This Just In......PX-5S

[b3maniac]

Mike - Thanks for your reply. I had missed it earlier. I sold my PX3 today, looking forward to getting the new PX5 , just hope someone has it in stock. (I knew my PX3 buyer, so my sale included conditional arrangements to borrow the PX3 for a couple of jobs if I need to.) Don

[EscapeRocks]

Is Casio throwing in a giant watch with purchase?

 

[Joe Muscara]

[1203]

I must say i'm very impressed from all the demos of the new PX5s! Now i have still one question to Mike Martin about the Rhodes samples in this beast: Is there only one Rhodes model in the PX5s or are there several different types in it? The MarkI suitcase that is played on all demos sounds good, but a little boxy to me... ? Greetings from germany and excuse my bad english, Daniel

[Mike Martin]

The PX-5S also has the rhodes samples from previous models like the PX-3S.

[b3maniac]

I bit the bullet and traded up from the PX3. It should be here

later in the week. Looking forward to checking it out. Don

[ADino]

Mike - Thanks for your reply. I had missed it earlier. I sold my PX3 today, looking forward to getting the new PX5 , just hope someone has it in stock. (I knew my PX3 buyer, so my sale included conditional arrangements to borrow the PX3 for a couple of jobs if I need to.) Don

 

Wouldve been interested in that 3...

 

[AnotherScott]

Wouldve been interested in that 3...

I'm going to be selling mine...

[Malpaugh]

Wouldve been interested in that 3...

I'm going to be selling mine...

 

Yeah, me too.

[unclebyron]

I sold my PX3 and jumped on the PX5 bandwagon too. It's backordered till next month. Casio will sell alot of these just to the KC forum members alone.

[Joe Muscara]

I had a PX-3 once, too.

[t9cstudio]

Wouldve been interested in that 3...

I'm going to be selling mine...

 

Yeah, me too.

 

...and me...soon as I get my head wrapped 'round this 5. I think (hope) the editor will help a lot.

[b3maniac]

Sorry guys, my PX3 was sold to a local keyboard player friend as soon as I mentioned I was considering an upgrade. Otherwise it would have been listed here. Don

[willf]

I will have one to sell (PX-3 limited edition model) but I am in the UK.

 

 

[ADino]

I imagine in a few short weeks there will be plenty of 3's 4 sale.

Whats a limited edition model?

[Mike Martin]

The PX-3 was originally a Limited Edition product. They made 2,000 of them and included a letter from Mr. Kashio. The PX-3 was such a success they restarted production although changing a few things like the color of the LEDs and no letter.

[nickd]

I will have one to sell (PX-3 limited edition model) but I am in the UK.

 

I might well be interested in buying that from you when you sell it...

[willf]

The PX-3 was originally a Limited Edition product. They made 2,000 of them and included a letter from Mr. Kashio. The PX-3 was such a success they restarted production although changing a few things like the color of the LEDs and no letter.

 

Albeit in my case I never got a letter. I don't know if the shop kept it or what - not that it bothered me. The PX-3 has served me well.

 

[stoken6]

I will have one to sell (PX-3 limited edition model) but I am in the UK.

 

Put it in the Garage Sale - I'll be watching, although it looks like I'll have competition!

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Ekewaka]

Fedex arrived with the PX-5S. Been testing it for two hours. Interesting device, indeed! More later.

[unclebyron]

Kenekahuna - Looking forward to your report.

[Ekewaka]

I think I will dump my reviews/comments in small pieces. Busy at work.

 

Key bed. Compared with Yamaha it's the Casio style of fake ebony with some resistance on the keys. I was first skeptical but it's actually a nice feel, very close to a real piano keyboard.

 

The setup was super-easy, take out the keyboard, plug-in, start. Boot time in less than five seconds. I was able to get a lot of stuff out without opening the manual which is a big plus for me. Only gripe was selecting individual piano or e-piano patches, you have to navigate up to the top-right section to move back and forth, would have been nice to have a rotation control next to the keyboard type selectors but I could live without it.

 

The LCD display is actually quite useable even if it's small. Easy to understand settings.

 

The keyboard looks funky in real life, very different than most other electrical pianos, the white and black touch thing is actually cool, in my eyes. The labeling of outputs were excellent, you could actually find the mono output for once. Mono sounded fine with my studio reference monitors (piano sounds), not that stereo, especially with reference headphones, sounded crazy-good.

 

More later.

[Ekewaka]

About the sounds. This is a deep keyboard, you could get variations of piano sounds but there's much more lurking. I've yet to discover all the possible hex-layer synthesizer options.

 

In general, me thinks this is especially a digital piano keyboard for producer-centric musicians such as me, being interested in let's say doing Never Never Land with additional synth and string layers to spiffy up any kind of piano arrangement job.

 

The organ sounds were usable, didn't expect B3 organic sounds, maybe a little bit on the FM:y sound with unnatural overtones. The existing electric piano and Wurlitzer sounds are cool and I eagerly await for the 1.1 upgrade to explore more of those sounds.

 

I think I could pull off the most typical keyboard gig with the sounds provided, still trying to hunt down an Oberheim style eighties sound (Prince et rest) that is good to have around. But I've only explored this one for three hours, more to to, need to figure out how easy or hard it is to do splits/overlays in a live situation as well as starting to do my custom presets.

 

The control surface is also interesting in that there are four knobs and six sliders and in many cases the presets have the same kind of setup, i.e. delay fifth and reverb sixth slider. I think many of the bank sounds seem to map the layer settings differently so it's sometimes a guess work in case the left-most sliders are either controlling the layer volumes or filter settings. Might be good to standardize on that. I would move the filtering up to the knobs instead, they seem to be mostly wired for EQ settings and EQ and filtering is close enough, let's say filtering for synth patches and EQ for natural keyboard patches/bank entries. That's how I would do it to make it more systematic.

 

So far the banks are interesting even if some of the bank entries are a little bit over the top. As my son said, some sounded like TV evening news introduction jingles from the nineties. The 3-8 patch is also pretty much over the top -- I guess it's for showcasing the unit but I will start taming those bank entries myself soon.

[Ekewaka]

As for gigging, I might take it out later next week, too busy this weekend. It's 24lbs so it's easy even if 88 keys makes it long and bulky. The outputs are nicely marked which is a plus in low-light places. I still don't understand the need why Casio and other keyboard manufacturers just can't bake in the power supply into the unit, it's a small one and I think there should be plenty of space. Suspect FCC regulation issues with interference being one secret reason for this kind of design.

 

Maybe one issue with 24lbs is that this unit could easily wobble around with light keyboard stands so having a good stand is a must. The included sustain pedal does its job but I prefer more piano-like sustain pedals that I will use instead.

 

Would have been nice if they included a Casio-branded USB memory stick but I could get cheap sticks around the corner at the local office store.

 

There are two headphone outputs, suspect this is for teacher/student training purposes. I don't need it but it does not hurt to have it.

 

PS: For the next version, Casio should put some kind of handle somewhere for easier transportation, it's a very square system with nothing to grep your hands around. Such an opening might also be extended for hooking let's say iPad stands or something similar if there are possible hooks included.

 

 

[Joe Muscara]

The control surface is also interesting in that there are four knobs and six drawbars sliders and in many cases the presets have the same kind of setup, i.e. delay fifth and reverb sixth draw bar sliders. I think many of the bank sounds seem to map the layer settings differently so it's sometimes a guess work in case the left-most draw bars sliders are either controlling the layer volumes or filter settings. Might be good to standardize on that. I would move the filtering up to the knobs instead, they seem to be mostly wired for EQ settings and EQ and filtering is close enough, let's say filtering for synth patches and EQ for natural keyboard patches/bank entries. That's how I would do it to make it more systematic.

Fixed it.

 

There were some inconsistencies in the Stage Settings that should be fixed when 1.1 hits. But your "knobs for EQ or filters" might be a good suggestion.

 

So far the banks are interesting even if some of the bank entries are a little bit over the top. As my son said, some sounded like TV evening news introduction jingles from the nineties. The 3-8 patch is also pretty much over the top -- I guess it's for showcasing the unit but I will start taming those bank entries myself soon.

I went through possibly all of the Stage Settings, and I found myself getting lost in a few of them, even though some were not my bag. Playing with the sliders and knobs is a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to what's made available via download. A sound designer I am not, as recent experience has shown me.

 

I really really want to get into the hex layer synth stuff, but I may have to resign myself to the fact that I'll have to play with pre-made Stage Settings. Still, there's fun stuff there.

 

Oh, and despite my above correction, I actually created a Stage Setting to control the organ on my Electro Rack, down to assigning sliders 1 - 6 to the first 6 drawbars, and knobs 1 - 3 to the last 3. Knob 4 controls C/V, and both Mod and pedal toggle Fast/Stop on the Leslie sim. Yeah, I'm one of those guys.

[Ekewaka]

I might look into using the second pedal for Leslie fast/stop purposes as it's not clear how to easily activate those. And yes I corrected myself with the slider/draw bar case in the original posting, my brain misfired (not fun being a leftie.)

 

Anyway, this is an interesting unit, looks and smells like a digital stage piano. You open up the hood and there's much more to be explored. I was looking at getting a bare bones digital piano for some singer piano arrangement work but I'm glad I got a little bit more as I could explore various arrangements with piano plus much more for various songs.

[Joe Muscara]

I still don't understand the need why Casio and other keyboard manufacturers just can't bake in the power supply into the unit, it's a small one and I think there should be plenty of space. Suspect FCC regulation issues with interference being one secret reason for this kind of design.

Don't forget about the battery compartment. That's a handy backup to the power supply.

 

Maybe one issue with 24lbs is that this unit could easily wobble around with light keyboard stands so having a good stand is a must. The included sustain pedal does its job but I prefer more piano-like sustain pedals that I will use instead.

Me too. Also, velcro can help. It can make the whole set up more stable.

 

PS: For the next version, Casio should put some kind of handle somewhere for easier transportation, it's a very square system with nothing to grep your hands around. Such an opening might also be extended for hooking let's say iPad stands or something similar if there are possible hooks included.

I was thinking the same thing, except without the iPad stand part. Good idea!

[Ekewaka]

I'm actually thinking about arming the battery compartment with always fresh batteries as losing the power dongle is not fun when out there gigging. I'm also a little bit worried about the power cable insert, it's a small connector, if someone walks around and walks on the power cable it might yank out something from the plastics... There's a reason Apple switched to those mag connectors for all of their laptops...

 

I was also looking if there's a sneaky way to hook an iPad stand or something similar to the battery department knobs, they might be too weak and they are in the far right side of the unit so that might not be doable. I might need to hook my iPad to the keyboard stand, mic stand or use a separate music stand...

[Joe Muscara]

I might look into using the second pedal for Leslie fast/stop purposes as it's not clear how to easily activate those.

I think what you have to do is set the pedal (or whatever controller you want) from "Speed" to "Brake" and under Effects, set the rotary to Fast (otherwise, it will just go from Brake to Slow).

 

The only issue I'm having with this at the moment is I have to hit the pedal twice before the 'brake' releases the first time. After that, it toggles fine.

[Joe Muscara]

I think this method might work better - at least it seems to be for me.

 

Go to any organ stage setting with the rotary effect. Set it to "Fast" either via the pedal or mod wheel. Save it. This will save it in Fast mode instead of Slow.

 

Now, edit whatever controller you want to be the brake, and save again.

 

I set it with the mod wheel controlling the brake, and reversed the values so that down was brake and up is fast (127 and 0, respectively).