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Here's the download link for the HT-6000 Service Manual & Parts List:
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@horniger - Hey Rainer, sorry for not responding sooner. It's been a busy past few days here. Also, thanks for the compliment about my YouTube channel! I'm glad you enjoy it 🙂 I'll answer your questions as best I can: 1. "The Hitachi HD44140 - you called it DSI - was found on some Casio keyboards (you're right - not on the MT-65 - my fault) You call the sound synthesis "mixed multipart squarewaves" But in my understanding, this isn't a real digital sound generation. With Synthesis and DAC afterwards? On the Hitachi chip, the waves are being mixed and then amplified externally with some filtering? Or am I wrong?" First thing I need to point out, was that for some reason I was writing "DSI" when I actually meant "LSI". I must have been thinking of "DSP" and getting it mixed up, whereas I meant LSI as in "Large Scale Integration". LSI is the type of CPU/ processing chip(s) that are used in many Casios. I also know very little about the Hitachi HD44140, and to my knowledge, the MT-46 might be the only model that uses this LSI. For the early Casios/ Casiotones using "Vowel Consonant"/ "Consonant Vowel" synthesis, I would have been quoting from the excellent @CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler website (link below), where Cyberyogi has carried out extensive research into many of the classic and vintage Casio models. Check the link below for details on the very first Casio keyboard, the 1980 201 model, where you'll see in the text: "All sounds are based on 2 mixed multipulse squarewaves with independent digital envelopes those are sent through different capacitor filters. The resulting timbres remind to C64 or historical videogame musics. Casio called this system Consonant Vowel synthesis.": http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/Casiotone_201.html Further details of this sound generation can be found here: http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/Casio_CT-410V.html#ConsonantVowel 2. "It's pretty much the same tone gernation like on most of the CASIO PTs und VLs...?" I'm not entirely sure, but I *think* the VLs and the PTs use a much more simplified version of Vowel Consonant. The description of the synthesis that I stated in my video was taken and quoted from within this link: http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/Casio_VL-1_PT-1.html And if you watch my Casio VL-1 video, "The Little Synth That Could", you'll very clearly see on the oscilloscope displays the crude/ steppy digital envelopes acting on the sounds in real time. 3. "You wrote that the VL-1 usses a digital synthesis known as "Walsh Function". Is there more information about this (maybe I should finish watching your great videos before). I thought that the Consonant Vowel synthesis also uses some of the "Walsh Function" stuff..." It turns out that isn't correct. Again, if you read the email from Robin Whittle (quoted in the link above for Consonant Vowel), there was some suspicion that some of the early Casios used Walsh function. This led many people to believe, myself included, that those early VL and PT Casios (and also including their musical calculators and watches). Apparently they did not! And yes, I should go and amend the description in my video... Regarding Vowel Consonant synthesis, this is a good description from a Reddit discussion group: "Casio actually called it consonant-vowel synthesis, not vowel-consonant. It does use switchable lowpass filters but they're just fixed first order filters, not even as sophisticated as the tone filters in analog organs or whatever, and it generally sounds better to just bypass them entirely. Basically it just stores two low resolution waveforms (16 steps each) and plays them together with independent amplitude envelopes. Typically one of the waveforms is used as the attack portion and the other is used as the sustain, so you can get a transient effect that's more interesting than just a single waveform. Each of the waveforms can optionally be modified to make a longer waveform up to 64 steps, with correspondingly lower pitch. This can be done independently for each waveform, so it's possible to have a sound that starts at a high octave (16 steps) and drops to a low octave (32 steps). Overall they have a very interesting sound that can't be accurately reproduced by anything else. I think the consonant-vowel name simply refers to the fact that the sounds can have an attack transient with a different timbre, which is sort of roughly analogous to different phonetic sounds. Casio used the technology from about 1980 to 1987, but I think only the Casiotone 201 was marketed this way." (Link to the discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/6p13pk/vowelconsonant_synthesis/ ) Casio also filed a Patent in June 1981 that looks to be describing Vowel Consonant synthesis. You can get a lot of information from there: https://patents.justia.com/patent/4419919?fbclid=IwY2xjawGaWTlleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHdodTc9g5GiYLmaVnSM6UzZP-jmOb-9YBOsJO5joh2Op1Cat5l0lMdo8Gw_aem_-QpSoHOkqQYp6kxEnjWfcQ 4. "Thanks about your information on the CASIO HT Series. I was wondering why the NEC D935G just offers 32 different waveforms in the HT-700 / HT-3000 but 64 different waveforms in the HT-6000 - do you have an idea?" The HT6000 was the flagship model (and the most expensive), therefore it got more features. Much the same practice that Casio did with other model series i.e. the CZ Phase Distortion synths. The HT6000 was also the only Spectrum Dynamics Casio with Ring Modulation. In the second bank of 32 waveforms unique to the HT6000, 0 - 15 contain noise (I'm assuming a white noise type of effect), and waveforms 16 to 31 have ring modulation. "And I'm quite not sure, how the different sections (upper, lower...) were realized." You could split the keyboard (upper/ lower), and assign totally different tones to each split. Unfortunately, I have no access to the service manual for one of these..." I have a copy. I will upload it to the Forum files section once I've finished this response. 5. "But I found the service manual for the Casiotone CT-6000, which also interested me always. Three NEC D932G "Music LSI" with 17-Bit discrete DACs...! Without accompaniment all three re used for melody, with just two of them and one for the accompaniment. Was this still Consonant Vowel synthesis?" The CT6000 is basically a supercharged Vowel Consonant Casiotone. It layers the LSI's to act like a multi-oscillator synth and allows you to mix different tones together. That's why it sounds so thick and lush compared with all other Vowel Consonant Casios. "And what about the CT-6500?" The CT6500 is a pre-set version home keyboard version of the Phase Distortion Casios. It is possible, however, to program new tones into some of its locations by using a computer editor. It also highlights Casio's sometimes confusing model numbering. The CT6000 was a triple LSI Consonant Vowel Casiotone, the CT6500 used the totally different Phase Distortion synthesis from the CZ synths, and the CT7000 used a single LSI Vowel Consonant technology as found in most of the common home Casios of the time (though with a digital sequencer and also programmable digital panning and effects). Even though the model number would make you think that the lower number would be inferior and the higher number more powerful, they are in effect three totally different models with one (the 6500) using a completely different form of synthesis. Meanwhile with Yamaha's DX series, it was very clear that the DX-1 was the biggest/ most powerful/ flagship, and then all the models numbered after it were sequentially less powerful i.e. DX-1>DX-5>DX-7>DX-9 etc. Hopefully this answers your questions, and hopefully one day there will be a comprehensive database of all the Casio LSI's used and the models they can be found in. Along with a comprehensive list of all the different sound synthesis methods they used and how those work. I'm slowly compiling such information, as are others, though there are many, many gaps as Casio have been rather secretive and vague with regards to specific details of their many different sound sources.
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I've uploaded a copy of the Service Manual & Parts List to the Files section of the Forum. You can download it via the link below:
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The Casiotone 201/ 202 models use Vowel Consonant synthesis. This was also used in many early Casio/ Casiotone models. It uses some primitive waveforms and preset filters to generate the sounds. The Casios closest to FM synthesis are the Phase Distortion CZ models (and later VZ). These were very different beasts to the home keyboard Vowel Consonant Casios. The model that had a Hitachi DSI fitted was the MT46 IIRC. The MT65/ 68 and CT405 all used the same NEC DSI and to my knowledge never came with a Hitachi DSI. Yes, the Spectrum Dynamics HT series apparently uses an updated form of Vowel Consonant synthesis. The HT6000 is the only model with four DSIs fitted compared with all other HT/ HZ models that had just one. As you mentioned, the 6000 has four "lines" (Casio speak for "oscillators"), whereas all other models had a single "line"/ oscillator. The 6000 also had 8 filter chips making it fully polyphonic. The other models had just one main voice filter chip making them paraphonic. A while back I put together a video where I attempted to identify all the "Frog" sound models (as made famous in Michael Jackson's Thriller song). In that video I identified all the different DSIs used in the early Casio keyboards and I also showed the families of Casio keyboards they could be found in. That should help answer a lot of your questions 🙂
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There is a thread in th forum where many discussed the wide number and different types of sound synthesis used in Casio/ Casiotone models. A lot of good information in there: Is
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Page EN-21 of the LK-S450 User Guide explains how to switch on/ off the key lighting option. It mentions that when switched on, this "causes keys to light in accordance with the notes of your performance, built-in song playback etc." Performance I would understand to mean you playing the keys, be it free form or following a lesson. Check out @0:38 in the video below. It shows the lighting keys features in operation so that the keys will light up purely by pressing a key.
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Also, try putting a blank SD card into your Casio, then save something from the Casio directly to it. The WK should create the Musicdat folder automatically. Then try copying/ transferring the files from your laptop to this Casio created folder and see if that works.
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IIRC, the Musicdat folder must be in the card's root directory otherwise it won't be seen by the Casio. Is your Musicdat folder in the root directory?
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Put the SD card into your laptop (or use a USB SD card reader if your laptop hasn't got an SD card slot). Open up the SD card in file explorer, then copy/ paste (drag/ drop) the file from your laptop to the SD card.
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A Ventilator or equivalent Leslie speaker simulation pedal/ effect will do the trick.
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In perform mode ,controllers acronym?
Chas replied to De Lorenzi Antonio's topic in General XW Series Discussion
These are all used when sending and receiving MIDI messages. MIDI CC (Control Change) only has a range of 0 - 127, whereas NRPN (Non Registered Parameter Number) has a greater range because it uses two values instead of one - MSB & LSB. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRPN