NEW WK7600 DELIVERED YESTERDAY!!

[TomTPX560]

Just got my new Casio WK7600 yesterday.  Haven't had time to explore it yet, except for going through a bunch of the voices.  I anticipate that I'll have lots of questions about this keyboard for the more knowledgeable members.  I plan to set aside a three hour block of time each day for study and practice on it.  The feel of the keys is definitely different than my Yamaha PSR EW400.  The WK7600 is just a little bit more like a piano feel, while the PSR EW400 is more like an organ feel.  I like them both.

 

I'll be able to do things on the WK7600 that I can't do on the EW400.  I just hope that the manual isn't too convoluted, and that I don't get discouraged.  I know it's going to be a steep learning curve for me.

What I'm looking at for next upgrade is the Privia Pro PX560 and similar keyboards, with a more piano-like feel.

 

Anyway, I'm very psyched about embarking on this new musical adventure with the WK7600.  I also got the Casio sustain pedal for it, and a dust cover.   Any preliminary suggestions about this keyboard are appreciated.

[Brad Saucier]

Awesome!  Glad to see you digging your new WK-7600!

[Casiofun]

It is an amazing keyboard. Lots of sounds, rhythms , editing options, and those drawbars. I used to own the CTK 7000 the 61 key version of your board.

[TomTPX560]

On 5/7/2020 at 2:40 PM, Brad Saucier said:

Awesome!  Glad to see you digging your new WK-7600!

Sorry for the long delay in replying.  I spent most of the first 2 weeks just getting used to the feel of the keys, and getting up to speed after being used to the EW400's organ-style keyboard for almost a year.  At first, I didn't like the main piano voice on the WK7600, but it kind of grew on me.  Also, I've learned how to tweak it (and other voices) toward something I like better than the factory default settings.  The past couple of days I've mostly been practicing the song sequencer and recording operations, but I intend, very soon, to go back to the beginning of the manual and follow it to the end (of course this still puts me on a somewhat convoluted path, but at the moment I don't have any ideas about how they might have done a better manual, or keyboard, organization).

Anyway, bottom line is that I'm glad I bought it, am having fun with it, and have come to think that I can, eventually, learn absolutely everything that this keyboard is capable of.

I'll upload some .WAVs of practice sessions, song ideas, and such in the near future.

Thanks for replying.  I continue to read through posts on CasioMusicForums.  Good stuff!

[Casiofun]

To be sure there are a lot of features on this board. The user interface takes getting used to. I never did get the hang of the pattern sequencer to create rhythms from scratch but I think this is one of the most powerful features this board has. I currently have a CTX 5000 and am glad I upgraded. I do miss the drawbars however because they made the mixer easier and more flexible to use.

[TomTPX560]

Update on learning to use the WK7600:  Been through most of the piano, electric piano, and organ tones, some of which I like a lot.  Have recorded a couple of 3-part (track) pieces and several single track ones.  All piano stuff so far.  Learned how to listen to and record single tracks by themselves in a multi-track 'song' -- which is good for me because I will be using the WK7600 mainly to record short, one-track, improvs and ideas.  And, I'll be able to accumulate up to 80 separate pieces on the WK7600 before I have to start clearing tracks to make room for more.

 

As far as I can tell, the only ways to record sequencer playback (or any WK7600 sound) audio to .wav (i.e., lossless) file format are, 1.  via the line-out (recommended) or phones (not recommended) jacks on the WK7600 to the line-in jack on the computer, or 2.  using Behringer LINE2USB (or some other A>D converter) from the WK7600 line-out jacks to a USB input.  I suppose I might be able to record .wav files using my Android LG phone, but haven't experimented with that yet.  Anyway, that would have to go to the phone's combination headphone/microphone 1/8 in. jack using a splitter with a TRRS plug, so I would expect lower quality than using the line-in on the computer.  But eventually I'll check that out.

 

Getting more into the mixer stuff lately.  Along with that, I will learn more about modifying tones.

I think that I probably won't use much of the sequencer editing capabilities of the keyboard.  But I don't know for sure yet.  Depends on whether I want to keep something as an "improv", and also how much ensemble stuff I do.

 

I'll upload a few very short pieces (practice improvs, ideas, etc.)with my next post here.  I see below that the forum provides an easy way to do that.  Very cool!

 

Thanks for this forums and the helpful members.  Lots of good info!!

 

[- T -]

Tom

 

You might want to try an audio recording (Casio format) direct to an SD Card on the WK-7600, then converting it to WAV format with the Casio Data Manager 6.1 software.  There would be some slight loss of quality, because the original recording would be at 42 Khz instead of 44.1,   I'm not sure how noticeable that would be.  I cetainly never noticed any loss of quality on my CTK-7000 and WK-7500.  My point is, the Casio audio format is certainly not a lossy MP3 type compression.

 

- T -

 

 

[TomTPX560]

T, I will be doing audio recording (Casio format) direct to an SD card on the WK7600, then converting to .wav using the Casio Data Manager 6.1 (CDM 6.1) software.  I was unable to get a definitive answer regarding the exact contents of Casio proprietary audio files (.cms).  Pertaining to recording sequencer playback only, my current guess is that what's being written to the SD card is a combination of the relevant midi instruction data and the sound samples (in what form?) of the relevant instrument(s) contained in the WK7600.  There's no reason for Casio to digitally sample electrical waveforms when it can just transfer data already contained within its memory to the SD card.  Of course, that necessitates converting what's on the SD card to a format (.wav) that can be played on my computer and modified with my editing software.  Depending on how good the conversion software is, I would suppose that it's possible to get the truest fidelity to what I hear coming from the WK7600's speakers or my headphones using the SD card method [WK7600 >>> SD card (midi instructions + WK7600 internal audio samples) >>> convert to .wav using CDM 6.1], as opposed to recording via the line-out method [WK7600 line-out >>> computer line-in >>> convert to .wav using audio recorder/editor].

 

What does "original recording would be at 42 kHz" refer to?   Does the SD card method (pertaining to recording sequencer playback only) involve digital sampling?

I'll get back to this thread after I've done a few SD card recordings, and/or learned something new about this, or whatever.

[Jokeyman123]

Be clear-WK audio recording and the Casio proprietary .cms songfile uses 2 completely different recorders. When you record audio to the SD card-this is equivalent to recording your .cms songfile straight to an old-style tape recorder or external digital recorder-but the WK has its own internal "audio" recorder to do that-and that is what it is doing when it saves it to the SD card. The .cms  file is strictly midi data-not audio. It is being created internally by the WK's internal 17-track "midi" recorder, not the audio recorder. Once you record anything with the "song" recorder, all you have is digital midi data-which can only be played back with the WK internal sounds-but when you do so, the WK can record that as an "audio" file, if you use the "audio" recorder. Think of the .cms song recorder song as a form of an "smf" standard midi file also labeled as a ".mid" file-only midi data, no audio. and although a .mid file can be downloaded and played on a computer using the right midi software, and can also be loaded onto the SD card and played using the WK internal sounds-it has no audio information in it at all. And the .cms Casio "song recorder" song, although similar to a .mid file, can only be played by the keyboard that created it-in this case the Casio WK. Casio uses this concept of a "specialized" song recorder song file in several of its other keyboards and none of those can be converted to a standard midi file for playing on the computer (.mid). You can only do that by recording the .cms file to the WK "audio" recorder first-now a .wav file which on the SD card can be copied to the computer and played using software for audio wav files such as "Audacity" or similar. 

 

T-did I describe this correctly? T knows the WK series better than I-I play and use the Privias mostly now but have owned and played the others (CTK/WK).

[- T -]

1 hour ago, Jokeyman123 said:

T-did I describe this correctly?

 

Yes! Very good, but I would add that the .cms MIDI Song file is recorded to the Song Sequencer's internal memory.  From there, it can be transferred, as backups, either directly to the SD Card, or to the computer's hard drive with the Data Manager 6.1 software, but to be played, it must be loaded back into the Song Sequencer's internal memory, as that is the only device that can play it.

 

The Audio Recorder records ONLY to the SD Card. 

 

 

6 hours ago, TomTWK7600 said:

What does "original recording would be at 42 kHz" refer to?

 

The WK-7600's Audio Recorder records at a 42 KHz rate, rather than the 44.1 KHz rate of a standard Windows WAV file, so even though you convert the Casio audio file to a WAV file, the overall sound quality will still be that of the original 42 KHz recording.  That is to say, the WAV file conversion process can not replace (fill-in) the higher frequencies that were never recorded to begin with, at the 42 KHz rate, but even so, I think the 42 KHz rate is a good match for the WK-7600's sonic capabilities. I really don't think you will notice the difference.

 

[TomTPX560]

2 hours ago, - T - said:

 

 

 

I hit quote by mistake.  How to cancel or delete?  Deleted the quoted stuff, but just want to cancel and start over or delete this post.

Edited June 29, 2020 by TomTWK7600
I hit quote by mistake. How to cancel or delete?

[TomTPX560]

Ok, disregarding my previous posting mistake, thanks very much for the very informative replies.  I can't say helpful yet, because I'm not sure I understand everything that was written.  Anyway, the next thing I'm going to do is buy a SD card and do some recording, and then see if I can understand things a bit better.   Should have some SD card recordings done by this evening.  Either I'll have a handle on this by then, or I'll have more questions, or both, or whatever.  Playing tennis in between, so maybe that will sharpen my mind a bit.  Thanks again for the timely replies!

[TomTPX560]

Wow, I didn't realize that it's been over 2.5 months since I last posted here.  I estimate that I've only spent about 50 hours on the WK7600 since then.  Definitely not enough, but I have a few excuses ...   Anyway, despite my practice shortcomings, I've managed to learn some useful things re the WK7600, and have a bunch of .wav files.  Did a lot with the SD card, then, after I changed the room setup a few times, I did some recordings using a Behringer Line2USB (from keyboard 1/4" left and right line outputs on the WK7600 to desktop computer USB).  I think I can hear a very slight difference, maybe.  Next, will record from the 1/4" left and right line outputs to the desktop computer line input as soon as I get the proper cable for that.   Next thing after that to get is a pair of decent studio headphones.  Not too expensive.  Been considering Sennheiser HD280 Pro, Sony MDR 7506, Audio Technica ATH-M50, and a few others.  Then a decent pair of small room (nearfield?) powered studio speakers.  Any comments/opinions on that sort of stuff (or anything for that matter) is welcomed.

 

Still haven't explored many of the voices, or hardly any of the styles/rhythms, to any great extent, so that will be fun.  And all of its other capabilities.  Lots to learn.

 

So far it's been a very positive experience with the WK7600.  The keys seem to have loosened a bit, but for me it makes no difference.  It hasn't changed the feel of the keys when playing, any sounds they might make are not recorded by the sequencer or when I record directly to the computer, and I don't play particularly soft music anyway.  The WK7600 feels a lot different (to me) than the Yamaha PSR EW400 to play.  At first, I didn't like it as well, but now I like it better.   One other thing, I really like the Casio SP20 sustain pedal -- mainly because it stays put on my tile floor when I'm pressing it, but it works good too.

 

 

 

 

 

[TomTPX560]

Ok, so I've been recording to SD card almost exclusively since my last post.  Even though , after conversion, you get 'wav' files that are not quite lossless wav files, it's just so easy to use that I don't bother much with hooking the WK7600 to my computer any more -- and anyway, any difference is, fapp and to my ear, pretty much negligable.  It's a pretty great feature to have on a $450 keyboard.

 

Have been practicing more as time passes.  Did about 4 hours last night.  Still almost exclusively with piano voices (tones).  There's so many instrument tones and different ways to tweak them on the WK7600 that I will probably eventually devote a month or two to just exploring all of the tones.  But for the time being am mainly concerned with trying to get back up to speed on technique and trying to remember stuff that I've forgotten.

 

I went ahead and sold my Yamaha PSR EW400, and plan to use the money toward eventually getting an 88-key weighted hammer action keyboard.  I had been looking at the old Yamaha DGX660 because of its sound, its sequencer, and its ability to record wav files directly to a USB stick inserted in the front of the instrument, and then I remembered the Casio Privia PX560.  Way better than the Yamaha DGX660, but costs $400 more.  Then I checked out the Casio Privia PX360.  Way better than the Yamaha, and only $100 more.  So, that's the front runner so far.  Am also considering the Casio CGP700, as it seems to be comparable to the PX360 -- so now am going to the appropriate forum(s) here to ask about those.

 

Stay safe and well everybody.  Will be back here with intermittent progress reports, and hopefully some short videos of playing the WK7600 with synced audio -- or at least some short audio files made with SD card.  (Have to check on that.  Might end up just putting them on YouTube and linking to them here.)

[Jokeyman123]

If i had to choose between the PX360/560 and CGP-I did, I have the PX560.

 

The acoustic and other pianos and tones from the CGP will be I believe very much the same quality as the WK7600 but will lack the tri-sensor action and pianos of the PX360 and 560. The piano actions-I think although I haven't played the CGP-will be very close for feel-depending on your preferences you might like the one over the other-I have an older CDP230 which I think is more like the CGP action than the PX's-and I like playing both. Playing any of these is the only real way to know what is best for you. Practicing and playing technique and repertoire is fine on any of these newer Casio piano-action boards, but that's me. The PX pianos sound more realistic-I've done extensive A-B listening to my PX560 piano compared to almost everything else-and it stands up very well to boards costing 2-3 times as much, again my opinion. Listen through quality headphones on Youtube, will give you somewhat of an idea. I would make sure you listen with a top-notch set of phones attached to your computer's headphone out jack-and remember not all Youtube video sound quality is created equally well.

 

One more important aspect-as you seem to be dedicated to learning many of the fine points of the WK re recording....the WK actually has a few features for recording multi-track midis internally that are lacking even in the PX560-which in turn has several recording features lacking in the CGP and 360. The color screen is...magnificent..I have never had such an easy time flying around the PX560 mixer, recorders, tones and-the marvelous hex layers.  I also miss drawbars which none of these have but you have the WK for that.

 

Tough choice, I'm sure others will weigh in-IMO after all the features in the WK-7600 you are learning-I think you will get a blast out of the programming capabilities for synth tone and hex layers-the 560 is a programmable synthesizer, the CGP and PX-360 are not in the strictest sense. Every time I look over other Korg, Roland, Yamaha workstations-I go back to the 560, it still has the most versatile features set I've found for the money-a piano action keyboard, 17-track sequencer and fully programmable tones and hex layers-a killer board IMO and worth the extra money. Learning your way around the WK, the 560 will be a breeze. If you can't afford the extra money-I would go for the 360 which has the same action, superior acoustic pianos compared to the CGP. Download the manuals for all 3, take a look at the features for each. I think that will help.
C

[TomTPX560]

Jokeyman123, thanks for that very informative reply.  I did more research (watching YouTube vids) this morning, and have eliminated the very nice (especially with its sound system) CGP700.  But then I happened on the PX-S3000, which sounded really nice ... but it's also not a PX360 or PX560.  So, I'm going to try to be patient and take an extra month or two to save for the PX560.   As you wrote, the 360/560's color screen is "magnificent".  Yes.  I haven't been able to find anything as good as either keyboard in their price range.  So, I'm going for the PX560.

 

Another real important consideration is whether or not I sell my WK7600 to help finance the PX560.  I want to keep it, but the money ...    Can the WK7600 do anything that the PX560 can't?  Regarding that, I'm wondering if the PX560 can record multitrack sequencer stuff to usb audio.  I know the PX560 can record single audio performances, but the WK7600 can do that and also record to SD card any multitrack sequencer stuff that I play back, which is so handy that it has become a necessary feature for me.  It wasn't clear to me from the vids I watched whether the PX560 can do that.  So, if it can't, then that would be a major reason to not sell the WK7600.  Anyway, I downloaded the PX560 manual, and hopefully can find the answer in it.  While writing this, I'm thinking more and more that I'm just going to be patient and keep the WK7600 no matter what.  It's my first Casio keyboard since back around 2000, and it reminds me of those times.  Plus, it's a really fun keyboard that I could use (instead of the PX560) for stuff away from where I live.

 

  Going to check out the PX560 forum here in a few minutes, and try to record some piano stuff suitable for uploading later tonight.  Thanks again.

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by TomTWK7600
change wording

[TomTPX560]

8 hours ago, Jokeyman123 said:

The PX pianos sound more realistic-I've done extensive A-B listening to my PX560 piano compared to almost everything else-and it stands up very well to boards costing 2-3 times as much, again my opinion. Listen through quality headphones on Youtube, will give you somewhat of an idea. I would make sure you listen with a top-notch set of phones attached to your computer's headphone out jack-and remember not all Youtube video sound quality is created equally well.

This was an especially good point among many in your recent post.  Even just listening via my speakers, and taking into account the variations in YouTube video sound quality, the quality of the PX560 piano tone is evident.  But yeah, headphones is the way to go.  Got a nice new set, but they hurt my ears.  Need to get a pair with bigger

cushion openings for closed back, and maybe also a pair of more 'open' ones like the Grados or whatever.

[Jokeyman123]

Answering the one question re recording.

 

You can definitely record a multi-track "song recorder" song first-then play it back and record it using the audio recorder which now places it on your thumb drive-and the audio quality is excellent, just as with the WK7600. If you can afford to-I would keep the WK7600, the drawbars are very handy if you like to custom edit your organ tones, and the WK midi song recorder has a few features i recall that the PX's do not-cut and paste and overdub for sections of a track-not a deal killer as with 17 tracks it's pretty easy to just overdub the same tone on a different track with the 560.

 

Another funny thing-although I primarily learned technique on pianos, but played Hammonds and other spring-action keys for years-something about the "waterfall" style keys with the Casios I've grown to really like-I had a CTK6200 for awhile and have kept the XW which has the same keys and action as your WK and the CTK I believe. I find i can dig into this action better than some of the other spring action keys i still play, just another reason i would not be too quick to let the WK go, especially since Casio has a way of not always following up on similar designs for awhile-notice the CTX's do not have drawbars and the MZ-X's I think are falling away-i barely see any in the marketplace anymore-and the MZ-X is very similar to the PX560 with the addition of sampling and more programmable rhythms but no piano action.  Another powerful aspect to the 560-although you cannot program custom rhythms with it-I think you can with the WK-it will load and play the older .ckf rhythms and the newer .ac7 rhythms-and there are many of those available here in the file section-with new posters adding new rhythms as i post this. Any rhythm accompaniments you create on the WK will play on the PX-you may have to make some adjustments with tones and balances but I load and play .ckf rhythms on 4 different Privias I developed for the PX560 with software and this works on all of them, nice! So alot of flexibility if you like custom rhythm accompaniments-I've posted quite a few here myself.

[TomTPX560]

Thanks Jokeyman123.  Excellent reply.  I'm going to keep the WK7600, no matter what.  Will just get the money, even if I have to wait and save for an extra month or two.  No big deal, and anyway it will give me more time to explore the WK7600.   Your posts are very informative.  The rhythm stuff, especially user created, is all ahead of me.  Looking forward to learning it.  I might be jumping the gun a bit, getting ahead of myself with the PX560 thing.  But for me it's an especially exciting keyboard.  Probably what will happen is that I will be forced to wait a bit longer than I now anticipate.  But I've got my WK7600 to keep me very busy.

 

Posted a few questions in the PX560 forum here.  Still have to watch a bunch of PX560 videos, check the manual, and then practice/record on the WK7600.  It's going to be a very late night.  hahahaha

[daveivanov]

Hello Tom. I'm glad you're happy with your new keyboard!

 

May I ask, did you consider a CT-X5000? If yes, what made you choose the WK7600, other than 76 keys?

[TomTPX560]

Hi daveivanov.  It was just the 76 keys.  I wasn't considering anything with less than that.  But for portability and the features it offers, the CT-X5000 is a great keyboard.  I might still get a CT-X5000 some day, who knows.  I just recently got a Privia Pro PX560, and I'm hooked on it for the time being.

Have fun researching and choosing your next keyboard, and thanks for commenting.

[Martha]

Alas, a soul mate! I've had WK7600 since March, putting rhythms to all kinds of music. Now am learning about other navigation buttons, finding the manual and sometimes the videos sorely lacking in basic instructions. 

Right now am trying to understand one-touch presets explained on p 27 of manual. Am probably missing one tiny step. In the appendex there are lots of wonderful rhythms but I don't how to get them going. 

Am using part of every day also to learn.

I'll watch this thread and maybe it'll help me too.

Keep working at it

 

 

 

 

[TomTPX560]

Thanks for commenting Martha.  Looks like you're further along with the WK7600 than I am.  It can do so much stuff that I will probably never learn everything.  Hopefully, some of the knowledgeable people here will comment on your comment.  Anyway, Happy WK7600ing!  I still have lots of exploring to do on the WK7600.  Haven't even gotten to the rhythms yet.  Then, recently I got the PX560, so have been spending all my music time with it.  Probably will get back to the WK7600 soon though, and try to develop a schedule where I'm doing something on each keyboard each day.

[Martha]

Thanks Tom. Am also new at getting around in forums. Am trying to understand music presets now, great rhythms but don't understand how to get them to work. 

Enjoy!

 

 

[Brad Saucier]

Music presets are like having someone next to you playing the chords that drive accompaniment, freeing you to play a melody over the top, kind of like joining in on a jam session, but the keyboard does all the work.  In fact, Casio used to call this feature "free session".  It works great for honing improvisation skills.  Preset chord progressions consist of commonly used progressions in popular music.