My impressions after 6 months with the PX-560M

[AndrewL]

Well, today it’s been 6 months since I received my great PX-560M and I think it's a good time to post my findings and thoughts so far. I actually thought of doing this 3 months ago, but I didn't find the time.

 

Let me start with my overall appreciation of the keyboard: when you think about digital pianos, stage pianos, synthesizers or arrangers, this model is of course not the best of any of those. BUT, and this is a huge but, it's incredibly capable in all of those categories and for a very competitive price. And the big color touch screen is the icing on the cake. I don’t think you can get this much for this price with any other brand. So I'm really happy with my purchase decision, and proud of it.

 

Now, to the details.

 

Issues:

• When using some cheap low impedance earphones (Philips SHE8000, 16 Ω), there’s a hissing sound, even with the volume set to zero. This does not occur with my a-little-less-cheap Sennheiser HD 201 (24 Ω), where -by the way- the keyboard sounds great.
• When a MIDI recording ends with a different tempo (like a rallentando), often the tempo after stopping the file is the slow one instead of the starting one. There are random bugs related to this, like when doing a Punch In A-B it occurs at the slow tempo, even though it’s before the rallentando. Or if you do a A-B Repeat, after stopping, the tempo is set to the ending one. You can see a video of this here. The recording is 120 bpm all along except at the end when it slows down to 82 bpm. The volume is low but it doesn't add much.
• (Probably limitation by design) When exporting to SMF (.mid), at least in my tests, the system track is ignored, so the first MIDI track is left empty, even if it’s a very simple tone.
• (Probably limitation by design) If you want manually played drums in the MIDI, you have to use track #10 (you might already know from editing MIDIs, but it would be nice if the keyboard did it already for you).

 

Occasional bugs:

• Once, when doing a Punch In A-B to fix a part of a recording, it shifted the whole rest of the song by a sixteenth note. I was really worried that I would have to redo everything after that part. Fortunately, I re-recorded with another Punch In A-B that part and somehow that fixed it.

 

Things to improve:

• The tap feature just considers the time between the last two pressings, making it to too sensitive to the human lack of precision. I think it would be great if it averaged the last 4 (or so), like other keyboards do.
• As only one tone can have DSP, you cannot easily know if your secondary tone is going to work as expected. If Upper 1 is a simple sound and Upper 2 has a DSP effect, then we are good. But when you change Upper 1 to something with DSP effect, Upper 2 loses it. And if you change Upper 1 back to the previous tone, Upper 2 does not recover its intended sound, you need to re-select it. The most noticeable way to reproduce this is with the Ring Modulator effect.
• It would be nice if you could set the playback start of a recording when you start playing, in case you want to play live over a MIDI recording and need both hands on the keys.
• It would also be great to be able to lock or protect either a track or a whole recording. You can very easily start recording and therefore delete your hard work in one second.

 

Miscellaneous comments:

• All piano sounds are actually from the same samples, just changing the equalization or effects. Is that correct? That’s what my ears tell me, plus what I see in the wave list from the appendix. Is it from a Bechstein?
• Most pianos use the 4 samples, each one for different velocity, separated by L/R (8 in total). This means that with a hex layer you could not fully reproduce the Grand Piano, as you could just use 6 samples (3 velocities per side). Is this also correct? This makes hex layers almost be unable to be used with pianos (you need to either go mono or use just at most 2 samples). BTW, I just found out this reply confirming this:
• I found it weird that there is no slap bass in the Bass section, only in GM. It's also strange that no bass makes a slap sound when pressed at high velocity, like even some cheaper keyboards do. I had to create a hex layer to get this behavior.
• The available actions for the controllers change when changing the tone, so if you assign one to, let’s say, speed, when you change the tone, that control may be assigned to something else, like delay time.
• I like the pad that sounds in Piano Pad, but is it there somewhere on its own? I tried those with “pad” in their name but none of them seem to be that exact one.

 

Extra (unexpected) behaviors:

• I didn’t know among the chord fingering modes there are two where you can define the bass. That’s so cool! I was considering another model because of this feature. Even after watching dozens (hundreds?) of PX-560M videos I never saw that feature showcased anywhere, so it was a great surprise when I discovered that. I know it’s in the manual, but I didn’t read all through beforehand.
• When using rhythms, you can use Intro and Ending as fill-ins. In the middle of the song press Intro or Ending and then again Normal/Variation twice to return to normal. This may of course not sound too well with all rhythms. Those whose intro start with no drums are great to insert a silent measure, without having to stop the rhythm, which of course breaks the perfect synchronization.
• I also wasn’t aware that the multi-track editor had so many functionalities. It’s awesome that you can precisely select what to edit, insert/delete measures, quantize, etc.

 

Finally, I found this page where apparently you can send Casio ideas for products, and I have a few for the next model (yeah, let me dream). But there doesn't seem to be a contact form for that purpose. Maybe just the Tech Support form? Has anyone ever tried that?

 

Thank you for reading!

[Brad Saucier]

Thanks for the well thought out review.  I can add some insight on the MIDI recorder export to SMF feature.  Standard MIDI files max out at 16 tracks.  The MIDI recorder has 16 solo tracks plus a 17th system track.  The system track records additional tracks into one track (upper 1, upper 2, lower 1, lower 2, all parts of auto accompaniment, auto harmonize).  If the system track is recorded in combination with any of the solo tracks, conversion will ignore the 17th track and convert only the solo track (s).  If the system track is recorded and no solo tracks are recorded, the system should (I haven't personally confirmed this on a PX-560, but I know most Casio models of late do this) convert the system track to SMF and break out all of the individual parts into independent tracks.  

 

As far as the suggestion page, it appears to be there for legal purposes.  Casio reads suggestions posted on this forum, so if you suggest something here, it will likely be seen.  We have quite a few Casio reps as members here.  

[Jokeyman123]

Wow, excellent review. I can't help too much here with my limited knowledge, but re the tempo problems-this is because the PX560 has no song position pointer or midi "chase" function as some keyboards do (or did-probably missing from alot of newer instruments too). I am assuming you record your tempo changes in the system track, although without a SPP function-the midi device will have no idea which tempo setting is where, and may not detect your tempo changes in the middle of the song when you restart it. I think this was a function originally developed by Roland with their sequencers i seem to recall, where it would reset your song's tempo based on where you are restarting, or beyond that point-so if you restarted your song to loop 4 measures after your embedded tempo change-it would sense that and reset it there, rather than to your original tempo at the beginning of the song.And there is no midi clock, although I'm not sure whether that needs to be implemented for accurate tempo changes or not.

 

And regarding the 1/16 note problem-if your "ticks" are not set exactly to 96 at the end of a measure when looping or cutting and pasting-you will lose your timing-I don't remember if you lose an entire beat-but the tick setting has been pretty accurate and I've used it quite a bit. The sequencer resolution on this is pretty accurate 384 ticks per measure-96 per quarter note beat. I am on OS 1.16, earlier versions might have a bug i am not aware of. and i'm so glad you found this Casio policy statement-it validates what I've thought all along which most of us seem to understand and have avoided rathe pointless posts/flaming-demanding features that even Einstein would have trouble with-Bob Einstein or Albert. Being aware of Casio's approach to this makes perfect sense-and also is a good reason to post what you feel would improve their products-they do-and i have been following Casio since at least the Spanish-American War  and for the money-I am beginning too see the "majors" designing lightweight digital "pianos" along the lines of the PX560-making them lighter piano action instruments with some bells and whistles-but for example the Roland DS-88 which has a few very nice features-control knobs, pads-lacks a full 17-track sequencer, and a few other features that are in the PX560-I have looked, studied and compared many. the other difficulty-as so many other manufacturers have discovered to their chagrin-better to diversify and not please everyone necessarily-but stay in business-or put too much into one product-and if it fails so might your entire company-Ensoniq, Seil, Sequential Circuits and Generalmusic come to mind, but there were other factors involved with those too. so i am very happy Casio supports us as they do-and i could afford 3 Casio instruments for the price of a Montage, Kronos, Oasys or other high end workstations. My TS-12 has features i still don't see on most sequencers, jeyboards or modules-but without support-if it fails, its history.

 

Even the best of the bunch-will have problems, and if there is no support, people like myself have to jump through hoops to try to keep our older musical instruments out of the landfill or repurposethem as expensive coffee tables or workbenches!!!