Joe Muscara

I'm 100% Mac and have had no trouble doing things like firmware updates, all files, Stage Settings, etc., on my PX-5S. Read this thread. It might help for loading files. They'll have extensions like .ZPF and .ZLT. All files are .ZAL. I posted how to install an All file here. To update the firmware, put the update.bin file at the top level of the USB drive. Turn off your PX-5S and turn it back on. It should automatically install the update. That's a lot of stuff. Take it one step at a time. I'd start with updating the firmware. Let's get you set up with that and go from there.

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Musical New Year to you guys!

Congratulations and welcome! Jokeyman is right. There are a lot of people who will tell you that you have to do this or you have to do that in order to play piano, but there is only one thing you really have to do - have fun! I think all the rest are shoulds, not haves. I mean, when people learn to play guitar, almost no one says, "you should learn proper classical technique, learn all fingerings for all scales, sight reading, blah blah blah…" In fact, I know a lot of guitar players who cannot tell you what they're playing. They just grab a known chord shape on the neck, move it around, and then play another one that sounds good with it. You can play a lot of great songs (or write your own) by just knowing a few chords. Then, if you decide you want to take it further, you always can.

The interface is simple once you know one basic thing. To navigate through the sounds, use the Stage Setting buttons on the right. Ignore the tone buttons to the left for now. You can adjust parameters of the Stage Settings with the knobs and sliders on the far left, and for most Stage Settings, they adjust the same things. Also, in each Bank, slot 0 is acoustic piano, 1 is a tine electric piano, 2 is a reed electric piano, 5 is an organ, and I don't recall the rest at the moment. IOW, 0-0 is an acoustic piano, as is 1-0, 2-0, etc. Hold down the Bank button and press one of the ten SS buttons to jump to that numbered bank. Does that help?

USB does not carry sound/audio, just MIDI data. If you want to record the sound of your Casio, you'll need an interface to connect audio out from the Casio to the MacBook. There are many options available. Depending on your MacBook, you might be able to use a cord from an electronics store to run from audio out on the Casio to an audio in on the MacBook if it has it. With the USB connection you can control all those cool sounds in GarageBand, though. OTOH, if I've interpreted your post incorrectly and you do have an interface that connects audio out to USB on the MacBook, let us know what model you have. Most of them are plug and play.

http://www.casio.com/products/Digital_Pianos_%26_Keyboards/Privia_Digital_Pianos/PX-750BK/content/Technical_Specs/ According to this page, the PX-750 as USB MIDI. Therefore, you can easily use a USB cable (printer type with the square connector on one end and flat connector on the other) to connect the 750 to your Mac, and thus control GarageBand. You don't need (5-pin DIN) MIDI jacks on the keyboard at all. Those are useful to control other MIDI devices such as other keyboards or rack modules. The 750 has what it takes to get notes into GB and play the software instruments included. In order to get guitars and vocals in, you will need another device. You could use the iMac's built-in mic, but that is far from the best way to capture the sounds. That's a whole 'nother discussion but we can have it if you describe what you want to do (record acoustic guitars or electric, use your own amps or the amp sims in GB, etc.). I'm looking forward to hearing what you do.

Actually it is now part of the MIDI spec. They chose it because it was technically unused, but some older instruments used it for something else, causing some issues with those. For instance, my Nord Electro uses that number to change C/V setting. That was really weird to have that jump around when I was using the PX-5S to control it. OTOH, Pianoteq responds to it as hi-res velocity. http://www.midi.org/techspecs/ca31.pdf

Well, what I meant was that keyboards that have MIDI usually also have MIDI internally. I wasn't even considering keyboards that don't have MIDI externally.

If you're going to use MIDI anyway, you could worry about cannibalizing a synth later. Most keyboards already use MIDI internally to communicate between the keyboard and the sound generator, so once your synth is ready, you should be able to adapt. Under development, you can focus on your synth by controlling it with another MIDI keyboard such as your XW-G1.

Or, your partner can be into her own instruments. But then you have to decide who gets the toy each time you have the money.

Anyway, I didn't find this model on the Costco site just now. I'm guessing Scott is right. In fact, I don't think Casio generally does that. I think when they have significant differences, the model numbers are clearly different. Little changes on the end like that are usually things like different colors or something. I could be wrong as I don't know the history of all Casio models.

I have the Burn but I still haven't used it much yet. I like the idea of presets even though I tend to be a tweaker and I don't look for presets to do cover songs or anything. I like that the Burn has much more than just the Leslie sim. It has some amp models and some effects, too as Scott mentioned. It's also upgradable to whatever degree Guido S. has allowed. I don't know if the Vents are. OTOH, I do like the small size and design of the Mini Vent a lot. Set it and forget it.

I have one of those too! I try to keep it simple and not shoot over people's heads when replying though, as I never know if they can figure out what I'm talking about. I must be getting good at it. (Not that your posts have been techy nor over people's heads.)

Hmmm. I don't see that we have a forum specifically for the CDP series. Hopefully where I move this will be okay. If not, we can move it again.

You went more high tech than I was thinking! Thanks for the info. It's a useful reference for others in the future. Did you set them to 30 and 69? How does it sound?

A good wife is a good "thing" to have! * I don't mean she's a thing, it's just an expression for those of you who get touchy.

Since it's a group of keys, my guess is that something like a ribbon connector got disconnected. If you're handy you could check this out yourself. If you're not comfortable doing that, a service center is your best bet.

[Pedantic rant] RPM stands for Rotations or Revolutions Per Minute, so you don't need to have an "s" in the abbreviation as it's already accounted for. It's just RPM. In other words, saying or writing "RPMs" would be like saying "MPHs" or "KPHs" [/Pedantic rant] Sorry, that is one of the things that bugs the engineer in me. To add to this discussion, I wonder if it would be worth the time for someone to count the apparent cycles of the rotary effect. You could listen while it's on slow and see how many peaks you hear per minute, and also try to do that for the fast speed though that might be difficult. Personally, if I really care about the accuracy of the rotary effect that much, I'm just going to use my GSi Burn.

Hmmm. Maybe I can because I'm a mod? I don't know. Tell me which post and I'll mark it for you.

Yeah, you almost have to have a FB account now. Unfortunately, you kinda need to have all types of social media accounts to promote yourself engage with your fans.

Do you not see the button on the lower right that says "Mark Solved"? If you do, check the post that best answers your original question. When you do that, people who check your thread will see your original post and the answer you checked first at the top, and then can read the discussion if they choose.

Personally, I like this better. That's because it's more organized and easier to see topics. However, I don't visit here as much as FB. That gets me (and probably a lot of other people) to visit the PX-5S group more often than here. That group is much more active than this forum. I wish that FB groups were set up a bit more like a forum. The new FB Groups app might help with that. I've been using it and it's a little nicer than using FB directly for groups. If you're concerned about privacy or have other issues like that with FB, you can set up your FB account just about any way you want. They only ask that you use your real name. If you don't want to make any connections or friends, you can turn off the ability to let people send you friend requests, and you don't have to accept any. You don't have to share your personal info, either. Nor do you even have to visit the News Feed. You can just bookmark the group and go directly there. The one thing I will say is that if you do sign up, you'll probably want to tell me, Scott, Brad, or Anne that you're pax-eterna on CMF so we know to approve your membership in the group and not a spammer.

If you're still having trouble with the advice above, try a set a headphones in the HEADPHONE jack.

Yes, grab one of the two ALL files at this link, depending how you want your banks set up (the page describes the regular order vs. the alternate order available). Or grab both and see which one suits you. Then tweak as smithh describes. http://www.casiomusicforums.com/index.php?/topic/6324-px-5s-updated-all-file/ Personally, I think these Stage Settings show off the PX-5S very well. Yes the PX-5S has a lot of potential under the hood, a prospective buyer has to hear and/or see that potential. Some people can only hear what they let themselves. Others will realize how much they can do.

It's marginally bigger than the PX-5S itself, and it's the same gig bag all 88-key Casios use. I could go measure mine, but frankly that would probably be useless unless I put the PX-5S in it. According to this page, it has 14 mm of padding. So add a little more than 1 inch to each dimension, realizing it's compressible. http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PriviaCase