Must read - before you buy CT-X3000 or X5000

[Just Alex]

These keyboards have limitations (all keyboards have limitations), and most of them are outlined in manual. However, there are some limitations/issues which are not displayed in manual, and there is no way to fix them. So I'm creating this topic to inform possible buyers about these limitations, so they can decide, whenever they're vital for them or not.

 

1. Tone volumes differ very much - different instruments have different volume, so you will have to adjust each instrument volume individually in each performance, if you want undistorted audio to be recorded.

 

2. There is no software on PC or mac, which will allow you to convert recorded songs (.MRF) into editable format (.MID), you have to do conversion in keyboard, and for this you need to attach an USB flash drive.

 

3. Line out volume is dependent on main volume knob, so you can't get 0db output signal, which makes idea of line out totally unusable.

 

4. Using Casio Data Manager software on PC causes some system settings on keyboard to be reset, each time you use it.

 

5. There is no fully functional rhythm creation/conversion software for computers. All existing software packages have some serious limitations.

 

6. Keyboards can't handle complex MIDI input from USB, which causes lagging, skipped notes and jammed sounds.

 

That's all so far. Will add more if found any. 

[casio_style]

According to point 3.
For some it may be a disadvantage, but for me it is good.
1. I can adjust the volume on my amplifier using this volume control.
2. It is also better for me when I can control the signal level while recording. Sound cards and mixers also have a very wide variation in input sensitivity.

[Just Alex]

Line out levels are standardized across the industry and should not be adjustable.  Line level - Wikipedia

Regarding the issues Synthwave mentioned - all these can be read in manual. And my intention of this post was to outline ONLY issues which are not included in the manual.

 

 

[Just Alex]

Well, someone NOT reading manual can't be qualified as manufacturer's issue

 

[casio_style]

1 hour ago, Just Alex said:

Line out levels are standardized across the industry and should not be adjustable.  Line level - Wikipedia

Regarding the issues Synthwave mentioned - all these can be read in manual. And my intention of this post was to outline ONLY issues which are not included in the manual.

 

 

I don't get any benefit from the standardized line-out value. But the fact that I have the ability to regulate the signal from the synthesizer's line output is a huge benefit to me.
 Example: I sometimes use my smartphone as a WAV recorder. In this case, I use the Behringer LINE 2 USB audio interface as a sound card. This is a sound card built into the USB cable and it does not have any regulators, but at the same time it amplifies the signal coming to it. If it received a signal from a synthesizer with a level of 0 decibels, then at the input of a smartphone I would receive a signal level of about 3 - 5 decibels and naturally there could be no question of any normal recording. But using the volume control on the synthesizer, I attenuate the signal to normal values and can safely record audio to my smartphone from the synthesizer. So whoever got it right can also use their smartphones as a mobile audio recorder.
And let the rest look further for their 0 decibels ...

[Just Alex]

Well some prefer apples, some prefer oranges. We do not talk about personal preferences here.

Line out should have option to be set at industry standard level, to be called "line out"

Here we have not.

 

[casio_style]

32 minutes ago, Just Alex said:

Well some prefer apples, some prefer oranges. We do not talk about personal preferences here.

That's right, because I'm a synthesizer user and I'm primarily interested in utility, not standards.

[casio_style]

5 hours ago, Just Alex said:

 

2. There is no software on PC or mac, which will allow you to convert recorded songs (.MRF) into editable format (.MID), you have to do conversion in keyboard, and for this you need to attach an USB flash drive.

 

Song file .MRF - This file is intended solely for use on the synthesizer. How did you decide that there should be software for it to use it on a computer and where is it stated?
Following your logic, you can continue the list of shortcomings of the synthesizer further: AC7 rhythm files cannot be listened to on a smartphone, you also cannot listen to tone files on a computer or on other models of synthesizers ...
If some programmer suddenly wants to make a converter of .MRF files, then let him make such a converter from midi to .MRF.
 And there is no problem at all to record midi. You can do this either on the synthesizer itself or in the DAW editor on your computer.

[Joe Muscara]

5 hours ago, Just Alex said:

3. Line out volume is dependent on main volume knob, so you can't get 0db output signal, which makes idea of line out totally unusable.

Name a keyboard that does this, please.

[ConfusedRedditor16]

One more thing is I have a ct-x9000in (basically a ct-x5000), the dial feels like it's of poor quality, mine is not flush with the board. Gearfacts made a video about tone editing and I noticed that the dial on his x5000 was also wobbly. I played a 3 year old ctk-7200 at my teacher's place today and that dial felt much more solid, it felt like it could take much more pressure before becoming wobbly

[Jokeyman123]

I can't get my Casio keyboard to tell me what time it is either, life is tough sometimes.  Please don't let this user group turn to whining...

 

If you don't like your keyboard, buy something else-and do your homework before you spend your money, there are online manuals for everything-from Casio keyboards to electric nose hair trimmers. You can purchase a 4000 dollar 88-key Yamaha Montage, Korg Kronos, Fantom etc. and still find something to complain about-but then why did you buy it in the first place without first checking to see what it can and cannot do?  "an informed consumer is our best customer" I seem to remember an old TV commercial-I think it was Sy Syms about his suits!

[ConfusedRedditor16]

True. The stuff on the earlier posts (the limitations and the firmware) I was well aware of, but the dial being flimsier than an old ctk was not what some of us expected

[casio_style]

1 hour ago, Synthwave said:

Yes, the problem comes when after transferring the mrf file to midi and fixing it on the PC, you can no longer continue working with it from the keyboard ... there is no return because the midi files cannot be edited from the ctx . There is also another problem: if your mrf file has backing tracks and solo tracks mixed , when converting them to midi the backing tracks disappear ......If there was a software to convert from mrf to midi and vice versa this would not happen, do you understand?

Yes I understand. An .MRF song file is not a 16 track file, but a 32 track file. It contains data on 16 tracks of the system track and 16 tracks of the solo track, and if you convert it correctly, with all the data in midi, then the midi should also be 32 tracks. But the standard midi contains 16 tracks, that's where the real problem is ...
Therefore, when extracting in midi on a synthesizer, the Casio developers probably decided to save the solo tracks, since they are more important (maybe your masterpiece is recorded there) and the minus or system track is just the rhythm of the auto accompaniment, you can always record it again.
And here my advice is simple, if you want to save the auto-accompaniment in the midi and the parts that were played together with the auto-accompaniment (recording a system track) then do not write anything on the song solo tracks later. I do it myself.

[casio_style]

30 minutes ago, Synthwave said:

I know exactly why and how it happens, and I know how to solve it. The problem is that I don't want Casio to decide what is important to me or not. What I want is for a keyboard that has a function to perform it correctly without resorting to tricks. On the other hand, it is seen that the Casio engineers decided that their sequencer was enough to work with the keyboard and that nobody uses the pc to edit songs, because if it is not like that, I do not understand how bad the usb midi connection works when you work with a Daw.And no, you can't re-record it, because when connecting the ctx to the pc and recording the rhythm track there is lag. 

What is the lag?
  And what solution do you have for correctly extracting 32 tracks of .MRF songs into 16 tracks in midi?

[Chandler Holloway]

9 hours ago, Just Alex said:

4. Using Casio Data Manager software on PC causes some system settings on keyboard to be reset, each time you use it.

System setting, singular. Have you noticed anything besides Auto-Power off that changes as a result of Data Manager transfer? Because you’re the only person who has reported this issue, and Auto-Power off is the only setting change you’ve experienced. I feel that saying “system settings” instead of “Auto-Power Off” is a bit disingenuous, as it might lead people to believe that they’re losing valuable data or settings as a result of using the software, and that simply isn’t true.

 

Would you mind editing it to be more specific? If you intend for this list to be an accurate representation of the faults you’ve experienced, I think it would be best if you narrowed the scope of this particular bullet point in the list. If you already have Auto-Power off enabled (as it is by default from the factory) then this bullet point doesn’t even apply. It would be more informative and helpful to prospective buyers/current owners to clarify that using Data Manager will specifically re-enable Auto-Power off if it is disabled prior to executing a transfer with the software, in my opinion.

[Just Alex]

5 hours ago, Joe Muscara said:

Name a keyboard that does this, please.

Roland D50, Ensoniq TS10+, Yamaha PSR 2000, Kurzweil K2500S and many, many others.

[Just Alex]

1 hour ago, Chandler Holloway said:

Have you noticed anything

Yes. It also changes setting for the sounding part of chords - it unmutes muted ones.

And for the "only you experienced" and so on. I guess, you have the keyboard, you can use the software and check it by yourself, for me not to be "alone" ?

[Chandler Holloway]

1 minute ago, Just Alex said:

Yes. It also changes setting for the sounding part of chords - it unmutes muted ones.

 

Wait what? Could you explain this in more detail?

[Mike Martin]

44 minutes ago, Just Alex said:

Roland D50, Ensoniq TS10+, Yamaha PSR 2000, Kurzweil K2500S and many, many others.

 

Only on the auxiliary outputs, not the main outputs. So no. 

[Just Alex]

11 hours ago, Mike Martin said:

Only on the auxiliary outputs, not the main outputs. So no. 

?

Line out is line out. It's levels, impedances are standardized in industry. This is why it is called "Line out".

X5000 has separate line out, but it's levels depend on main volume knob  Even my, now-antique PSR-E413 has a setting called LineOut, after enabling which, headphone output becomes line output at fixed level and not dependent on main volume knob).

 

11 hours ago, Chandler Holloway said:

Could you explain this in more detail?

The "part" thing, where you can mute-unmute rhythm and other channels.

Why not to try it by yourself? have no keyboard or PC ?

 

[casio_style]

23 hours ago, Synthwave said:

-The midi input uses a different audio engine than the local engine, so it is difficult to choose sounds if the daw does not support msb or lsb and it is also confusing.

 

Any instrument (timbre) can be put on Casio's midi mixer in 3 seconds using the synthesizer itself. But I will write about this not in this topic, I will create another and prepare a text if it is interesting to someone. I don't want the useful to be lost among the useless.

[Joe Muscara]

On 2/7/2021 at 4:06 AM, Synthwave said:

The manual tells you what you can do (and not everything) but it doesn't tell you what you can't do.

😂 It's a good thing the manual for my car told me what it can't do, because it told me the car wasn't a boat, otherwise I would have driven it into the river. It also told me it wasn't a plane, otherwise I would have tried to drive off that cliff. I wish the manual for my keyboard told me it wasn't a surfboard. It worked very poorly as one. 

[Joe Muscara]

7 hours ago, Just Alex said:

?

Line out is line out. It's levels, impedances are standardized in industry. This is why it is called "Line out".

X5000 has separate line out, but it's levels depend on main volume knob  Even my, now-antique PSR-E413 has a setting called LineOut, after enabling which, headphone output becomes line output at fixed level and not dependent on main volume knob).

On 2/7/2021 at 3:58 AM, Just Alex said:

Line out levels are standardized across the industry and should not be adjustable.  Line level - Wikipedia

 

You are misunderstanding the meaning of line levels and thus Line Outs. Your PSR apparently has a control to set the combination headphones/line out because headphones can use a different level than pro gear. But in either case, the volume knob does affect the volume. In fact, on page 11 of the PSR manual it says you should turn down the volume before turning it on, a common technique to prevent popping external amps and speakers. Then you turn the volume up. The manual for the brand new Kurzweil K2700 says much the same thing, and it does not have internal speakers.  It's completely a pro keyboard (meaning: not consumer, if that makes any sense), and the volume knob affects the line outs. If I had a keyboard that had no volume control when connected to external amplification, I'd send it back.

[casio_style]

2 hours ago, jose antonio tafalla blas said:

I think you have not sequenced the ctx from various daw, am I wrong? Because if you had, you would know that the local mixer has nothing to do with the song mode mixer which in turn corresponds to the "midi in" mixer. Because of this the changes you make in the keyboard mixer will not affect the midi mode. If the daw supports bank and preset changes, it is easy. But as the daw does not support it (there are) or you are sending midi from another keyboard, you have to choose the instruments in each song (mrf) and play it once(the song into ctx) so that the changes are applied and then start receiving the midi data. Imagine having to do that in every song in a live. I've been fighting with the CTX for three years now, believe me I know almost everything about it.But if you want to do any tutorial for other users, go ahead, it,s a good idea.

I realized that you know the tool and can tune it without my lengthy instructions.
The bottom line is this: Playing any midi file on the synthesizer, not just the song file (mrf) will also configure the mixer midi in on the synthesizer as you like. Naturally, midi files, with the settings you need, must be prepared in advance in the DAW, then loaded into the synthesizer. As you understand, for one playing of a midi file (just one note), you can configure all 16 channels of the midi in at once as you need: timbres, controllers. And it is better to name midi files by numbers, because then they can be searched through the digital keyboard of the synthesizer, quickly find, quickly launch and configure the midi in mixer as you need. You can prepare as many such presets - ready-made templates. 
It will probably take 3 seconds to find and launch the necessary midi files, maybe more, who has what memory and reaction ...

[Chandler Holloway]

11 hours ago, Just Alex said:

The "part" thing, where you can mute-unmute rhythm and other channels.

 

I will test it, but could you be more specific about which mixer parts are being re-enabled after transfer? Is it just song and Rhythm tracks? Or does it reset the keyboard voice tracks (U1, U2, L1, L2, Phrase Pads) as well?

 

Are you saying that if you have a Rhythm or Song pulled up and certain parts of that Rhythm have been disabled (these channels are turned "off") in the mixer, and then you import a new Rhythm or Song using Data Manager, it will re-enable those parts once that new Rhythm is loaded in?

 

If so, that seems like intended operation, not a bug with Data Manager. If I recall correctly, the Rhythm Mixer settings are saved along with the Rhythm. If a part is enabled in the Rhythm mixer when a Rhythm is saved, it would make sense that loading that Rhythm back in would cause those tracks to be re-enabled (importing a Rhythm with Data Manager will automatically take you to the Rhythm list with the new Rhythm selected, probably so that you can try it out for yourself after importing it). Does it also happen when you import a Rhythm via flash drive? Because that would be the best way to test if this behavior is unique to the transfer software.

 

It's not like you can import a new Rhythm in the middle of a performance anyway (the Sysex transfer stops all ongoing sounds/sequences and prevents you from playing anything on the keys until the transfer is complete), so if you were hoping to make this sort of transition:

 

Rhythm 1 is actively playing with parts A, B and C turned off in the mixer -> Rhythm 2 is imported and starts playing seamlessly with parts A, B, and C still disabled in the mixer

 

That never would have been possible anyway, due to the nature of how data transfers are carried out (either through the USB transfer or Data Manager). Regardless, there's not much of a need to import Rhythms or Songs in the middle of an ongoing performance given all the User Rhythm slots you have available to you.

 

Even if my above guess about Rhythm/Song mixer settings being saved along with the .AC7/.MRF files is wrong, consider this: If someone imports a new Rhythm, it's very likely that they haven't heard it before and they'll be trying it out for the first time. If you're "auditioning" a new Rhythm that you've never heard before, wouldn't you want to hear every instrument track that was programmed into it? If it remembered which Rhythm parts you had disabled and maintained those settings, those parts would be muted when you tried testing out the Rhythm, and you might think it very strange that, for example, a House EDM track doesn't seem to have a bassline at all. Re-enabling those tracks when you import something new thus seems like an intentional choice to prevent this problem from arising.

 

Same goes for MRF recordings that might have parts disabled in the song mixer. If you had disabled tracks 10 and 11 while working on an MRF recording that was already in the internal memory, and then you wanted to import a different MRF file to work on that recording, what exactly is the benefit of having to manually re-enable tracks 10 and 11 in the song mixer section once you load that new song in? Why would you want it to remember those part disable settings for you in that situation?

 

Even if you still maintain that this behavior is some sort of unintentional deficiency with the Data Manager software, I think it would be better for you to revise the bullet point to spell out exactly what changes as a result of using the transfer software. "It resets some system settings" is pretty vague and doesn't really accomplish your goal of properly informing prospective buyers of this particular fault. If we really want to get into semantics, I would argue that part enable/disable is a mixer setting, not a system setting, as it is controlled by the mixer menu and not a sub-menu in the Function list (which is where all the parameters we usually refer to as "system settings" are organized).