Rudolph R-N R

I had the PSR 433, same idea, just a few iterations older. It has a wonderful feature in its two knobs, you can adjust, on the fly, two different parameters, like cutoff or reverb, very fun stuff for a budget board! Love them knobs! I recently was in a GC and banged on the PSR 453 a bit and was surprised at how good the keybed was. IMO, the biggest drawback to this board is the quality of sounds, they’ve got a handful of “sweet” sounds, but other than that they’re really lacking.

Allen, i helped a friend buy a keyboard a few years back and was really surprised at how much there was to know. He knew nothing. There’s a basic education about features and specs that takes some time to absorb, and much of it is related specifically to digital keyboards. It’s very similar to computers, it helps to know some basics. Was helping my sister out recently, she’s in the same boat, and like many uneducated buyers, she wanted a piano that was just a piano, she didn’t even know basics like layering with strings, splitting, etc. etc. Then there’s the fun facts about knowing how to get a good deal. My buddy, another newbie, went to GC and paid full retail! It can take years, sometimes painful experiences, to get up to speed. I’ve made some very expensive mistakes with buying gear, buying features i thought i wanted and didn’t know enough to look at user friendliness! The Motif XS7 i bought for around $3,500, fetched $1,400 about 3-4 years later, a painful lesson! I gave up on the board, found it incredibly frustrating to do what i wanted. Randy

AFAIK, there shouldn’t be an issue with using rechargeables. When you run a battery down its voltage goes down, and the device doesn’t work anymore. The thing with rechargeable AA’s is that instead of starting at 1.5 volts (actually around 1.75), the rechargeables start at 1.2 volts (actually around 1.45 volts). So, if it’s not designed for rechargeables it probably works just fine. But I’m speculating, best to get someone who knows. At least you can use AA batteries- the WK 7600 uses D cells! What i wish is that the CT-X5000 would work off of batteries! I realize there’s 30 watts of speakers being driven, but when it ran off of batteries they could have disabled the onboard speakers. I’ve often been in unplugged jams where my amp is battery driven, but the keyboard, mz-x500, needs wall power. Sure would be sweet! Randy

I’’’d say you’re lucky you waited this long before buying the WK7600 and now instead can buy the CTX series. I too looked forward to having a 7600 with my limited budget, bang for buck and all, and after having one for 3-4 years i can without hesitation say that its not worth it. Yes, a good deal in the under $500 price point, but that’s only because the competition also has lackluster boards at that price point. The sounds are anemic, the grand piano was close to the only sound that was half way decent in my book, hardly seemed there were any velocity layers. And the keybed is a joke, my playing instantly became sloppy when playing it (which might partly because i played it so long, it may have been better earlier on; though it’s only been another Casio that i’ve ever experienced a keybed wearing out, another low cost leader, the CDP 100). I don’t know about the keybed, but apparently they’ve done a major upgrade on the sounds with the CTX series. The MZ series is a worthy and substantial upgrade, but of course much more expensive. Randy

@ Mike Martin, Wow, great to see you on this forum and listed as an Admin! I got your excitement during your presentations of these new boards, they really are ground breakers. I freaking love Casio! Was hoping you’d keep an eye on the MZ-X500/300 forum, and answer questions when pertinent to someone in your position. Brad is a fantastic facilitator, he’s capable of answering pretty much any of the technical questions that come up. But he doesn’t work for Casio, AFAIK, and answers to questions like the below needs input from you: ? When are more video and pdf tutorials from Casio going to come out for the MZ? ? Any hope that the various bugs are going to be addressed? (I have no bugs that bother me, this is for others on the forum) ? How about feature upgrades with a new OS? My number one requests are: 1. Use of the sliders for the various volumes: the 4 tones, aux/mic inputs, etc. This would make the time consuming job of balancing volumes a slam dunk, and of course is featured on many competing boards. I use the MZ for its many great sounds, and am often frustrated having to jump around through so many screens to do what could be totally simple, balancing volumes. It literally takes at least 5 times longer without sliders for at least the volumes of the 4 Tones, creating a useable patch involves constantly resetting volumes as you try out new Tones 2. More user friendly way of using and creating Hex Layer Tones: : being able to see on one page 6 layers of: the Wave name/#, its mapping (velocity, key range), and volume, This would enable using a hex layer and not having to fly blind. As it is, unless you have an exceptional memory or use just a few Hex Tones, you don’t really know what is assigned where, flying blind, using Hex Tones as presets instead of something you can, with confidence, use the sliders with : Utility for re-ordering the placement of Tones in the 6 slots. That way favorites can have a consistency to them. This of course is not as important if there was 1 page to see important navigating info as detailed above 3. More Hex Tone Layer sounds. It’s certainly very possible to create great Hex Tones, but drawing on hundreds and hundreds of waveforms to choose from is not a negligible task. Casio came out with quite a few Hex Tones for EDM, and even quite a few waveforms that cater to that sound. How about 100 more Hex Tones created by Casio that are for other types of music, like Rock/Jazz/POP? For example, overall i’m digging the sounds, but I’d love to have a better Rhodes/Wurli, am having to use an ipad to get good representatives of these sounds. - Sample packs from Casio that address some of these kinds of needs, such as Rhodes/Wurlitzer/Bass sounds that can be loaded into sample memory You and Rich seem to be the only reps from Casio i see, so you must be spread very thin. It’s felt lonely on this forum, am hoping that after the big push for the new CTX models that some attention is given to the MZ line!!! Thanks! Randy @ Brad, I realize this is all about the MZ, so it’d seem logical to move this to the MZ part of the forum. But, i’ve already expressed these ideas a few times in the MZ forum, and i specifically put this here cause its the first time i’m seeing Mike Martin on these forums and i’m hoping to get his attention

Question about sharing samples with the group. If i sampled sounds off a Nord Stage, can i post that in downloads so others on this forum can use them? Randy

Silvano, That’s very cool, having sampled the Nord piano into the x300! I’ve got a Nord Stage, so that looks intriguing! I’m considering doing the same with EPs, the onboard Tones and even hex layer tones are not convincing or completely satisfying, though i suspect there’s onboard Waves that could convincingly emulate a good Rhodes in a Hex Layer, but searching through the hundreds of Waves on the x500 to find the right ones would be a very long undertaking! Is the sample in the above video offered for sale, or is that not legal ‘cause its coming from the Nord? Randy

Thanks Rick, anything to make it easier to find info! So when you do a search it simply shows all the results, some of them showing potentially multiples of a same page number. That’s cool, the important thing is having it all show up in one search. But when i tried to add it to iBooks, it didn’t give me that option. I normally just tap the top of the page of a file downloaded in a web page, and iOS gives me the option to open it in iBooks. Compared to scrolling up and down, i find iBooks approach to be faster and more intuitive. Any clues how to do this? Thanks again, Randy

@ Brad, well, i hope you’ll let it stay in this forum, i wrote to the people with the MZ in mind, and most of what i had to say is relevant to the MZ, as well as your response. Feeling frustrated, i had almost finished a post in response to your first one, and i lost it (i saw you had posted, checked it out, and the copied text didn’t take). Oh well, done for the day.

Is that ok now Brad? I thought it would go without saying that it was my opinion. You’’re right, it’s only been out about a year now, for some reason i was thinking it’d been at least a year and a half, maybe 2 years. @ Leonh, personally i don’t think they need to go to another board, i just wish they’d put more resources into finishing this one: - Sliders used for other purposes beyond organ and hex tones - Ipad editor for hex tones, and better onboard editing/use of hex tones - Factory sponsored sample and Tone packages, hopefully free Of course there’s more, but those are the main one i have. Randy

NAMM 2018 is here and no new software updates to the MZ line. In fact, it looks like they’ve got a new chip with higher quality sound that goes into this cheaper line of boards, which apparently range from $174 to $700? CT-X700 to CT-X5000. Only description of CT-X5000 i found The soundcloud demos are impressive: Lowest end models sound examples. Am disappointed that an upgrade to the PX-5s didn’t come out, that seems like a slam dunk given they’ve already done most of the work with the new screen and user interface. That’s probably just a matter of time though, they seem to have sold tons of those boards and it’s established Casio with serious live performing keyboardists that want a decent action and sounds at a low price and weight. Am also dissapointed they don’t seem to be putting any more resources into developing the MZ series as of yet. There have been a lot of good, reasonable ideas put out by forum members, things like being able to use the organ sliders for other functions, and making the hex tones easier to use and edit, etc., etc. My guess is that the mid-level arranger market is hard to crack, there’s tons of competition, even with the MZ being unique and an outstanding value. It’ll probably take them another 5 years of being a value leader in this segment with continual investment before they’d make the kind of break thru that they’ve had with the PX-5s.

A bit strange to ask this on this forum, but seeing as many of you own multiple keyboards I was wondering if you’d share your product knowledge and practical experience with me. Ive been pretty happy with the X500, but if I did upgrade I’d want a board that: : Displays lyrics, at least thru the video out, and hopefully also on the keyboard display. I want to have singalongs (not necessarily just karaoke), so having words for everyone to read simplifies everything. Ive printed out lyric sheets before and that’s not a very practical solution : Displays sheet music: would probably be easier to just use an ipad with a foot controlled pedal to change pages, but i thought I’d at least put it out there. Have any of you done the video out thing for lyrics? Seems like an elegant solution, esp. if i can also see the lyrics on the keyboard display. Also, are lyrics something I’d be able to easily input for a given song? Thanks, Randy

Unfortunately, we’re a rather small user group, and, there seems to be very few that are digging in depth and sharing their experience. In another thread about Sampling, Corey just left a detailed explanation of some ways to approach it and what to look out for.

Corey, thanks for your detailed explanation of creating samples for the MZ-X. Please feel free to elaborate with your process and solutions- very helpful!

Brad, wow, that was some impressive strumming, will give that a shot, thanks!

Brad, tried all the arp patterns, none of them give you a guitar strum. i would think that’s something that would have to be handled by an auto accompaniment pattern, given that its based on chords and not a fixed pattern. Unless there is a way to get the arps to follow your chords.

@ Brad, thanks, i’ll check that out @ AlenK, thanks for sharing those links, you can really customize using those settings! At some point down the road they’ll have sophisticated software like that that you set up initially, and then be able to use it on a board w/o being connected to a computer!

It’d be a job and a haf to make a fake MZ-X. I’m sure counterfeiters aim at lower hanging fruit.

Yes, articulation are great, esp. if you’re able to play them in real time. Is there a guitar strum mode with the X500? I love many of the guitar sounds on this board. I’ve always been envious of the guitars ability to create a full, rich sound with simple strumming, something i’ve never been able to re-create on the keyboard. I suppose auto accompaniment, creating guitar strumming chords from you left hand playing would be one way to do that, but it’d probably be pretty static.

Adimatis, I wonder about theses things too. For example the weighted keybeds are something that they obviously invested in, and have available for all their boards. They’re known/appreciated for being good/decent action keybeds that are the lightest on the market and still respected for their action. That’s a major accomplishment, one that helps no doubt in keeping costs down while maintaining quality. They need to develop a semi-weighted action in a similar vein, one thats at least mid-tier, not noisy, plays easily towards the back of the key, etc., The one on the X500 is problematic, i’d put it as a wanna be mid tier action, with noisy keys, harder to play towards the back of the key, though i do find its not bad for dynamic expression. They obviously invested in the new screen which makes for a fantastic difference, and being spread amoung so many models its sure to bring the price down for them. The improvement in user friendliness and accessibility to complex operations is really fantastic. i cant imagine being a manufacturer of these boards- there’s SO MUCH that goes into making an arranger, for example, i would think you could only do it if you were in it for the long haul. Casio has really outdone themselves with the x500, but their lack of followthru in the last year? makes me wonder if they’re reconsidering their involvement in the mid tier arranger line. I hope not, I bought the x500 in part because of its price/features, and would love to see this line further developed!

As for the quality of sounds- I always spend ridiculous amounts of time finding the patches of any board i have looking for my favorites and then making registrations/ multis that are fully mapped with controllers and whatnot. As examples of my reaction to various boards i’ve had: - was pretty meh about the Yamaha XS7, i was apparently in the vast minority of folks on this one, most people give this board very high marks. Hard to know if i’d have a different assessment these days, being that I’ve had a lot more experience with training my ear since then - the Korg M3, and most Korg boards, esp. the Triton, have this high mid-range eq emphasis that makes the sound seem very thin and hurts my ears. But overall i liked it better than the XS7 - grew to hate the sounds on the WK7600, and that was a major hesitation for buying the X500. Life is too short to waste on sub-par sounds! - the Nord Stage has been by far my favorite board for bread and butter sounds, i like almost all of them - had a psr 3000 arranger and a Korg Pa50 years ago, really enjoyed these boards So that’s my point of reference. I’ve found that it has taken me many years to train my ears. I didn’t know what a good EP sounded like for example, and what my preferences for a good EP were- I’ve never had a real organ, ep, and various other real instruments to compare the many sounds we get from boards, so its been an education to discern the important differences. Piano of course is the most challenging, there’s so many different piano sounds out there, and like any other sound, it takes not only the good sound, but the good sound system. Thankfully i’ve got a QSC k10 / k8.2 to monitor/play thru. Am very pleased to say that for the most part i’m really enjoying the sounds on the X500. I find the piano to be very decent, the honky tonk piano is pleasantly detuned and very useable. I’m pretty so so about the EPs, there needs to be more bark in the low end like i get from my Nord Stage, but otherwise OK, i use the Herbierhodes hex tone a lot. Am still finding my way around the VTW organs. I’m mostly OK with the leslie sim, but i’m pretty basic when it comes to organs, but have used many of them with great satisfaction.. I find the strings to be lush, and some of the woodwinds are sweet! There’s a surprisingly good amount of good sounding guitars on tap, i have rarely used guitars in the past, but many of these are outstanding and they find their way into more and more patches. Have been very pleased with the basses, esp with some compressor applied, some of them really pop without being boomy or too heavy. The hex tones are curious! Casio gave us quite a few samples to choose from that are specifically/only for EDM, and most of the hex tones are developed for EDM. Have really enjoyed the quality fx, everything sounds really good to me So overall i’d give Casio a solid B for sound quality, have really been enjoying playing this board and find i get very good expression from this board, esp. in noisy jams. In quieter jams i find it challenging sometimes to be as nuanced as i like, it often seems like when I’m wanting to cut through that it jumps from soft to loud without intermediate levels between these two extremes. Of course this varies from sound to sound. And the Hex tones seem like a missed opportunity. Great for EDM, but where are the many Hex Tones developed for all the other sounds? And, as i’ve said already, there needs to be a hex tone page where you can see how these tones are mapped, otherwise you’re just playing in the dark, How exactly do you know, unless you have a fabulous memory or only use a few hex tones, that certain tones only play at a certain velocity level, only play for certain key ranges, what wave sample is used for each of the 6 tones, and for that matter, if there’s even a hex tone assigned to a given slot, etc. One page could contain all this info, which would make using hex tones much more powerful and useable. Also, that there was an editing facility so that you could easily swap the position of Hex Tones, so you could establish your own system for organizing the order of the 6 tones. So in my book, the X500 would get an A+ for sounds if Casio: - did a software update that allowed you to see all 6 hex tone mapping parameters on 1 screen, and enabled easy re-ordering of the positions of the 6 hex tones - they came out with an ipad editor for hex tones- that could really help develop the user created hex tones - banks of new hex tones that use ALL the samples onboard, not just for EDM - they came up with samples for the 256MbB that would fill out the onboard samples, esp. EPs - made it possible to use the organ sliders for other things!!!!!!!!!! I’d vote for the first four to go to the volume of the 4 tones, the fifth for Acoompaniment volume and the rest for reverb, delay, chorus and cutoff. That would be amazing- no need for a new board, just another screen or at least an option that switches up the faders for this. - the knob used for changing values was sped up AT LEAST 3 times. When it takes me 5, 6 and even 7 turns of that knob to go from 0-127, it’s just too slow. I’d vote for 2 turns, and of course there’s always the increment/decrement buttons for fine tuning - make the allocation of the two DSPs for the Tones be more user friendly, and easily allow both of them to be assigned to the Tones. As it is i find the DSP to be really powerful, and would love to have two freely available per registration. After messing with them a great deal, I’m still really confused how to do a work around to get both of them going reliably on registrations, there seems to be automatic assignments, and there’s 3 places you’ve got to setup them up. Not user friendly at all, esp. for such a powerful feature. I mean come on, there could be 5 DSPs, 1 for each of the 4 tones, 1 for rhythms, that’d be on a par with other boards in this price range.. But i have to admit i like their quality, and if it was a question of lesser quality, i’d opt for only having the two we have. However, if we’ve only got 2 to work with, make them more easily used for the Tones! I realize i’ve repeated myself on a number of these points in other posts. I do so for a couple of reasons. One, i hope that Casio reads these, and as i explain myself repeatedly i hopefully get better at presenting my case, and that repetition helps for it to sink in. I’m also hoping to elicit some kind of response from members of this forum. I put this stuff out there to y’’all and have heard very few comments on your own ideas, and perhaps i’m just bugging you all until there’s some feedback/ your own ideas for improvements. While a new generation of this board would be cool, there’s plenty that can be done with software updates that’d improve this existing board. And we are after all part of the world wide user base that Casio is likely to be getting feedback from for the next OS update and other updates, like sound banks, samples, etc., I do realize however that possibly most? of you don’t have the same use for this board that i do, and my suggestions for improvement are my own because of how i use the board, which is not so much as an arranger as a board with good speakers, sounds, pads and rhythms in a very portable package! And unlike some of you, who use an assortment of other boards on a regular basis, i pretty much use the X500 exclusively, so i need it to cover all my bases. But i have to admit i’m also being a bit of a nag. Casio hasn’t updated the OS for quite awhile, and i’d love it if they put some more resources into this board- have they abandoned this model? I hope not. I suspect that all their attention has been going to a PX-5s replacement with the new screen, and an even more powerful use of the Hex Tones. In any case, Happy New Year!!! May your keyboarding bring you ever much more joy! Randy

Hey Silvano, i don’t speak portugese, didn’t see any way to download the many rythym examples on the page that has all the soundcloud audio examples. Wonderfully organized! Great to have audio examples!

Thanks Frankie, i’d forgotten about these files!

Chris,, glad to see you back. I didn’t have a problem with you except your constant commenting on my posts, as if i was criticizing the X500. That was it. Sorry if i came on a bit strongly in reaction to that, i had no wish for you to stop frequenting this forum, and you’ve made it clear that you weren’t trying to be a fanboy troll. Cool! Yes, there are surprisingly few people on this forum, don’t understand that, this is a complex board and having forum support is pretty crucial for making headway with learning its many many features, many of which are not covered well if at all by the user manuals. Am curious where you are now in your progress with this board., there’s just so much you can do, and so many different approaches. What are some of the ways you use it? For myself, i’ve taken to re-mapping knob 2 to dramatically increase the reverb and delay so that i can start off relatively dry and then really crank up the effects towards the end of a song as desired. I’ve also mapped the mod wheel to control the volume of rhythms, very cool! As someone who plays a lot of left hand bass, I’ve also been exploring using the compressor on bass sounds- wowee! It makes a HUGE difference, otherwise undefined bass sounds (when you turn them up), really pop now. I’ve also finally started downloading the tones and samples that others have made- just wish there was more of them! Welcome back! Randy

I think you made a choice that you’ll appreciate long into the future. I had a psr e423, same model as the e453, but current about 10 years ago. At least in that earlier model, overall the sounds are not anywhere near on a par with the X500 sounds. The problem with these cheaper boards is there’s so little editing capability of the sounds, and the user interface is kludgey to the point of making most tasks a chore. The pads, Hex Tones, the synthesis engine, the sound quality, the speakers, the user interface, the auto accompaniment features- they’re all a big step up from the ESW-400. “It came with a USB stick that contained additional Tones, Rhythms, etc., installed” Very curious what was on that USB stick. I’ve never heard of there being additional Tones, Rhytms, etc. available. Very interested in this!!!