Rick Stirling

Love it! Thank you so much for sharing and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

As you need to end up with the .BIN file on the thumb drive, you need to unzip the file to extract the .BIN file first using a PC. The X500 can not unzip files.

Like many other Japanese businesses, Casio Japan manufactures the products which are then marketed and sold by separate sales companies around the world. Casio Brazil produced at least 19 videos for the X500/X300 (in Portuguese) and apparently they have been successful with sales in their region. Other Casio sales companies haven't put much effort into marketing and after sales support.  I don't think that that lack of support should reflect unfavorably on Casio Japan as their job was to design and build the product.  Usually the sales companies tell the manufacturer what they think they can sell then the product is designed and built to some evolving spec.  Not all sales companies are fully committed to a new product when it is released.  I'm pretty sure the Casio sales companies around the world are all very independent of Casio Japan when it comes to marketing and after sales support.

The above is an opinion I hold based on working many years in the consumer electronics business as a design and quality assurance engineer. I could be wrong about Casio's business model though. ;-)

By the way. congratulations on getting the X500! I think you will really enjoy.it, I know I have!

cheers,

Rick

Here's a snapshot of the directions. You can load 1.5,  it contains all the previous updates.

 

2 hours ago, MrSteveVee said:

 

That sounds a bit better.  The guy I was chatting to (it was on a web chat) finished the conversation with words to the effect that he didn't like Casio's so that probably had a bearing on his dismal offer 

 

Steve

Because he probably gets a 60% margin on Yammy keyboards.  

6 hours ago, MrSteveVee said:

 

 I did an enquiry  on a couple of sites using a cica~£1300 Yamaha as the trade up  product. I think it was AC Hamilton who replied  "£220 as they go for £300 on Ebay", so not a lot on your initial purchase  

 

Steve

Lowest price I could find today on Ebay was $880 US  used. - I think that's about $660 British Pounds

Edit: Found one used one in the UK for 450 pounds.

1 hour ago, AlenK said:

You say you have interests in music synthesis. If so, the MZ-X500 walks all over the E453/EW400 models. In fact, from what I can see in the E453/EW400 user's manual. voice editing on those keyboards is very rudimentary. IMHO, you'll learn much more about synthesis - and be able to create much better tones - on the MZ-X500.

Absolutely!

1. The PSR-EW400 does have 76 keys, but both Yamahas you mentioned above have only 48 voice polyphony versus 128 for the X500.  Personally, I would not buy a keyboard today with less than 128 voice polyphony.  In my opinion the X500 is a tremendous value and holds its own with my Korg PA600 and Korg Kronos 2

2. The key bed is one area where a manufacturer of keyboards can shave costs. Casio did not put a lot of money into the key bed on the X500, however unless you need a weighted key bed for your piano practice, the X500 has sufficient utility for an electronic instrument. You could always add an extrenal weighted keyboard controller in the future if needed. Decent 88 key controllers range in price from ~$300 to ~$2000  Here's a nice one for just $1000 ;-)

There is no video output port on the X500, and the USB is midi only so there is no way to do it unless you hacked the hardware.

35 minutes ago, AlenK said:

The quote below is from a recent thread in the Keyboard Corner. Some day with any luck, "just sounds like a real Casio" will actually be meant as a compliment.  

 

My reply to that post ...

"I'm curious what you base your opinion on. I own the X500 and it holds up well with my Kronos 2 and PA600 in my opinion. When hooked up to a set of decent studio speakers the sound quality is quite good."

The amount of addressable memory is determined by the address bus width in bits. Wider address busses cost more money. That said you may find that 32 GB is not the real limit.

11 hours ago, Silvano Silva said:

Rick you did not understand what I meant.
The MZ when using the fill what was changed is lost I already know.
In Roland if you change the bass volume for example in real time this change only exits when you switch Style. It looks like Roland has a temporary Ram memory just for this.

Actually I did understand. Perhaps my answer wasn't clear enough. All real time changes like bass volume are temporary and will revert back to the saved parameter as soon as you select another rhythm element within the current style, unless you write your changes to a new style. Roland keeps the real time edited rhythm in memory until you change the style. Casio could easily also do this with a small change to the X500 firmware. Real time, latched adjustment of the rhythm channels via the faders would be a great upgrade to the X500 functionality.

1 hour ago, Silvano Silva said:

If you change some of the rhythm parameters in the MIXER in real time and you press the fill in button the MIXER returns to the original rhythm value.

Could the MZ freeze keep the settings until you switch Style.

NO, I don't think so. As soon as you press a Fill or go to another Variation the keyboard will play back what has been saved for that rhythm and your real time adjustments are lost. You would need to create a User rhythm with your adjusted params then write that to a User Rhythm slot. You could then use the Registration buttons to quickly change the Rhythms  between Styles during real time play.

8 hours ago, XW-Addict said:

Just that there won't be coming any audio-interface to whatever Casio keyboard soon

nor audio recording functions like overdub to existing wav records (not sampling). Its been a topic since 

the XW arrived and later on with the PX's and with the revealing of the MZ it wasn't their neither.

And with the memory available to PX and MZ keyboard chances are very slim for the next keyboard. 

 

But and I don't mean a big one all keyboards have stereo outputs if you're lucky with an mixer with a built 

in audio-interface or a separate audio-interface or a four track recorder that also work just as well. 

 

but the point was no audio-interface or expanded audio recording function to the existing wav recorder. 

 

OK. I understand. You are correct. There will be no "updates" to the X500 to turn it into a Korg Kronos. ;-) 

p.s. I kept my Korg Kronos 2 when i got my X500. Love them both!

16 hours ago, XW-Addict said:

Interesting thread, I don't want to be a buzz kill but ask silly questions and you'll get silly answers . 

All the wiring to a DAW doesn't necessarily guarantee good music unless the person is a versed or

creative musician. One always going to find something to add which lead to GAS and no music. 

A bit off -topic? Care to expound on what silly questions were asked and what silly answers were given?

1 minute ago, Rick Sterling said:

 

Nick,

 

The PADS will send Note On and Note Off events for the midi data they trigger. They do not send a 'you pressed this Pad signal'. The sliders do not send any midi data currently. If in the future the sliders could be programmed to adjust Control Channel (CC#) data then I would expect they would then send that data out over Midi. The #1&2 control knobs do send CC# data according to their assignment.  All Program Change events are sent of course. I downloaded MIDI-OX and MidiYoke apps to monitor the midi output from the X500 for these tests.

OK .., just thought I would check what the sliders are doing when they control Hex-Layer sounds.  Fader 8 sends "Brightness" and Fader 9 send "Harmonic Content". No fader data is sent in Drawbar Organ mode. 

26 minutes ago, Nick Rastin said:

Thank you so much Rick

 

That sounds very good! Just one more question; could you please let me know if you can play drums/chords in DAW with the Pads on X500? I mean do the pads send MIDI data?

And what about the faders? I have been told they send no MIDI data and can't be used to control the DAW, but it sounds strange! Even very lower models (e.g CTK 7200) do that.

 

Thanks again

Nick,

The PADS will send Note On and Note Off events for the midi data they trigger. They do not send a 'you pressed this Pad signal'. The sliders do not send any midi data currently. If in the future the sliders could be programmed to adjust Control Channel (CC#) data then I would expect they would then send that data out over Midi. The #1&2 control knobs do send CC# data according to their assignment.  All Program Change events are sent of course. I downloaded MIDI-OX and MidiYoke apps to monitor the midi output from the X500 for these tests.

Nick,

I use Cakewalk Sonar with my X500. I've created an Instrument Definition file (available in the download section on this site) you can load into Sonar so it can directly access all factory & user tones as well as drum kits in the keyboard. That's all the DAW integration I need with the X500.  All the usual Control Channel controls works fine. I typically do all my editing in the digital MIDI domain in Sonar then record the final output in analog either in Sonar or directly on the X500. Works for me. ;-)

Be sure to select the correct media type when you use LOAD ... ZLT is Hex Layer so you must select Hex Layer as your "Target Tone Group" for ZLT files to show.  ZTN is normal tone so you should select Piano or Orgran, etc for the Target Tone Group. See page EN-61 of the English User Manual for definitions of the Data Types and their suffixes on the USB Flash Drive.

Sure ...

5 hours ago, Silvano Silva said:

Just an addition.
Who wants to change Rick's INS file to add USER TONES and USER ZDR custom.
just open with NOTEPAD to change the desired line and SAVE.

Yes, as I said in my original post above,

"These files can be edited in a text editor like TextPad to customize the instrument names to your liking or add new instruments in the USER sections."

Enjoy.

Try putting your files in the root directory and then see if you see them.

4 hours ago, AlenK said:

Where did you read that the MZ-X500's acoustic piano uses five velocity levels? 

I thought I read it in one of the X500 technical reviews.   Just now listening to the Grand Piano I think I can only hear four! ;-)

Try opening MUSICDAT. The new OS version allows the use of custom directories now.