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I'm not here to complain about the built in tones in th4 GP400. They are actually quite good. Nonetheless, I was looking for more levels of control for soft playing, and better sustain (exactly the same things that Casio has improved in the newer models, the 310 and 510). So I realized this would be a good time to buy a VST. I was looking at pianotech as well as a few others. There are some issues which prevent me from using a VST, and I suspect that the piano needs repair --- or I need better advice than I can get on pianoworld forums! Here's the problem: (1) I hooked up the VST in a standard way, namely I plugged the laptop into the piano via a 'printer cable' and ran an audio cable (3.5mm to two 1/4" plugs) from the laptop into the piano. The VST works, but there is a significant electrical sounding buzzing, obviously the result of interference. As I detailed on pianoworld forums, I tried eliminating every possibility. I made sure that the cables weren't touching, I tried it with the laptop plugged in vs running on battery, I tried ferrite rollers on BOTH wires to reduce any electrical interference. I tried different audio cables. I even tried different USB 'printer' cables. One thing remained constant: if I plugged in audio cables and the USB cable into my laptop, there was a constant buzzing, making the VST unusable. The ONLY way I could get it to work was using headphones directly from the computer, which was fine. But as long as the audio line went into the gp400, there was horrible and unacceptable buzzing (whether I listed via headphones plugged into the GP400 or via speakers). (2) The advice some gave on pianoworld forums was to use a Roland UM-ONE midi to USB convertor instead of the printer cable. A friend of mine does gigs and was nice enough to lend me his to try it out tonight. Hours of fiddling with drivers to get it to work, but again, unacceptable results. This time, instead of a CONSTANT buzzing, there was a hissing noise which started only after a sound output (usually a key press, but tapping the sustain pedal would create the hissing as well. The hissing would stop about 6 to 8 seconds after the note/pedal press. The entire time that music was being produced this hissing was accompanying it. Two additional points: (a) the hissing phenomenon was softer at lower volumes and louder at higher volumes. (b) it's the same hissing that I hear (and asked about on these forums) when I record to a USB stick and play it back on the gp400. Listening to an audio file played back on the gp400 is something I avoid as a result --- it always plays back with hissing, though the file doesn't contain any noise whenplayed backon audacity. This is the same kind of noise. I suspect that there is something in the audio processing of this gp400 that is producing this. I definitely want this taken care of. The audio files being noisy (on the gp400 playback) isnt a big deal, because once I put them in audacity they sound very clean. But the inability to use a VST without noise on a digital piano of this caliber isn't really acceptable. Ironically I'm hoping that this is an issue with my particular piano (as opposed to all of them being like this), because I want to get it fixed.

Loving my new Casio Gp400. Mostly playing it, but also playing with the parameter settings to find the ones I like best. I had two questions for Casio owners: (1) In playing around I'd like to get a better idea as to what the presets are actually doing. So there is a control that lets you adjust the brilliance from + 3 to -3. Additionally, for each of the main grand piano sounds, there are presets called Mellow and Bright (for example Berlin Mellow Piano, Berlin Bright Piano). My question is are those mellow and bright tones simply the standard tone with the brilliance parameter changed? Or is there something different about the tonality and sound signatures of all the bright and mellow variations which cannot be reproduced using the standard settings? ( my point of course is that if the Vienna mellow for example is the same as Vienna with just a little tweak off brilliance then I don't really need to pay attention to it when I'm trying to figure out how I like my Vienna to sound because all I need to do is make the tweak myself as part of the settings). (2) One last question for now which would be useful to know but I'm not sure Casio actually says anything about this in the literature. There are a huge number of parameters which can be changed, and for each one, there is a setting (D/default) which casio calls "the optimum setting for the selected instrument, or selected scene". So you can select "off", "Default" or a number from 1 to 10 It would be nice to know what the relationship is between the default setting and the numbers 1 to 10. I can think of two very distinct possibilities. One is that for each instrument whatever the default is, it's essentially the equivalent of a setting of 5.5, in other words, the numbers 1 to 5 are settings lower than the default,m and the settings 6 and up are settings higher than the default. Alternatively and more likely, the default setting is actually a setting which corresponds to one of those numbers between 1 and 10. However for reasons I can't imagine it seems like there is no way to know what that default setting actually is!! When adjusting from the default, pushing the button to raise the setting ALWAYS starts it on "1", This of course adds a huge layer of mystery into what the adjustments are doing --- what if I say "I like that tone or scene, but I'd like what it would be like with with just a little bit more damper resonance. Well, if I don;t know what the original setting is, I'm guessing as to whether I'm adding more or keeping it the same. Unless I'm missing something..... Is there somewhere where they actually say what the default settings are for the various pianos and scenes??