Hi I'm Chris from musicradar.com and we're here on the Casio stand at NAMM 2012 we're
looking at their brand new XWP1 synthesizer and their XWG1 synthesizer. I'm here with Tom
who's going to take us through all the features and show us some sounds.
>>Alright, first element we're going to talk about is the solo synth that's a monophonic
synthesizer that can be made up of 6 different parts and those 6 different parts can be faded
in or out using the faders over here so I'll give you an idea of what that's like.
Now if I pull these down I start getting rid of the other elements and here is a noise generator
because we can make this from 2 wave forms and also 2 PCM samples you can also have a
source B external line in, back from a guitar or whatever, a microphone and a noise generator.
Alright so let me show you another one of these guys. Plus these knobs up here which
are assignable, the default of this is to control the cut off, this is to control the resonance
and this usually is the attack of the envelope and the release of the envelope. So here
I'm bring up the cut off so you can do some real time contorl, bring in some nasty resonance,
totally changing the sound just from those knobs right there. So let me show you a few
of the bass sounds. >>Can I just ask in terms of the core of this
synthensizer, is it still based off of Casio's idea of phase synthesis and phase distortion
or is a completely new idea of what Casio's sound like?
>>I think it's more PCM sample based, sampled wave forms and so on. Alright so here's some
some nasty bass sounds.
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And also built in which we can show with the bass but it can work with any of the sounds is
the arpeggiator, which there's tonnes of patterns, you can create your own pattern. You can just
put it in hold mode.
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And so on, tonnes of patterns for that. >>So while that arpeggiator's going you can then
mess with the sounds and you've got all that real time control?
>>Oh yeah, let's do that, I like that idea.
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That'll do it! Alright so that pretty much covers the solo synth section, then
we have the hex layer which is polyphonic sounds, you can layer 6 seperate sounds to
create 1 sound and then the same thing with this, you'll see over here that when we go
into the hex layer this blue strip lights up here to show you what these sliders will be
controlling. So this will be the volume for laters 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 and total volume can
also your DSP effects parameters. So let's look at some of these and then these knobs,
this will do a detuning then this will again control the frequency.
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And I can pull out some of the sounds.
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All on the fly, I'm totally sculpting a new sound, ok, let's look at some others. A lot
of nice warm pads and nasty pads.
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A lot happening in the sound if you want, you can automate panning, all kinds of things.
>>How many presets are there? >>I think there's 50 presets and then 50 user
spots that you can put things but then everything can be also saved onto an SD card. Alright then
we have the draw bar organ mode, now the blue is in line with the drawbar organ and it shows
you the stops on the organ that these are related to so if I take them and push them all up you'll see
on the LED that when I move this it giving a representation of where it is, so when I
move these up, one of them is still there, I can hear nothing, them I'm going to pull
out the stops to bring in the sounds. And it has a Leslie simulator.
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Alright so there's your organ, there's distortion, 50 presets but those are all editable through the control bars.
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Alright so there's your drawbar organ section, then there's a whole section of just plain
sounds, PCM sounds, so here we have pianos, there's a whole bank of piano sounds.
>>And are these based on the classic Casio stuff?
>>Yeah and a lot of new stuff, the strings are very good, they've developed a whole new
string sound, nice piano pad layer thing, play all different pianos here, some flute, let's go
into some strings, and let me scoot over here a little.
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Alright and a lot of variation of that string sound, guitars, basses, synths and all that
general midi sounds also. Next section, the step sequencer and all the elements
put into a performance, it could be having an arpeggiator on, could be what step sequences you're
using, what sounds you're using, what solo synth all will be saved in a performance.
Alright so let's see what I've got in the step sequencer. Step sequencer, you have 5
drum parts, a bass part, 3 solo synth parts and a chord part and then 4 controller tracks
to automate panning and so on. You have within the step sequencer you can have 8 patterns,
you can select each one on the fly and change each pattern, you can also chain them in any
sequence however many times you want each pattern to play. So let's hear, right now
I'm going to change to the next pattern which is built up with more...
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We can change the tempo by just tapping the tap tempo button.
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Alright and I'll show you how you build up one of these patterns, if we're on this first
pattern and I'm going to move to the high hat part, it shows that all 16 steps of the
high hat is playing, so let's say I want to get rid of the high hat I could just wipe them
out like that. If I just want it on all the down beats and if I want to put them on the
ands and you can also change the note selection of what it's doing so now it's doing an open
high hat instead.
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Alright and let's go to the kickdrum part. Right now they just have a kick on 1 and a
4 so I'm going to put it on all 4 beats and take it off with this one.
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Alright and that's your step sequencer, you can also go into step sequencer edit mode
and play live on the keyboard to add to the step sequencer.
>>And can you do montages on the fly? >>Yep exactly, montages on the fly.
>>Ok, and then just to add there is another keyboard as well.
>>Yes the G one, the groove synth, this is the performance the P1 and then the G1 is
the groove synth. The groove synth has the solo synth and also has the step sequencer
and also all the basic PCM sounds. It also has a sample looper so you can put in audio and
sample it and loop whatever sections you want, also use the filters on these samples.
>>Can you put these samples on an SD card or is it live?
>>I think it's live and then you can save them to your SD card although I'm sure you
can load them in off the SD card too, there's still a bit in development on this one.
>>Judging by this area its very much mouse. >>Yes, iPad, iPhone, right because then you
could take the output to that into the 8 inch stereo in and add that in through the synth.
>>And retail prices? >>699 and 799.