Casio 560 poor sound as a controller

[gary3917]

Hi all '

I am trying to use a yamaha Tyros 5 as a rack style arranger and midi into my Casio 560 and play this way to have a Casio 88 awesome feel . Why when I use the Casio as a controller to play all of the Tyros 5 arranger sounds ....why does the piano sounds of the Tyros sound very cheap and tinty running thru to my Casio keyboard ? It all works great except the horrible piano sound  of the Yamaha which is terrible. What I want to do also is mix the Casio and the Yamaha together to get much fatter sounds and more polyphony .I had other keyboards do the same thing .And even when I turned the local off on the Casio it still is terrible . When I play the Yamaha by itself ....it does not sound bad , only when I run it thru to the Casio....it sucks .

[- T -]

That is because the 560 is selecting the economy General MIDI (GM) sound set on the Tyros 5.  The T5 GM sound set is the equivalent of the Microsoft Wavetable Synth on a Windows computer.  You would need to program the 560 to send the correct Bank Select and Program Change codes that would select the high quality sounds on the T5.  A professional grade controller would have this capability, but I am not certain that the controller capabilities of the 560 are sophisticated enough to do this.  Trying to use a "regular" keyboard, that was not specifically designed with controller capabilities, as a controller is always a huge compromise, at best.  Basically, it usually boils down to nothing more than trying to use a device for something other than that for which it was designed, then blaming that poor device when things don't work as well as expected.

 

As a work-around, you could set-up the T5 to not accept Bank Select and Program Change messages at all, so the 560 can not change the T5's tones unexpectedly by mistake, then just select the T5 tones, you want, manually on the T5, instead of trying to do it from the 560.  Using registrations, on the T5, to quickly make these selections, would make things a lot easier.

 

[Chandler Holloway]

7 hours ago, gary3917 said:

Hi all '

I am trying to use a yamaha Tyros 5 as a rack style arranger and midi into my Casio 560 and play this way to have a Casio 88 awesome feel . Why when I use the Casio as a controller to play all of the Tyros 5 arranger sounds ....why does the piano sounds of the Tyros sound very cheap and tinty running thru to my Casio keyboard ? It all works great except the horrible piano sound  of the Yamaha which is terrible.

@gary3917
T is correct, the PX-560 is sending program change messages that do not line up with the sound source on the Tyros. You’ll need to consult the Tone List of the PX-560 and cross reference it with the appendix/tone list of the Tyros to make sure that sounds you’re selecting on the Privia match up with the sounds you want to select on the Tyros. Whenever you select a sound on the PX-560, even with local control turned off, you still send out the Program Change and bank select messages for that sound over MIDI.
 

For example, if you were to select 60’s EPiano on the PX-560, you’d be sending out a Program Change message of 4 and a bank select value of 18. The Tyros might interpret that as any number of different electric piano sounds, maybe even a clavinet. To make sure you’re getting what you want, start by looking up the tone in the Tyros’ sound list and make a note of the Program Change and bank select messages associated with it. Then go over to the PX-560’s tone list and find the tone that matches those values.

 

Setting the Tyros to ignore program change messages is the easier solution, but overall less flexible. It can be a bit tedious to flip back and forth between the tone lists to make this work, but being able to control everything from one master keyboard (and potentially, the sequencer on that master keyboard) is more convenient in the long run. Once you find a set-up you like, save it as a Registration on the PX-560 so you don’t have to pull up the appendices next time you want to control that tone on the Tyros.

 

7 hours ago, gary3917 said:

What I want to do also is mix the Casio and the Yamaha together to get much fatter sounds and more polyphony .I had other keyboards do the same thing

You’ll need to turn Local Control back on, enable the upper and/or lower layer (U2 or L2) in the Tone Menu and then mute that layer in the Balance Menu or the Mixer menu by setting the volume to zero. The muted layer won’t sound in the PX-560’s sound engine, but the notes will still be sent out over MIDI to control the Tyros. If you route the Tyros’ line outputs into the PX-560’s line inputs (or the PX-560’s outputs into the Tyros’ Aux Input), you’ll be able to hear the sounds of both instruments layered together.
 

You’ll still need to make sure that the muted layer tone matches up with the tone you’re controlling on the Tyros in terms of the Program Change and bank select messages, though. Again, once you get a set-up you like, I highly recommend saving a Registration so that you can recall all these settings later without any hassle. If you want to create another layered combo, you can pull up that same Registration, change the tones assigned to the PX-560 and the muted layer being sent out to the Tyros, and save another Registration in a different slot to save yourself a trip to the mixer menu.

 

Hope this helps!

[Jokeyman123]

Another question-does the Tyros respond to program changes outside of the "GM" arrangement of tones, from external sources (the PX560)-does it send bank select messages? The PX560 transmits bank select. Yamaha usually uses the extended "XG" soundset-and i think the Tyros has additional sounds in its soundset and these program changes in the XG soundset are all over the place compared to the Casio extended tones-the program and bank changes do not match the Yamaha. Close, but not quite.