I’m choosing and dialing in the Hammond B-3 organ tones for church tunes. The Casio CT-S1000V (and CT-S500) provides over thirty electric organ tones. Most of the organ tones incorporate an Active DSP effect.

Choosing tones is a process of selection and elimination. Some sounds just aren’t suitable for church, e.g., distorted rock organ, combo organ, or theatre organ. As to personal taste, I usually avoid voices with hard percussion. I often play in a group with piano, guitar or drums. There is already enough going on percussively that I don’t need to add another element to the on-going rhythm. In a typical situation, it’s more important to hold down or emphasize a left-hand bass.

Tone name        Description                     DSP effect 
---------------  ------------------------------  ------------ 
JS Organ         Jimmy Smith, percussion         AMP cab->Trem->3EQ 
AMP Organ 1      First four, no percussion       Phaser->Drive->AMP cab 
Rock Organ 1     No percussion                   Phaser->Drive->AMP cab 
Hard Rock Organ                                  Chorus->Drive->AMP cab 
Gospel Organ 1   Mellow-ish                      Rotary 
Velo Organ       Velocity brings in bars         Drive rotary 
F.Organ          Farfisa combo organ             Trem->AMP cab 
V.Organ          Vox combo organ                 Trem->AMP cab 
RTF FD Organ     Rotary fast, full drawbars      Drive rotary 
Rock OD Organ                                    Drive rotary 
Tremolo Organ    Mellow, C3 sampled-in           Auto pan 
DP Organ         Total Jon Lord                  Dist 
Jazz Organ 1     Bright hard perc jazz           Rotary 
Jazz Organ 2     Darker hard perc jazz           Rotary 
Elec.Organ 1     Bright. church-y                Rotary 
Elec.Organ 2     Mellow-ish, key click           Rotary 
Elec.Organ 3     First four                      Rotary 
Elec.Organ 4     Full drawbars                   Rotary 
Elec.Organ 5     Mellow, soft perc               Phaser 
Perc.Organ 1     Bright hard perc                Rotary 
Perc.Organ 2     Darker soft perc                Rotary 
Gospel Organ 2   Mellow                          Rotary 
Full Drawbar     Full drawbar                    Rotary 
Rock Organ 2     Church-y (swimming rotary)      Drive rotary 
Rock Organ 3     Mellow-ish very fast            Drive rotary 
Click Organ      Low drawbars, key click         Drive rotary 
70's Organ       Farfisa-like, key click         Rotary 
Organ Pad        Weird                           No DSP effect 
Theatre Organ                                    No DSP effect 
Perc.Organ 3     Hard perc, low drawbars         Rotary 
Elec.Organ 6     Low+high (16+1), click          Rotary 
AMP Organ 2      Rocky bars                      Tone->Drive->AMP cab->Trem 
AMP Organ 3      Heavy OD                        Tone->Drive->AMP cab->Trem 
Organ Flute      Pipe organ flute                No DSP effect 
Puff Organ       Chiffy organ flute              No DSP effect 
Reed Organ       Portable reed organ             Mono 3-band EQ 
Rotary F-Organ   Farfisa organ, rotary speaker   Rotary 
Rotary V-Organ   Vox organ, rotary speaker       Rotary 

The table above are notes taken while auditioning CT-S1000V drawbar organ tones. The CT-S500 has the same complement of organ voices, so any comments made here apply to the CT-S500, too.

My goal is a registration bank of four tones that provide a range of timbres. I want to push a registration button while playing in order to match the current musical situation. So far, a few candidates stand out:

    Elec.Organ 6     Simmering 16+1 
    Gospel Organ 2   Mellow, ballad-like sound 
    Gospel Organ 1   Brighter, hymn foundation 
    Rock Organ 2     Brighter still, hymn playing 

I listened to all organ tones with Active DSP enabled and bypassed. “Rock Organ 2” has a church-y sound when the overdrive and rotary speaker are removed. I can knock the rock out of the preset by re-programming the Active DSP effect.

Most organ tones have a preset Active DSP effect as shown in the table. A few of the tones — like AMP Organ 1 — don’t use the rotary effect at all. (Surprise!)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a few of the tones have a swirl-y or swimming fast rotary setting. Sometimes the rise acceleration and fall deceleration times are too short. The settings below are ballpark.

    Drive Rotary     PJD      Velo Org 
    ---------------- -------- -------- 
    Type:            2        2 
    Overdrive Gain:  42       48 
    Overdrive Level: 42       31 
    Speed:           Fast     Fast 
    Brake:           Rotate   Rotate 
    Fall Accel:      40       10 
    Rise Accel:      60       18 
    Slow Rate:       40       17 
    Fast Rate:       100      111 
    Vib/chorus:      C3       C2 
    Wet Level:       100      100 
    Dry Level:       0        44 
    Bypass:          Off      Off 

I will use these parameter values as my starting point moving ahead. The wet/dry parameters could be helpful in a stereo mix avoiding hard left/right channel throb. BTW, the sim doesn’t have parameters for horn/rotor balance.

The Casio rotary speaker sims include a scanner vibrato/chorus option: Off, V1, V2, V3, C1, C2, C3. The presets assign overdrive to knob 2 (K2). I don’t usually adjust overdrive when I’m playing and will assign vibrato/chorus control instead. That way I can add or subtract chorus on the fly. Unfortunately, scanner off is at the knob’s full left position and C3 is at the full right position. That will make for a big gesture knob-spin when playing. Wish this could be assigned to a button…

As to reverb, I’ve settled on ROOM 2 with a send level of 20. This is just enough to add a little space when practicing, but it won’t muddy the sound too much when playing live.

Copyright © 2022 Paul J. Drongowski

Casio gave the CT-S Casiotone series a major boost with the new CT-S500 and CT-S1000V models. The new models include the acclaimed CT-S1 voices. Even better, Casio added a wide range of editable DSP effects. The DSP effects are in addition to the three system effect units: reverb, chorus and delay. Up to two DSP effect chains can be applied to tones (voice) and auto-accompaniment parts.

Casio have their own way of organizing effects. DSP effects are organized into chains, where each chain consists of one to four DSP modules. A DSP module is a unit executing a particular effect algorithm like EQ, tremolo, compression, etc. There are 29 DSP module types.

As a user, you don’t work directly in terms of DSP modules. Instead, you select a chain from one of 100 preset DSP chains. The first 25 or so preset chains have only a single DSP module, just about covering the 29 DSP module types individually. The remaining 75 presets have two, three or four DSP modules. Many chains are obviously guitar-oriented while others are slanted toward keyboards, percussion and ambience. When it comes to effect applications, who am I to judge? 🙂

The CT-S approach may appear to be too restrictive, but each DSP module has a BYPASS parameter which lets you turn off its stage. If you can find a preset chain with effects in the desired order, you’re good to go, thanks to DSP parameter editing.

Thank heavens for DSP parameter editing! The rotary speaker simulations are too fast right out of the box, for example. In addition to modifying effect parameters, you can assign a DSP parameter to each of the three front panel knobs (e.g., rotary speaker speed). Everything gets saved into a registration slot from which tone and effect settings are recalled.

Oh, yes, you have full access to Active DSP parameters. Unfortunately, this is not true for system effects (reverb, chorus, and delay). In the case of system effects, only the effect type (e.g., ROOM 3, HALL 2, etc.) can be changed. Minor bummer.

If I’m a little vague about effect routing, it’s because Casio have not published an effect routing diagram for the CT-S500 or CT-S1000V. I don’t feel like I’ve been held back in practice, but I would love to see a detailed signal flow. A diagram would clear up people’s questions about effect assignment (how many and where).

I’ve been pulling together a dozen of my most frequently used patches (layers and splits). I like to detune layers in order to add a bit more motion and interest. Individual tones, however, do not have a fine tuning parameter (i.e., plus or minus cents).

The orchestral voices are not pre-programmed with a DSP effect (thank goodness). Lacking a fine tuning control, an alternative method is to add a pitch shift DSP module to the tone. There are four DSP preset chains that contain pitch shift:

  #21 Pitch:        --> Pitch --> 
  #87 Pitch Delay:  --> Delay --> Pitch  --> Phaser --> Auto Pan -->
  #90 Pitch Mod 1:  --> Tone  --> Phaser --> Delay  --> Pitch    -->
  #91 Pitch Mod 2:  --> Pitch --> Delay  --> Phaser --> Tone     -->

The multi-module chains are fun, but waaay more complicated than necessary. Nonetheless, I jotted down the pitch-related parameters for reference:

    Parameter    Pitch  PitcDel1  PitcMod1  PitcMod2 
    -----------  -----  --------  --------  -------- 
    Preset #     21     87        90        91 
    Pitch        0      0         +14       0 
    High Damp    127    127       127       127 
    Feedback     127    64        127       70 
    In Level     110    110       110       127 
    Wet Level    127    110       110       127 
    Dry Level    127    110       127       127 
    Fine         +6     +12       +4        +6 

Turns out, the stock pitch parameters (column 1) are ready to go, adding a pleasant chorus-like effect to layered tones.

Of course, I can’t let it rest and tried the six ambient enhancement presets. I got a nice, subtle feel with “AmbientEnh 4”. The chain breaks down like this:

    Piano Effect   -->      Delay     -->  Tone Control 
    --------------     --------------     -------------- 
    Lid: Full Open     Time:       90     Low Freq:   50 
    Ref Level:  60     TmRatioL:   28     Low Gain:  -12 
                       TmRatioR:   64     Mid Freq:  100 
                       Level L:   110     Mid Gain:   -6 
                       Level R:   110     High Freq: 16k 
                       Fdbk:    Cross     High Gain:   0 
                       Fdbk Level: 30 
                       High Damp: 120 
                       Tempo Syn: Off 
    In Level:  127     In Level:  100     In Level:   90 
    Dry Level: 110     Dry Level: 110     Dry Level:   0 
    Wet Level:  90     Wet Level: 110     Wet Level:  90 
    Bypass:    Off     Bypass:    Off     Bypass:    Off 

I used my ears first before diving into the details. Yep, I was surprised to see “Piano Effect” in the chain. Frankly, I don’t care what it’s called as long as it sounds good! The chain takes a little harshness off woodwinds while adding early reflections and cross delay. Cross delay isn’t too important to me as I will be playing in MONO at the job. Still, why not?

Hopefully, this look at CT-S1000V (CT-S500) DSP effects is helpful.

Copyright © Paul J. Drongowski

One feels “all thumbs” when starting in with a new keyboard. The Casio CT-S1000V has a lot of functionality and customization below the MENU button and within the SETTINGS item in the main MENU. I made a map to help me get around:

MENU                      SETTINGS 
    My Set-up                 Transpose 
    Active DSP                Touch Off Velocity 
    Balance                   Split Point 
    Octave Shift              Rhythm Auto Set 
    Sustain                   Chord Finger Mode  
    Portamento                Rhythm Controller Type 
    Pedal                     SUS/UPPER PORT Button 
    Pitch Band                ARP/AH Button 
    Knob                      Rhythm Volume 
    Arpeggio                  Song Volume 
    Auto Harmony              Tuning 
    Sampling                  Surround 
    Song                      Audio In Center Cancel 
    Metronome                 MIDI OUT Channel UPPER1, UPPER2, LOWER 
    System Effects            Local Control 
    EQ                        MIDI SYNC Mode 
    Scale                     Auto Power Off 
    MIDI Control              Battery 
    Wireless                  LCD Contrast 
    Media                     Button Long Press Time 
    Home Customization        Speaker 
    Settings >>>>>>>>>>>>     Phone Speaker 
    Demo                      Setting Initialize 
    Exit                      All Initialize 
                              Version 

The Casio CT-S500 is probably organized in the same way.

MY SETUP Power On Recall

Yesterday, I mentioned MY SETUP and how useful it is for establishing a global set-up for a given playing situation. It’s also useful for establishing an initial set-up during power-up. Simply enter MY SETUP, select one of the four set-up entries, and press the AT PW-ON soft button. The CT-S1000V will recall the selected set-up during power-ups.

Even though it’s cool to get kicked into Vocal Synthesis at power-up — a nice marketing/sales ploy — I’d rather have a B-3 at my fingertips. 🙂

Active DSP HOLD

Active DSP assigns effect parameters to the three front panel knobs: K1, K2 and K3. The “Amp Organ 1” tone, for example, assigns the knobs this way:

• K1: M1 Speed
• K2: M1 OD Gain
• K3: M1 Brake

K1 is the rotary speaker speed, K2 is the overdrive and K3 is the speaker break which stops simulated rotor/horn.

That’s great until you hit HOME or MENU and — what the??? The knobs are re-assigned to cut-off, resonance and modulation. That’s when Active DSP HOLD comes into play.

If you press the Active DSP HOLD soft button before leaving the Active DSP screen, the CT-S1000V will remember the DSP knob assignments when you go HOME or whatever. Save this in your set-up, too.

Slow your roll, Sparky

The first time your spin up the rotary in “Amp Organ 1,” you’ll be appalled at the short ramp-up time (acceleration) and the final rotor/horn speed. The Active DSP screen is also your way into the DSP parameters. I have the Drive Rotary effect applied to the organ. It has the following parameters:

• Rotary speaker type
• Overdrive gain
• Overdrive level
• Speed
• Brake
• Fall acceleration (ramp down)
• Rise acceleration (ramp up)
• Slow rate
• Fast rate
• Vibrato/Chorus
• Wet level
• Dry level

I like the sound of a beat-up Leslie with slow motors and slipping belts. Feel free to adjust the acceleration and slow/fast rates down.

Nice to see the chorus/vibrato simulation (V1, C1, V2, C2, V3, C3). The Hammond had a unique chorus/vibrato scanner unit which is a necessary component of gospel organ registrations. I’d love to see more details about Casio’s rotary speaker emulation including the scanner and speaker types.

Oh, yeah, please let us assign rotary speaker speed to the foot pedal. Thanks.

Boing

I wish I could see more details about the reverb, chorus and delay effects, too.

CT-S1000V has three system-wide effects: reverb, chorus and delay. Usually you get only reverb and chorus, and don’t always see a separate delay unit. Cool.

Unlike the DSP effects, you do not get to tweak system-wide effect parameters. All you get are presets with rather uninformative names like Room 1, Hall 2, etc. I listened to the room reverbs and settled on Room 2 for church registrations. Although ears should be the final judge, I wish I could see the parameter values behind the presets in order to make good choices.

I recommend publishing an effect routing diagram like the one I found in the CT-S5000 manual (below). Thanks.

Copyright © 2022 Paul J. Drongowski

Gonna post a few notes while I take an ear break.

I’m rather pleased with the sound and play-ability of the Casio CT-S1000V. For now, I’m focused on sound design and playing, having only dipped into the auto-accompaniment rhythms and vocal synthesis.

Patches

Sounds, not the song. (Sorry, Clarence Carter.)

My first order of business is building a bunch of sound combinations that are suitable for the contemporary and traditional church music that I play. Jazz, funk and pop will have to wait a little while…

The CT-S1000V provides two different means of storing a patch: My Set-up and registrations. My Set-up is accessed through the main MENU button. Up to four set-ups can be stored. As I quickly discovered, My Set-up stores everything but the kitchen sink including settings like speaker ON/OFF. I sacrificed the fourth location (SAX) and created a LINE OUT entry with the internal speaker turned off. This seems like a good use for My-Setup, namely, saving global configurations for different playing situations, e.g., home, gig, etc.

Registrations are more appropriate for tone (voice) programming. There’s more registrations than My-Setup locations: 16 banks with four registrations per bank, 64 registrations total. That may seem stingy by today’s standards, but I don’t need more than 8 to 16 locations to cover most of my gig needs. Plus, one can always save registrations to a USB flash drive and load them as playing situations arise.

Tone programming

Registrations can save most everything related to tone programming: split, layer, effects, and much more. Yes, you can edit CT-S1000V tones — one reason why I passed on the CT-S1 and waited.

Tone editing is similar to “quick edit” that you might find on a synth. You can tweak 21 parameters including cutoff, resonance, attack time, release, vibrato, volume, pan, effect sends and 4-band EQ. You don’t get synthesizer-level deep editing. Cutoff, etc. are offsets (-64:+64) from the preset value. If you want it all in front of you like MODX or Montage, this isn’t the droid you’re looking for.

With only three front panel knobs, you need to assign a tone parameter to a knob first, then tweak. The changed value is saved along with everything else in a registration (including the knob assignment).

DSP editing, on the other hand, is deep. Using a feature called “Active DSP”, you can choose an effect type, assign a parameter to a knob, and tweak effect parameters. I’m still experimenting with Active DSP, especially for controlling rotary speaker speed. I’ll have more to say when I have a better grip on Active DSP.

Splits and layers

The CT-S1000V works logically and supports two split zones: Lower and Upper. When Split is turned off, all’s you get is Upper. Upper supports two layers: Upper 1 and Upper 2; Lower cannot be layered. The split point is configurable and you can adjust the balance (level) between tones. This is just enough to be dangerous. If you’re looking for a pile of layers, move along.

Starting with my Roland days (circa 1995), I’ve kept notes about the most useful tone combinations for contemporary church music. Here are my favorite combinations:

               Tone 1       Tone 2       Tone 3        Tone 4 
               -----------  -----------  ------------  ------------ 
High School    Tuba A       Celesta      Flute 1A      Clarinet A 
Warm Tp Sect   Tbs mp C     Tbs mp B     Tbs mf C      Brs LipNzl 
CTp + Tb Sect  C Tps mp A   Tbs mp A     C Tps f A     Tbs f A 
Horn+Wood      Flute 1A     Clarinet C   Oboe mf A     Horns mf A 
NobleHornPop   Horns f A    Flugel C     Tb Sect B     Trumpet 1C 
NobleHornPop   French 1C    Flugel C     Tb Sect B     Trumpet 1C 

Orch Reeds     Oboe mf A    E.Horn C     Oboe f A 
Wind&Str1      Oboe mf A    Flute 1B     DolceStr.A    JV Strings A 
Wood Sect      Oboe mf A    Flute 1A     Clarinet A    E.Horn A 
Flute/Clari    Flute 1C     Clarinet C 

ChamberWinds   Oboe mf B    Oboe mf A    Sop.Sax mf A  Flute 1A 
ChamberWoods                Clarinet A   Flute 1C      Flute 1A 

Warm Strings   Soft Pad A   F.Str mp A   JP Strings2C  JP Strings1A 
ChmbrQuartet   Violin C     Violin 2 A   Cello A       Cello 2 A 
ViolinCello    Vc mp B      Bassoon A    Va mp A       Oboe mf A 

These combinations date back my old JV-90, XP-60 and XV-5050! You’ll find equivalents on my MODX and Genos. My task now is to build similar combinations (registrations) on CT-S1000V.

BTW, I’m also dialing back reverb where necessary. I try for a happy balance — not too dry for practice at home, but not so much as to murk up the sound in a reverberant church hall.

If I had one wish, I would like to give each registration a name. I have a running map of “which registration does what,” but wish the names appeared on the CT-S1000V screen, not “Bank 1-1”.

Tones for old bones

By and large, the CT-S1000V orchestral tones are decent; most of them are musically useful and sound good through both the built-in speaker and an external monitor. The tone parameters are enough to cure overly bright tones or sharp attacks. Although I haven’t worked with them yet, the chromatic percussion (celeste, glockenspiel, etc.) don’t have any obvious tuning issues and are musical.

Two layers aren’t much. Fortunately, CT-S1000V has a few preset combi tones — Brass & String, Violin Section, Chamber (orchestra), Flute & Oboe, Pipe Section — which provide another “layer” or two on the cheap.

Don’t forget about the ethnic voices. CT-S1000V has accordions, fiddle, and harmoniums. Harmoniums! Jazzers who want to get their Jon Batiste on should look to these for melodica.

Organs

The CT-S1000V pipe organs are decent. Yes, there is the usual over-done reedy sound, but there are three tone presets that are suitable for hymn-playing and congregational singing. Even though the keybed is squared-off and similar to piano keys, it has a nice resistance and allows the legato-like gestures one uses when playing a pipe organ.

The drawbar organ tones are serviceable. No, we’re not in clone territory here and you can’t change the drawbar settings. There are rotary speaker effect algorithms, but again, we’re not in Vent or clone territory quality-wise. The only way to change rotary speaker speed is via Active DSP and turning the knob to which rotary speed has been assigned. I wish there was a way to assign rotary speed to the foot pedal. (OK, I need two wishes from the Genie.)

On the up-side, the rotary effect has a brake setting. One could brake the rotary and put the LINE OUT into a Lester K, Vent, or whatever. I will be giving this a try and will post notes. With Lester on the floor, I could stomp on a foot switch and change rotary speed, too.

Summary

Well, I hope these observations are helpful! The Casio CT-S1000V has a lot of sound-making value for very little money. So many tones to try…

Copyright © 2022 Paul J. Drongowski

After test driving the Casio CT-S1 and CT-S410, I took the plunge and bought a Casio CT-S1000V (AiX Sound Source with Vocal Synthesis, $450USD street). The price was irresistible after making a trade-in. (The Yamaha SHS-500 Sonogenic retired.)

In terms of build quality, the Casio CT-S1000V is robust enough for light to moderate gigging. It feels solid. I miss the fabric speaker covering (Casio CT-S1) as it is a touch of class. I suspect that fabric would get dirty on gigs, however. I wouldn’t park any drinks on this keyboard (or any keyboard) with everything exposed! Yep, it weighs ten pounds, not bad for a keyboard with in-built speakers.

The power supply is a small lump-in-the-middle brick. The mains lead is rather short with one of those “figure 8” IEC 60320 C7 plugs. Other accessories include a music stand and a Casio WU-BT10 Bluetooth dongle — don’t lose that tiny little bugger! The music stand isn’t super-robust and I’m not sure that I want to park a heavy binder o’tunes on it. It’s also too low for my reading glasses and I will probably stick to my usual tripod music stand.

The CT-S1000V keybed is rather nice for a keyboard in this price range. The keys are squared off and piano-like although there’s no hammer simulation, of course. The keys are evenly spaced, are level, and don’t wobble too much. The keys have a textured surface similar to the Roland GO:KEYS. The throw is a little bit light and soft, not unpleasant. (BTW, I couldn’t stand the Roland GO:KEYS and returned it due to keybed issues.)

I can hand-swipe without cutting my hands. I don’t know how the keys will stand up to this kind of abuse in the long run. Plus, this board is so light, I’m afraid of throwing it off the keyboard stand when swiping!

The speaker sound is OK. I regard the speakers as “courtesy speakers.” Sometimes it’s convenient to push only one switch and start playing. They’re loud enough for my studio room, maybe loud enough for the church gig where we don’t generate a lot of stage volume. They don’t get buzzy at loud volume. Since I don’t play at very loud volume at home, I’m good with that. Casio wisely blessed the CT-S1000V with 1/4″ stereo output jacks so I can send the CT to the church PA.

I read just enough of the manual to enable Active DSP, which assigns DSP parameters to the knobs. With an organ tone selected, turning knob 1 (K1) switched between slow and fast rotary speaker speed. Wish there was a way to assign rotary speed to a button or the foot switch… I need to experiment more with Active DSP. Gotta experiment with splits and layers, too. I guess everything is saved to a registration, but we’ll find out!

I played with Vocal Synthesis enough to know there are multiple Vocalists. Some Vocalists are more natural than others. One of the Vocalists is “Death Voice” and I would like to uncork that one in church. 🙂

Quite a playable instrument. I haven’t listened to any of the rhythms yet because I’m mostly interested in flat-out playing. Switching sections (intro, main, fill, etc.) with the buttons below the display reminds me of switching arpeggios on the Yamaha MOX/MOXF.

Hope these impressions help!

Copyright © 2022 Paul J. Drongowski