Frenetos

Many thanks. Very useful!! 😀

You´re right. What in this model is called a DSP is a kind of set that can have up to 4 modules (what they call Effects). Have a look at the manual (page 284) for the whole list. Apart from that, in every tone you can also adjust 21 different knob functions (page 62). These are independent of the DSPs. And then you have also the SYS FX (Chorus, Delay and Reverb) that are global, with a few "presets" each, meaning you can´t tweak parameters here). (Please somebody correct me if I am wrong).

Sure. Many thanks. Really? It seems someone has already claim compensation (let´s hope just economical) for some proposal... 😄. So... Hey there, CASIO reps. Please include the Transport Bar... I shall charge nothing for the idea!!!, ha ha 🎹🎹🎹🎹. You see, I have even prepared a mockup to encourage you and set you off!!! 😃😃😃😃

Many thanks, @Brad Saucier. That gives me a very good idea. Yes, I guess in this case C3PO would say something like "odds are 1 in a million"... ha ha 😀 CT-S600 with new features seems much more probable, for sure. Anyway, fingers crossed 😀. By the way, do you know a more direct way of communicating with CASIO. I mean, a "customer service" email or something so whre I can send them my impressions and my "wish list"? Many thanks once again for your help.

Thanks, @Brad Saucier... Nice way of circumvallating my questions... 😐😄. Having a CT-S500 already, I would pretty much prefer firmware updates than having to buy a new keyboard... So, in case somebody out there has any idea or past experience in this regard, let me insist (quoting myself):

To the administrators ( @Brad Saucier, I suppose??). Can we expect firmware updates on CT-S500 in a (I guess more far than near) future? Does CASIO usually do this or is it something they just don´t consider? (I mean, there could be good reasons for leaving the keyboards as they are, meaning not adding new capabilities, etc. Even so, it would be great to see implemented —why not dreaming?— the features I have expressed above in my "wishing list" 😀). Many thanks.

Oh, and one more important thing. When using the keyboard as a MIDI controller, it would have been nice to have the possibility of using those 5 multifunction magic buttons as a Transport Bar. Maybe including an option in the "MIDI CTRL" menu. They would fit perfectly well for: Play/Pause Stop Rewind/Go to the beginning (long press) Forward/Goto the end (long press) Record/Stop recording Or, at least, that those buttons send some kind of MIDI signal (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) that then could be "rerouted" in a DAW. For instance, In REAPER it is easy to assign any function, including the transport bar ones, to any button (but only if they send some kind of message, of course).

I have been using my new CASIO CT-S500 for a few months now and I would like to share my impressions. Basically, I love it and I am very happy with it. It is great for having fun learning and playing this and that. I like very much the fact than both the keybed and the rubber buttons are absolutely quiet, no noisy at all. Also, the feeling and response of the keybed are quite good. Here some features I would like to see implemented on a future "CT-S600"? 🙂 : Hardware: • Headphones jack on the front-left panel, not in the back. • USB audio interface, so that it is easy to transfer audio to and from the computer. • USB type B connector (or similar) instead of microUSB, which is extremely weak and very very prone to fail. • MIC entry, with the possibility of recording the audio at the same time than the playing (it is so much fun singing while playing!!). Maybe even the possibility of applying a few simple effects to the mic audio (some delay, reverb, compression, etc.) Firmware: • The possibility of renaming the registrations. It´s a real pity one has to keep a notebook beside the piano to know which of the 64 registrations is which. • An easy way of exporting the recorded songs to wav files. This would be great for sharing ideas, etc. Right now the only way of taking the sound out of the device is via R L (or headphones) socket, which implies connecting cables, adjusting software, etc. • Better touch (velocity) curves. I am accustomed to playing a digital piano (ROLAND FP-90) and I find even the HEAVY touch mode quite light. Would be great to include a more detailed way of choosing the touch response. For instance, my digital piano has 100 values from soft to heavy. Also put the heavier level much heavier than currently is. • User arpegios. The possibility of programming (even if it is at a very simple level) and saving user arpegios. • To my taste, intros and endings are far too long and convoluted. Would prefer some simpler ones. • I would increase much more the SYS FX reverb. Even the more intense values (specially CHURCH and CATHEDRAL) are barely noticeable. All that said, once again, I am very happy with the product. Keep the good work 😄. Many thanks!!! 🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹

For REAPER (a fantastic DAW) users, here you have a couple of .reabank files for the CASIO CT-S500. They may also work for the CT-S1000V, but I am not sure about it. These are the files with bank and program information that have to be loaded in the ReaControlMIDI plugin to have easier access to the keyboard soundbank. CASIO CT-S500 (LSB 0). reabank has all the LSB values set to 0. According to the manual, this means "the chorus, delay, and reverb types don´t change to match the tone". CASIO CT-S500 (LSB 64).reabank has all the LSB values set to 64, so, use this one if you want that "the chorus, delay, and reverb types change to match the tone". Enjoy 😀

OK. So, for any REAPER users out there, here you have the .reabank files. I have created one with value for LSB=0 and other other with value for LSB=64 To the admins: Should you think it would be good to upload them also directly in the "CT-S500 and CT-S1000V manuals and documentation" thread, just let me know.

Many thanks @Brad Saucier for your answer. Yes, I have also considered that option. I have been checking the "Instrument definitios" in Cakewalk Reference Guide, and to create a .ins file seems far more difficult and complex. Maybe if I could get hold of one I could learn its structure and tune it. I guess there will be technical reasons for mixing the bank numbers so much, but it would be nice just to have the programs ordered in banks (in this case, an ordered bank for each category would be perfect). I mean, when creating a track, one of the things people tend to spend a lot of time in is just choosing a sound (this is, a tone, a voice, a patch, program, whaever) to see (hear) which one fits better. With VST plugins this is usually easy, many times it is just a question of navigating with the arrows and check each sound (because they are properly grouped and ordered in banks). Now, say I record a MIDI track for piano and want to play it through the CASIO CTS500. Logically, I want to do the same: flick through the different piano patches of the instrument to see which one fits better. But in this case, the process is much more cumbersome: I have to open the manual, check every MSB, LSB and program number for each tone, and manually introduce all this values in my DAW??? Sorry, but I would say it is a real pain in the ass. Only the General MIDI tones show a logical order. Anyway, I have been searching around, and apparently it is common practice to shuffle the programs in many different banks. I just guessed there should be a better way of managing programs in a DAW, but no. For instance, the .reabank for the CASIO CDPS350, although a bit more organized, shows the same problem: many banks, with completely unorganized patches. I´ve seen the same pattern in the .reabank file for other models, for instance, the ROLAND FP90. All that said, I´ll create the .reabank file for the CASIO CT-S500 and upload it in the Reaper forum. In this scenario, you still have to check in the manual the MSB, LSB and program number, but at least you don´t have to introduce the numbers manually, just with a couple of clicks in dropping down lists...

I am aware this is not exactly the best way to ask this (have already posted in the Reaper forum), but just in case anybody can give me a hand. Following @Chas fantastic video (with which I have learned a lot), I´m exploring the MIDI capabilities of the CASIO CTS500 in Reaper. As previously said in this thread, in Reaper we have to use the ReaMIDIControl plugin for changing bank and program. Works perfectly well. You can also load a .reabank file, which is a very simple text file that specifies banks and programs. There are .reabank files for many MIDI keyboards, etc. (even for some CASIO models), so I was thinking about creating a .reabank file for easily using the CTS500 as a soundbank for playing MIDI files. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The structure of this .reabank files goes like this: Bank 121 0 General MIDI 0 Acoustic Grand Piano 1 Bright Acoustic Piano 2 Electric Grand Piano 3 Honky-tonk Piano 4 Electric Piano 1 5 Electric Piano 2 6 Harpsichord 7 Clavinet This is: To specify a bank, you have to write a line following this format: Key word "Bank" - MSB - LSB - bank name. There can be many banks. All subsequent lines until a new "Bank" is found are understood to belong to that bank. Then the program lines are simply: Program - Patch name ------------------------------------------------------------------- The tone list in the manual appears like this (just a sample of the 800 something tones it has): Number - Tone Name - Program Change - MSB - LSB 1 STAGE PIANO 0 1 0 2 CLASSIC GRAND 0 24 0 3 BALLAD PIANO 0 25 0 4 BRIGHT PIANO 1 1 0 5 MELLOW ROCK PIANO 0 26 0 6 MELLOW PIANO 0 2 0 7 DYNAMIC PIANO 1 24 0 8 ADV PIANO PAD 0 28 0 9 GRAND PIANO 0 3 0 10 AMBIENT PIANO 0 39 0 If I get it right, the banks are defined by the MSB and LSB numbers, so, in this case, all programs seem to be completely mixed up in different banks. So, if I want to convert this in to a .reabank file, I understand I should order the info by banks (MSB, then LSB) and, consequently, the programs will be all mixed up: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Bank 1 0 "Bank 1 0" 0 1 STAGE PIANO 1 4 BRIGHT PIANO Bank 2 0 "Bank 2 0" 0 6 MELLOW PIANO Bank 3 0 "Bank 3 0" 0 9 GRAND PIANO Bank 24 0 "Bank 24 0" 0 2 CLASSIC GRAND 1 7 DYNAMIC PIANO Bank 25 0 "Bank 25 0" 0 3 BALLAD PIANO Bank 26 0 "Bank 26 0" 0 5 MELLOW ROCK PIANO Bank 28 0 "Bank 28 0" 0 8 ADV PIANO PAD Bank 39 0 "Bank 39 0" 0 10 AMBIENT PIANO ------------------------------------------------------------------- As you see, if we do this for the 800 something tones, we will end up with a completely messed up list, probably useful for nothing... So, am I missing something here? If I am right, does it even make sense to create a reabank file in this case? Any advice or help with this will be very welcome. I have passed all the tone list info to an Excel file and I would be glad to send it to anyone willing to help. The manual can be downloaded here (the Tone List is at the end, in References): https://support.casio.com/en/manual/...?cid=008023009

Great to see that helped and you finally found the issue!! 😃

@Chas In case it helps with your investigation, you can easily see MIDI events in REAPER. On a track, click on FX to add a plugin, choose "ReaControlMIDI". On that plugin, click on "Show Log". This opens a panel on the right where you can see all the MIDI events. On this topic, after using Cubase and Ableton Live for years, I really very very very much prefer REAPER, so I encourage you to maybe slowly migrating to this fantastic (and extremely alive) program 😀.

Here a little A5 table (ready to print in A4) for writing down the REGISTRATIONS (really hope this is fixed in the future!!!): https://www.dropbox.com/s/fdcc053pcdok5ac/Registrations table (A5).pdf?dl=0 And here the same thing but for creating a smaller notebook in A6: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cq91nou4qtkn6ql/Registrations notebook (A6).pdf?dl=0