Casio get arty!

Casio’s pre-NAMM 2022 press release mentions a few art projects to be released and shown during NAMM 2022, June 3-5.

Music Tapestry creates pictures from musical performances — a modern day color organ, for you old-timers like me. Music Tapestry is triggered by musical pitches and keyboard touch. Casio Sound Developer Hiroko Okuda — who helped developed Music Tapestry — will demonstrate it at the Casio booth.

Casio’s U.S. Patent 10,803,844 (October 2020) discloses a process to visualize musical performance. Hiroko Okuda is one of the inventors.

If you think the Casio CT-S1 is too plain, try the “Flowers & Hearts” fabric by Brazilian pop artist Romero Britto. Casio will be selling a Limited Edition CT-S1 FH model (limited to 200 units at $500 USD).

Check out more of Britto’s work on-line!

Of course, Casio will be demonstrating their latest products including the Casio CT-S1000V with vocal synthesis. I’ll bet that the CT-S500 will be there, too. 🙂

Copyright © 2022 Paul J. Drongowski

I spent a little time with the Casio CT-S1000V this morning, trying to dial in a mellow Rhodes EP with tremolo. The Stage E.Piano tone is nice, but has auto pan instead of tremolo. I like tremolo since I usually go MONO into the live sound system.

Studying presets is always informative. The DSP tones, by default, have an Active DSP chain pre-configured. The Active DSP chain for Stage E.Piano is:

Amp Cab          -> Auto Pan         -> Auto Pan 
----------------    ----------------    ---------------- 
Type: RD-MK2-PRE    Rate:         68    Rate:         62 
Vari:          1    Depth:        80    Depth:        80 
Wet Level:   127    Waveform:   Sine    Waveform:   Sine 
Dry Level:     0    Manual:        0    Manual:        0 
Bypass:      OFF    Wet Level:    70    Wet Level:    70 
                    Dry Level:   100    Dry Level:   118 
                    Bypass:      OFF    Bypass:      OFF 

Two Auto Pan stages? Well, let’s find this chain in the list of DSP combinations. What the? The default “Tone” DSP chain doesn’t appear in the DSP List!

The Trem 60’s EP has tremolo, so let’s take a look at its default Active DSP chain:

Amp Cab          -> Tremolo          -> Tremolo 
----------------    ----------------    ---------------- 
Type: WR-200-PRE    Rate:         92    Rate:         92 
Vari:          3    Depth:        64    Depth:        64 
Wet Level:   112    Waveform:   Sine    Waveform:   Sine 
Dry Level:     0    Wet Level:   100    Wet Level:   100 
Bypass:      OFF    Dry Level:   100    Dry Level:   100 
                    Bypass:      OFF    Bypass:      OFF 

Two Tremolo stages and once again, such a DSP combination is not listed User Guide DSP List!

Well, DSP combi number 33, Drive Amp 2, is close to what we need. Starting with the Stage E.Piano tone, I changed it’s Active DSP programming to:

Drive          -> Tone Control   -> Amp Cab          -> Tremolo 
--------------    --------------    ----------------    ----------------
Type:  Crunch3    Low Freq:  400    Type: RD-MK2-PRE    Rate:         82
Gain:       70    Low Gain:   +3    Vari:          1    Depth:       120
Out Level:  70    Mid Freq: 2.5k    Wet Level:   100    Waveform:   Sine
Wet Level: 127    Mid Gain:   +5    Dry Level:     0    Wet Level:    70
Dry Level:   0    High Freq : 5k    Bypass:      OFF    Dry Level:    60
Bypass:     ON    High Gain:   0                        Bypass:      OFF
                  In Level:  127 
                  Wet Level:  68 
                  Dry Level:   0 
                  Bypass:    OFF 

The Bypass parameter comes to the rescue. I didn’t like any of the Clean drive types, so I disabled (bypassed) the drive stage.

The Tone Control boosts the MIDs adding warmth. The Amp Cab model is a Rhodes Mk2 preamp — the same model in the stock Stage E.Piano tone. These Tremolo settings just sound right to me. Of course, you’re welcome to play with any of these settings.

I uploaded updated registration banks, including the Stage E.Piano tremolo. Please see the CT-S free registrations page for a link to the ZIP file.

Have fun!

Copyright © 2022 Paul J. Drongowski

I hope today’s post will help liturgical musicians who want to play the Casio CT-S1000V and CT-S500 at church services. I invested a fair amount of effort building patches and registrations which fit contemporary and traditional church music. The sounds would also be compatible with soft pop and gospel-tinged genres, too.

I’ve gig-tested there sounds, having played them at services. So, if you would like to try them yourself, please download the ZIP file. The ZIP contains six CT-S registration files:

1. RegBank01.RBK: Woodwinds
2. RegBank02.RBK: Strings
3. RegBank03.RBK: Horns / Brass
4. RegBank04.RBK: Drawbar organs
5. RegBank05.RBK: Pipe organs
6. RegBank06.RBK: Miscellaneous

The sixth bank is a work in progress. The first five banks cover most of my needs, but there are always a few miscellaneous sounds that pop up.

Each CT-S1000V and CT-S500 registration has four slots (patches). The following table summarizes the registration and patch layout.

       1              2              3              4 
       -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- 
Bank 1 Horn+Wood      Flute+Cla      Wood Sect      ChamberWinds 
Bank 2 MellowStrings  StereoStrings  SoloViolin     ChamberStrings 
Bank 3 FrenchHorns    NobleHorns     HighSchool     Tp + Tb 
Bank 4 MellowGospel   SoftGospel     BrightChurch   Simmering 
Bank 5 Pipe Organ 3   Chapel Organ   Organ Flute    Bandoneon 
Bank 6 SoftPad        VoiceEnsemble  StageE.Piano   StageE.Piano Trem

I usually pre-select a bank and patch before each musical piece. Then I switch to a different patch within the same bank in order to add a different color. I wish it was a little easier to change registration bank on the fly. Maybe I’ll get better with practice.

Patch details

The CT-S patches are based on combinations which I used on old Roland JV- and XV- series gear. The following tables show the CT-S tones in each patch and the level for each tone. You’re welcome to tweak the levels using the BALANCE menu.

Woodwinds      Upper1            Upper2             Lower           
               ----------------  -----------------  ----------------
Horn+Wood      English Horn 100  Fr.Horn Sect  110  Mellow Str.2 127
Flute+Cla      Flute 1      100  VeloClarinet  100  Mellow Str.2 127
Wood Sect      Flute & Oboe 100  VeloClarinet  100  Mellow Str.2 127
ChamberWinds   Flute & Oboe  95  VeloSopranoSax 85  Mellow Str.2 127

Strings        Upper1            Upper2             Lower           
               ----------------  -----------------  ----------------
MellowStrings  SlowStreoStr 100  Warm Pad      120                  
StereoStrings  SlowStreoStr 120                                     
SoloViolin     Slow Violin   75                     Mellow Str.2  90
ChamberStrings Chamber      100                                     

Brass          Upper1            Upper2             Lower           
               ----------------  -----------------  ----------------
FrenchHorns    French Horn  100  Fr.Horn Sect   80                  
NobleHorns     Fr.Horn Sect 100  Flugelhorn     80                  
HighSchool     Clarinet     100  Glockenspiel   80  French Horn   80
Tp + Tb        Flugelhorn   100  Trombone       80  Tuba          80

B-3 Organ      Upper1            Upper2             Lower           
               ----------------  -----------------  ----------------
MellowGospel   GospelOrgan2 127                     Organ Bass   100
SoftGospel     Rock Organ 2 127                     Organ Bass   110
BrightChurch   Elec.Organ 1 100                     Organ Bass   127
Simmering      Elec.Organ 6 110                     Organ Bass   127

Pipe Organ     Upper1            Upper2             Lower           
               ----------------  -----------------  ----------------
Pipe Organ 3   Pipe Organ 3 100                                     
Chapel Organ   Chapel Organ 100                                     
Organ Flute    Organ Flute  120                                     
Bandoneon      Bandoneon    120                                     

Pads           Upper1            Upper2             Lower           
               ----------------  -----------------  ----------------
SoftPad        Soft Pad     127                                     
VoiceEnsemble  VoiceEnsembl 120                                     

I dialed down the reverb in all cases and settled on the ROOM2 reverb type. These patches are intended for live playing in a reverberant church hall, so additional reverb is unnecessary. You might find the pipe organ patches to be waaay dry when compared with the factory tones. I removed the initial reflections and delay which create the impression of a large space — totally unwanted in a live church.

I added 3-band EQ (ACTIVE DSP) to the woodwind patches to add warmth and to reduce harshness. Feel free to tweak away!

For string patches, Knob 1 and 2 are assigned to attack time and release time, respectively. I had to decrease the release time to reduce a simulated reverb tail. Knob 3 is usually modulation.

For drawbar organ patches, Knob 1 is rotary speaker speed, Knob 2 is scanner vibrato/chorus and Knob 3 is rotary speaker brake. Drive Rotary (ACTIVE DSP) is enabled with ACTIVE DSP HOLD. Here are the Drive Rotary DSP parameters:

                                       BrightChurch 
    Param    MellowGospel  SoftGospel    Simmering 
    -------  ------------  ----------  ------------ 
    Type            2            2            2 
    OD Gain        30           42           42 
    OD Level       30           42           42 
    Speed        SLOW         SLOW         SLOW 
    Brake      ROTATE       ROTATE       ROTATE 
    FallAcel       35           35           20 
    RiseAcel       40           40           35 
    SlowRate       45           45           65 
    FastRate       95           95          100 
    Vib/Cho       OFF          OFF          OFF 
    WetLevel      100          110          110 
    DryLevel        0            0            0 
    Bypass        OFF          OFF          OFF 

I programmed Organ Bass in the left hand because I didn’t care for the sound of the rotary speaker on notes below middle C (or so). Drive Rotary does not have a parameter for the horn/rotor balance — maybe that would help.

I hope these patches help you to get started with your own registrations!

Copyright © 2022 Paul J. Drongowski

A few new Casio CT-1000V tips and observations. Hope they’re helpful.

Portamento

The CT-S1000V (CT-S500) has portamento. Control over portamento is quite flexible. Be prepared to experiment, however, as the interaction between portamento settings is not immediately obvious. Unfortunately, the User Guide is not super helpful as it refers to several terms with “portamento” in the name, e.g., “Upper Portamento,” “Part Portamento”, etc.

All of these tips apply to the CT-S500, too.

There are two different ways to access portameto-related settings: through the MENU button and through the Settings sub-menu.

The MENU parameters allow the following adjustments:

• UPPER PORT: Turn on Upper Portamento.
• PART PORT: Turn on Part Portmento for each part (Upper1, Upper2, Lower).
• TIME: Change portamento time for Upper1, Upper2 and Lower, individually. Each part has its own time.

When Upper Portamento is enabled, you can enable/disable portamento on the Upper part using a front panel button.

Ah, so which panel button is that? If you press the INSTRUMENT button, the CT-S1000V displays five soft buttons: SPLIT, LAYER, TOUCH, SUS and ARP. The SUS button controls sustain. If you want to control Upper Portamento instead, dive into the Settings sub-menu and scross to “SUS/UPPER PORT button”. Change the value from “SUS” to “UPPER PORT”. Now the INSTRUMENT button shows “UPPER PORT” instead of “SUS”. Pressing the “UPPER PORT” soft button applies portamento to the Upper part. This feature allows you to apply portamento selectively during a solo line.

I hope this brief overview helps when reading the User Guide. I recommend reading the fine print about Upper Portamento because Upper Portamento can override Part Portamento. (Surprise!)

Expression pedal

For some crazy reason, I didn’t hook up and configure an expression pedal on Day 1. In retrospect, one should probably tangle with pedal set-up early just in case pedal settings are saved in user memory locations like CT-S1000V registrations.

The User Guide gives good step-by-step directions concerning pedal set-up. The CT-S1000V is vendor agnostic, thankfully. I have three (!) Yamaha FC-7 pedals and didn’t want to buy another pedal. The CT-S1000V supports two TRS wiring schemes as shown in the diagrams below:

To make a long story short, the Yamaha FC-7 is polarity type 1. The FC-7 resistance is 50K ohms and be sure to go through the simple calibration steps in the User Guide. For reference, the FC-7 TRS signals are:

• Tip: Reference voltage
• Ring: Wiper
• Sleeve: Ground

You wouldn’t believe how many forum posts get this wrong!

Roland, Kurzweil and Fata are polarity type 2. The User Guide confirms operation for the Roland EV-5, Kurzweill CC-1, Fatar VP-25 and Fatar VP-26. Type 2 TRS signals are:

• Tip: Wiper
• Ring: Reference voltage
• Sleeve: Ground

The Roland FV-500L should work, too. Be aware that the EV-5 and FV-500L have a “minimum volume” potentiometer (variable resistor) in series with the main control potentiometer. Turn the minimum volume control to 0 before calibrating. The main control potentiometer resistance is 10K ohms; the minimum volume potentiometer resistance is 50K ohms.

Rant of the day: I have a nice, light-weight Boss EV-1-WL expression pedal. Wish I could use it with the CT-S1000V (and others). No device to device BLE, no 5-pin MIDI, no host compatibility. Arg.

Are pedal settings really stored?

I posted this question on the Casio Music Forums site. Even though the User Guide claims the pedal settings are stored in MY SETUP and registrations, I haven’t seen evidence. If you change the pedal settings and load a registration (or MY SETUP), the changed settings remain.

I hope that Casio will clarify.

Drawbar organ tones

As mentioned earlier, I pulled together a bank of drawbar organ registrations. I settled on the following tones:

    Gospel Organ 2    Mellow 
    Rock Organ 2      Mellow 
    Elec.Organ 1      Bright church-y for hymns 
    Elec.Organ 6      Simmerin' for grease 

In all four cases, I split the keyboard putting the “Organ Bass” tone in the left hand. I like the way Organ Bass holds down the low-end and doesn’t sound swirly. Split point is E4.

Movin’ on to pipe organs…

Copyright © 2022 Paul J. Drongowski

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