Choppin

Thanks Mike, I think I misspoke on that point! Neat stuff!

To start off, I think it's a great digital piano keyboard. The weighted keys, the texture of the keys, and the weight of the keyboard all plus plus plus. The cost relative to what you get is great. * The piano and electric piano sounds are very good. * The sliders and knobs for live control are really neat. Takes a little getting used to but it is a huge plus and lots of fun. * The direct recording to the USB drive - fantastic! It's such a simple idea but so useful. * Conceptually, the phrases seem awesome. I haven't delved into them deeply so I'm only going on some observation and light experimentation, what I've read, and what others have said. Programing the phrase on the keyboard is so-so. The real power that I've tested, is in using midi files and converting them through the editor. You can program drum tracks for example, or a series of midi controls over time that just change the settings on the keyboard as you play along in real time. * The stage setting concept is quite interesting. It's not only a change in patch, but a whole series of keyboard settings. It makes live performance quite manageable On the other side of the coin: * The synth sounds and controls don't seem robust. A lot of the instrument samples and generated tones are thin, and seem to be on the middle to lower quality side. The PX-5s is definitely a stage piano first before being a synth. [EDIT] (the thin sounds I'm speaking of are more about the General Midi sounds that by themselves aren't very impressive. Add the layering and effects through stage settings and they become more formidable) [/EDIT] * The organ sounds could use improvement. * As I play with the px-5s more, I find some of the physical aspects a bit wanting: the speed at which the keys come up after being pressed is very slow. There are some "work withs" not work arounds per se, that help - the hammer timing and the touch setting - but don't really correct the situation. * The pitch bend wheel is also very slow when returning to center. There's just a little drag on it that makes it hard to do quick bends. Overall, it's a very impressive piece of equipment. I get the feel of it being "first generation" of it's type and there's going to be even more great things to come with the next units in the series. I hope to see some changes in the firmware for the PX-5s that correct some of the issues that have been mentioned in various places in the forums. But in the end, this is a well thought out keyboard. The main things I would want to see improvements on would be the action (control speed and resistance), and the bend wheel speed.

1. Save stage setting 9-2 to USB: a. hold MEDIA button > Save > Stage Setting > dial in 9-2 > [Enter] > [Yes] 2. Press [Organ] Tone bank. Current zone is zone 1. Z1 on 3. Write > Stage Setting > 9-2 > [Enter] > [Yes] Organ has replaced electric piano sound in zone 1. Plays fine. Change banks and stage settings and come back to 9-2 and it still plays. 4. Power off 5. pause............. 6. Power on 7. Switch banks and patches, 9-2 still has organ on zone 1. Now to load the old stage setting back. 8. Hold Media > Load > Stage Setting > [Enter] > [9-2] > [Yes] Play the keyboard, it plays the loaded Stage setting - so far so good... 9. Power off 10. pause........................ 11. Power on 12. Select 9-2 - the organ's back and the loaded stage setting is gone. It seems that if a stage setting is "Written" to memory using the Write button, loading in a new stage setting to that same spot will cause the new setting to be lost on power off thus retaining whatever had been previously written to memory. So deleting the spot in the editor makes sense as the memory seems to be "unlocked" in that case allowing the writing and retention of a stage setting. I loaded a stage setting into a completely different spot that hadn't had anything written to memory and it retained the loaded stage setting after power off. Well, I am able to repeat that cooky behavior. Can someone else give it a try using the same steps? As a note, I tried Knuckles suggestion but afterwards, if I follow steps 1-12 again, the sound doesn't retain after power off.

Hi Knuckles, I haven't been sharp with all of my testing. I'll have to do it by the numbers to be sure I'm recreating the same conditions each time. So, you only had to do that once, and now you can save things to any slot empty or not? Or do you have to do it every time you want to save a stage setting? Thank you

Hi Knuckles, I haven't tried recreating the same type of scenario with clearing out the stage setting through the editor right after having written a different tone to memory - so I have not verified that that is a solution. I did clear out a stage setting and copy a saved setting into the empty slot - it seemed to work but under the premise of the first statement which is to say I never saved a different tone to the stage setting and committed it to memory before trying the clear and replace method. I tried the loading from the USB drive scenario a few times with various stage settings and the result was the same when turning off the power. Sometime this weekend, I'll make sure I go through a very specific test and post the steps and the results. In any case, as I see the situation, if it is an intentional feature, where you load a stage setting and it is only temporarily in memory, then there should be a simple way to commit it to memory on load - either in the load dialog or hitting the Write button after the stage setting has loaded. Otherwise, I see it as an error with the firmware. In a live situation and based on what seems to be the design intentions of the PX-5S, I don't think using a computer with the Editor to delete stage settings and reload them is a clean solution. The Editor really isn't a stage tool, but a setup utility. One should be able to simply load stage settings from a USB drive and expect that they will be available after a reboot of the board. Loading a stage setting into a slot - occupied or not - and confirming that you wish to do that, should be enough to expect that the current stage setting is being overwritten with the new data, and that new data is available on reboot. Since there are at least 3 occurances noted in this thread (Knuckles, jaspeter, and myself), and each user has updated to v1.11, then either we all did something wrong when installing the update, or there is a glitch in the loading of the stage settings or the Save All (or perhaps other data that we haven't gotten around to loading yet). To ALL: Is it advisable to reinstall the v1.11 firmware?

Hi Blood-Pudding, While I'm new to all this, An idea came to mind regarding the volume control. Not sure if I understand phrases but I think this might work: Phrases can store slider and knob information. So if you can trigger a phrase that has only the specifc volumes/eqs they should be able to be set instantly without having to touch the sliders. It's all theory to me right now, but it seems like a possibility. Figure out a way to trigger the phrase and I imagine it would work. To further elaborate, you can store up to 8k of information in a phrase. Let's say you could create a phrase of midi events that's as long as a particular song or verse. You could program in all of the volume changes you need. As long as your playing is synced with the timing of the phrase, your volume changes would "key in" automatically at the desired parts without you having to manipulate the knobs or sliders. Of course, the timing would be the thing to manage. The phrases may only be triggered through a Stage Setting, so to have the midi events run independently, I think you could store the phrase(s) as a song and play the song along with whatever you are performing. Another option is to have mirrored stage settings that have the volumes set to the different levels you desire. Then simply switch from one to the next with the same set of sounds but different EQs.

Never played a Px-3 but on the Px-5s, the "key up" time it takes to allow a second strike to sound the same note still seems a bit too slow for me. However, a couple of adjustments (as suggested above) have helped improve things. On the stage setting itself, following Mike Martin's advice, I changed the Hammer Response to 0. I tried it at different levels to see how pronounced the effect was and I find a significant difference between the highest setting and the lowest. On the ConcertGrand, the default is 2. 0 is better for me. * Under Sys Setting> General > Touch I've set that to Light. Even though I'm a fairly heavy player, this definitely improves things. When it comes to trills or repeatedly sounding the same note in fast succession, this seems to help get the sound out.

From the manual, the ! symbol means that there has been a change that hasn't been committed to memory. The * means the change has been registered. It's a little confusing on that point because many of the tones within the stage setting have the ! next to them. I don't imagine that means they are all unsaved data... I have a * for the stage setting name and a ! for the tone . The procedure I used was: 1. Saved 3-1 as a stage setting using the front panel to the USB drive 2. Changed the tone under 3-1 using the Piano tone group and the +- to make it 00 3. Used Write to commit the changes to 3-1 4. Played the keyboard with the new tone - working fine. 5. Loaded the saved stage setting from the USB drive using the front panel into 3-1 6. The name has the * , the tone name has the ! 7. Play the keyboard and the proper sound that was loaded plays. 7a Switch to different stage settings in different banks 7b Come back to 3-1 8. Play the keyboard - the correct sound is playing 9. Turn keyboard off 10. Turn keyboard on 11. Enter 3-1 Stage setting 12. Plays the sound that was written to memory before the load - the loaded stage setting tone is no longer there

Hello, I've been searching through this forum but didn't see this issue directly talked about. It may not be an issue - it may be me doing something wrong. My firmware version is v1.11 . I've saved stage setting 3-1 in it's default state (Modern EP) onto the USB drive. I then changed the tone on 3-1 to GrPnoConcert [00] I write the stage setting to 3-1 with the grand piano sound. I load the original stage setting back into the Px-5s at 3-1 from the USB drive. Playing on the keyboard, the electric piano tone has replaced the grand piano. I switch banks and stage settings and come back to 3-1 and it still is playing the electric piano sound as expected after having loaded the stage setting back in. Everything seems to be working fine. I power off the keyboard. I turn it back on. Select stage setting 3-1 and it is no longer playing the electric piano sound, it is playing the grand piano sound. My assumptions were that loading in a stage setting would replace the settings of the stage setting at the particular bank and slot. It doesn't seem to keep the tone once the device is powered off. Am I missing a step in loading the stage setting somewhere? Why would it work initially and allow me to jump to other patches and come back, but when I turn the power off, it reverts to the last tone I wrote to that stage setting spot? Thank you

Thank you, both! Mike Martin, I saw that parameter and wondered what it was. I guess higher values mean a longer swing so more of a pause between the key press and the string sound? I'll play around with it and see what happens. And just to add, Mike, your videos and fantastic support including the online clinics are what ultimately led to my decision to purchase the Px-5s. The level of support available is really incredible.

Hello, As I've been playing the Px-5s, I'm having a little trouble with the action response. What I mean is, the keys don't seem to come back up fast enough. Things like trills, or flams on a drum kit are very hard to reproduce. Is there a way to adjust the action, or maybe the physical position of a key when it is considered released? Thank you

Hello, I'm new to the forums. I got my Px-5s about 2 weeks ago now. Very impressive. So much to do with it, it's hard to focus! I upgraded the firmware to v1.11 . Is there a list of the changes/fixes that v1.11 addresses? Thank you