It did not have as “rich” a sound as the Roland, but was SO flexible, and I think I can duplicate some of that richness using the DSP settings…I played with those some this morning.  There are so many, it’s almost baffling, but it would be great to quickly get a “bright” or “rock” sound just by keeping the same base sound and altering the DSP, even mid-song.  There is a small ‘break’ when you switch sounds, but the sustain petal can help, and a full band sound definately would cover it.

I am interested in learning more about saving some settings to the DSP USER slots, how long they stay “set”, and their useage.  I’ll post as I find out.

I bought a memory card just to have one at the local “FRED’S” store for $10.00.  See the manual for your keyboard, but I was glad it was only 1GB…the card has to be that or under to work!

I found that I really enjoyed the “ambient” sound yesterday…but that may have been the compaint for “lack of depth”.

Generally, the bass fills the depth, and our bass wasn’t experienced yesterday.  I was actually looking for some “brighter” sounds that would not compete with the guitars, bass, and electric as much, but when they are weaker, I suppose I need something fuller.

I loved the “warmth” layer, but found that it was too heavy on the early attack.  I may try “slow strings” or something next time, or just add it when the singing begins.  It felt too heavy for underscoring at times to me.

It will just be something to learn.  The Roland had a nice “wind” sound I found a few weeks ago…I hope I find something similar on it.

I’d like to make some taped on quick number sets that drop down in front of me on index cards that velcro to be hidden underneath when I want, or something…there are times on the fly when I want something else, but don’t know the menu well enough yet, and can’t see what I need quickly enough.

• For “God of this City”, Chris Tomlin, try Rhythm set 025, 16BTBallad with harmony added in for the chorus (str grand piano the main sound).  The strings automatically add into the chorus when you switch to the #2 drum alternate using the fill-in/next button.  The key of this song :”God of this City” is hard to get into.  I’m using Full Range Chord.  You just have to watch that your “fills” don’t make a chord (three notes) or you get a bad bass chord in there you didn’t intend!
• For “The Way I Was Made“, Chris Tomlin, try (Rhythm:  013, Tempo:  108; Tone: 005).  The Beginning and End pre-programmed with the rhythm set work pretty nicely if you want to try those out for style.
• For “God of Justice“, Tim Hughes ( see youTube if you don’t know this…it’s awesome, by Tim Hughes) (Rhythm: 022; Tempo: 87; Tone 015 + 330 Layered in the chorus).  Switch back to (1) rhythm for the bridge, build back to (2) for the chorus to end.  I also added a split for the bridge and last chorus using 154 “Sine Bass” to give that “boom” to the bass.  It’s the only bass on it worth much live in my opinion).
• For “God of this City” try Rhythm: 025, Tempo, 72; Tone: 000 (add 2 step harmony for chorus).  Switch to “B” for chorus.  The pre-programmed ending I liked.  If you don’t like the beginning, just started the drums, then add in your base chord so that the bass lick started, add in your intro chordings the next measure, then add another (1) drum lick and begin singing.  It will sound great on most drum rhythms.
• For “Your Worthy of My Praise”, David Ruis, try Rhythm 019 Funk, Tempo 104, Tone 005.  (Use 1 for verses, and 2 for chorus on the drums).
• For Hosanna (Praise is Rising), Paul Baloche, try (I’ll add tomorrow)

I’ve found it useful to put the keyboard on a matching drum beat for the song and practice the lead line using “Casio Chord” or “Full Range Chord”.  The first setting lets me just hit the note of the bass (it’s CASIO abbreviation– a minor is any key directly to the right…add a seventh by adding the next key to the right), or just three notes that make up  a chord anywhere on the keyboard with “full range chord” automatically tells the bass what to play.  Talk about sWeet! (Just don’t fill to the point you are playing chords or weirdness WILL happen).

• This gives me drums and bass so that I don’t practice “overplaying”.
• It also is helping me get a feel for the lead line–we just use chord charts for most everything.  Invitations, I often find the full score to be able to pick up and pick through the song meaningfully solo if needed.

The links take you to some charts I’m using as guidelines to practice.  I’ll get the real deal Sunday under our CCLI, but these give me a head start so I don’t have to go to the church for them during the week.  They may need chord correction, and they may not be in the same key we do it in on Sunday.  But, it gets me started.  I’ve started asking our leader for the key as well as the song to try to avoid practice in the wrong key…that helped me this week.  If the song links are dead, it probably meant they found copywrite issues and removed it…I can’t help you find the music if that happened, you’ll just have to search and see what you find for practice purposes only.

To start if the pre-programmed “begin” isn’t appropriate to the start.  Start with the transitional drum lick (A) if you don’t want to risk the preset intro.  Let it run a few measures.  Hit the bass chords for the first few lines.  Then do a little intro that matches the song.  Hit A again and begin singing.

One of my favorite layering sounds right now are strings and “warm” sound.  I have the #338 memorized for layer.  I am also loving “Ambient” piano, as well as Bright, and Rock.

If you find it cuts out with drums when you add layers of Strings, try using the pre-layered piano with strings on the main piano list instead.  It seems to help.

So, you want to download stuff to your new Casio keyboard, but you don’t know how?  Well, I can’t tell you for sure, based on the keyboard you have, but several of them allow downloads, so this applies to several models.  Get that info off their website or your manual…thanks!

To use the stuff you download to your computer from the www.casio.com website, you need to learn how to use the “application” software disk included with the keyboard (also available on their site for download if you don’t have the disk or got it used).  So, the software should have installed with your driver.  You have to have a driver so that your computer recognizes your keyboard when you plug it in.

So, follow the directions and get your keyboard hooked to your computer…yup, you gotta move that heavy baby.

The other end is a standard USB 2.0 connection.  I am plugging my Casio wk-3800 by what they told me at the store was simply called a “firewire” or “printer cable” or both.  In any case, mine was 10′ long and ran about $20 at Wal*Mart, or $31 for the same at Radio Shack.  I could have gotten it cheaper somewhere, but we have no office supply places around here, and it was an emergency. 

Alright, so now you start wondering how to use the software, and if you are clever enough, you might click enough files to get you to a website to read the user manual.

I clicked this file:

It is called “INDEX”.  Any of the files there with your explorer browser icon will take you to some part of the manual.  The only problem is, none of them have a link back to the home page, so when you get to “end”, you have nowhere else to go.

Tip:  If you are viewing the manual from the links on the disk, start “index”, so that you can view the whole table of contents and move around in the site.  This menu doesn’t follow you, so you have to keep hitting “back” to get to it again.  Casio also has a link to this software manual in more usable form–I’ll try to remember to insert that link if I run across it again.

Things are disjointed and you have to dig around a lot and patch things together to figure this stuff out…I hope this helps you who need it.

So, you’ve  downloaded your tones and rhythms you want and made a note of where you put them (a “Casio Downloads” file would be handy to create somewhere easy to find).

A note here…processing individual tones you downloaded can be tricky.  I recommend downloading at least one full batch of tones somewhere, mainly because my program did not seem to recognize the file I created for individual tones not downloaded in a batch.  I had to move the single ones to a file I’d downloaded as a batch so that the progrm recognized the file name where I put them. (Did you follow that?  It’s kind of confusing…anyway, if you need to know you’ll figure that out.)

Again, you have to extract the files you downloaded.  (Unzip them).  On my XP, it is RIGHT click, then “extract all files”. You can delete the zipped files now if you like to clean up.

Before you get too far along, PLUG UP YOUR KEYBOARD TO YOUR COMPUTER, HAVING ALREADY INSTALLED THE DRIVER WITH THEIR INSTRUCTIONS.

I’m not going to duplicate those instructions, but I did run into one snag with that process by their directions:

I don’t know if you can see my note there on the photo, I can’t. It says, “To find SYSTEM, I had to look under PERFORMANCE AND MAINTENANCE in my Control Panel.”  This is not on their instructions in the “read me” file” to tell you how to install the driver from the CD.  In fact, it said some message about “classic view” I still can’t figure out…just ignore that and look under “Performance and Maintenance” to find “System”.

Now, you should have everything up and connected.

So, you bring up the program and you have two blank panels, one on the left, and another on the right.

On the right, select the tab (it is the default, most likely) that says the name of your keyboard.

Next, you are going to go to that little white box with a yellow symbol on the left and a down arrow on the right.  There, select “USER TONE”.

Now, you are going to click the symbol that looks like a refresh key on top of the right hand panel, indicated by interlocking arrows…see it below as a very small square just below my wk-3800 tab.

Click REFRESH, and a list should begin to populate of tones you have loaded on your keyboard currently.  (Now, you only do this if you want to add these directly to your keyboard.  If you want to put them on a disk, well…click that, and a list probably won’t populate unless you already have stuff on your disk).

Now, you have to get the right hand side dealt with.  This took me some time…and I must have missed it if it was in the online application manual.

You have to tell the program where to find your files on your computer.  To do this (I accidentally “reprogrammed” my keyboard in the process of trying to figure this out, not knowing what I was clicking.  [File, Initiate, System--don't do that].  No harm done for me, but if you had a bunch of user settings already saved, you’d lose it if you chose that.  (And, as a programming note here, for the powers that be:  there SHOULD BE A warning that says, “you are about to erase any user data from your keyboard, are you sure you want to continue?”  Take note, ye do software development.)

ANYWAY.

Next, go to File|Preference|Directory|Browse

Here navigate to your your folder where you downloaded all your goodies.

Now, apply and Okay and close your way out of all that. The RIGHT panel list will populate with the tones you just downloaded. (You’ll repeat this for each thing you want to move to your keyboard).

Finally, I want to figure out where I want the new sounds to go.  I tried several approaches here, but you need to find a way to group the sounds that works for you.  They list them alphabetically, which isn’t very handy.  I don’t want delicate piano next to dynamic trumpet, just an example I made up.  I’d rather have it set up differently.  Decide what might work for you…you can always change it later.  It will seem you are overwritting sounds already there, but no fear…they are duplications of things in your system in another place.  I left some keyboard sounds I like just to have them handy if I’m layering…I’m only one away from a piano I like.  (If you followed that, you get a star).

Tip: I could not figure out the abbreviations of the tone names, so I went to the website and pulled back up the list with the full name and abbreviations, then I pulled up the program on top of that on my screen so that I would see what I wanted.  I don’t need anymore of some sounds I never use, so I just didn’t load those.

Another thing to remind you of:  you can only move one item at a time to your keyboard.

But, you just click the red arrow, and it’s done…you’ll see it show up and a light flash over “data access” while it’s processing.  It will say “Pls wait” so that you know it’s coming in.  It takes maybe five seconds a sound to move in.

I just loaded “duck”, wondering where to file THAT!.  Um, it sounds, well, like…a duck.  I’m going to replace it in my least favorite slot…’clavicord’ 

Tip, you will accidentally rewrite number 700, the first user slot, numerous times by forgetting to select where you want your file to go.  I recommend just figuring you ultimately want there and put it back at the end!  That’s what I’m resigned to do.

Tip: error message

If you click the keyboard before it’s done transferring the information, you get this error message.  It says “the something something something is invalid”.  Look at your keyboard where you just told it to put the item.  Mine was always there.  I think it was just telling me not to touch anything on my computer until the transfer was complete.  There was no fatal error or anything…the process still happened.

Tip: You can try out your stuff as you instal them.  If you don’t like them, just replace them with something you do like!  The way I see it, the user slots should be a ton of my favs!

Here are the rhythms I chose.  I did demos with frequently played songs to see what I might actually use.  Like most CASIO users, I wish I could overwrite a lot of the ethnic stuff I will NEVER, EVER use and upload more funk and other things I won’t have enough options with.  In any case, you only get 15 new rhtyms slots and a ton of options, so I recommend testing them and overwriting anything you aren’t absolutely in love with.

I’ll probably download the Christmas rhythms to external disk around winter time.

I used “print screen” and created myself a little number list of everything I downloaded and installed so I know where to find it.  I think I’m going to laminate it and tape it to my music stand or something.

Okay, so I’m not a geek (I really am, I’m just in denial) and I don’t have a ton of time to answer questions (because I’m playing my keyboard) if they aren’t here already, but I do hope this helps you (because it’s a shame to have such a great tool and not know how to use it) and that you’ll say “hi” (because musicians tend to isolate themselves learning and it’s great to hear from others of you out there hammering out this worship thing).

http://www.casio-europe.com/euro/downloads/emi/cms/ides_mdms_euro.pdf

file:///E:/English/data_manager/index.html

First off, the thing I want to know first…how to move sounds from Casio’s website to my piano keyboard, is the LAST thing on the page listing.

Then, there is information overload about the different types of media you can use to store information on.

I don’t know how much space I have to store these sounds on my keyboard’s hard-drive…so I don’t know if I need a flash drive or not.

Also, I don’t know much about using the type flash drives this keyboard takes…or why it seems so easy to over-write them…(and I quote from the site)

• Note that restoring flash memory data always overwrites the existing data in Keyboard flash memory. If you do not want to lose the data you currently have in Keyboard flash memory, back it up to your computer’s hard disk before performing the restore operation.

This raises some questions:

1. Why would a person want to “restore flash memory data”, from where would one “restore” it, and if it were lost and needing “restoring”, how would you first back it up to your computer’s hard disk before “performing the restore operation.

This was a poorly written section in my opinion.

As far as I can tell, it seems that what it SHOULD say is:

“Be sure to back up any work you want to save long-term to your computer hard-drive in case your flash drive fails and you find the need to “refresh” it with the version saved to your computer hard drive.  Just keep in mind that any changes you made to your flash drive since backing it up to your computer will be long.  As with any computer work…save often, and back up your saves.”

SO… what you need to go buy is what is called either a printer cable…the guy at Radio Shack said it was a “firewire”.  It was going to be $31 there.  I told him that was outside my budget for today, though I drove quite a piece to get there for it.  I drove to Wal*Mart and bought it for $21.  I bought a ten foot jack.  I probably could have gotten away with the little 3-4′ one at the local computer store, but that seemed a little too tight for me.  I wanted to be able to stand and play keys if I wanted.  I tend to be a “stand-up” kind of keyboard player as a rule.

So, now I have the chord.

Next step in the on-going saga to follow…figuring out how to download from the web to the keyboard.

I’m parusing that website now.

Here’s where it gets tricky again–following the website for the software.  It’s a little tricky to figure out.  I’ll get to that next time.  I have a lot to read before The Hub gets home.

I bought the Casio wk-3800 keyboard and am being ambitious.  I want to download MORE, more, MORE from the internet from www.music.casio.com.

So…above?  This is the first thing you read.  It requires a few readings to get down to the meat of the messages, and whether it applies to you, and to what extend, somewhat reminiscent of drug labels.

Basically, don’t turn stuff off and on midstream, I think is the main deal.  Also, that you have to get your MIDI going BEFORE you start your music software stuff.  If you try to do that backward, the software won’t recognize the midi device because it wasn’t connected at the time you started the software.  I think that’s what they are saying.

I hope that clears it up for you.

Also, the “readme” file I was directed to in the manual said to look for the file called **** such and such *** to install the driver from the provided CD.  I did that.

Now this .pdf file says I was supposed to have my keyboard hooked up already to do installation?

Huh?

That is confusing.  (Development note to CASIO:  let’s have a disk that does autorun when you put it in that walks you through the installation process.  My brain is cramping–and, trust me, if mine is…no one else is making it this far.  I actually thrive on the details and READ the manual.  It’s true.  I’m a geek.  Let’s work together here.)

I need to get another cup of coffee, move my keyboard to computer zone, find all these hook-ups, take more back pain medicine, and try again later. {Are you worn out reading that, ’cause I am!)

Stay tuned!

Wow.  Looks like there are a lot of downloads available.  I will try and see if I can accomplish it.  I’m interested to know how easy it is to find these…if they group them with like sounds in the listing, or if I have to remember the numbers or what?

I have a MIDI cable, and installing the CD wasn’t too hard.  I just inserted the disk.  Clicked “run” from my start menu, typed E:/, and then it opened.  I selected US and English, and then read the “readme” file first as suggested in the hardcopy user manual.  It directed me to a file called ides40, and when I clicked that, it autoinstalled.  This is the driver which will allow the computer to connect with and download from the internet by MIDI cable.

I have to say, this is an excellent manual.  It is similar in style to the Roland manual we use at the church.  Very clear and easy to follow, though not nearly as complex as that one (thank goodness).  I can’t remember the name of the Roland I use there…XP something or other workstation.  I’ll have to look that up later for those curious as to what I use.

Anyhoo, on to the next step:  seeing if I can download these.  The hardest part will be moving my keyboard close to the computer, but I think it can be done.  I’d be tempted to find a way to set it up here permanently, but it’s right in my kitchen.  I often go play and practice while I’m waiting for the computer to do it’s thing, uploading pics, or whatever.

Here are the list of sounds.  I like seeing “pan flute”…the recorder sound rocks in my opinion.  I hope it’s good.  Also more horn options…those are a little shaky, especially trumpets, which are just hard to duplicate.  But, they do a great job at times mixing them in the rhythm section where they sound good.  I haven’t looked for a good harmonica to see if it’s on board yet, but I’ll need one for “Happy Song” intro!

Do you all know where there is a good place to download other sounds?  Does it have to be Casio WK-3800 site, or can you use other generic files?  Good questions.  If you don’t answer, I’ll find the answer!

I think Casio should put up demos of these sounds so you’d know the ones you’d use before downloading them all.  Just my preference.  For example, the clavichord would have to really wow me.  I’m not sure what one uses a clavichord sound for.  Note:  there is a demo of what you can do with MIDI…several files.

http://www.casio-europe.com/euro/emi/cms/ It initially asks you where you want to save the files, but ignore that screen and a quicktime player will come up where you can listen.

It initially asks

Okay, so I created a Casio account, got my validation email, and went to download tones.  I always create a restore point on my computer when installing a lot of new drivers and downloading new files.  So, I did that.  (Check your computer documentation for how to do that).

One thing I noticed is that this program is not compatible with MACs. They are going to have to work on that with so many worship “people” converting to MACs today.  I mean, like…all of them.  Except me, I don’t have that kind of spare change or have not been able to justify the expense at this time.

So…I have the files on my computer.  Now, I have to figure out what to do with them.  IMHO, www.music.casio.com should add linkeage on that page with “how to get these sounds to your computer with a link to each keepboard they work on…

I re-read the manual and did not find specifics.  Next, looking for a FAQ on that site.

Oh!  One more thing…in my opinion, it is much easier to download this stuff in batches–an option they offer.  You could go in and delete sounds you don’t like more easily from the extracted zip file than you could pick through and get the sounds you want…especially since you can’t test them before downloading anyway. Scan through the lists first before you start downloading…there is a drum track list by genre called “Package” to save you time downloading…it’s at the very bottom of the list.

UPDATE on Rhythms:  Be sure to check the rhythm section as well…there is a TON of stuff there you won’t want to miss not included in the “Package” link, though it says it includes “all the above”…it doesn’t! 

WISH LIST:  I’m not seeing a lot of just standard 4 beat and 16 beat variations.  That is what I’m needing most for worship songs…and some other 3/4 options.  They need to have someone who listens to “Passion”, “Chris Tomlin”, and other leading worshippers to come up with sounds that would work.  Also, I think the into and exits need to be as generic as possible.  To have a “dim” song and a “big” intro or finish doesn’t really work.  Would be great to just have some fading-out or ending chord/drum sequence stuff going on that doesn’t stick out with whatever you are playing…it would just blend.

I am a bit confused by the website.  They say to read something to see if you’ve met the system requirements and the title includes WK-3800, but then it’s left out of the lists of keyboards that meet the requirements in the rest of the writing on that page.  That needs to be corrected.  I’m pretty sure I’m good because the manual mentioned a MIDI cable this keyboard…I’ll have to go check that out.  I think I saw IN/OUT on the back earlier.

USING THE FILES:  Here is where you find how to use the files you just downloaded (or might download).  It’s a bit hard to find, imho.  On your driver installation disk, go to the .pdf file with the _e extension for “English”.  You get a booklet that seems to have all the answers there as to what to do with these files.

Okay…so here is the tone list you can download:

I bought mine on ebay for about $350, including shipping and a pedal, but it was a particularly good auction.  They normally sell at music stores for $400…and I’ve been watching them for at least two years, maybe three, for the price to drop…it hasn’t.  There just isn’t a lot of variety when it comes to workstations.

Workstations differ from a lot of the keyboards because you don’t have to program everything in that you want to do.  I would love to meet you if you use this baby, especially for worship purposes, and share ideas.

Casio has done a GREAT job keeping up with modern sounds and needs for the modern keyboardist.  I hope to learn to use some of the awesome organ sounds under my belt.  I’m excited about those.

Drop by, comment, say “hello”!