Casio CTK 7000 and SD card Problem

[Conor Keane]

I am having a problem recording to an SD card with this keyboard and would be delighted to get some help.
I am attempting to load a finished song from the song sequencer to the SD card. I am hoping to have a wav type file or similar to edit with a DAW. The trouble is everything on the keyboard says I am doing the right thing but when i go to my computer it says the musicdat file is empty. I am using the audio recording mode on the ctk 7000 and everything works fine. The file is called casiowv 1. i can play it back on the keyboard as a recorded song as many times as I like, with the card symbol flashing away as seems normal. But the card says empty on the pc. What am I doing wrong ?

 

[happyrat1]

Did you format the card in the keyboard?

 

[Ted Nicoson]

Conor

The CTK-7000's SONG SEQUENCER records MIDI files not audio files (WAV, MP3, AIFF, etc) and it does not internally "convert" MIDI to audio. If you want an audio file to port to your DAW, then you either need to record your performance directly in audio with the AUDIO RECORDER - OR - record it to the SONG SEQUENCER and then play that MIDI file back with the sequencer as you record the CTK-7000's output with the AUDIO RECORDER. See Page 121 of the manual. The SONG SEQUENCER stores its MIDI files in internal memory as USER SONGS until you manually save them to the MUSICDAT folder (Page 136). That is why you are not seeing anything on the SD Card. Once you record the SONG SEQUENCER's output with the AUDIO RECORDER, you will find the file you are looking for in the MUSICDAT folder of the SD Card. AND . . . as happyrat1 says above, if you did not format the SD Card originally in the CTK-7000, reformat it in the 7000. I have never had a problem formatting SD Cards for my keyboards in my computer until I got the CTK-6000 and the WK-7500. Both of them can get kind of picky about that - some work - some don't - although I always get the "FORMAT" message from the keyboard if there is a problem here.

In the above discussion, do not confuse the SONG SEQUENCER with the PATTERN SEQUENCER. They are two separate and completely unrelated functions. The PATTERN SEQUENCER is also a MIDI recorder, but it is for creating and editing rhythm patterns.

Good luck !

 

[Conor Keane]

Thank you both for your help. I will try again.

Yes I formatted the card on the keyboard. I think you must do this to create the Musicdat file. And I also used the Audio Recorder mode to record the song , ( which I had stored on the song sequencer mode ) exactly as you describe above. I think the AUDIO RECORD is the only way to get a wave file on to the card. Is that correct ? That's what I am trying to do. And the keyboard tells me it's working. The file says CASIOWV 1. Question : is this a standard wave file or something entirely different ? Still no joy, the computer says the MUSICDAT file is empty. I think I may have a card problem.

The onboard sound of this keyboard is really great, especially through the headphones. So what i am doing is trying to capture this quality on to a wave file after mixdown on the keyboard. Is this possible ? What I am saying is that when i listen back to my song while mixing it on the keyboard the sound quality is fantastic.

But I originally recorded my piece by playing it from the SONG SEQUENCER and sending it to a good quality quality soundcard ( left and right outputs from the back of the keyboard ) and straight into a DAW with results that were very good but not as good as the onboard sound I get with the CTK7000. Maybe I am being unrealistic here.

I bought this keyboard with the intention of using all the facilities onboard and hoped to avoid using the DAW until the very end. Of course it would be ridiculous to imagine a machine at this price being able to record and mix down sixteen or more wave files simultaneously and i never expected this . The keyboard boasts an incredible array of parameters ( for me at least ) so I do not want to end up tied to a computer using the unit as a midi controller with latency problems etc.

I will let you know how I get on, thanks again.

 

[Conor Keane]

So I tried again with no success.
Lets look at the function called AUDIO PLAY. Press AUDIO PLAY and the keyboard says "no card, Press exit ". So I insert my SD card and there you go, my file appears, labeled as CASIOWV.1. So I press play and my song plays perfectly. I know it is there because there is an asterix after the file number to tell me it's there. There is also an SD card symbol flashing as it's playing to tell me the track is coming off the card.
Back to my computer with the card and it says MUSICDAT file is empty. So I check the card to see if there is anything wrong with it and no it seems fine because I can load any file I want onto it on the PC. Must try and get hold of another card somewhere....

 

[Ted Nicoson]

Conor

Sorry to have put you through all that about the SONG SEQUENCER vs the AUDIO RECORDER, but I had to make sure you understood that, as that is where a lot of new CTK/WK-7XXX owners get lost, particularly if it is their first dual function MIDI/audio board. Even the manual is confusing about these two functions. The SEQUENCER section states that audio files are not supported while the audio section states that MIDI files are not supported. Obviously, those passages are referring to their own specific function, but read from another standpoint can make the board seem pretty useless.

When you format the SD Card in the keyboard, it sets aside 640Mb for storage of audio files. MS-DOS and Windows can not see this storage area, but the 640Mb will be deducted from the available space on the SD Card as shown by MS-DOS and Windows. The keyboard saves audio files to this area in a Casio proprietary (non-WAV) format and MS-DOS and Windows can not see them. To port them to your PC and convert them to a WAV format, you will need to download and the Data Manager 6.0 or 6.1. Insert the SD Card into your PC's card reader slot and start Data Manager. Click on the AUDIO button at the top of the Data Manager window and the five audio file storage slots will show up in the right hand panel. Storage slots with files in them will show a file size to the right, while empty slots will show a file size of zero to the right. To convert a file to WAV format and store it on your PC's hard drive, click and drag the file from the right hand panel to the left hand panel. The resulting WAV file will be stored on your hard drive in a subdirectory specified by you under the "Preferences" tab. I know this sounds a bit involved, but once you have done it a couple of times it becomes pretty routine. For the most part, you are just using the Data Manager to manipulate your audio files instead of Windows Explorer. Once the file has been converted to WAV format, you can bring it up in your DAW software for further editing.

Good luck !

 

[Ted Nicoson]

Sorry Conor

I wasn't watching the time and the editor timed out on me, so I just lost a couple of hours worth of work. I am afraid I do not have time now to retype everything I lost, so I will just say read through the manual that comes with the Data Manager 6 to get oriented with it and ask questions if you need further help. All audio files to and from the keyboard must be handled via the Data Manager conversion process. If you need to download a copy of the Data Manager 6, you can get it here:

http://support.casio.com/en/support/download.php?cid=008&pid=20

Will check back later this evening when I get home.

Best of luck !

 

[Conor Keane]

That's just great Ted, it explains so much i didn't understand regarding these file systems. I really am grateful for your help and expertise. Tomorrow i will go at this again through Datamanager and will let you know how I get on. Best Regards, Conor.

 

[Ted Nicoson]

Hi Conor - I'm back !

I will try to pick up on some of the items I lost earlier (if I can remember them). With the Data Manager 6 software, you just download it, unzip it, and copy it to a preferred location on your hard drive and run it. There is no specific install program for it. When it first comes up, there will be three panels - one large one on the left and two smaller stacked panels on the right. The one on the upper right and the left panel are the ones you will be interested in. At the top left corner of the upper right panel is an SD icon. Click on the tab just to right of the SD icon and use the drop down menu to select the PC drive name that contains your SD Card. Once you have done that, the 5 audio file storage slots will pop up in that upper right panel, and then you can click, drag, and drop from there. Once you have edited your audio file with your PC DAW, if you want to be able to play it on your keyboard, you must reverse all of the above steps to get it back into a Casio audio format and back into that 640Mb storage area on the SD Card so that the AUDIO PLAYER can find it. Like I said earlier, this may seem a bit involved, but I got used to it some years ago on one of the older Casio keyboards, and after you do it a few times, the entire process becomes pretty much second nature. The older boards would not record audio, but you could load/convert a WAV file and spread it across the keyboard kind of like a sampler, but the whole process was very similar to what I just went through for you. Sure wish the new boards had that "sampling" feature. It was not the best quality, but it was a neat way of getting odd sounds into the keyboards voice banks.

Oh ! And in case you haven't guessed yet - you can not delete an audio file. Those 5 storage slots are permanent, and you just move data in and out of them. You delete old data by recording newer data over it, so don't bother dragging one of those 5 slots to the garbage can at the top right of the Data Manager screen. It won't do anything. The garbage can is for the PC stuff listed over in the left hand panel.

 

[Conor Keane]

Hi Ted

That's great altogether-it works a treat ! I only wish you had written the manual !

In fact the manual is super-comprehensive but I guess when you are more tied up with music-making it's more of a challenge to get your head around the more technical aspects of the setup. It is for me at any rate because I am a little slow here and becoming old.

I honestly gave the manual my best shot before i went to the forum: I don't want to waste anyone's time with questions easily answered from the book. But I got swamped by the constant cross-references in each chapter which I suppose are necessary to give a condensed account of this multi-faceted instrument. Here lies the attraction- the possibilites are endless once you have mastered the fundamentals.

I am slow to criticise the manual because I'm sure all the information is probably there. It's a bit like the old story of the workman and the tool- the bad craftsman always blames the tools !

 

[Conor Keane]

Ted
One last question if you don't mind : How do you save your settings after mixing in SONG SEQUENCER ? They always seem to revert back to default after leaving . And lastly ( sorry that's two questions ! ) what does initialize mean ?

 

[Ted Nicoson]

Hi Conor

Please do not apologize for your questions. We all have them from time to time, and it is those questions and their answers that give these forums a reason to exist. Without those questions and their answers, these forums very quickly degenerate into the mindless "my keyboard is bigger, better, more expensive than your keyboard" one-upmanship sessions that come from not having enough real issues to discuss. AND . . . all else said, the Casio manuals could use a good rewrite.

NOW . . . I will take your latest questions in reverse order.

INITIALIZATION is a single button (or menu item) RESET of a group of parameters or settings to known default (factory) values at the start of design of a new voice, or rhythm, or effect, or song, etc, so that you are not having to continually change a lot of ad hoc settings carried over from previous sessions. That is, with initialization, it is safe for you to assume that unless/until you have changed some parameter or setting that it is at some initial factory value. For instance, if you are designing a new tone, you know that, for that voice, reverb and chorus are off until you turn them on, and that once you turn them on, their amounts and delays are at zero until you increase them, etc, etc. Initialization of the entire keyboard resets everything to factory defaults and erases everything in User Memory - songs, tones, rhythms, registrations, etc, so you always want to make sure you have User items backed up before you do a general keyboard initialization.

I am not certain what you mean by saving the Mixer settings, and hopefully, if I am wrong on this, one of the other users out there, who knows better, will correct me on this, but I do not believe it is possible to save the Mixer settings as a group of settings unto themselves. If that WERE possible, then there would need to be a way to "name and save" them, such as MIXER-1, MIXER-2, MIXER-3, etc, for later recall, but there are no provisions for that. Normally, (some, most, all, ?) Mixer settings are recorded as part of a SONG SEQUENCER song, or PATTERN SEQUENCER pattern, or as part of a REGISTRATION. The parameter tables in the manual will show you what all gets saved with the different functions. If you have a preferred set of Mixer settings, you could save them as part of a REGISTRATION, but the problem with that is some REGISTRATION settings get inadvertently changed when other items in the REGISTRATION get changed manually. For instance, you can set up a REGISTRATION with a particular TONE and a particular RHYTHM, then change either one during live play without affecting the other (as long as you don't use One Touch Settings), but if you have declared a Minus-One-Octave offset as part of the REGISTRATION, it will get cancelled as soon as you change the TONE in real time. In that case, you would need to set up a REGISTRATION for each TONE and both having a Minus-One-Octave offset, and switch TONES with the REGISTRATIONS rather than switching TONES discretely in real time. So, I am not certain how useful REGISTRATIONS strictly for Mixer settings would be. It might be worth a try though. AS far as Mixer settings for the SONG SEQUENCER, I suppose it should be possible that, if you have, say, three different sets of settings that you use over and over, you should be able to create (record) three different two-empty-bar songs, each with its own Mixer settings and save them as Template-1, Template-2, and Template-3. Then load them as needed, immediately rename them, so as not to over-write your boilerplate templates, make any necessary minor Mixer setting changes, and proceed with your new recording. You just have to remember that you can only have five songs in User Memory at anyone one time. The sooner you exhaust that, the sooner you have to start shuffling things back and forth between User Memory and SD Card storage, but it still sounds like an interesting prospect. PC DAW users have been designing and storing quick set up templates on their hard drives for years. Here, we are just talking about doing the same thing on the keyboard with its SONG SEQUENCER set up.

 

[The Y_man]

Awesome posts Ted. Many thanks.

The Y-man

 

[Conor Keane]

All I can say is I agree with The Y-man. I couldn't have progressed with my project without this help. Thanks again Ted.