vbdx66 Posted January 28, 2020 Share Posted January 28, 2020 (edited) Recently, @Chandler Holloway uploaded an archive with all the original, non-edited rhythms of the CT-X3000. Today, just for fun, I decided to upload some of these rhythms to the CT-X800. I thought that they would not sound good at all or at least, that they would behave stangely, since the mapping of voices is different. Well, the result is interesting, to say the least. Actually these CT-X3000 rhythms sound perfectly fine on the CT-X800 - they don’t need any conversion at all. I thus decided to make a little experiment. I choose a rhythm which is present BOTH on the CT-X3000 and the CT-X800, DancePop (rhythm no 34 on the CT-X800). I pressed the « rhythm » button to get the default settings which go together with this rhythm (tempo at 122). I then stored all the settings in Slot 1 of Memory Bank 8. I copied these settings a second time in Slot 2 of the same bank. The following thing I did was uploading the CT-X3000 version of DancePop (labelled Dance Pop X3000 in Chandler’s archive) to one of the 10 user rhythm slots of the CT-X800 and I selected that rhythm and stored it in slot no 2 of bank 8. I then played successively both versions of the rhythm at the same tempo. I started with slot 1 and played Intro, Variation 1, fill 1, Variation 2, fill 2, Variation 2, ending. I then switched to slot 2 and did the same thing. Both versions of the rhythm sounded exactly the same, excepted that variation 2 and fill 2 were a bit different in both versions. Actually, when the rhythm controller is set to variation 1, switching from slot 1 to slot 2 and back, both rhythms are sounding totally identical. I then repeated this process with a few other rhythms, (e.g. DiscoPop, no 36 on the CT-X800, DiscoPop X3000 in Chandler’s archive) which are present both on the CT-X3000 and the CT-X800. Each time, I got the same result: when played at the same tempo, the intro, ending, variation 1 and fill 1 sounded exactly the same in both versions of the rhythm, but fill 2 and variation 2 were somewhat different (the second variation of the CT-X800 seems to be more complex than the second variation of the CT-X3000 version of the rhythm). Now, what does this mean??? 1) Most probably, ALL rhythms from the CT-X3000/5000 are fully readable by the CT-X700/800 without any tweaking. This will probably also be true for all user-programmed rhythms, such as the BradShuffle rhythm programmed for themCT-X5000 by @Brad Saucier, which my CT-X800 could read without further ado. 2) Variation 2 on the CT-X700/800 is probably variation 4 on the CT-X3000/5000. It means that all CT-X700/800 owners now have access to three fills and three variations of the 4-variations, 4-fills CT-X3000/5000 rhythms: variation 1 and fill 1, which are the same on all four keyboards ; variation 2 and fill 2 of the CT-X3000/5000 version of the rhythm ; and variation 4 and Fill 4 of the CT-X3000/5000 version, which are actually variation 2 and fill 2 on the CT-X700/800. Are you still following me, guys?... 3) Thus, the only missing rhythm parts are variation 3 and Fill 3 of the CT-X3000 version. If someone were willing to save all the CT-X3000/5000 rhythms after having swapped variations and fills 1 and 2 with variations and fills 3 and 4, CT-X700/800 users would actually have access to all four variations and fills of all the CT-X rhythms! They would only have to store one permutation in one register memory slot, and the other permutation in an adjacent slot, and they could use all parts of the rhythm instead of being limited to one intro, two variations, two fills, one ending. 4) I cannot try this out because I do not own this keyboard, but I strongly suspect that all the aforementioned will also be applicable to the CDP-S350 as a bonus! This is be great because this would effectively mean that this cheap 88 arranger piano would actually have access to 4-variation rhythms I stead of 2-variation rhytms now. 5) I am strongly suspecting that the AiX chip found in all four keyboards (and the CDP-S350) is actually the one and same chip, it is only the UI of each keyboard and the control panel which is different. Someone having both keyboard at home could test this even further: playing some CT-X3000/5000 rhythms on the bigger keyboard, then on the smaller keyboard, to listen whether there are any differences. If the rhythms sound perfectly similar on both the CT-X3000/5000 and the CT-X700/800, it means that both chips are exactly the same! Further, this would also mean that the sound set is the same on both keyboards, but that on the CT-X700/800, some of the sounds are not accessible from the control panel. Or else, it would mean that for maximal compatibility, the rhythms on both keyboards are using the smaller sound set, that of the CT-X700/800. Or, last possibility, that when a rhythm uses a sound which is not present on the CT-X700/800, this keyboard is programmed to replace the missing sound by the nearest sound instead. This would seem fairly logical: in this fashion, when a programmer at Casio is producing a new rhythm for the CT-X series of keyboards, she/he would need to program it once and it would be perfectly usable for all 4 keyboards without any conversion needed. So convenient, so simple. So guys what are you thinking of all this? Has anybody made further experiments in this matter? And what about the localised versions (Indian, Chinese, ...j of these keyboards? I am really curious to know. Regards. Edited January 28, 2020 by vbdx66 Typos and omissions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chandler Holloway Posted January 29, 2020 Share Posted January 29, 2020 Yes, the .AC7 format is universal for all Casios that support it. The older .CKF Rhythms are backwards compatible and will be automatically converted to .AC7 when loaded on to newer models. 18 hours ago, vbdx66 said: Well, the result is interesting, to say the least. Actually these CT-X3000 rhythms sound perfectly fine on the CT-X800 - they don’t need any conversion at all. The voice assignments are exactly the same for the shared tones between the X800/X700 and the X3000/X5000, so that's no surprise. All the AiX boards, including the CDP-S350, have the exact same voice assignments, even down to the Program Change and bank select values. You can verify this yourself if you look at the appendices of both models. You may run into voice assignment issues with regards to the X3000/X5000 exclusive Rhythms that were not present on the CT-X700, as those tend to feature tones that the lower end models don't have (although not always). When I released those expansion packs for the X700/X800/S350 a while back, I accounted for these "missing tones" when performing the conversion process and made changes where appropriate. I also swapped the General MIDI voices out for their better sounding counterparts from the AiX tone library. I did not perform any of these voice assignment conversions when I released the full CT-X3000/X5000 archive, as it's meant to be a raw, unaltered archive of the X3000's Rhythms in their original form. 18 hours ago, vbdx66 said: 2) Variation 2 on the CT-X700/800 is probably variation 4 on the CT-X3000/5000. It means that all CT-X700/800 owners now have access to three fills and three variations of the 4-variations, 4-fills CT-X3000/5000 rhythms: variation 1 and fill 1, which are the same on all four keyboards ; variation 2 and fill 2 of the CT-X3000/5000 version of the rhythm ; and variation 4 and Fill 4 of the CT-X3000/5000 version, which are actually variation 2 and fill 2 on the CT-X700/800. Are you still following me, guys?... When I was making the expansion pack (and I still had both an X3000 and an X700 for testing), I noticed that there was no set pattern to which two variations out of the four were chosen when "condensing" them down for the 2-variation models. Sometimes Variation 1 on the X700 would be Variation 2 on the X3000. Sometimes Variation 2 on the X700 would be Variation 3 on the X3000. It's not a consistent pattern as far as I could tell. I would like to go through the whole library and figure out which of the four variations were used for each CT-X Rhythm, and then create an "archive" of the CT-X700 and CT-X800 Rhythms just like the X3000 ones. I would do this by copying whichever two variations were used on the CT-X700 into slots 1 and 2 on my CT-X5000 and then export that file for the archive. This would allow CT-X700/800 users to make use of the renaming registrations workaround I have detailed elsewhere on these forums. However, I am very busy this time of year, so such side projects are not a priority right now. Hopefully ReStyle will have come along far enough to make the process easier by the time I'm ready to work on it. It should be able to at least split the archive Rhythms into those "1-2" and "3-4" variants you asked me about earlier, although I haven't had time to test out the latest build of ReStyle to see if the variation swapping feature is working properly by now. 18 hours ago, vbdx66 said: 4) I cannot try this out because I do not own this keyboard, but I strongly suspect that all the aforementioned will also be applicable to the CDP-S350 as a bonus! This is be great because this would effectively mean that this cheap 88 arranger piano would actually have access to 4-variation rhythms I stead of 2-variation rhytms now. Yes, they do work on the CDP-S350. The S350 also has near identical voice assignments to the CT-X models, although there are a few X3000 exclusive piano/epiano tones that were added to the CDP-S350 to take advantage of the full 88-key form factor. 18 hours ago, vbdx66 said: Further, this would also mean that the sound set is the same on both keyboards, but that on the CT-X700/800, some of the sounds are not accessible from the control panel. Or else, it would mean that for maximal compatibility, the rhythms on both keyboards are using the smaller sound set, that of the CT-X700/800. Or, last possibility, that when a rhythm uses a sound which is not present on the CT-X700/800, this keyboard is programmed to replace the missing sound by the nearest sound instead. This would seem fairly logical: in this fashion, when a programmer at Casio is producing a new rhythm for the CT-X series of keyboards, she/he would need to program it once and it would be perfectly usable for all 4 keyboards without any conversion needed. So convenient, so simple. The CT-X700 and X800 do not have all the X3000 and X5000 exclusive tones "hidden" under the hood. Whenever a Rhythm calls up a voice assignment from the X3000 that is not valid on the CT-X700, it will use the voice that is closest in value to the "exclusive" tone, with the bank select value taking priority when determining the closest value. So if the exclusive tone has a Program Change value of 23 and a bank select value of 8, the X700 checks for that assigment and if it's not valid, it will look for a voice assignment that shares a Program Change number (23) and then seek out the voice with a bank select value closest to the "exclusive" tone (for example, it would change to the tone associated with Program Change 23 and bank select 6 instead of PC 23 and bank select 11, because 6 is closer to 8). If there are two bank select values of equal distance from the "exclusive" tone, it defaults to the lower value (e.g. it would choose PC 23 and bank select 7 instead of PC 23 and bank select 9). You're correct in that the Rhythms that are shared between the CT-X700 and CT-X3000 are programmed with the same sound set, but the exclusive Rhythms on the X3000 sometimes use exclusive tones. Some of the CT-X Rhythms are recycled from previous generations of Casio keyboards (primarily the World and traditional Rhythms styles, the Pops/Dance/Rock stuff is usually new because those genres change more often), which I noticed when trying out Rhythms on my now two-generation old Privia PX-350. These "legacy" Rhythms tend to use General MIDI voice assignments for maximum compatibility when being repackaged for new models, which is something I tried to correct when making my expansion packs. 18 hours ago, vbdx66 said: And what about the localised versions (Indian, Chinese, ...j of these keyboards? I am really curious to know. An expansion pack of the exclusive Chinese and Indian Rhythms has been something I've wanted to do for a while, I've just never really tried looking into those manuals and appendices given the language barrier and a lack of access to the hardware. It's also possible that out-of-region Rhythms might not even work on our versions, as they could make use of custom localized tone sets as well. Again, with my current workload, all of these projects are on the backburner for a bit. However, I'm happy to help with information in any way I can in the meantime. Glad we have someone else poking around in these Rhythms on the forums, they really are very flexible and useful when you understand the full extent of their capabilities. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
faz726 Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 As an Electronic Engineer I'd love to know more about what lies under the hood of the CT-X series. Amount of RAM, Flash Memory, CPU etc. But alas, most keyboard players are only interested in what their keyboard can do and not how it does it. I did a partial strip down of my CTK-6200 and was not too happy with the interconnecting ribbon cables (too thick) but apart from that I didn't really learn a lot. I did notice part of a portamento board was present which - I believe - is on the WK-6600. I suspect that the right value potentiometer could be wired up somehow to add portamento to the CTK-6200 . It would probably need an eprom re flash though. I've only had my CT-X3000 for a couple of weeks but I got an out of memory error message for some reason the second day of use.. A reset cleared the error. Is there any way to check memory usage on this keyboard? I certainly don't feel like looking inside to check the amount of RAM present. My wife would not be too pleased if she caught me near my new keyboard with a screwdriver !! Keep safe everybody, John 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Saucier Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 15 minutes ago, faz726 said: I've only had my CT-X3000 for a couple of weeks but I got an out of memory error message for some reason the second day of use "Err Mem Full" occurs when a user song exceeds limits. Single song maximum is 999 measures and approximately 40,000 notes between all tracks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
faz726 Posted February 26, 2021 Share Posted February 26, 2021 Thanks Brad. That's cleared that up. What great knowledge... John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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