Casio Cortez

Work has thrown up a few nice things of late. A pair of synths that are a cut above the normal you would expect to find.  My baseline is usually some cheapo Casio SA1 variant, or some no brand little kid synth complete with duck quacks and nursery rhyme demo tunes.

What I found is a pair of full size Casio and Yamaha GS Wavetable synths from sometime in mid 2000's. Replete with midi ports and a few learning modes they're really good beginner synths for those that have the room.

Oh, if that sounds familiar, Microsoft GS Wavetable is bundled with every version of Windows as the default on-board sounds for MIDI.

Both work, although the lowest black key C# doesn't work in the Yamaha. It's not a deal-breaker as it has XG lite over the Casio's GS Wavetable only selection.  It also uses standard AA batteries whereas the Casio has the D Cells which I had to cannibalize from my original Yamaha PSR 200.

Below, I'll give you a way to connect the Casio via MIDI so you can use it in your DAW, it's not ideal mind, as when it goes into stand by mode it will reset and you'll need to follow these steps again.

Warning 1:

The Yamaha at present is untested. Don't ask how to connect.

Warning 2:

My DAW is pretty obscure, and I never got it  to work with LMMS, my other Music production suite.
With this in mind let's begin.

You'll need to connect your MIDI cables right, as you will get no output at all if you get it wrong.

Input goes to output and output goes to input.

You can use MIDI OX to test your inputs on windows. Mac Users can use Snoize (not that I have a Mac mind.)

On your Casio you need to press the transpose / MIDI button and scroll through to find these parameters. Use the + and - keys to turn them off.

GM Mode =  On
Local Mode = Off This turns off the sound and lets you use your DAW's soft synths as the main keyboard Sounds.

You can skip this bit as it relates to Psycle Tracker.  But in the main menu go to settings > Configuration then MIDI and select USB synth from the drop down box. Load up a synth and connect it and it should play. You'll see volume outputs and hear sound if it works.

For other DAWS you'll probably need to find where your MIDI settings are for each one.  As I final note I have a USB to MIDI cable that I use to connect. Its quite useful, and can be gotten from EBAY for around £3 or $4 for the yanks out there.