that people like Mike Martin and his UK counterpart do. Preconceived attitudes don't change overnight.