waveformer

Looks like they've gone down considerably. It's under $4k now. I've been seeing this xw on ebay for a long time now, and I always shake my head. It is sorta cool, but it's not THAT cool.

Yes, bottom tier is (clockwise from top left) a black Waldorf Blofeld (another recent acquisition), Akai MPX16, Arturia Microbrute SE, and Roland JD-Xi. The JD is extremely intuitive to program and get phenomenal synth sounds out of, and the 4 track (up to 64 step) sequencer is very easy to use, as well; however, the sequencer, with only 4 tracks and each locked to a specific category of sound (Digital 1, Digital 2, Drums, and Analog) can be limiting. You can copy and paste patterns from one program to another and overdub notes to each track as you play, adding complexity or changing sounds for a specific track in a new program, and you can have different "motion" sequences per program, but there's no getting around the limit of only 4 types of sounds within any given sequence. The G1's sequencer, with more tracks, more flexibility in assigning different sounds to each track, multiple patterns per sequence, and 4 controller tracks, seems like it'll be more flexible overall (once I figure out exactly how to operate it ), despite having "only" 16 steps per track. For pure "synth" work, as I said, the JD has the classic, phenomenal Roland sound and is easy to tweak, but I'll have to reserve judgement on how it compares to the G1 until I've really dug into the G1 and started programming my own sounds. That's not gonna happen until I can tear myself away from the Blofeld. Man! That thing is addictive as heck. Wavetable synthesis has been one of my great loves since I had a chance to play around with a PPG Wave 2.2 that was brought into a music shop I used to work at back in the '90s for repair, and the tech and I spent most of a day playing with it, but this is the first actual wavetable synth I've personally owned, so I'm going nuts over it at the moment.

'Tis here! I haven't had a chance to really dig in, but I like what I'm hearing so far, just scrolling through presets. Music room is tiny, so I couldn't get back far enough to capture the whole thing with my craptacular old school phone camera, but you get the idea.

Thanks, guys. Btw, Scott, what part of the state were you in? We've got everything here (except jungle, lol), from wooded mountains to rolling grasslands to sand dunes. People are often surprised that it isn't all desert and tumbleweeds.

I've been going back and forth since joining here between the P1 and G1. I finally decided on the G1, and I ordered one last night. It should be here by Monday. This is just too much awesomeness to keep all to myself, so I had to share the news.

Awesome! Thanks, Scott.

A question just occurred to me (don't know if it's been discussed before): Is the usb midi class compliant, so I could use a Kenton MIDI/USB host?

That's not the slider cap you're looking for... ​

Words of wisdom there. I have the 6200, and I love it, but there are times I wish I'd saved a bit more and bought the 7200. Those drawbars, pattern sequencer, and extra event capacity in the sequencer would be nice to have. I honestly went with the 6200 because I wanted something that would give me some nice acoustic sounds to go along with my synths, and I wanted something on a budget. I didn't expect to fall in love with the 6200, but I did. It's full of very nice sounds, and the keyboard action is quite nice and very easy to play. Had I known I was going to like it so much, I'd have sprung for the 7200. The 6200 is a great board, no doubt, but the 7200 offers some serious extras.

Choppin, that's a pretty darn good clone. Nice! Trivia tidbit: I believe Geddy was using either an OB-Xa or OB-8 to get that sound.

I'm kinda stoked. It's obviously designed for edm, but that doesn't mean it has to be used that way. This could be a wicked little Berlin School box as well.

Lol. Man, that clip brought back memories! Glad your new XW is working out.

Hahaha! I'm picturing The Fonz walking up to the jukebox and giving it a gentle rap of his fist to play his song of choice. Man, we're really a couple of old dudes I guess....

Sorry it turned out this way for you. But I wish you the best of luck with the 7600.

I believe the 245 is limited like the other lower end CTK and WK units to doing some basic editing of auto accompaniment patterns, like choosing the pattern number, turning parts on and off, adding effects, etc. In order to do your own pattern sequencing, you'd need to move up to the 7000 series (7500, 7600, etc.).

Okay. I see what you're saying. I can't really help you with that. I've rarely used sustain pedals on my synths for their intended purpose, and my 6200 is the first keyboard I've owned with actual piano sounds on it, which I've yet to even plug a pedal into. I'd imagine a dedicated digital piano would have some sort of envelope that responds to pedal input to give you that natural acoustic decay (or something like that), but I'm not sure how these lower end, more general purpose keyboards are set up in that regard. Sorry.

The Evolver uses an analog style 16x4 step sequencer. You can, say, have the first "row" triggering pitch per step, then another row can be used to change the waveform per step. What this can do is not only give you a typical step sequence where each step is a different pitch, but it also means that each step can also be a totally different waveform. Of course, you can also use the remaining two rows to trigger things like FX amount, envelopes, etc. This obviously leads to some really complex and unique sounding sequences. I look forward to part 2.

By "selecting tones to notes" do you mean like the DSI Evolver where you can have a different tone/sample play on each step of a single sequence?

I'm not sure what you mean by a sustain of all notes, but different keyboards require different types of sustain pedals. The switches inside most pedals are fixed at either "normally open" or "normally closed." If the switch in the pedal doesn't match how the keyboard is set up, the pedal will usually sustain notes when it's not pressed and stop sustaining when it IS pressed, the opposite of what is wanted (in most cases). Some pedals can be changed by switching the wires, while others can't. I used to use a pedal with my Wavestation that I switched the wires on so it would (without having to be pressed) sustain my wave sequences while I played other stuff on my ESQ-1. I think it might have been a Yamaha pedal of some sort, but I'm not sure. That was a loooong time ago. The SP-2 has a switch on the bottom that allows it to be configured either way, so it can be used with basically any keyboard in either config. you want (either sustain while not pressed or sustain only while pressed).

That was pretty cool!

When using the sequencer on the CTK's (6200 in my case), one limiting factor is the global nature of the DSP effects. Let's say you want to have a DSP delay on 3 tracks. When you turn the DSP on in each of those tracks, they become locked together in terms of panning and volume by the DSP (i.e., once DSP is enabled, all tracks so enabled are equally effected when you try to change the pan or volume of any one of them). Panning isn't a big deal to me, but I wanted to adjust the volume of different tracks relative to one another while still using the same DSP on them. What I've been doing thus far is adjusting the volumes of the different tracks without DSP to hear which need to be attenuated and by how much. Then I adjust the volume of each tone used in these tracks in the tone edit screen and save the sounds to user locations. Now, when I assign these "user" tones to the various tracks, they are the volume I want them at and I can go ahead and use them with the DSP effect of my choice. I'm just wondering if anyone's found another way to do this, or whether I'm missing something in how the sequencer works that would make this easier.

I'd also say this is a flaw unique to your unit. My CTK-6200 doesn't do this, either. I'm sorry this is happening to you. I've picked up a few bad instruments second hand in my time, and it really sucks. Hopefully, it'll turn out to be something easy to fix, like a bad pb wheel. I hope you'll let us know how it turns out if you decide to get it fixed (or try to fix it yourself).

I've just been playing around with that on my 6200. I picked up a used Tascam DR-07 from Guitar Center recently, so I just record the Casio's outs into it in MP3 format. Works like a charm.

You know, Scott, when I first saw your reply I thought it was sort of odd, given that the XW's are totally different animals from the CTK/WK units. I wondered why you didn't suggest a WK-7600, for example. After thinking about it, though, an XW might be a great way to go. The WK-7600, while allowing custom beats via pattern sequencing, would duplicate so much else of what the 6200 does that it might be a questionable value for someone who already owns a 6200, being essentially the same price as an XW. An XW, however, would not only give nearly endless custom rhythm options, but would also give you access to a fantastic and highly programmable synthesizer (and sampler in the case of the G1).