CTK5000-user feeedback?

[Jokeyman123]

Looking at some of the older Casios (I have a few newer already) anybody have any opinions on this one. Looks kind of interesting for an older budget instrument, uses the older AHL sound source but also looks to have a sampling option. Nice screen similar to my old PX575, and older WKs such as the 3800, 3300. 

[- T -]

Jokeyman

 

It is quite interesting that I can not find a copyright date, of any sort, on the manuals for either the CTK-5000, or my WK-3800.  It is like Casio goes out of its way to avoid publicly dating its equipment, but then, to a certain extent,  that avoids the "Do I buy now or wait for the newer models?" games that us consumers like to play.  Plus it also allows reuse or repurposing of earlier components (sound engines, etc) on current lower priced models, without it being too obvious to the more discerning buyer or reviewer.  So, let's see if we can comparatively date these two models 'sideways - sort of".  I bought my WK-3800 in late November or early December of 2006.  The nice youg lady who sold it to me said they had just gotten it in for the holiday sales season just a week or two earlier.  That means the WK-3300/3800/8000 model line was probaby released some time during the second half of 2006 - possibly for Summer NAMM.  Now, the SD Card reader in the WK-3800 is limited to 1 Gb max, while the one in the CTK-5000 is limited to 2 Gb max, so the CTK-5000 is probably at least one model release (generation) newer than the WK-3800.  Even so, I think the AHL sound engine of the CTK-5000 is still a step or two down from the ZPI engine of the WK-3300/3800/8000, in order to control the price point of a lower priced model.

 

B U T . . . as we are talking about the WK-3800 . . . I have been downloading and trying your PX-560 "CKF" Rhythm creations on my WK-3800.  It does not surprise me, at all, that they "work".  As a matter of fact, it would have really surprised me if they had not worked.  After all, a CKF Rhythm is a CKF Rhythm, but what did surprise me is the fact that most of them work perfectly well with no apparent need for "tweaking" (voice/tone substitutions) to sound correctly.  This might indicate that the Casio Rhythm engines draw most or all of their tones from the GM voice bank set, that are on all Casio arranger models, rather than from the higher quality "panel" voice banks.  This helps keep Rhythms compatible over several model releases.  I bring this up so that any owners of the older models, who might be interested in your creations, should be able to use most of them "as is".  They should also be useable in any of the newer "AC7" Rhythm boards, but if the Rhythm engines DO use any of the higher quality panel voice banks, the AC7 models may require more voice "tweaking". to sound acceptable.  I do get the occasional police whistle or barking dog in some of the drum kits.  These I will try to correct with Antonio's STY to CKF converter program, which he claims can be used to edit voices and other parameters in existing CKF Rhythm.  This is the program that Vincianne (Vbdx66) has been having problems with.  She says she does not get the correct screen when she brings it up in edit mode.  This will give me a chance to take a look at it, and see if I get the same thing.  As for your creations, your efforts are commendable, and your skills are obviously improving.  Many thanks for breathing new life into my tired old WK-3800.

 

- T -

 

[Casiofun]

The AHL sound source was derived from the HL sound source used in the CDP 100. AHL is used in many of the CTK 61 key casio keyboards including the WK500, WK6500, 6600, 7500, 7600. It is also used in the newer CDP models which are below the Privia line. ZPI was used starting in about 2005 in the WK 3000 series and Privia series till about 2009. Polophony was limited to 32. The AIF followed with 128 polophony and was replaced by AIR. AIX is the upgrade to AHL, but presently is in only the CTX line.

[vbdx66]

Hi @- T - I think you’re right, most probably all CKF rhythms will work with any Casio keyboard because they will all use the GM sound bank but they will need some tweaking to sound good.

 

What I have been able to achieve with Antonio’s Excel converting macro is convert STY. files to CKF rhythms (doesn’t work with all file but with some of them it is perfect).

 

Antonio says his macro can also be used to tweak existing rhtyhm files but I dont understand how he is doing this and I haven’t been able to figure it out myself. If you do find how to use it, please let me know, there are several older rhythms I’d like to tweak since it is,such a hassle to make new rhythms from scratch with a DAW.

 

I am well willing to try to make a rhythm from scratch relying on @Chandler Holloway tutorial but I probably won’t be able to do this in the next few days/weeks since I have to send back my keyboard because of 2 faulty keys only 5 weeks after purchasing it ☹️

 

I am wondering why Casio isn’t either releasingg free new rhythms, or else putting rhythm packages for sale, as Yamaha does?

[Jokeyman123]

OK, thanks all for the input-thinking of buying an inexpensive CTK5000. Feedback for T-I used the GM standard drum kits for all the rhythm conversions, and all drum kit sounds mapped correctly in all 3 of my Privias-including my old PX575 which I think is very similar to your WK3800. I would have to go back to the midi files I used (I have all of these saved) and edit individual drum kit notes to solve the problem you described. Will check against the PX575 again-maybe I overlooked something there. 

 

Casiofun-very interesting-so it seems the CTK5000 might sound closer to the CTK6000, WK6500 than to the older ZPI. MY PX575 also uses ZPI, and for an older Casio is not at all shabby although I can hear a distinct difference in realism compared to the PX350 and 560. Now I'm wondering what the XW-P1 is using! probably closer to AHL than ZPI or AIR or obviously not AIX.  And I anybody knows which of these Casios uses 16-bit sampling. The newer Casios must be although I'm not sure, the CTK6000-7000 and WK counterparts I have no idea nor do I know what the XW is using.  

 

To vbdx....As far as commercial sound packages for the Casios, there is one vendor on e**** advertising a package-but they also claim to have rhythms for several other auto-arrangers so I'm not sure if these are any good specifically for Casio, probably not much of an improvement compared to Chandler's efforts and other users here.  Certainly the Yamaha user groups have a much larger choice of rhythms created by PSR and Tyros players over the years although after listening to many of these, and with my own older PSR, I haven't come across anything much better than what is happening here. I hope this will change as more players become aware of the merits of the Casio auto-arrangers and because of our development efforts here, the only Casio (or other) forum I know of where players like us are posting their own work in this area, specifically for the Casio boards. I have posted over a dozen auto-arrangement rhythms in CKF format in the PX560 download section here although as T has pointed out, these will play in several other older and newer Casios . Although probably not to everyone's liking, I think it shows what can be done. I tend to favor funk, fusion and jazz styles because there is IMO more room for interpretation as a backing pattern, I'm sure not everyone will agree.

 

Many of the commercial beats I needed to learn professionally as a drummer years ago are not as open to interpretation IMO as some of these other styles, so I have not done much work with the already available for example  bossas, polkas, rock, latin, country styles as i could. Many of those styles are very dependent on interpretation by individual players for each individual composition and not as much as what the drummer and bass player are laying out. Any variations I was able to play say within a merengue, bossa or similar had to be based upon backing a soloist or "head" or intro to a tune live, not something easily accomplished with auto-arranger functions, which is why I have stayed away from creating variations on those styles. 

 

Unfortunately one of the best in this area was Generalmusic now gone although some of the Roland arrangements are very good.

 

I am currently trying to map over some of my Equinox patterns to my Casios. Since this board did not lend itself well to GM standards, I'm struggling but if i can port over anything to this forum I will. They were doing some things with auto-arrangers  I've not heard anywhere else, and with complete programmability and control, a shame. whatever I can get over to this group will  illustrate that if I can do it. And although I don't have one (yet), the newest MZ-X boards look as close as I've seen to the Generalmusic concepts, especially the SK series which are extremely rare. With a few more real-time controls (slide controls specifically as in the MZ-X and even older CTK-WK7 series) and sampling, the PX560 is almost there. Hint to Casio-the SK had full sample editing onboard, full panel control with 8 sliders programmable for anything, a video out port for a monitor (yes!) fully programmable editable auto-arrangements, external sound input to the DSP and a 32-track sequencer, with  looping and full synth capabilities including looping of synth envelopes and a killer resonant filter. And layering and splitting up to 16 sounds-of course its polyphony was limited to 32 voices but still was usable. The PX560 can do similar there- 3 hex layers can be recorded which is very powerful, similar to the SK series.  Sort of like putting the best features of 4 different Casios in one board-and the 76 key version had waterfall keys-20 years ago, plus an 88-key piano action board. I'd buy one of those new if Casio re-invented it which repeating myself the MZ-X looks very close.   But that......is a different topic, sorry.

 

[- T -]

Jokeyman

 

I was able to find several fairly decent demo videos of the CTK-5000 on YouTube, and as you predicted, its sound quality seems to be more on par with that of the CTK/WK-6XXX/7XXX models, with their AHL sound engines, than that of the ZPI engines of the WK-3XXX models.  Since I am not able to really tie down the release dates of all these different models, I can not tell for certain if the CTK-5000 is an early precursor to the CTK-6000 or a contemporary economy version of it, but the answer may lie in the video for the third link I provide below.  That is the demo that covers the CTK-3000/4000/5000 and the WK-500.  In that video, the CTK-3000 and 4000 are labeled "Standard Series" models, while the CTK-5000 and WK-500 are labeled "High Grade Series" models.  I think Casio started the "High Grade Series" labeling with the CTK/WK-6XXX/7XXX models, so I would say that that makes the CTK-5000 and WK-500 contemporary economy versions of the CTK-6000 and WK-6500 models, respectively.  So, if you can find a CTK-5000, you are getting an economy version of the CTK-6000 - that is to say - fewer features, but still with the higher quality AHL sound engine.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK0wDP_eMeA

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=436CLG5w2nA

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFw5GZJA2d4

 

- T -

 

 

[Brad Saucier]

CTK-5000 launched in 2008 for 2009. It was the flagship CTK model at the time.  It featured the new (at the time) AHL sound source.   A web crawl in 2008 captured the product page as it appeared in late 2008.   Casio has a product archive page with some more information on the CTK-5000.  

 

  

[Jokeyman123]

Thanks again to Brad and T-will help me decide. I have the privias already, this CTK would be for knocking around. considering this is an older model, and a budget one at that, it sounds pretty impressive based upon videos you've attached. But still-might want to wait and save for the MZ-X. Would be hard to top the PX560 or XW-P1. Having both is a pretty formidable lineup already. I just keep wishing the PX560 midi recorder had a few more sequencer editing features.  and looks like the CTK5000 has the same song recorder as the PX575.