The Score Magazine - Archive December 2016 issue! | Page 19

Arranger keyboards are something of a known quantity these days. All serve up a buffet of sounds,
“one-person band” accompaniments that follow your chord changes, the ability to record your
performance, and bells and whistles such as auto-harmony. Powerfully musical in experienced hands? Yes.
Cool, easy-play factor for beginners? Of course. Hip and relevant for 2016 onward? Opinions diverge, but
the Casio MZ-X500 might make them diverge less.
The synth sounds positively shine, and there are tons of them.
Subgroups comprise leads, pads, bass synths, and Hex Layers.
Originating on Casio’s XW-P1 synth, these are six-way stacks that
the machine treats as single sound programs. One among many
addictive examples, PriviaSynth1, is as good for Prince’s “1999”
as I’ve ever used. The special Bass Synth group is monophonic:
Its sounds range from simple sub-basses to Juno and Minimoog
territory to postmodern buzzsaws.
Many of the guitars and basses are new and the nylon guitars
are especially delightful. Orchestral sounds include some great
new solo instruments that take full advantage of the pad-based
articulations mentioned earlier. World instruments are plentiful,
with emphasis on India, China and Indonesian gamelan.
Sound editing goes much deeper than I expected in an arranger
at this price point: filter cutoff and resonance; amp attack, decay,
and release; entry volume and velocity sensitivity are adjustable
per Tone from the first editing screen. Hitting the Advanced icon
takes you to even more fine-grained control, including graphical
pitch, volume, and filter envelopes. You also get independent and
highly programmable LFOs for pitch, filter, and amp (volume).
Effects settings are editable per Tone as well, and you can save
your creations as User Tones. There’s no “oscillator” editing; any
User Tone begins with the multi-sample of some factory Tone. If
that makes the MZ-X500 less than a full and true synthesizer, it’s
only just barely.
Synth-style performance control comes by way of the K1 and K2
knobs, which you can assign to any MIDI CC. Each knob can
control two parameters at once, with different ranges and reverse
polarity if desired. Knob assignments, however, are saved at the
level of Registrations, not User Tones. This seems related to the
fact that each of the two parameters under a knob’s control can
affect all four Tones in the Registration. Though it’s the same
aspect of the sound across the board (e.g. filter cutoff), you can
toggle whether each tone receives your knob twist.
Accompaniment
Casio calls accompaniment styles Rhythms; the Accomp On/Off
button mutes everything but the drums. A style on the MZ-X500
is composed of 12 “elements” (song sections) that you can switch
in real time. There are two intros, four main variations, four
fills, an auto-fill option for when you switch variations, and two
endings. Each element can make use of up to eight multi-timbral
parts—drums, bass, five melodic/chordal parts, and additional
percussion.
The factory styles are very good, with special attention paid to
giving electronic dance and hip-hop styles some credibility and
attitude. Latin, European, and pan-Eastern styles from Bali to
Bollywood are also well represented. Of course, all of the standard
rock, pop, ballad, and waltz fare is on hand.
Can you create your own styles? Yes, element by element and
part by part. The tools here include a pattern sequencer with both
real-time recording and an event list editor. You can also import
Standard MIDI files.
Parameters governing how the accompaniment behaves are no
less deep. Left-hand chord recognition can operate in a variety of
fingered modes or the easy Casio Chord mode, which triggers full
chords based on one-and two-finger input. You can set up fades
and slowdowns, specifying the starting measure for each. An
unexpected arranger feature is auto-harmony, which adds notes
to your right-hand melody based on the left-hand chord. It’s here,
with a dozen voicing modes to choose from.
Another level of accompaniment consists of Music Presets, which
add ready-made chord progressions to all the other goings-on as
well as pre-selecting appropriate Tones. You can alter, rename,
and save Music Presets in a step-based editor. For ease of use, this
presents itself in terms of measures, beats, and ticks, and offers
tools for adding ties, rests, and different note values including
triplets. Powerful stuff, here.
Conclusions
The MZ-X500 strikes me as one of those rare items that is way better
than it’s supposed to be. I’ve only had room to scratch its surface
here, particularly with regard to the way its various modes can
interact to kickstart your music-making. There’s a fusion going on
here of a modern “producer” mindset with a traditional “arranger
keyboard” paradigm.
As a synth, it’s great-sounding and powerful enough to be
the cornerstone of any band rig even if you never touch
the accompaniment features. If you do, they’ve received
a welcome hipness injection. As a studio tool, it offers
multiple and fun pathways to quick composition. As a value,
it’s a definite Key Buy.
PROS
Excellent sounds in all categories. Deep sound editing.
Accompaniment styles/rhythms are musical and
satisfying, with custom styles easy to record and save.
Drum pads perform many cool tasks and integrate
seamlessly with arranger section. Onboard speakers
play loud and clean.
CONS
Many great features are under-documented, even in
supplemental tutorial downloads.
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