Solosynth actually decent.

[XW-Addict]

I would not like to see the solo synth go and it's support on the Ipad. 

I've been dabbling with it and the only thing what a shame is it is one 

synth and not four or eight of them for a live performance. 

 

It is shame things went slowly when the XW where introduced.

The sound can be turned into voices that match the type of music

you hear today pretty well. 

 

It takes a bit of time to wrap your head around Casio's new synthesis

cores still once you get the hang of it all turns into decent sounds. 

[Jokeyman123]

I agree, I still think even the acoustic and electric pianos are very good compared to the many keys and modules I have or have had. My Equinox with drawbars still beats them all for live organ performances, but then the Equinox still beats many of the even more expensive workstation/synth keys out there. Is there any keyboard currently that can control in live performance, 8 independent tracks of slide controls which can be programmed for any cc you want? And also act as organ drawbars, 8 layers in real time, and play an 8 layer (octo layer I guess you could call it)  sound over a 16-track sequence? The Casios are coming close, which is why I have all of them! and dedicated switches for  kicking in 2 different percussion settings and slow/fast leslie speed for the Equinox organs. I could still cover many gigs with this. If the PX560 had this 8-drawbar control, like the XW-P1, and could be programmed to instantly control all the things the Equinox does (resonance, attack, decay, volume, pan and several others) it would be d*** near perfect, and would outclass anything out there. Plus it loads and plays .wav samples, and has a sample editor with visuals for editing. Hard to give up. Rather my Equinox than a DAW.  I will be connecting itand my XW  to my PX560 and see what I can control with it's slide controls. and I've come pretty close to some of my SY77 and TS12 sounds with the Casios-not quite, but close. Some of the PX/XW electric pianos are amazingly close to the SY77/TS12 pianos which is not easy to do. Which is why I've kept those!

[XW-Addict]

Your talking about the synth we dream of and I concur here the same. For some controls and programming options 

are very much divided between gear. It's like I would love some of XW solo synth stuff in my PX5S and other way around. 

 

I'm glad there are samplers to bridge the gap but musically I rather focus on that one keyboard I known best.

But then again that would not up hold for building a crafty tune when there are more sounds from other keyboards. 

 

Have to send the XW out for repairs one key broke in half have no clue how that happened. I've got more gear now 

after I've purchased  the XW and finally getting touch with PX5S sounds, Strangely after the XW got a bit defective 

my creativity seems less on other keyboards and much higher on XW .

 

@Jokeyman123 I've noticed you've got the PX560 for a while now have you traded the PX 350. 

  

[Jokeyman123]

No, I've kept both. Hard to give up the great piano action. But much easier to work with the PX560 for many things-the synth functions are deep enough to keep me creating some new tones, the multi-track recording is so much easier and the hex layers are definitely fun-a great carry-over from the XW-P1.  Miss the slide controls, but-there may be a way to access some of those functions with the XW or Equinox and midi control. I'll pst if I get anything worthwhile going. I've already posted some of my hex and tone experiments to the download section of the PX560.

[AlenK]

10 hours ago, Jokeyman123 said:

Is there any keyboard currently that can control in live performance, 8 independent tracks of slide controls which can be programmed for any cc you want? And also act as organ drawbars, 8 layers in real time, and play an 8 layer (octo layer I guess you could call it)  sound over a 16-track sequence? The Casios are coming close, which is why I have all of them!

 

Re the sliders: Have you tried to see what the XW-P1 outputs as you adjust the sliders when editing the virtual controllers? I am referring to the functionality described in section 3.4.6.1 of The XW-P1 Companion. You can adjust just about any parameter of the solo synth with the sliders in that mode but I never did check to see what, if anything, the XW-P1sends out on MIDI in that situation. 

 

Re playing an "octo-layer" sound over a 16-track sequence, the XW-P1 can indeed get surprisingly close. You can play a Hex Layer (six layer) tone over a 15-track sequence input over MIDI. You can layer a Hex Layer tone with one or two PCM tones (some PCM tones already layer two waves) in Performance mode and still sequence 13 or 14 parts over MIDI. 

 

If external MIDI isn't considered, the XW-P1 can sequence up to a total of 14 parts: nine parts using the step sequencer, another part using the phrase sequencer when it is started by the step sequencer and up to four more parts from the phrase sequencer when it is started manually (see Appendix A of the Companion). Getting the latter to synchronize must be done manually but it is still possible. 

[AlenK]

On 8/30/2018 at 5:56 AM, XW-Addict said:

It takes a bit of time to wrap your head around Casio's new synthesis

cores still once you get the hang of it all turns into decent sounds. 

 

It certainly does. Some people didn't think so when it first came out. I think they got their knickers in a bunch about the lack of a controllable resonant filter in the Hex Layer mode, something Casio corrected in their very next synth/keyboard (the PX-5S). But there are many polyphonic sounds that don't require that. And in any case you can fake it paraphonically. 

 

The solo synth in particular is brilliant. Sonically it's not perfect and one could argue that the number of controllable parameters is bordering on ludicrous. But it's an awfully nice synthesis engine to have. 

[Jokeyman123]

Part of my next experiment-just for fun, controlling the PX560 with the XW through midi-will have to study what midi messages go out the XW-P1 sliders in real time-have to do some studying-I think your doc has some of that and the manual. Would be interesting if I can control say 8 tracks of the PX560 volume, panning or resonance in real time with the XW, and with the analog controls, although I seem to recall somewhere that the those do not send out through midi-will only control internal sounds. but would be nice to have the 4 XW knobs, plus the 3 on the PX560 working together, woo-hoo!  I need to study how to program CC messages into the XW sliders, one of the more complex tasks I have yet to decipher. Would definitely use the XW-P1 and PX560 together on any gig. still, the Equinox is an interesting beast in comparison-helps me look at the possibilities still within the Casios. You can see I have done some light programming on the PX560-not so much on the XW-because there is already such an amazing array of sounds-some of which I had not heard anywhere else, except on the old Generalmusic beasts. and i am always trying to push the limits of these machines-part of the fun. Sounds like (and reading your doc) you may agree....

[AlenK]

Analog controls? The XW's knobs may be actual potentiometers rather than encoders, which means they are indeed analog, but the XW digitizes the voltages from them before using them. Hence, they become digital controls. And I do believe they will send out on MIDI but of course you will have to double-check that.

 

Regarding the sliders, the XW provides no overt way to program them to send out specific CC messages. There are posts here on CMF that demonstrate that they do send out CCs in certain modes but you can't select which CCs. That's why I mentioned the possibility of the virtual-controller sliders. You can program their functions (by programming the virtual controller sources), the only question being if they also send out messages on MIDI if you select CC numbers as sources.  

[XW-Addict]

19 hours ago, AlenK said:

The solo synth in particular is brilliant. Sonically it's not perfect and one could argue that the number of controllable parameters is bordering on ludicrous. But it's an awfully nice synthesis engine to have. 

Totally if you close you're eyes and do a sound test with the XW solo-synth and by sound I mean those kind of synthesis sound that are popular like wobbles , slurry's, wows and ethereal kind of sounds you might have guest the likes of Microkorg synth, Akai timberwolf, Arturia Kinda of -ish sounds come out. 

 

It isn't analog but with all the PCM, There so much depth for lots of creative contend it took me four years to find it out but meh who's counting years :D. 

 

I will post an audio file some are available in the Festival Pack I've uploaded for the XW-G1 25 or so solo sounds. 

[Chas]

On 8/30/2018 at 7:26 PM, AlenK said:

 

It certainly does. Some people didn't think so when it first came out. I think they got their knickers in a bunch about the lack of a controllable resonant filter in the Hex Layer mode, something Casio corrected in their very next synth/keyboard (the PX-5S). But there are many polyphonic sounds that don't require that. And in any case you can fake it paraphonically. 

 

 

The lack of a resonant filter in Hex Layer mode was a very surprising omission on the XW-P1. Especially as you found a work around using the Wah DSP effect. Sadly the Wah can't use an LFO or retriggering to sweep its filter it in the way that the solo synth can. It would have needed so little in its firmware to enable that, and then it would have a traditional style filter for use with Hex Layers.

 

Frustrating to know that the P1 is capable of having an LFO controlled resonant (Wah) filter in Hex Layer mode, but Casio didn't enable it.

[AlenK]

Actually, I can't take credit for finding the Wah workaround. IIRC someone here found it first. But I CAN take credit for documenting it fully. 

 

With respect to paraphonic filter operation, don't forget what has been called the Performance synthesis mode. You can play up to four polyphonic tones, many of which already layer two waves, through the solo-synth's resonant filter with all the usual modulation capabilities. It's not as easy to use as Hex Layer, granted, but we must take what we can get on the XW-P1! 

[Jokeyman123]

Just a followup from AlenK's post about the pot controls a few months back-the PX560 control knobs are definitely analog pots and the XW-P1's look the same-I have had this part disassembled in the px560 to repair a crack in the IC board these are soldered to so got a close look at the assembly, and yes of course these are digital in terms of functioning in the digital domain. I'm not sure what their electronic values are, didn't measure resistance but are physically small relative to many others. And the entire assembly cn be removed as one piece without too much difficulty if anyone needs to do that without sending to Casio repair (the PX560 not sure about XW, I forgot how this is designed inside but all it's parts are also easy to get to if you need to). Be careful about dropping anything on these-pretty sturdy but are attached directly to their IC board underneath-probably how I cracked mine.

[AlenK]

Agree that the XW-P1 knobs are attached to potentiometers. That was never in doubt. But I will not believe that the three knobs on the PX-560 are also attached to potentiometers unless you show me a picture of them from behind in a disassembled unit. In fact you will have to provide part numbers. They feel and behave in all respects like encoders. Externally, encoders look superficially like potentiometers but they work on an entirely different principle. If you took one apart you would see they are very different internally. I have designed with both so I know the difference. But I am not about to take my PX-560 apart to confirm.

 

PS. See this: https://www.keyboardforums.com/threads/px-560-have-endless-encoder-knobs.28726/

 

[Oh yes, happyrat (Gary) is in that thread and he gives the wrong answer.]

 

 

[Jokeyman123]

This must be correct-encoders not pots, but look the same externally. I hadn't time to work with these when I posted this-I had to repair first before i could use them. Obviously now I can tell since these adjust rotationally and infinitely through 360 degrees. I know the difference, I've disassembled and repaired several of both types, especially since specific encoders are often difficult to obtain for older equipment, I've had to try (Generalmusic comes to mind). With the Casio PX560, the encoders also serve functions that one would normally expect potentiometers to perform. A little weird to control the 3-band eq with encoders, not pots but that is what these do from the factory-and filter sweep, resonance etc. but since these are programmable-cc messages can be controlled with the knobs according to the manual. Most keyboard/pad controllers use encoders for all these functions-nothing new. something useful to post-opening and cleaning an encoder once solved my keyboard not operating correctly. The good thing is that since these are very well sealed (in my experience) contamination can take a long time, but does occur. By carefully dissecting mine, it had oxidized and was causing intermittent problems with changing sounds, editing parameters (not a Casio). Cleaning fixed it. an encoder has a series of conductive contacts or traces alternating with non-conductive spaces in between arranged in a circular (merry-go-round) style array. since the spaces and contacts are very close, the slightest dirt or oxidation can cause skips and jumps in settings meant to be incremental such as cc changes. I think encoders are a little less prone to wear, since pots must use the same trace over and over in a limited space, this is what causes failure. and even a tiny break in the trace pretty much ruins the pot. Maybe why encoders have become the norm for many functions, including those which characteristically might use pots. Just a guess.