John Beesley at PAXMAGIC has now made his products available for the PA1000
I have no association with him or his company and recommend that you fully check all the current sounds in your PA1000 before making a purchase in case you may already have what you need.
PA4X-76, Karma, WaveDrum GE, Fantom 8 EX
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## Please stay safe ##
...and play lots of music
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I surfed his offerings, and it seems he adds some crucial user samples in some of his sets, but mostly for this is about fine tuning existing sounds, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, he doesn’t provide “stop lists” for his theatre organ and classical organ offerings.
I have used three downloads for the Pa4 which have been very good.
I have purchased the Theater Organ from them.The sounds are as usual good and there are some additional sounds which can be loaded.
.
My problem on the Pa1000 has been trying to balance the volume etc
on the four knobs left hand side top.
The volume and balance speak for themselves but knobs 1 an 2 have
drop down lists and I don't seem to be able to produce some sort of
sound balance that would take little movement if required while you
are playing to some audience.
ecca
For a commercial site that wants your money, there's surprisingly little information involved about how many MBs of samples are included with each of the 7 packages. Kinda important info. Don't get me wrong, if someone even just used the exisiting samples to create more and better keyboard sets, that's worth something right there, but it's pretty vague what you're getting sample wise and sound designer wise (as in using existing samples but having a great ear and patience and know how).
For a commercial site that wants your money, there's surprisingly little information involved about how many MBs of samples are included with each of the 7 packages. Kinda important info.
Email him and ask him
PA4X-76, Karma, WaveDrum GE, Fantom 8 EX
------------------------------------------------------------------
## Please stay safe ##
...and play lots of music
------------------------------------------------------------------
TBH, I'm not in need of it, still learning and appreciating what I've got already.
I see in your sig, "Mz-X500- Don't react until you've tried one!"
I had one for about a year before it got stolen, moved onto the Pa1000. What a huge difference!
On the plus side I found it more user friendly, the board didn't force you to use it as an arranger, it was pretty straightforward to use it for its sounds. The Pa1000 by contrast is far more convoluted and pretty much obliges you to organize everything around the Songbook.
Also, the 16 pads on it were great, good feeling and capable of much. Also, you had the flexibility of using your 4 sounds such that you could have 2 sounds for the bass if so desired. And at closer to 18 pounds the weight difference is noticeable to me.
And the HexLayer sounds were intriguing, but thought Casio really let the ball drop on that one. They had the control surface with the sliders and all, but they didn't finish the whole package to make it user friendly. You never knew, unless you had a photographic memory, what slider was directed towards each of the 6 sounds. As a result I used it mostly as any other sound, as a preset, not using its potential of having volume control over those 6 sounds in real time. Those sliders for organ control was cool though.
But for me anyways, that's about it. I consider the sound quality on the X500 to be 'old school' compared to the fabulous sounds present on the Pa1000, they're just in a whole other class, there's a sheen and realism with the Pa1000 I've never experienced with any boards in the last 30+ years of buying boards.
I can actually play woodwinds and brass on the Pa1000 without cringing (except for the fact that I usually feel fake for playing wind blown instruments on any keyboard!), the Drums are outstanding, etc.. And the Styles are light years ahead, first time I've ever used the arranger functions (have had a half dozen arrangers, mostly for the speakers). And the speakers, at least on my Pa1000 is a class above, about the same relative volume but a bit more bass and richness.
How about you, what do you like about the MZ-X500? I think it's fair to compare to the Pa4x given that the Pa700 and 1000 have close to the equivalent Sounds and sound quality, Styles, etc.
Tbh, this thread got me interested in Bee's theatre organ sets. Purchased it and installed it on a PA 700. Sounds great. It installed a bunch of samples and plenty of sets.
All of them seem to work and the built-in voices that might be needed for some of the sets seem all to be contained in the PA 700.
