Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards New Casio Privia DP models just announced!

In the last few years Casio has released the following:

XW-P1 and XW-G1 experimental synthesizers: Total departure from anything they've ever done. (If you into synthesizers and electronic music production, you know that these are different from anything out there.)

PX-5S: A hybrid stage piano / monster synthesizer (more than most people realize) and MIDI controller.

XW-J1 - A DJ controller made in cooperation with an outside company.

XW-H headphones made in cooperation with an outside company.

XW-DJ1 and XW-PD1 -- breaking the mold of the square boxy DJ controller and drum machine. Far from conservative, these things are straight out of Star Wars - both in looks and the way they sound. A whole new way to make music.

Add to all of that several new sampling keyboards, digital pianos, workstation keyboards, and now several new models with major design changes and color touch-screen display.

So no, based on these facts, Casio is not slow to market, conservative, or insular. They are prolific, daring and collaborative.

Because designing software ( thats what all these workstations run on) is way more expensive then the hardware part... I think you can buy hardware comparable to the processor hardware in Kronos for less then €100..

Processor hardware is just a fraction of the totall costs of an instrument, and thats the main reason i cant understand why they all try to save money on that part of the instruments.. Its as Martin says, do you think these sounds come at no cost? no they are extremely expensive to develop.

I speak from some experience in the electronics industry, though I hope I'm not arguing merely from whatever authority that imparts. I do digital design in FPGAs, have supported a couple of ASICs in the past, and am actually currently working on a custom processor for my own stuff (it's a tiny niche / total vanity thing).

Other than DPs, if you open just about anything new you'll generally see no custom ICs. Though you may see a small FPGA or two, which is really saying something. FPGAs run at ~1/10 the speed of native silicon, and cost ~10x as much. For an FPGA to even exist in a consumer product, the economies of scale for ASICs have to be way beyond the design team's abilities and/or any reasonable expectation of payback.

The ASICs I've personally interacted with were very poorly implemented, and required whole teams to get around their baked-in bugs. It takes a lot more in the way of verification effort to do an ASIC right, and even if you get it right the time-to-market thing can make it obsolete before you can even get your hands on it. FPGAs can be field programmed (hence the name) so new loads can accompany software loads, and the risk of persistent crippling bugs therefore much lower. SW and Firmware verification is much less onerous than ASIC verification. Everyone thinks "let's just take our FPGA code and turn it into an ASIC" but it's never that easy. Altera even had a "Hardcopy" program to do this, not sure it ever went anywhere because the risks were too high, the money saved too small, and the FPGA / ASIC skill sets too mismatched. But if you don't know the field intimately it seems like a good idea.

With Casio and Yamaha I get the feeling their ASIC departments need something to do in order to justify their overhead / existence. You can have internal fiefdoms running things even in modern engineering. If I were designing a DP I'd pick an ARM and start writing code, not hire 100 engineers and take 5 years to design a new DSP that can't possibly compete with more mature, full-featured, and less expensive offerings from TI and the like.

I also don't quite get why so many here are so defensive when it comes to critiquing products of all things. The market is supposedly this Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest tough-guy battle ground where the invisible hand impersonally rewards the producer of goods consumers like, and punishes the inefficient. But huge companies are evidently in danger of folding tomorrow if a few non-glowing words are typed on an obscure web forum somewhere. If we can't openly discuss DPs here, what good is this place?

Well, Casio is pushing the heights, no one is denying that... But I believe that everybody wants more, so as I do. I'm not into buying a Casio Digital Piano right now, because I don't feel like it is a solid instrument to classical piano and heavy repertoire, but I'm indicating Casio instruments to fellows who play at gigs. Casio is a heck-yeah brand for the gigging musician. When they decide to compete with Kawai and Yamaha as far as touch quality is concerned, you can bet, Casio will be even huger. And I bet my two volumes of the WTC from Henle that Casio is already working on better key actions and how to improve it's mechanism alongside feeling, touch, expressiveness, control and responsiveness.

Nice to see Casio pushing to put features in at competitive prices, applauded

On the other hand, as alluded to above, I'll add my beginner two cents as well.

Right now, Casio action is plenty good enough for me at my level, and I imagine for a few years yet to intermediate level, or who knows when I run out with it.

That said, just over a year in, I can feel a few things already that I could see becoming a problem when I get to further along, but nothing that it is holding me back now to stop improving.

I don't see myself as the blame my tools type, but more like, get on with it, BUT, I suspect If I were to get to around grade 5+ (ABRSM) playing material for Casio to convince me to buy another Casio thereafter, I would probably be looking for the following in future higher end models.

- Improvements to existing action:

1) Longer key sticks i.e. pivot point further back. While many say Casio is light, it begins to feel pretty heavy to me once you get further up the keys, the black keys above halfway become pretty sluggish too. I Imagine that a top end Kawai would feel lighter and more responsive that far up the keys, I don't know for sure, not tried one, but this I what I would suspect and would welcome that improvement.

2) Refinements to third sensor implementation to perhaps work a bit better, as explained in the VPC1 / Casio comparison videos in detail here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnqHStIL02E

The key off simulation I imagine would improve that way too, making legato playing easier.

- Improvements to sound:

further refinements/improvementts to piano samples.

The new AP 460 to 450 Celviano ( ditto PX 850/860 ) was a very small incremental step with some extra features added. Nothing wrong with that for what is already a fine piano in that price bracket, but I don't see it as much of an upgrade, more like the same piano with some extras added. Nothing that would tempt me ( personally) to buy one being owner of the current AP-450. AFAIK, the main thing is the samples/piano sounds, action are the same.

It would be nice to see a newer more advanced range coming out of Casio for the more advanced students/player to compete with the likes of a CLP 585 or a Kawai CA 67/97, Roland HP 508, something along those lines. I'd love to see what Casio could come out with at a very competitive price in that range.

Already the likes of the CLP 535, 545 came down quite a bit in price since I bought, and I suspect that perhaps the Console Celviano Privia models had a lot to do with that.

With existing tech, I also suspect Casio would perhaps do quite well with a budget MIDI controller like the Kawai VPC1. Considering the low cost of the PX-160, imagine how little a controller would cost with that same action, add mod and pitch bend while at it.

I would have happily bought a midi controller with hindsight instead of the AP-450 since I hardly ever use the sounds in the Casio these days. While nice occasionally for friends/visitors when they are around to entertain, it does sound nice in the room for that type of use, however, I find, for me personally these days, Pianoteq/Ivory are now my weapons of choice for every day practice with the headphones on.

It's nothing specific to here at all (in fact I've seen far worse). It's more like welcome to the 21st century in general: Era of the Offended. The Hissy Years. You disagree with me! You criticized something I like! I'm upset! I'm offended! sniffle


I wouldn't hold your breath. When I heard about the new privias, I assumed the same and that they'd be better...nope, same action. I guess they haven't gotten enough negative feedback, either because people are OK with it, or at least are willing enough to tolerate it due to overall bang/buck.

I don't think anyone is worried about Casio folding tomorrow.

And I don't think anyone is trying to stifle discussion.

What people don't like is biased criticism based on "feelings", suppositions, flawed logic, supposed business expertise, etc. instead of facts.

This is your "feeling" of what other people don't like, you mean.

Excuse me, I have to tend to my irony meter - it's billowing smoke for some strange reason.

Yes - pitiful, isn't it? We are in danger of becoming a generation of big babies.

I think there are some interesting points of view coming across here, from someone working in the area of large scale IC design (or what ever it is we should call people choosing between FPGAs and ASICs). And anyway, in the case of Dewster's invective, at least he sprays his bullets pretty evenly across all the manufacturers. So no one should feel they're being singled out for special treatment, I suppose.

Who is being offended? I haven't heard much in the way of fan-boi nonsense in this discussion. Dewster in expected fashion entered the discussion with this post,



I don't think it's a fair assessment. Don't you guys remember when you couldn't touch a weighted action keyboard for under $1000 US? And that was a while back... inflation would make that more like $1400 today. In the meanwhile, prices have come down... way down. Yamaha has a P-45 right now for $449 and that pricing is inspired by competition like Casio and now Alesis being aggressive in the market. PX-160, Coda Pro and a bunch of others duke it out at $499.

In capitalism, the idea is to be profitable, no? If these companies can't exist, then we can't have instruments. That's the point I am making. Our insatiable desire for cheap goods is not always a good thing. It can have an affect on build quality, of course. But it also requires cheap labor, which is a problem in itself. But whatever, without going into a discussion on human rights, there is a half way decent digital piano for most these days.

The question then is, why is it taking so long for technological advances (which we are only seeing in the high end gear) to trickle down to the lower. Well, again, the market sets the price. So, it's time for a company to disrupt.

Dewster, if you can design the mainboard, I'll source the parts and handle the kickstarter campaign, website and all that. We will need the intellectual property (either sample based or modeling, etc.). Maybe you can give Modartt a call and see if the deal can be sweet enough for them to license to us. Would be great if we can find a VC to back us. How cheap do you think it could be built for? We'd have to go to China, no? It will have to play nice, so the Fatar action isn't going to fly. Do you think we can license an action from Kawai? Probably not. You'll have to design that too. Maybe Fatar can build it to our specs. Amp and speakers are going to have to be killer. Case and pedals attractive and sturdy. What price point were we trying to make again? Should we have a color touch screen? Shoot Casio has one now on a DP @ $1199. I think we have to do it too to stand out. Do you think the end users will really hear a difference? Do you think our marketing hype speak will be enough to convince users to spend a little more for our design improvements? If they play them side by side in the shop will they choose our piano? Are we going to make it past the first year? I hope so. VC is going to want to be confident we can disrupt. How good can our design be and how cheap can we do it for? Maybe we'll have to go to Bangladesh.

Go back and read what I wrote a few posts ago: I said "you are more than welcome to your opinion, that's why this place is here", but that doesn't make it fact. And if people can't challenge opinions then what good is this place?

You may indeed have some experience with electronics, maybe you can even build a basic synthesizer or sample player, but until you have designed and built a commercially successful line of digital pianos over the span of several years, you really don't know what it takes to make it that happen. Again, you are more than welcome to keep speculating and guessing the best way to do things -- but it works both ways: It means others are allowed to question those opinions as well.

this guy shows no sweat:

[video:youtube]PEV9LeW_RRQ[/video]

Good grief. that is a spectacular performance, It makes me wonder about purchasing one myself. Casio has some amazing keyboards and pianos for the price.

I'm not sure. All sounds a bit dead, like the sound is coming out of a vacuum. No resonances, no life. And no sustain.

That video reveals a few things.
A) a good musician/player can make music on most anything
B) the action on the PX-350 is functional enough for virtuosic repertoire
C) the Casio piano sample in the PX-350 ain't half bad, there is variety in the timbre layer to layer

Which brings us back to the topic of the day.
Does the keyboard buying public at large care if a keyboard uses custom DSP, ARM, FPGA, whatever. Can they hear a difference when the samples are looped or not? Whether the sound is sampled or modeled? If we built a better keyboard, could we bring it to market at a competitive price, and could we sell enough of them to be profitable?

Yes that video does show how good they are. But the audio is recorded via USB, not ambient, so you can't hear any action noise to compare to an acoustic piano. Not sure how much of an issue that is with modern DPs though as I don't have access to an acoustic piano to compare .

I'm surprised your original post in this thread didn't cause your "irony meter" to implode. But then again, you have a habit taking comments out of context and ignoring those who disagree.

My hope is that sometime you will actually address the comments made in response to your posts. But I don't think your "hit and run" style lends itself to that.

My comment wasn't based on "feelings" it was based on the numerous comments responding to yours.

You know, those critical comments you choose to ignore.

Well, we could take the MIDI file and render it using a PX-360. That (new) model _does_ have "string resonance" (4 different levels). That might solve one of the issues. [I'm waiting for my local dealer to get one in, so I can try it.]

Sustain remains a problem . . . and it's one of the things that dewster complains about.

. Charles

The 1st and 3rd videos are, I believe, audio recordings of the AP-450 (not that it's mentioned so much in the 1st, but at a certain point, you can hear the sound of Max Tempia's fingers hitting the keys)

you, sir, are an audiophile, not a music lover