Complete CT-X3000 4-Variation Rhythm Archive

[Chandler Holloway]

Hello MZ-X users! I'm posting here to let you know that I've just released a complete archive of all the Preset Rhythms from the CT-X3000 and X5000 over in the Downloads section of the forum. The CT-X3000 and X5000 are the only other Casio models in the current line-up that support 4-variation .AC7 Rhythms other than the MZ-X series, so you can consider this archive like an expansion pack of sorts (and an early Christmas gift as well).

 

Some of you may remember that I released an expansion pack of X3000 Rhythms intended for the CT-X700 and X800 last year. Because those models were only compatible with 2-variation Rhythms, when I modified the original X3000 exclusive Rhythms for the expansion pack, I only structured them with the first two variations in mind. As such, if you were to load these custom expansion Rhythms onto an MZ-X, you might have noticed that they contained several repeat and duplicate variations from when I copy and pasted over other material to move the desired variations into the first two variation slots.

 

By contrast, this archive contains every single 4-variation Rhythm from the CT-X3000 and X5000 in their original, unaltered form and with the proper display names from the original keyboard as well. MZ-X users can now take full advantage of the new 4-variation Rhythms programmed for these CT-X boards (although @Brad Saucier has told me that some of the CT-X Rhythms re-used old MZ-X Rhythms, so some of them might sound familiar to you anyway). The only issue you might encounter with these Rhythms is that they are programmed with the CT-X series' voice assignments in mind, which may result in some strange instrumentation when you import them to an MZ-X model. However, you can always use the onboard Rhythm Editor to tweak voice assignments to your liking after you import them.

 

This release is the first part of what I hope will become a complete archive of all the preset Rhythm styles from every .AC7 compatible keyboard in the current Casio line-up. I do not own an MZ-X model so unfortunately I can't export and archive the preset Rhythm files from those models myself, but hopefully some kind MZ-X users here on the forum will be willing to chip in and do their part to help me at least get the raw files off of the keyboards. I'm going to make a more official post about the Rhythm archive project over in the General section of the forum that will include specific instructions about how you can contribute to the archive project, so stay tuned for that.

 

Happy holidays and enjoy your new Rhythms! 

 

[Rick Stirling]

Excellent. Thank you. Just downloaded to MX500 and am auditioning them now. 

[Chandler Holloway]

Thanks Rick. Let me know if you hear any Rhythms that are clearly duplicates of existing MZ-X Rhythms. If I know which ones were recycled for the CT-X3000, it'll make the process of archiving the MZ-X series Rhythms much easier, since I'll know which ones to skip.

[Jokeyman123]

Will these play on the PX350 and PX560? Both can load and play .AC7 rhythms, of course with only 2 variations. and how about the CTK series-6000, 6200, 7000, 7200 and WK equivalents? guess I'll have to do some woodshedding.

[Rick Stirling]

32 minutes ago, Chandler Holloway said:

Thanks Rick. Let me know if you hear any Rhythms that are clearly duplicates of existing MZ-X Rhythms. If I know which ones were recycled for the CT-X3000, it'll make the process of archiving the MZ-X series Rhythms much easier, since I'll know which ones to skip.

 

Just did a random sample and heard both new and old. Will need to do a structured approach later this week. (Really busy next 3 days)

[Chandler Holloway]

@Jokeyman123 The .AC7 format is universal, so yes, even though those boards are 2-variation only, they should be able to import these Rhythms (albeit likely with some issues in instrumentation due to the differences in voice assignments). When a 4-variation Rhythm is exported to a 2-variation board, only Var1 and Var2 are accessible. When I was creating my expansion pack for the CT-X700 and X800, I did all the editing on a CT-X3000 so I was able to move the variations I wanted into the Var1 and Var2 spots. Usually I just used my best judgment and tried to pick whichever Variation matched the intro most for Var1 and whichever Variation matched the ending most for Var2 to allow for smooth transitions.

 

If you export these rhythms to a 4-variation board like the MZ-X first, you can rearrange the variations as you see fit and then take that file and put it on one of those two variation boards for the best results. Ideally the archive would include permutations of every 4-variation Rhythm such that every possible unique combination of variations that can occupy the first two variation slots would already be exported as its own .AC7 file.

 

For example, the default order of a 4-variation rhythm is (obviously) V1-V2-V3-V4. If I were to make the perfect archive of this rhythm for maximum versatility when importing to a 2-variation keyboard, I would need to include separate permutations of the original .AC7 file for each of the following orders in the first two slots:

 

V1-V3

V1-V4

V2-V3

V2-V4

V3-V4

 

This accounts for every possible unique combination, but even beyond that, there are certain situations in which you might want a different order of these two variations. I explain this scenario and its related issues in great detail in this post over in the ReStyle development thread. To account for these situations, the ideal archive would also include separate permutations for all of these orders in the first two slots:

 

V2-V1

V3-V2

V3-V1

V4-V2

V4-V3

V4-V1

 

Creating all of these permutations for every single 4-variation Rhythm would be incredibly tedious to do on the hardware itself, especially considering each fill would need to be moved around to match-up with its associated variation as well. This is why I requested that @shiihs consider adding a "variation swap" function to ReStyle to help streamline the process of creating all of these permutations. Thankfully there are only really two models with a unique set of 4-variation Rhythms, the CT-X5000 and the MZX-500. The CT-X3000 has all the same preset Rhythms as the 5000, and the MZX-300 has all of the same rhythms as the MZ-X500 minus a few exclusives. Considering that these two models also share some duplicate Rhythms between the two of them, I'd guess that there are only roughly 400 unique 4-variation Rhythms in the entire Casio product line. Including the original raw archived version of each Rhythm, which doubles as the V1-V2 permutation, that means that the "ideal archive" would require 12 separate permutations for each Rhythm. 12 permutations for all (estimated) 400 unique 4-variation Rhythms would mean roughly 4,800 separate Rhythm files just to account for these two models. Thank goodness there's only two of them.

 

Luckily, the 2-variation models only need one var-swapped permutation for the "ideal archive", which is a much simpler undertaking. Perhaps ReStyle should include a quick and easy "swap slot 1 and 2" command to help streamline the process of generating these V2-V1 permutations for the archive. I probably won't start in on generating all these unique permutations until the original files are all taken care of first though, so I wouldn't need the var-swapping functionality for a while anyway.

 

38 minutes ago, Rick Sterling said:

Just did a random sample and heard both new and old. Will need to do a structured approach later this week. (Really busy next 3 days)

 

No worries, please take your time. Any information you can give me helps. Hope you're enjoying the Rhythms!

[Chandler Holloway]

I have since released an updated version of this archive, but now with each Rhythm being "unlocked" by ReStyle. When imported to a CT-X3000 or X5000, the tracks of these Rhythms will show up as "Recorded" rather than "Fixed", meaning you can now make precise edits to them with overdub recording and spot clear.