Casio XW-P1 Performance Synthesizer

[Mike Martin]

 

Originally Posted by Mike Martin

Gary,

I have been waiting on an "unprotected" version of the PDF that has the patch names so I wouldn't have to type out the names of all 600 presets manually. I just received this so I hope to get this done for you in the next day or two.

 

Gary,

I may not be done this week. I'm at Sweetwater's Gearfest today and tomorrow and leave for Japan for a week on Monday. While I should be able to knock it out on my 15 flight, I may not have access to a XW-P1 to test to see that the file works so I'm going to have to ask for a bit more patience from you.

Take care,

[happyrat1]

 

Originally Posted by Mike Martin

Gary,

I may not be done this week. I'm at Sweetwater's Gearfest today and tomorrow and leave for Japan for a week on Monday. While I should be able to knock it out on my 15 flight, I may not have access to a XW-P1 to test to see that the file works so I'm going to have to ask for a bit more patience from you.

Take care,

 

It's understandable Mike. No point in releasing the file if you can't debug it. Just keep us posted and we'll wait patiently til it gets done.

Have a safe flight!

Regards,

Gary

[Smart Alec]

If it's fair to compare the XWP1 to the Peavey DPM3, then I suppose it's also fair to compare it to the Yamaha EX5.

It had generous polyphony for the AWM2 samples.

It offered two (rather than one, like the XW) notes of polyphony for the AN analog modeling synth engine, so you could have a bass AND a lead at the same time, and you could layer each AN voice with up to three AMW2 voices.

It had two different types of sequencers. Sound familiar?

It had a monophonic VL synth engine, which you could also layer with up to three AWM2 voices.

It had a basic sampler, compatible with the Akai library and expandable via SIMMS to 64mb.

It had a 16 voice synth effect engine, applicable per each individual note

Even today, that's an attractive set of features...

[midiguru23]

 

Originally Posted by Anderton

So I called the reviewer and told him the feature was in there all along, and was described very thoroughly in the manual. To which he said "Well, I didn't read the whole manual..."

 

This is a lesson I've learned the hard way, believe me. What I usually do, and have done for a number of years, is ask polite questions of the manufacturer. If I'm reviewing a product and it seems not to have an important feature, I email the manufacturer and say something like, "I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here. Can you tell me how to XYZ?"

On one occasion (and this was many years ago), I had a manufacturer rep insist that their software DID have a certain feature, when I knew perfectly well it didn't. I had to explain what I was trying to do three times before he admitted, "No, it won't do that." He was being optimistic about his product to the point of deliberately misunderstanding what I was saying, or interpreting what I was saying in the most positive possible light. So you do have to be careful when reviewing, even if you're checking your facts with the manufacturer as you go along. They will sometimes spin their responses.

[jdc513]

NEW USER:

After doing a fair amount of research and reading this review pretty much from the beginning, I've made the plunge and am picking up a P1 tonight. My experience is almost totally guitar based but due to some physical issues I'm switching to more keyboard playing so I'm a little concerned about picking up on all the nuances of a synthesizer but would like to commend all of the posters to this thread for some very helpful information.

One thing I'm still very confused on is the software piece. I've seen a lot of references in this thread to Ableton, Cakewalk, Sonar and such. Is there one that is more compatible with this model than others? More user, or novice, friendly?

Again, I appreciate all of the good information and look forward to learning more.

[Anderton]

 

Originally Posted by midiguru23

This is a lesson I've learned the hard way, believe me. What I usually do, and have done for a number of years, is ask polite questions of the manufacturer. If I'm reviewing a product and it seems not to have an important feature, I email the manufacturer and say something like, "I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here. Can you tell me how to XYZ?"

 

While I don't divulge personal information on here without permission, I will say that the person who wrote this is one of the best reviewers our industry has seen. Feel free to chime in any time!!

[Anderton]

 

Originally Posted by jdc513

One thing I'm still very confused on is the software piece. I've seen a lot of references in this thread to Ableton, Cakewalk, Sonar and such. Is there one that is more compatible with this model than others? More user, or novice, friendly?

Again, I appreciate all of the good information and look forward to learning more.

 

Welcome to the forum! Any modern DAW will work with the XW-P1 as long as your computer has a USB interface (required to communicate with the XW-P1).

As to which one to choose, some of that will depend on your computer - for example, at the moment Sonar is available only for Windows, and Digital Performer only for the Mac. It's also very subjective: Ableton Live (which works on either platform) seems impossibly weird for some people, while others think its the most logical DAW on the planet.

Fortunately, trial versions are available for most DAWs including Ableton Live, Cakewalk Sonar, Acoustica Mixcraft, PreSonus Studio One Pro, Propellerhead Software Reason, etc. Check them out, and see which one "feels" best to you.

[jdc513]

Wow, what a letdown. Picked it up at GC, went home, hooked everything up, pressed power, display flashed once and nothing. Changed outlets, changed power strips, pressed power button harder as instructed by user guide....nothing. I guess stuff like this can happen but very disappointing.

[Anderton]

 

Originally Posted by jdc513

Wow, what a letdown. Picked it up at GC, went home, hooked everything up, pressed power, display flashed once and nothing. Changed outlets, changed power strips, pressed power button harder as instructed by user guide....nothing. I guess stuff like this can happen but very disappointing.

 

Aww man, that's a bummer. Yes, I can testify that this kind of thing can happen but this is the first report we've had of a DOA XW-P1. The most common failure mode for electronics gear these days is infant mortality (within 48 hours), or it could be something like a connector coming loose internally (aka "the UPS shake test"). Just exchange it - the odds of getting two bad puppies in a row is pretty astronomical.

[jdc513]

Yeah....like they say.....s##t happens...Just annoying. And it's the second time on a piece of equipment from GC!!!

[Anderton]

 

Originally Posted by jdc513

Yeah....like they say.....s##t happens...Just annoying. And it's the second time on a piece of equipment from GC!!!

 

Frankly...the problem isn't GC. I get review units directly from manufacturers, and given the condition in which some boxes arrive, I'm surprised some of the units I get work at all. In fact in reviews, I'll often give extra props if the gear still works after arriving in a box where one end looks like Godzilla stepped on it.

When my PC Audio Labs computer arrived, the drive bay had been subjected to such force that it sheared off the bolts holding it in place. I couldn't believe it. A spare optical drive shipped with the machine was cracked in several places. When I plugged in the computer, it didn't work and I was seriously bummed. I called up their customer support, and was guided through re-seating the RAM and connectors. Yes, the computer had been subjected to such force the RAM chips had popped out partially from their sockets (!).

Amazingly enough, after doing the recommended fixes, the computer worked like a champ and has logged well over a thousand trouble-free hours since then - props to PC Audio Labs for that. I was impressed, but suffice it to say that the concept of shipping companies applying tender loving care to the packages you've placed in their care disappeared around the same time as leaded gasoline.

[Anderton]

The Drawbar section is quite simple compared to the Hex Layer and Solo Synth engines, but is very effective at what it does. Frankly, it’s a little difficult for me to imagine the person stacking mad layers of tones or playing killer synth solos saying “Hey, I want to sound like Jimmy Smith!” but hey—it’s there, so why not? It definitely adds to the versatility.

Here’s what you see in the editor. On the keyboard itself, all pertinent controls are toward the left side of the front panel.

The centerpiece for tweakologists are the nine drawbars, which are the same faders used for the step sequencer, mixer, etc. Granted using faders to control organ drawbars is not a new concept, but it’s there for your tweaking pleasure.

Two buttons to the left of the faders turn on the 2nd and/or 3rd overtones. A third switch alternates between two DSP processor settings (more on this later—there’s much more to this than meets the ear).

Although not brought out to front panel controls, you can edit the patch to include a note-on and/or note-off percussive click. The percussion decay time can also be programmed into the patch, but it’s conveniently brought out to one of the performance controls along with reverb amount, vibrato depth, and vibrato rate.

Additional parameters cover volume and chorus send, and you have a choice between a basic sine waveform or a “vintage” waveform. The difference is subtle, but the vintage waveform has a teeny more bite.

Referring to the screen shot above, note the Rotary effect toward the lower right—but you can do a lot more than just use rotary. First of all, you can choose any of the 46 DSP effects, not just rotary, and each effect parameter is available for editing. But let’s return to the rotary effect, as all the effects follow a similar editing protocol.

Each of the parameters you see in the drop-down menu (ovedrive gain, overdrive leel, speed, brake, fall acceleration, rise acceleration, slow rate, and fast rate) can be programmed to specific, fixed levels. However, you can also choose one parameter’s maximum and minimum values, as selected by the DSP processor settings button for real-time tweaks. Of course, for most drawbar fans, the obvious choice is switching between fast and slow rotary speeds—but if you want to switch between, say, two overdrive amounts while maintaining a constant rotary speed, you can do that too.

Speaking of which, I feel the overdrive sounds best when you don’t have percussion on, or if it’s on, use minimal decay. Otherwise the distortion gets heavy when the percussion hits (giving a more brittle sound), then it decays and leaves the “meat” of the sound less distorted by comparison. In any event, I prefer the lower distortion settings. Hey, I play guitar—I’m picky about distortion.

I tried to warp this into some weirdo sounds; the closest I came was using only the percussion sounds through ring modulation, but really, the drawbar organ engine is about . . . well, drawbar organ. I imagine that for many gigging musicians, having this option available in the XW-P1 will mean one less keyboard to take to the gig.

[Anderton]

Hey Mike - I need some help understanding the envelopes. If you've already done a tutorial on this, feel free to direct me!

My confusion comes with the PCM Tones and the Hex Layer. For example, call up the PCM patch P-01, Ambi.NylonGt. If you vary the attack from 0 to +63, it acts as expected; but choosing negative numbers doesn't seem to make any difference. OTOH the Release control does have less and less release as it goes negative.

With the Hex Layer envelopes, I can't figure out what the negative number settings do with the Attack, Decay, and Release parameters. It seems like there's no significant change between -128 and 0, but then from 0 to +127 everything works as expected.

I thought maybe the negative numbers interact with some other parameter and I just haven't figured it out yet? Feel free to enlighten me!

[gneissnfunky]

 

Originally Posted by Anderton

Frankly, it’s a little difficult for me to imagine the person stacking mad layers of tones or playing killer synth solos saying “Hey, I want to sound like Jimmy Smith!” but hey—it’s there, so why not? It definitely adds to the versatility.

 

Hahaha, I've been doing this exact thing, to each his own I guess...I think the organ tone brings sanity to a synthy sequence with a heavy beat with a wacked out arpegiated bass tone if you wanna play "modern" versions of old school standards...matter of fact I was just playing a "crazy" version of a Fats Waller tune "Black and Blue" doing this exact thing.

[Mike Martin]

Craig,

Greetings from Tokyo.

The envelope parameters in Hex Layers and PCM tones function as "offsets". In other words when you dial in a particular sample set such as strings, it already has a "natural" envelope preassigned. You can then adjust the envelope from that point. If a sound such as piano or guitar already has a quick attack envelope it may not be possible to make it any quicker. I'm not aware if this envelope parameter interacts with any other.

[Anderton]

Thanks much, Mike! That makes sense.

[electrochrisso]

 

Originally Posted by jdc513

Wow, what a letdown. Picked it up at GC, went home, hooked everything up, pressed power, display flashed once and nothing. Changed outlets, changed power strips, pressed power button harder as instructed by user guide....nothing. I guess stuff like this can happen but very disappointing.

 

Did you try with batteries, it might be a faulty AC adaptor.

[gneissnfunky]

Has anyone had success with playing along with a MIDI song? I have some MIDI songs that when I load in Mixcraft show that the song is composed of several parts. When played on the XW-P1 these parts play as noted by the moving levels on the display, however when I play along I don't see my accompanied keyboard playing levels registered on the display in any part. Additionally I have no choice on the tone selected to accompany the song nor the tones used for the various parts. So I guess what I'm asking is (1) Can you select the tone you'd like to use to accompany? (2) Can I change the tones of the various parts? (3) Which part # is the accompaniment? I wanted to attach an example MIDI file but the uploader says its an invalid file.

[happyrat1]

 

Originally Posted by gneissnfunky

Has anyone had success with playing along with a MIDI song? I have some MIDI songs that when I load in Mixcraft show that the song is composed of several parts. When played on the XW-P1 these parts play as noted by the moving levels on the display, however when I play along I don't see my accompanied keyboard playing levels registered on the display in any part. Additionally I have no choice on the tone selected to accompany the song nor the tones used for the various parts. So I guess what I'm asking is (1) Can you select the tone you'd like to use to accompany? (2) Can I change the tones of the various parts? (3) Which part # is the accompaniment? I wanted to attach an example MIDI file but the uploader says its an invalid file.

 

From what I've seen in my own MIDI experiments with the XW-P1 it seems that playing back a MIDI sequence from the computer sets the Keyboard Local Ctrl Parameter to OFF until you manually reset it again. I haven't extensively played with MIDI yet as I am still waiting on the Cakewalk INS file that Mike said he was working on.

Even so, if this is in fact the case that playing MIDI data thru the USB cable turns off local control I would also find this to be an annoyance. There may be a workaround however, if one has to assign particular channels to particular tracks. I'll leave it to the Gurus out there to enlighten us as to this conundrum.

[Anderton]

 

Originally Posted by gneissnfunky

Has anyone had success with playing along with a MIDI song? I have some MIDI songs that when I load in Mixcraft show that the song is composed of several parts. When played on the XW-P1 these parts play as noted by the moving levels on the display, however when I play along I don't see my accompanied keyboard playing levels registered on the display in any part. Additionally I have no choice on the tone selected to accompany the song nor the tones used for the various parts. So I guess what I'm asking is (1) Can you select the tone you'd like to use to accompany? (2) Can I change the tones of the various parts? (3) Which part # is the accompaniment? I wanted to attach an example MIDI file but the uploader says its an invalid file.

 

I have not tried this myself; I've used the XW-P1 either to record or play back. However, although I haven't played much with performances (it's one of the remaining pieces of the puzzle I need to cover!), I checked the manual and you can enable each Tone in a Performance to receive MIDI data over a particular channel, send data for each Tone over a particular channel, and send the keyboard data to the internal sound generator or not.

So for example, one Tone could play back sequencer data from Channel 1, and another Tone could play back sequencer data from Channel 2. You would also set these Tones so that the keyboard doesn't drive the internal sound generators. Meanwhile, you could play two Tones by making sure they do drive the internal sound generators.

There's also a USB enable parameter...all this info is on page E-66 of the manual. Hope this helps!

[Anderton]

 

Originally Posted by happyrat1

Even so, if this is in fact the case that playing MIDI data thru the USB cable turns off local control I would also find this to be an annoyance. There may be a workaround however, if one has to assign particular channels to particular tracks. I'll leave it to the Gurus out there to enlighten us as to this conundrum.

 

Note that if you change some fundamental aspect of MIDI operation, like changing the sync setting, you need to turn off the XW-P1 for a few seconds then turn it back on again. Then the XW-P1 should default to the new setting.

[happyrat1]

 

Originally Posted by Anderton

Note that if you change some fundamental aspect of MIDI operation, like changing the sync setting, you need to turn off the XW-P1 for a few seconds then turn it back on again. Then the XW-P1 should default to the new setting.

 

The machine lets you know when it requires a reboot after a MIDI parameter change on the menu screen anyway.

Changing the Keyboard Local Control Parameter doesn't require a reboot though.

[gneissnfunky]

Hmmm, let me try this again....I've loaded some cheesy MIDI songs onto an SD card and played them in player mode...I was hoping to make it sound less cheesy by customizing the individual parts (the default accompaniment tone is always a PCM, typically piano or guitar), however, once in player mode things lock up, no buttons work except to forward to the next song (which takes forever) and the 4 knobs (which I think are cutoff, attack, sustain and release)...I find this amusing considering the extreme customability (spell check just exploded) of the XW-P1...interestingly the phrase sequencer and arpeggio buttons work, but you can't change them from what they were set at on the original screen.

[happyrat1]

I've done a little experimenting with playing and recording thru MIDI tonight and here's what I've come up with.

1) Using the Computer thru the USB to connect to Cakewalk and an INS file meant for the WK-7500 the following settings seem to work.

1 Settings>General>Local Ctrl [ON]

2 Settings>MIDI>Device ID [02] (I have it set up alongside a Korg TR76)

Settings>MIDI>Basic Ch [01]

Settings>MIDI>MIDIOutSel [uSB]

Settings>MIDI>USBOutSel [Key]

Settings>MIDI>MIDI In [ON]

Settings>MIDI>USB In [ON]

Settings>MIDI>Sync Mode [Mast]

All remaining MIDI settings switched OFF

This combination of settings allows me to load and play as well as record and play along with MIDI files from Cakewalk Home Studio 9.01 running under Wine running under Kubuntu Linux 12.04.

The patch list this offers is an approximation of the PCM voices and Organ Tones but not the Solo Synth Mode nor the Hex Layer Modes and hit or miss on voice names. That should be fixed once Mike uploads a working INS file for this beast. It does however, currently allow for a bit of control over patches from the sequencer software as well as keyboard input without losing Local Cntrl everytime a MIDI plays. The solution to that one seemed to be switching the Sync Mode to Master.

[gneissnfunky]

Okay, let me see if I have this...eventually there will be a INS file which will basically allow you to use the sounds/tones off the XW-P1 in Cakewalk...once this is done you can select any tone for each part in a MIDI song? Are there equivalents to INS files for other DAWs? However if there is no "Part #" (should be any number between 1-16) for the accompaniment tone then how would you select it?