rsaintjohn

I saw this one earlier today with Rich presenting the CGP-700

This new CGP-700 sounds a lot like XW-Addict's reference to Technics: "The CGP-700 also incorporates a unique 3-way sound system with 40 watts of total amplification. Four speakers are located in the top of the CGP-700 which provides a rich stereo experience, and two additional speakers are located in the included stand, to provide the low frequencies to handle instruments like bass and drums with ease." http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/casio-hits-all-the-right-notes-with-launch-of-new-compact-grand-piano-300110214.html

Yeah, I guess the XW line already got its love with the PD1 and DJ1. Though that new PX-560 looks powerful.

Keep an eye out on eBay for some older third party cartridges called "EZ-CZ". They have 4 banks for 64 voices, and usually sell for less per MB than the official RA cartridges. Also worth considering if you have an iPad: the CZ Touch app, which lets you build, store, retrieve and send patches between the iPad and most of the CZ keyboards.

Got an HT-3000 for $50 last week, and it's beautiful! Near mint condition, manuals, cover and stand. AND the Casio RA-100 RAM card!!! Unbelievable deal and great sounds. I'm definitely going to pick up some more from the SD series. Thought I'd want the 700 since I love the little ones, but I think I'm going to have to go straight to the HT-6000.

Jealous! Though I just don't have room for anymore big Casios at the moment. Been trying to track down an HT-700, but not having any luck. Although I'm not too thrilled with the stock preset tones, it meets in many ways my definition of the perfect Casio keyboard synth from the time period.

"Back in my day, our Casios had 32 mini keys, and we LIKED it like that!" Actually, I still play many old Casios with only 49 mini keys. Then again, I still play with Casio Chord mode occasionally.

If correctly I understand your question and what you're trying to do, then I can tell you the issue is GarageBand. GarageBand does not support MIDI out. Apple reserves that for Logic Pro. If you're up to learning something new, you may want to look into trying another DAW that can do it. Right now I'm doing this with Reaper in a 60 day free trial, and I may try Ableton as well. Once I've given them a whirl, I'll decide if I'm going to stick with one of them, or upgrade to Logic. I'm pretty fond of the GarageBand interface and features, so I suspect I'd like Logic. But it's $200 versus Reapers $60 discounted license, and the difference can buy some additional powerful applications and plug-ins.

I did download the currently Casio-hosted file last night onto a Windows XP notebook to verify when the Data Access light blinks. There's nothing wrong with the Casio software, it's just old.

I just want to point out that with my CTK-900 and M-Audio UNO MIDI adapter, I have never had to install any drivers for either Windows XP, Windows 7 or Windows 8. It was just plug and play. braindead, did you install any special drivers for the Sanoxy or the Yamahas in the past? Jokeyman has certainly outlined a good procedure for trying to get things back to a "Day One" state, as far as MIDI on Windows goes.

Only when I use the Casio Music Management software, when I'm sending/receiving Tone Data. That could be getting a listing of the tones, editing a tone, sending an edited tone back to the library, using any of the other utilities, etc. It might be blinky or it might be steady, depending on what I'm doing. But, again, only when using the Casio software. It does not light up at all when I'm sending a software sequence via MIDI to play out through the CTK-900, nor does it light up when I'm using the 900 as a controller for other software. So the light is not there to register or display MIDI activity, if that's part of your question. It's really only about accessing the keyboard memory (or card memory, on other models) and some of its internal settings.

At this point, I would try to eliminate (or implicate) the Casio software itself. You should be able to verify the connection between the PC, the cable, and the CTK-900 without involving the Casio Management software. Check out this: http://www.musicrepo.com/testing-midi-device/ ...which should lead you to checking this: http://www.numark.com/kb/article/1619 ...and downloading and trying this diagnostic tool: http://www.midiox.com/ I work primarily on a Mac, so I've never had to use MIDI-Ox, but everyone who talks about it considers it indispensable. It's 32-bit, Win98-Vista, but I can't imagine it won't run on 8. Short articles, short testing time, just down to the basics. Check them out, and let us know what you find. Try it with the Yamahas, too, as a point of comparison. In the end, I think it'll be your USB MIDI Cable Converter, but you have to test each part of the chain first.

No, when I said "adapter", I meant what are you plugging it into on the PC? I guess you're not using something like the MIDI USB, so... a soundcard? What's on the other end of those cables, and what are they plugging into? Or do you have some sort of external box in between?

I'm doing such a happy dance tonight. I picked up an old CZ-230S a few weeks ago, simply because I thought it would be fun to have a light and combined version of the CZ, RZ and SZ. I bought it knowing that it was "preprogrammed" with 100 non-editable tones, but what I'd seen on the web and in the user guide about tones 96-99 being able to be edited using an external computer intrigued me. I tried a bunch of things this week, but so much of the software is out of date and/or not compatible with my MacBook. One small application (CZ Editor, I think) was written just a few years ago specifically for the Mac and the 230S, but I can't seem to get it to run. Anyway, I remember that the guy at Coffeeshopped who did the CZ Touch editor for iPad had also done a standalone Mac application called Casio CZ-101 Patch Editor, but that he wasn't sure if it would work with the CZ-1 or the 230S. I decided to give it a shot anyway, and after about an hour fiddling, I cracked the secret formula. It doesn't help that the 230S is so weird with its MIDI settings, and that the manual for it is such a mess. But in the end, something I read in it about powering it on while holding the Solo button made me realize that that was putting the 230S into another mode for MIDI. I did that, assigned tones 96-99 to MIDI channels 1-4. I fired up the 101 Patch Editor and started fiddling. Eventually I discovered (stumbled upon, really) that as long as Tone 96 ("Computer Game") was on Channel 1, and if the program was looking at Channel 1, it could retrieve and send messages to the keyboard. 97-99 wouldn't work, and neither would the other channels. Just click a preset and it loaded. And the 230S even retains it after powering it down. Then I thought, "Well he must have structured the CZ Touch app in a similar way, let's try that." Sure enough, as long as I followed my rules, it worked. It was even easier to test because you can send a note from the app to the keyboard, and instantly hear the new tone. A small victory to be sure, but a fun experience. And I'm going to see if I can get the other 3 writable as well, since there doesn't seem to be any reason that 96 would work, but not 97-99. And the other nice thing is how instant the feedback is with the CZ Touch. You edit the tones very visually, and by hitting "random" you can get some really extreme, almost circuit bending -like sounds with it. And I haven't even tried it with my 101 or 1000 yet. Anyway, just wanted to share it with some of the only people in the world who would care. I'll update if I find out more, and I'm going to try to make time to do a YouTube video tutorial showing both processes as well.

I have a CTK-900 (got it in 2006) and have used it and the software with XP and Windows 8 without an issue, with the M-Audio UNO USB MIDI adapter. What adapter are you using? It's possible that the keyboard's own MIDI settings in the function menu aren't right, but this doesn't sound like a problem with the keyboard itself, unless the MIDI terminals themselves are damaged. But you may want to check the MIDI settings in the menu system. In fact, you may want to just re-Initialize the whole system (InitSys System Reset, page E-70) to get it back to its factory settings, just to eliminate a bunch of other possibilities.

That's interesting, because I unexpectedly ran into this same problem today with an old Casio VP-2 pedal, and an even older Casiotone 405. I was thinking that I'd have to track down one of the even older pedals, but perhaps it is just a polarity issue that the M Audio will resolve.

I have! I'm actually planning on doing a video the compares some CZ-1000 tones with the new CZ App and the CZ-inspired tones on the XW-P1. Just need to plan it out and make the time. I've barely touched my iPad apps (or much else!) since getting the XW-P1.

I've been watching videos of it over and over again, and I'm sold. Gonna put this iPhone 6 to work. I'm getting my tax refund this week, so I think I'm going to go ahead and pre-order this week from Kraft Music. They've got some pretty sweet deals that bundle other things with it, and if I just get it now, I won't be scrambling for funds once it's released (in April? Auuggh!!). I just love that I'm coming back to the Casio family at a time that feels so much like the mid-80s. The combination of creativity in design, price point and pro features feels so much like the good ol' days.

This is the one I've been waiting for, the iRig PowerBridge from IK Multimedia. It allows the iPad to charge while it's connected. My iPad 2 battery isn't what is used to be, but there has been virtually nothing affordable on the market that allows the iPad to be a controller and take power from AC at the same time. http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigpowerbridge/

Hello all! I think this may actually be my first post here, as I've been lurking since buying my new XW-P1 a few weeks ago. I'm a longtime Casio fan, going all the way back to my Casiotone MT-68 in the early 80s. From there I moved onto the MT-800 (small keyboard with a set of external speakers), and from there to my first real synthesizer, the CZ-101. I've had others on and off over the decades, but recently returned to playing, drawn back by the incredible XW-P1. My setup currently consists of the P1, a big Casio CZ-1000 (the 101, all grown up), and a microKorg off to the side. My space for all this is rather small and restricted, but I've been making it work out. Right now the P1 sits above the wider CZ-1000, and it's a great arrangement for me. But the CZ has an LCD display that is not backlit, the P1 casts a shadow over it, and I didn't want to hack the 1000. So I got an idea that fixed the issue for me, and gives my whole space a lot of atmosphere! I thought I'd pass it on for those who might need a similar solution. (BTW, I posted this over on the FB group last night, so apologies to anyone who clicked through just for a repeat) Here's what my setup looks like now. Note the light under the P1 that illuminates the LCD display of the CZ-1000. I picked up an LED accent lighting kit called the Cyron Media Highlighter System (Model # HTP904E) at Lowe's hardware for $45. You could pull the same thing off for cheaper, but I wanted a number of independent light strips (they're tubes, 9 inches each) to light the back as well. The kit also includes a sound sensitive controller for "music mode" so that the lights would react to sound as well. I thought I'd have to rig that together myself, but I went to the store and there it was, all in one box. It does 14 different modes with different colors, and cycles through colors (slow or fast) or the music modes. Basically, the kit has a little plugin hub in the center of it all, and each light strip has its own length of cord. I just put it all in back, positioned three lights along the wall, and ran the fourth underneath the XW-P1. Here's the cool part: the XWs have a little rounded groove up front and underneath the keyboard, and it is just the right size to hold one of these light strips, so I just positioned it there and lightly taped it. They put off no heat, so no problem. No noise or interference, either. A close-up look underneath. Note that the light strip can't really be more than 10 or 11 inches, because of the plastic supports (circled) molded into the channel. So these 9" strips are perfect. End result, close-up (with the XW keys visible on top). Certain colors of lights -- white and cool -- work better than others, but now I can pretty much read the LCD display of the CZ-1000 under any steady light. The whole setup is really atmospheric, though the lights changing with the sound is really just kind of distracting. I'm happy just to let it slowly cycle the lights through all of its colors while I'm playing, and it's much nicer than having to constantly slide the CZ out further to tweak the tones, or keep a mini-flashlight handy.