Casio CZ/ VZ/ FZ - Pro Series

this happens to me all the time when i don't check my mail for days and start
replying before i read *all* the accumulated digests. sigh....

shayne

>
> No, that is perfectly normal for any CZ. There are some programs which allow
> to save these "overloaded" parameters, among others my own Atari Prog. See
> www.matucana.de for download. There is also the page of Sealed
> http://homepage.mac.com/synth_seal/html/index.html who researched the depths
> of the CZ's hidden parameters.
>
> Hellmuth

Tim's finding about the bend range 99 is new to me. I haven't checked 
if such setting is possible on my CZ. But It would be great if we can 
bend a sound through 8 octaves....

Sealed

--- In CZsynth@yahoogroups.com, sealed <sealed@m...> wrote:
> Tim's finding about the bend range 99 is new to me. I haven't
> checked if such setting is possible on my CZ. But It would be great
> if we can bend a sound through 8 octaves....
> 
> Sealed

With the CZ arhitecture, it is possible to have a patch with bogus 
data--values beyond the limits of what you can get with the CZ user 
inteface.  If I remember correctly (circa 1985-1989), you could 
create wider ranges on several parameters.  I'm not sure if PB was 
one.

So far as I can tell, no matter what value beyond the normal range 
you send via sysex, the CZ will not go beyond PB Range = 12. (Tested 
on CZ-5000.)

Get the sysex manual for the CZ line (available online somewhere-
"Guidebook for MIDI Nov. 1985"), create a patch, edit the patch data 
using a hex editor (debug works nicely in MS-DOS).

Hope this helps.

Dr. Steve

Hi,
I've made such an editor that puts nonstandard values into CZ.
http://homepage.mac.com/synth_seal/html/index.html

But my editor deals only with patch data, and I haven't tried wider range 
for non-patch data like pitch bend range. So bend range 99 was interesting 
to me. I thought of testing with my C, but it would take time.
Thank you very much for clarifying the result. I'm pleasedly surprised 
to hear that you have figured it out in the 80s. Please let me know if 
there's anything of interest....

Sealed

> With the CZ arhitecture, it is possible to have a patch with bogus 
> data--values beyond the limits of what you can get with the CZ user 
> inteface.  If I remember correctly (circa 1985-1989), you could 
> create wider ranges on several parameters.  I'm not sure if PB was 
> one.
> 
> So far as I can tell, no matter what value beyond the normal range 
> you send via sysex, the CZ will not go beyond PB Range = 12. (Tested 
> on CZ-5000.)
> 
> Get the sysex manual for the CZ line (available online somewhere-
> "Guidebook for MIDI Nov. 1985"), create a patch, edit the patch data 
> using a hex editor (debug works nicely in MS-DOS).
> 
> Hope this helps.
> 
> Dr. Steve

--- In CZsynth@yahoogroups.com, sealed <sealed@m...> wrote:
> Hi,
> I've made such an editor that puts nonstandard values into CZ.
> http://homepage.mac.com/synth_seal/html/index.html
> 
> But my editor deals only with patch data, and I haven't tried wider
> range for non-patch data like pitch bend range. So bend range 99
> was interesting to me. I thought of testing with my C, but it would
> take time.

> Thank you very much for clarifying the result. I'm pleasedly
> surprised to hear that you have figured it out in the 80s. Please
> let me know if there's anything of interest....
> 
> Sealed

It looks like your editor is for the Mac, right?  (Otherwise, I'd 
check it out.)

With My CZ-5000 and my Commodore 64, I got into writing midi routines 
(6502 assembly language).  It was fun!!!

I even charted all the possible values for the CZ-5000's sequences.  
You could put in smaller notes than you could through the user 
interface.  I thought I mentioned this in the group a few 
weeks/months ago, but I can't find the post. 

Also, found out that the CZ-3000 had the same sequencer memory as the 
CZ-5000.  I go into the sequencer memory structure, too. Wanted to 
figure out if I could force velocity data in there even though the CZ 
didn't respond to it.  (I don't recall if I was successful.  I think 
not.)

I did have a routine that would bounce a track.  E.g., take the data 
from track 1 and assign it to another track.  One goal (not met) was 
to make a routine to merge track data.  (I decided it was easier to 
just a computer sequencer.)

I may have my original notes around here somewhere for the above 
projects.  I didn't get into charting all the useful bogus data 
permutations (though I may still have some cool accidental patches in 
C-64 files.

Dr. Steve

Just checked out your website.  It looked familiar.  I stumbled onto 
it a few weeks/months ago, when I pulled out the CZ-5000 to see about 
using it as a beats controller for E-Mu gear.

You did outstanding work uncovering and explaining the hidden 
capabilities of the CZ!!  I didn't get systematic with the patch 
parameters.

Would you want to post the work I did on the CZ-5000 sequencer?

I may have done some heavy duty documentation of my software design 
in my C-64 6502 source code.  Do you think others might be interested 
in the code?

I even had a routine for infinite keysplits--a different patch on 
every key.  Basic idea:

   CZ keyboard (local off) in multitimbral mode  -->
   computer routine with lookup table (1 patch #/key) -->
   patch out + note out based on table
   (channel assignment buffer checked to find next open channel -->
   CZ in multitimbral mode.

Viola!!  A different patch on each key!

Dr. Steve

AFAIK the CZ-5000's sequencer is specified as being able to record velocity from an 
external keyboard.

Interesting that the 3000 had the sequencer in it.

Does anyone think they could write a program to convert CZ-5000 sequencer data 
tapes into MIDI? Like that MC202 program.

--- In CZsynth@yahoogroups.com, Tomás <tomulcahy@y...> wrote:
> AFAIK the CZ-5000's sequencer is specified as being able to record
> velocity from an external keyboard.

Unfortunately, I think I threw out all my notes on the CZ-5000 about 
2-3 months ago.  I may be able to test this out by recording DH-100 
data into the sequencer.  I will let you know the results.

> Interesting that the 3000 had the sequencer in it.

I know it had the memory space for sequencer data which could be 
accessed via sysex data dump.  I'm not sure if it had anything else 
(chip/code/etc.)
 
> Does anyone think they could write a program to convert CZ-5000
> sequencer data tapes into MIDI? Like that MC202 program.

I'm not famililar with tyhe MC202 program, but it would probably be 
alot easier to just load the songs into a CZ-5000 sand either (1) 
play them into a sequencer or (2) save them as midi dumps and write 
code to convert the sysex dumps into standard midi files.

If I had my CZ-5000 notes, they might help with option (2).

It figures:  I held onto the notes for 20 years, toss them out, and 
then find that they might be useful to someone for some project.  If 
there were money involved, I probably could retrace my footsteps and 
recreate enough of my notes to work on a CZ-5000 sequencer tune dump 
to midi file.  However, it is not a project I would take on just for 
the fun of it.

And for no amount of money would I ever want to write a program to 
convert digital data tapes into text.  :-(  

Dr. Steve     |8-)>