AlenK

Thanks. I'm here every night this week through Friday. Ba-dum-tis. 🥁

The memory card selector is blank. Is the XW-P1 actually talking to your computer? Did you format the SD card in the XW-P1 or in the computer? The manual says you must do it in the XW-P1 and in the thread referenced above Ted explains why: The XW-P1 creates a special, hidden partition on the card for audio files. (Which is really odd, frankly. And how big a partition does it create? Half the card's capacity? It's not like the formatting procedure asks you how big you would like it.) Note that page 26 of the data editor manual says you must still have a MUSICDAT ditrectory present on the SD card even if no audio files are evidently stored there. (The manual doesn't actually say where the audio files are stored but strangely makes reference to files that Ted says you can't see as if you COULD see them. But obviously Ted has actually done this, unlike myself, so he must be correct. Casio's confusing manual writing strikes again.) Also according to Ted your WAV file must be in 16-bit/44kHz format. He wrote that in 2014 and since then a newer version of the data editor was released, v1.1.3. The data editor manual, which has not been updated since 2012, claims that the editor supports 24-bit and 32-bit signed formats in addition to 16-bit signed and 8-bit unsigned. Obviously, that was not true when Ted wrote his reply in that old thread but it might be true of the latest version. The release notes say only that Casio "improved certain operation," which is exceedingly unhelpful and lazy documentation to boot. Or maybe the manual is still wrong and 16/44 is the only acceptable format. But I'm curious: What advantage does playing a WAV file on the XW-P1 give you that playing the same file on a connected phone does not, aside from not needing to carry around a phone? (But you very likely already DO carry around a phone, so strike that advantage.)

The Prologue's predecessor is the 4-voice Minilogue (and in a sense the monophonic Monologue). It's like a Minilogue on steroids with added features, like a third oscillator that is digital and very flexible. Many more digital effects, too. The two models have been getting good reviews.

How about the Arturia Beatstep? It's got 16 encoder knobs, 16 pads, 5-pin MIDI (using a provided adapter cable), supports NRPN and is reasonably priced. Looks small enough to maybe fit on the PX-560. Built-in (rudimentary) step sequencer, too, which would bring the combination closer to XW-P1 territory (with a lot more knobs).

Yes, NICE cover! I've been looking at getting something for my PX-560. I presently use a piece of cloth draped over it just to keep the dust off. But it's so ugly my wife forces me to remove it when company comes over. Something like this I would not need to remove. But SOME assembly required, as the instructions say. Maybe I should just get a commercial cover IF I can find one that doesn't let the dust through (liquids I am not concerned about). PS. Re more knobs and sliders, maybe you can add something like this and mount or rest it on top? It actually seems to be sold under different names, so it's highly likely made in China and hence you can probably find it much cheaper than at the link I provided from Amazon. However, I don't think it supports NRPN so that would be a little limiting. And I suppose you'll need one of those USB to 5-pin MIDI adapters to connect it because the PX-560 is not set up to be a USB host.

What picture are you referring to? Certainly not the one on page A-6 of the PX-560 User's Guide, which does not show the string or damper resonators at all. Are you perhaps thinking of the picture on page E-6 of the PX-5S User's Guide (Tutorial)? If so I'm afraid it does not in any prove the those resonators are applicable to all tones. Brad is correct; they apply only to acoustic piano tones. Students of acoustic piano synthesis know that "string resonance" and "damper resonance" refer to very specific phenomena happening inside an acoustic piano. They wouldn't be applicable to any other instrument, even the many others that use strings. It just doesn't make sense.

Hi XW-Addict, I am adding here some unnecessary carriage returns in your honour so that you can see how much harder it makes reading your posts. You have inspired me to format the next volume of The X-W Companion the same way. Why should I make it any easier to read? (I trust you got the point in what I hope is a humorous way.)

Sorry to disappoint but the relative tuning between notes cannot be changed on most of the tones in the XW-P1. For all tones except for solo synth tones you are stuck with 12-tone equal temperament, which of course is generally fine for western music (with a few, surprisingly common, exceptions). Well, technically the acoustic piano tones do exhibit stretch tuning just like a real piano, but you can't change that. For solo synth tones you can use the KeyFollow parameter separately for each oscillator to stretch its tuning (or compress it). But that's the extent of the solo synth's ability to alter relative tuning between notes. You can't reproduce most of the alternate tuning scales that have been developed over the years both prior to and after the invention of equal temperament. But, there are several Casio keyboards that CAN do some of those scales as preset tuning selections, including the PX-5S and the PX-560.

Shows I should never assume! Indeed, page E-72 of the XW-P1 User's Guide does NOT say converted WAV files go into MUSICDAT, unlike SMF files. It doesn't say anything about where they go, only about the need for conversion (which I knew about but had forgotten), which led me to assume there wasn't anything special about that. But I was wrong. In my defence, I have never played a WAV file from an SD card on the XW-P1. I knew only that you COULD do it if you used the data editor. Frankly, it sounds like more trouble than it's worth. I just play audio on my phone connected to the stereo audio in. The advantages are (a) no need for conversion and, more importantly (b) the full resources of the XW-P1 are still available while the audio file plays.

Okay, color me confused. I DO see the options listed for the Piano DSP effect that are listed in the manual. Strangely (to me) the default acoustic piano tone doesn't use it. Re the acoustic simulator, I believe that is used only for piano tones, despite the parameters always being visible in the Effects page. Page EN-71 lists it as a system effect (i.e., not a DSP effect) and says that it applies only to "certain" tones. Note that the block diagram on page A-6 doesn't even show it. That tells me it is very specialized and not for general use. As a system effect, I would have expected that any changes you make to its parameters would be stored in registrations. But that doesn't seem to work for me, unlike changes I make to parameters for delay, chorus and reverb. It seems to act like a master effect in that sense: One group of settings in memory only.

As you surmise you can certainly change the DSP effect that is called up by a tone and then save your edited tone to a user memory. (You can't overwrite the factory tones on Casio instruments, at least on the recent ones.) AFAIK you don't have to save the combination in a new registration. However, if you were to change any of the parameters of the reverb, the system delay or the system chorus (the latter not to be confused with the DSP chorus) your changes would need to be saved into a registration. That's because those are send effects, not insert effects. IOW they are global to all tones. Per tone or mixer channel you can only change the amount of the signal sent to the reverb and to the delay and to the system chorus. One complication about DSP effects: The PX-560 can only do two at the same time. One of those is dedicated to the four keyboard play tones and the auto-harmonize function. The other is shared by the auto-accompaniment and 16 tones addressable by the MIDI recorder (aka sequencer). If two or more tones in the up to four you can play yourself on the keyboard call up different DSP effects, which tone will retain its DSP? I believe that Upper 1 gets priority. In the case of the sequencer, I believe channel 1 has priority. Or maybe it is the auto-accompaniment. The Casio literature does not say. Furthermore, if the tone for Upper 1 does not have a DSP effect, which of the other three keyboard play tones will keep its DSP effect? Again, the Casio literature does not say. Maybe someone here has tried it to see.

I don't know where you got 2 and 0 from for MSB and LSB, respectively. As shown on pages 18 and 19 of the PX-5S MIDI Implementation document, the correct numbers are 5Xh and 4h. The "X" ranges from 0 to 5 to address layers 1 to 6. Those are hexadecimal numbers whereas that menu for the Impulse wants to see decimal. So you would enter 80 to 85 instead. On the other hand, 4h is also 4 in decimal. (See the conversion chart on page 81 of the MIDI implementation document.) If I understand you correctly you say you tried the same thing "in" the PX-5S, by which I presume you mean the internal configuration for the PX-5S's own sliders. First, you do not need to set the PX-5S's sliders to do anything if you plan on controlling layer volumes with the sliders on the Impulse. Second, if you want to control layer volumes with the PX-5S's own sliders you don't need to use NRPN. It would probably work if you use the numbers I gave above but Layer Volume is already an explicit choice as a target for sliders and knobs. See page E-34 and E-35 of the PX-5S User's Guide (Tutorial).

Did you put the files in a folder called MUSICDAT? The XW-P1 looks for all its files there.

Have you tried more than four? I have always understood that four simultaneous Hex Layer tones is the limit. For instance see here.

I'm a little perplexed by the question. "Layer vol1, layer vol2" are not "in" cc#120, 121 in the first place. If we are talking about Hex Layer volume levels they are controlled by NRPN, which uses MIDI CC #96 and #97. In no MIDI sound source that I know of do you get to choose which CC numbers control which parameters so the question doesn't make sense to me. BTW, judging by what I see in the Impulse's user manual starting on page 39, NRPN messages can indeed be assigned to its controllers. So, for instance, arranging for six of the knobs or better yet six of the sliders to control the volumes of the individual layers in a Hex Layer tone is possible.

You can always try a favourite trick of mine: Increase attack time and then add another wave with a much shortened decay to replace the original attack. Lots of experimentation is in order and done in Hex Layers, of course. (Actually, this is not my trick. Even Yamaha does it in the Motif for many voices.)

I have that very book on my iPad. So a scan of it is out there somewhere on the Interwebs; you just have to find it. (No, I don't remember where I got it and no, I won't send you a copy, the latter because I'm not sure that wherever I found it was supposed to have it.) PS. But I did find these: http://warningwillrobinson.com.au/manuals/Casio CZ series Sound Data Book.pdf and http://thesnowfields.com/manuals/An Insider's Guide to Casio CZ Synthesizers.pdf. Now, if you go poking around those sites you might find some other useful things. Just sayin'.

I'm actually available. I lost my job to downsizing a couple of months ago. But don't feel sorry for me. I ain't hurtin'. And the upside is, I should have more free time now for stuff like music. Theoretically, anyway. Do you have any idea how long my honey-do list is??? It's insane. (So don't get any ideas about how fast I could finally complete Volume 2 of the XW-P1 Companion. I still can't get much time on that puppy.) Re manuals and such, I suspect the reality is that Casio Japan is calling the shots on that. You can tell by the sometimes odd language in the user's guides. If, for example, Casio US were allowed to do their own English-language versions, I'm sure someone like me would get a shot at it and there would probably be fewer complaints. Don't get me wrong. Casio Japan tries hard but they would do better to give the major regional divisions a little autonomy in this regard.

(I shouldn't be up so late...) When you hit "New Data" what I believe actually happens is that the PX-560 switches to the next available empty user memory slot immediately. Since the slot is empty there is no MIDI data to worry about when you start recording. Everything you record after that will then be stored into that memory slot. I am just guessing but it's possible that all the MIDI data you are recording goes more-or-less directly into the Flash memory while you are recording it, probably from a small RAM (random-access memory) as an intermediate buffer. Or possibly it is stored in a much larger RAM buffer as you are recording and then automatically written from there into the Flash the moment you stop recording. It all depends on how much of the no-doubt limited RAM in the machine the Casio engineers allocated to the MIDI recorder's buffer.

I should elaborate. I was trying to explain why you had grayed out slots, but actually I didn't. The greyed out slots are empty memory slots. The PX-560 will only you show you those that fill the last page you have a saved a song to (i.e, there are 100 user slots but it won't show you all the free ones). Pressing "New Data" on the MIDI recorder screen after hitting the record button will set you up to record a new song, which you already know. If you record that song without entering a name it will show up in the next available memory slot with the name "No Title." You can rename the song after you record it or before you start to record it. If you choose do it before, as is my habit, you must stop the recorder by hitting the play button, which then becomes the stop button, then hit that same button again. Then hit the bar with the song title, then hit the "User Data Edit" button. Hit Rename, then hit the last memory slot, which should be highlighted in red and edit the name. Hit Enter and select Yes. Hit Exit twice and you will be back in the MIDI Recorder screen. Now, it is true that in the above procedure we technically stopped the recording process to change the song name. But since nothing was recorded yet in the slot there is no downside to doing so. You can now record as normal. I was a bit loose with my language when I said you are "supposed" to enter a song name first. You don't have to do it first. But you do have to name a song sometime if you don't want to see a lot of "No Title" songs in the user slots that you can't distinguish between without actually auditioning them. My habit is to name the song first because I might forget to do it immediately afterward. And I find that forcing myself to think up a name helps the creative process.

Lots of good tips but would be much easier to read if you removed the hard carriage returns. I'm guessing you pasted from a text editor like Notepad.

I have had no problems importing MIDI songs into the PX-560. They are saved using the eight character DOS file name as the song name. Re recording a song, you are supposed to give it a name before you hit record. The MIDI recorder will automatically save the song to the next available memory slot as you record it; there is no separate save step. If you didn't give a name when you used the recorder it is possible that many of those grayed out slots are from your previous recording attempts. The balance would be MIDI files you imported but they would have a name as I said above.

Usefulness depends on what you want to accomplish. In the case of the XW-P1 I found its MIDI implementation very useful. However, the PX-560's MIDI support is not nearly as comprehensive. There is even less there than in the PX-5S.

You are a trailblazer, Jokeyman.

Jokeyman123, did you have Port C selected in the mixer? Otherwise, you won't hear what you recorded into the sequencer. That got me the first time I tried to use it.