LK-280 + Chordana play. Song Transfer

[Alyona]

Good afternoon!

 

Tell me, please, how to enable song transfer for the LK-280 in the Chordana play application? (now unavailable - screenshot)

 

Is it possible in lk-280 to load a midi file to display fingering?

[- T -]

As a non-user of Chordana Play, I can not answer your question regarding song transfers, but . . . .

 

Those of us here, who have worked with adapting generic MIDI files from the internet to work with the Casio LK and other "learning" series boards over the past several years, have never been able to get the fingering display to work with those files.  It appears that the fingering display requires additional programming that is only available in the built-in songs.  In essence, that programming would tell the keyboard "when you play this song, play this note with this finger.  Certainly, that type of data is not part of a generic MIDI file, and the keyboard's operating system does not appear to have an algorithm for figuring it out on its own.  That is, that data needs to be hard coded (engineered) into the song data itself.

 

In addition, the "Wait/Listen" phase of the "Lesson" feature does not work reliably with generic MIDI files.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not, all within a given MIDI file.  Basically, only the key lighting scheme, properly done, for the LK models, works reliably for generic MIDI files.  All other "Lesson" features are either "hit or miss" or "not at all", but in my experience, most LK owners, who are interested in this, are really only interested in getting the key lighting to work properly, and are willing to just figure the rest of it out on their own.  That is to say, they just want the LK to show them which key to press when, and then they will decide which finger to do it with, and these owners typically show little or no interest, at all, in the "Wait/Listen" phases of the "Lesson" feature.

 

 

 

[Alyona]

Thank you very much for your response!

 

 

I would have put up with this answer, but when I took an arbitrary midi file from the Internet and opened it in Chordana play, the fingering appeared! (Screenshot) 

At the same time, if the "song ransfer" works, then there is also a fingering on the synthesizer (I saw the video on YouTube). 

Hence there is some way to convert a normal MIDI file to a casio file with a fingertip!

 

 

 

[- T -]

Looking at your last display, it seems to be trying to make a point that "MIDI from the internet = there IS a fingering".  If this were commonplace, why would they be making such a big deal out of it.  They are making a big deal of it because up until now, it was not possible.  It appears that Chordana Play is providing the algorithm that is missing from the keyboard.  I would love to check this all out on YouTube, but right now my satellite IP system has YouTube throttled way back so that it does not overload their satellite network.  I can connect to YouTube with no problem, but actual streaming has not worked at all for several days.  Between YouTube being busy and the throttling, we just get the continuous buffering circles.

[Alyona]

4 hours ago, - T - said:

It appears that Chordana Play is providing the algorithm that is missing from the keyboard. 

Yeah, that sounds about right! But I still have hope that there are converters from casio for direct work on the synthesizer. I'll keep looking)

 

P.S. I'm sorry if I don't write correctly. I use google translate))

[- T -]

So far, the translation coming this way is good. Let me know if I need to reword anything to make it more understandable.

 

The only converter program that Casio ever offered for this is what they called the Casio SMF Converter.  It converts Standard MIDI Files to the Casio CM2 Song file format that is used by the "Learning" series boards.  It supposedly makes the SMF data compatible with the "Learning" features of those boards, but in my experience, it never resolved any of the problems we have been discussing here.  If you are interested, you can download a copy from here:

 

https://music.casio.com/e/smf/

 

This is a very old 32 bit Windows program, originally written for Windows 98SE.  It will also run on Windows-XP/Vista/7 - 32 bit only.  It will not run on any of the Windows 64 bit systems. This is why I still keep an old 2001 Windows XP laptop handy.  After conversion, the resulting CM2 Song file needs to be loaded into the keyboard's internal memory with Casio's IDES data manager software (older boards) or Data Manager 5.0 software (newer boards).

 

[- T -]

Alyona

 

Back to your original question of transferring song files from Chordana Play to the LK-280 - have you seen this video from YouTube?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm_WkPD9B4M

 

After watching this video, I get the impression that the file transfer feature only works with certain of the newer models (CTK-2500, CTK-3500, etc).  I do not think the LK-280, being an older keyboard, has the necessary electronic circuits to do Chordana Play file transfers.  The LK-280 is designed to do song file transfers via the Casio Data Manager 5.0 computer software.  However, if you are just wanting to transfer MIDI files (SMF's) to the LK-280 and have a way of copying them from your phone or tablet's internal memory onto a USB flash drive (either directly or via your computer), you can just copy them into a MUSICDAT folder on a flash drive, and the LK-280 will play them from there.  Now, if Chordana Play does not save its "fingering" parsing into the MIDI file (SMF), then the "fingering" in the LK-280"s display will not work when that MIDI file is played back from the flash drive.  At least the keylighting should work.  If it doesn't, or doesn't work properly, we can fix that.

 

Good luck with this.  I apologize that I no longer have an LK-280 nor a device that can run Chordana Play, so that I could be of more help with this.

 

- T -

 

 

[Alyona]

Thank you very much for your help!

I found a video that uses the LK-265 model and the file transfer from Chordana play works, along with the fingering.

The LK-265 model is older than the LK-280, so it's not clear why file transfer doesn't work on my synthesizer.

[- T -]

Alyona

 

You can not assume that because a particular Casio keyboard model has a lower model number that it is older than a model with a higher model number.  Casio has never consecutively numbered their keyboard models 100% like that.  The LK-265 debuted at the Winter NAMM show in 2017:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_Ztd4KwUYc

 

Yet, you will find many threads here, that go back at least 5 or 6 years, where I and others discuss modifying generic MIDI files to properly light the keys on the LK-280, and the LK-280 was already several years old then.  Yes. you can still purchase an LK-280 new, today, but this is typical of Casio's "learning" series keyboards.  They enjoy a rather long "marketing" life.

 

The LK-265, CTK-2500, and CTK-3500 all share three unique features that the LK-280 does not.  They were specifically designed to work with Chordana Play.  They receive both audio and MIDI via the Audio In jack.  They have the Dance Music Mode feature.  While the LK-280 may work with Chordana Play, after a fashion, it was not designed specifically to work with Chordana Play, as Chordana Play did not exist when the LK-280 was designed.  Thus, some Chordana Play features do not work with it.  I currently have Chordana Play working, after a fashion, with my Yamaha PSR-E433, but obviously some features do not work.  The LK-280 does not offer the Dance Music Mode feature because, again, Dance Music Mode did not exist when the LK-280 was designed. Now, the most significant difference.  The LK-280 receives only audio via its Audio In jack.  It receives MIDI via its USB port only.  There are no internal wiring connections between its Audio In jack and its MIDI circuits.  While you can connect your device (phone/tablet/etc) to the LK-280's USB port and "play" MIDI files into it, when you try to actually transfer MIDI files, the LK-280's operating system is looking for the Data Manage 5.0 transfer protocol of the PC software, not the Chordana Play file transfer protocol.  If you want to play external MIDI files on your LK-280, it would be much, much easier to just copy them to the MUSICDAT folder on an SD Card with your computer and play them with the LK-280's MIDI file player.

 

- T -

 

 

[- T -]

The oldest post I could find on an LK-280 was for a unit with a key lighting problem.  The keys would not light at all.  This was a problem with some LK-280's early on.  Some were shipped with the ribbon cable to the key lighting circuits left unconnected.  The date on that post was January 30, 2013.  The unit had been purchased used, so that puts the manufacture date on that particular unit well back into 2012 - well over 7 and possibly even closer to 8 years ago - well before Chordana Play and the LK-265 were even thought of.

 

- T -