Hopefully Mike Martin will chime in on this:

I realize that the PX5s will be geared toward the pro market and thus won't be compatible with any of the 3 pedal units that are already available for other Privia models, I don't see that special connector used with other Privias. Therefore, will users be able to use other open polarity pedals (that support half pedaling) like one's from Korg (DS1-H) to activate the AIR chip's ability to support half pedaling?

It would be great if you guys at Casio great a 'pro' division of accessories for your new pro keyboards like more robust half damping pedals and expression pedals.

BTW, Casio sure did break out the big guns at the right time because their competitors like Yamaha (not even a P-155 successor), Roland (RD64, very interesting but lacking the controls of the PX5), don't really have an answer for this enigma called the PX5s. Really can't wait to try this one out and possibly cough up a grand to Casio that normally would've gone to Roland or Yamaha, lol.

I'm very interested in whether or not there'll be half damping (and all degrees in between) myself. Does anyone know whether the PX5S will feature this?

The PX-5S will automatically detect polarity of any pedal used. Just plug in the pedal before the unit is powered on. Unfortunately the PX-5S does not support half pedaling. It can not be used with the SP-33 option, that special connector that is underneath some of our keyboards is not present on the PX-5S.

Thanks for the answer Mike.

If all the hardware features haven't been finalized, having support for an expression pedal, which might also be assigned to half damping, would be a big plus as far as controller functionality.

However I realize you can't have everything

Hardware features were finalized months ago. Production of PX-5S has already begun. They'll be on their way here soon.

Mike, is the half damper function recognized over MIDI? (I assume that is is on the 3-pedal Privia models that support half damper; otherwise the effect would not be audible when playing back a sequence that you recorded with it.) If it is recognized over MIDI, then if someone really must have it, they should be able to get it with a pedal like the Roland DP-10 and a MIDI Solutions Pedal Controller (programmed to CC #64). It's $160, but that's still actually cheaper than a CS-67 and SP-33 that someone has to buy to get that feature on a 150/350, and a lot more portable!

Yes that would work, although I question whether or not the difference could be heard in a live performance situation.

True, so maybe the portability isn't so much a factor. ;-) But even so, I could see this being an appealing solution for people who want the feature in their home/studio, but still prefer the PX-5S over the other Privias that have half-pedaling because of the 5's other features or because they also want to gig with it.

I find the PX-5S really appealing and i'm really considering getting one when it gets out. Although im mainly gonna use ut for home purposes (and some band). I'm wondering if the PX-350 might as well be a good deal for me. Anyone tried the PX-350? Can't find any shops who carry it in my town.

The PX-350 will have the same action. I think the main reasons to select a PX-350 over a PX-5S will be price, built in speakers, or if you want auto-accompaniment. Other than that, the sounds and functionality of the PX-5S look to be far better.

Did the main piano sound actually change? Or just more / longer effects?

My understanding is that the acoustic piano samples are identical, but can be edited/adjusted in many more ways. Other sounds (notably the EPs) are entirely different.

Xorbe,
The short answer: The piano samples are the same.

Long answer: The PX-5S is different than any other digital piano Casio has made because of the ways you can not only (1) dramatically alter the sound itself but also (2) change the way it responds to your touch.

1. The obvious things are are effects. Long reverbs, flangers, delays, distortions, EQ's, Ring Modulators and more. There are also new filters which you have total control to adjust and tweak. There are even ways to "Sample Shift" the samples up or down on the keyboard which can create major tonal differences in the piano sound. A sample shift or "Split Shift" (Kurzweil calls it Timbre Shift") is when you take the sample that is normally on Middle C and move it up to D, but then transpose it back down so its playing in the proper key. Shifting creating a dramatic tonal change, which is great for things like Rock'n Roll pianos versus something that is very dark and haunting.

2. I encourage you all to take a look at some of the results in the DPBSD. Specifically take a look at the DYNAMIC RANGE. Casio's PX-350 was tested with a dynamic range of 57dB. This is extremely wide and is wider than most digital pianos. Most competitors are somewhere in the range 42-45 dB and a few only around 52 dB.

If the amplitude of something increases 3dB that is basically twice as loud. This means that at 57dB a PX-350 is voiced to have 30x the dynamic range of some other products.

The reality is an acoustic piano is an incredibly dynamic instrument and Casio has a purist approach when producing our digital pianos.

[PERSONAL OPINION ALERT]

I believe that for some players, this rather wide dynamic range actually influences people's perception of our digital pianos in a either a positive or negative way. The negative side is particularly an issue for people that play softly or those that do not experiment with velocity curves on our digital pianos. This perception can also be influenced by ability of a speaker system to reproduce this dynamic range. The PX-5S does not have speakers

Needless to say the overall amplitude response on the PX-5S can easily be changed. I'll be posting presets that you can download that have an alternate / narrower response.

Is the Roland DP-10 "half-pedal" position _one_ position, or does it continuously vary from "damper off" through "light damper" to "damped" ? The documentation is unclear (to say the least!).

The PX-350 sound generator responds to the _depth_ of damping from external MIDI sources. The combination of Roland pedal and programmable "pedal controller" might allow me to feed it those signals in "real time".

Thanks --

. Charles

PS -- I suppose the other way to skin the cat is to use an expression pedal, with a programmable controller. One would program a response curve that gave a graduated "half-pedal" effect over a small part of the expression pedal's range. That's very different from an acoustic piano, though.

Just have seen in Casio MIDI specs (under 25.2 Damper setting pedal value): PX-350 pedal event is "continuos. receive only" which should mean, if the instrument will be used as a MIDI controller, continuous pedal velocity values wan't be propagated to SW instruments. (You would need PX-850, AP-450 or AP-650 for this).

To the DP-10 itself: specs unclear indeed (Half-Pedal vs. Continouos), but after this thread of Pianoteq forum it should work in a continous manner:
Pedal Roland DP-10 with continouos velocity issue solved by user

I suspect the manual is referring to the PX-350 with the pedal it ships with, and not with the optional SP33. As I read it, as shipped, the PX-350 can not transmit continuous pedal (since the pedal it comes with is on/off), but if you send the 350 continuous pedal info over MIDI, it will recognize it and behave accordingly. But once you connect the SP33, besides responding to the pedal itself, it should transmit the continuous data over MIDI as well. Yes, Mike?

I doubt it because it is in the general MIDI specification document, not in intrument's manual.

Yes, Mike?

I tested that. The SP-33 pedal transmits three values --

0
127

a value in between, which is controlled by the Function setting "Half-pedal depth" (or something like that).

So, no "continuous" half-pedalling _by the player_ is possible.

. charles

PS -- now Mike's turn . . .

You're correct. That is how the SP-33 functions with a PX-350 or PX-150.

These last few posts have confused two different issues.

This last issue seemed to be whether the SP-33, which transmits more than simple on/off, transmits a continuous range or just a single in-between value for half-pedaling, and Charles' experiment and Mike's post have confirmed that it's the latter.

But immediately before that, we were talking about whether the SP-33 can transmit its in between range to a software piano. Even though we now understand that it's a single in-between range and not a true continuous range, I think that the SP-33 would transmit that half-pedaling info over MIDI, whereas I think Temperament is saying that he believes it would not, right Temperament? Mike, can you confirm which it is?

I thought we were talking about the PX-5S. To clarify the PX-5S can NOT be used with a SP-33.

I just confirmed in my previous post what the SP-33 does with the PX-150 and PX-350. It sends an intermediate value when the pedal is halfway depressed.

Yeah, there was thread drift about 7 posts up. Temperament suggested (I think) that the SP-33 would not send half-pedaling out to software pianos, and I figured it probably would. Can you confirm that either way?

But back to the PX-5S, if the issue is driving a software piano, then any way you get a Roland DP-10 pedal connected on the same MIDI channel, half (or in this case, even true continuous) pedaling should be no problem (whether you use that MIDI Solutions box, or some other way of routing a DP-10 into your computer, which could probably be done with some software configuration if you have any other keyboard around that has an expression pedal input).

So...

The SP-33 half-pedal is a three position switch. (In another thread someone said they thought this was true of most vendors' half-pedals). The PX-150 can generate MIDI values 0,63,127 while the PX-350 can generate 0,<user specified>,127. This pedal is not supported by the PX5S.

And, if you drive a software piano with ANY of these PXs, you could conceivably use a pedal that's NOT attached to the PX piano to control half-pedaling on the software piano. Presumably, this would be some third party pedal plugged into some third party MIDI device which was then plugged into the software piano. OK so far.

But, could you use that same alternative pedal setup I just described as MIDI input to on any of the PX keyboards to provide the internal sound engine with continuous half-pedal input?

And also, is there an all-in-one pedal that does this? Generates MIDI directly from a single pedal and connects via a MIDI or USB cable? And is configurable to which MIDI controller code it can generate? That might be something people would buy.

tom

P.S. Since I bought that PX-350 for my son I've been trying to see if I still remember anything. So far I can more or less play Burgmuller's Ballade, which was the last piece I had learned when I quit. The other two pieces I chose to try to learn (which I've never played) are Bach's Prelude in C Major, which turns out to be quite easy and I could almost sight-read (yay); and Satie's Gymnopedie #1, which, is significantly more difficult than it appears (but I think within reach eventually).

So without meaning to, I ended up grabbing two very pedal-intensive pieces, and already find myself wanting better than the on/off switch the piano came with.

Satie and Debussy both use a lot of "string resonance" effects, and the scores beg for "true sostenuto" pedal (which the PX-150/350 does have). IMHO, they're good "test pieces" for digital pianos. Mozart can sound good on anything.

. Charles

Yeah, I've got to say, I was really disappointed when I saw this thread. I just assumed that pretty much every DP these days was supporting half-pedalling. It never occurred to me that the PX5s wouldn't. I've come to realise that I can't feel natural on any DP that doesn't have it. I'm using pedal all the time to manage the sound. On/off pedalling feels both too dry and too wet - I feel like I'm never in that sweet zone.

Oh well, back to the drawing board for me. Such a shame that this feature is being overlooked. It baffles me that real players like Mike Martin weren't bothered by this. I pretty much see pedalling as just as much part of the skill of piano-playing as the fingers. Maybe I'm in the minority here.

Shame the PX5 doesn't do half pedaling. Just read the thread about that. If Mike or someone else would come up with a nice workaround that will be easy to follow for most of us, then it would make many potential buyers happy. Then there's no need to take the px5 of the wish-list for some of us who care about this feature.

If the PX5 has an expression pedal input (continuous), then sure that would be the easiest way to solve the problem. Connect a dp10 or other continuous damper controller and let the user define the expression pedal as damper input for the AP presets. Perhaps something for a next firmware update ?

The PX5 does not have an expression pedal input. But as mentioned above, the DP10 could still be attached via a MIDI Solutions Pedal Controller.

I just pre-ordered ten minutes ago to get a free-shipping deal, then read this (not too alarming in my case, but a somewhat concerning issue).

I would love to hear if there is work-around also... I'm sure with a SW piano it's a piece of cake, but stand-alone? I play softly a *lot* and on my old rig often had either too much or not enough pedal.

Either way, I'm really looking forward to my new PX-5S. But I hope there is a good answer to this question.

Thanks,
Steve

It's a good question. Mike mentioned above that it would work, but we don't know the exact mechanics. Based on how other Privias have treated MIDI input differently from keyboard-generated input, it's possible you may have to turn Local Off, and loop the MIDI back, essentially treating its sound engine as if it were an external sound module, in order to integrate a MIDI pedal.

I doubt there's a workaround to make half-pedaling work on the PX5s itself though. That needs to be fully implemented within the unit itself. The workaround is only for using the PX5s as a MIDI controller with your PC. If it were possible to use the PX5s as a half-pedal capable module, I think they would have just given it the capability to accept a continuous pedal in the first place. Half-pedaling involves different resonance algorithms and samples - no way you are going to build that into the sound module of a keyboard and then just fail to put the right pedal input on it.