WOW!

What happened with Casio?

At one time I thought that they were totally going downhill, that they just didn't care anymore.

Now they've come out with a potentially very cool thing called the WK 7500.

I'm starting this as sort of a WK-7500 "info central" thread.

There are still a few things I haven't been able to find out.

I haven't been able to dig up ONE review on this( how long has the keyboard been out?)

Interesting observation, from the online manual-The external MIDI spec has been trashed ,so I guess we're living in the USB age....

First topic I'd like to bring up. Can this puppy do MMT-8 style pattern sequencing because linear sequencing is soooo yester-decade!

I want to be able to work on 2-4 measures at a time and then be able to string all those measures into a completed song.

Is the WK 7500 up for it?

So, does anyone know what booted Casio back into the semi-pro league after nearly half a decade of not caring?

It's a nice keyboard but semi-pro is a big word.
Isn't the MMT-8 a Alesis sequencer? If you mean if the Casio can record 8 tracks for a style the answer is yes.

No, not just for a style......but pattern recording for ANY music...like orchestral...

LOL. Pattern recording orchestral music. Post some of that for me when you're done, will you...?

Simple and easy to use the style creator:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shgHNrJSPHQ&feature=related

obs: in portuguese

A major reason you are seeing a product like the WK7500 is do to Casio USA have been hiring former Yamaha people who were product and marketing managers in the arranger and digital piano divisions. I personally know one of them very well and I was thrilled to see him show up at Casio. It brings a wealth of knowledge to Casio's arranger division.

You can record in both the 17 track sequencer and the pattern sequencer in both real time and step time. A pattern can be up to I believe 32 measures ( or maybe just 16). I'm not at my store now to look at the owners manual.

I happen to have my manual handy (but took a lot of searching!) and the Pattern Sequence (page E-109) says up to 16 measures (up to 2 only for fill-in)

I'm hoping Casio puts up more videos, as I'm finding it to be a bit of tough sledding, not having played with a keyboard before. I'd like to create a pattern(s) to accompany for Aloe Blac's "I need a Dollar" but this does not appear to be a simple task.

Can someone explain to me what exactly "Styles" is referring to for a keyboard.

Styles are just the auto accompaniment musical styles that arranger keyboards provide eg. rock, swing, big band etc.

Just a note of interest. For some reason, Casio does not use the term "Style." Instead, they call it something else... but it is supposed to be the same thing as a "Style." I've attempted to get my eyeballs and hands on a CTK-7000 or a WK-75000 at the Ft. Worth Guitar Center but they do not have either unit yet.

Needless to say, due to the good reviews so far, and the very attractive price, as a songwriter who does his own demos, I'm interested. Thanks for posting and sharing to all who have participated in this thread.

Dave Rice

Casio refers to "styles" as "rhythms" or, "rhythms with full accompaniment".

Definitely a lot of keyboard for the money.

Ian

Has Casio improved the key-bed over some of there lower end "big box store" keyboards.

I can`t remember what model it was that I play at BB , but the key were way bad , very sloppy , and not evenly spaced.

I have read on another thread that the buttons are rubber , and there are some other ill effects , but most important to me would be the keys.

Thanks ,

Gary

Their lower end pianos have had issues with uneven key spacing, and even some wobble.

I haven't tried the WK-7500 yet...looks interesting...certainly a great price and lots of cool features.

Gary, what are you playing these days?

I'm no longer using "rubber" buttons (although I kind of liked them) as I've bought myself a Tyros4...in spite of finances being stretched a bit, I couldn't resist it's many charms. seriously, I haven't been this enamored with a top line arranger since my PSR-8000.

Are you considering a Casio?

What about the new Korg PA3X?

Ian

Hi Ian ,

I`m still playing the old Hammond , it`s not that great and it`s not a tone-wheel , but it works.

I would like another arranger , just not something to big.

The Tyros 3 that I had was good , but the repetitive sounds and styles never used , just wasn`t for me.

Either a simple arranger like a Prelude or a piano like the FP-7f is what I have mostly been thinking about.

There is still the "what - will - Yamaha - do " for there next PSR to think of as well.

Must have a good key fell and built-in speakers.

Take care

Gary

Hi Riceroni9(from Glenrose,Tx) I just tried one today at the Guitar Center in Dallas (off Central Expressway 75)

For an arranger, I wasn't impressed at all. Sure it's cheap but it sounds and feels cheap. I'm sure in the hands of a keyboard wizard it well sound good, but I need all the help I can get!

Hi Montunoman:

Thanks for letting me know. I'll try to find a good excuse to get over that way soon. I'm curious about the sound. Do you think it was the speakers or did the Sytles/Rhythms not meet your expectations? Sometimes, because of the environment, such as a crowded showroom floor, speakers don't sound very good.

Since I never use my speakers (I use only earphones) when I record, that won't be a factor for me. I "tweak" each style to match the melody and genre I'm working on at the time... so that will be the area of most interest to me. I'm not much of a piano player and so the feel of the keys is also not an important factor as it would be for these pro players who perform on their arrangers nightly.

Thanks for responding.

Dave Rice

http://www.ShowCaseYourMusic.com/DaveRice/

It could very well have been the speakers/enviroment. However it just didn't do it for me. I could not find brass or sax sounds that I liked, big band or latin styles didn't inspire me to play. I much prefer the sound my $220 Yamaha E413.

Any of the Casio's I've played only had good Piano & Organ sounds...the rest were so so .... let's face it for $500.00 what do you really expect?...The Piano is their out of the box or store demo seller to the uninformed. But there is definitly a niche for entry level players starting out at this price range.

Hello, all.

I'm new to this forum and joined to discuss the wk-7500.

I'm a keyboard player, and have a couple pro keyboards (Korg DW-8000, Roland D-20) and a Fender Rhodes. About 10 years ago I purchased a Yamaha PSR-540, which I really have loved. The sounds are pretty good, although thin through a PA, and the realtime performance aspect (with styles, etc) are great. I became interested in the WK-7500 after seeing it in my local music store. What drew me to it was the organ drawbars. To get such a feature on ANY keyboard would involve an investment of at least $1500 (low end Hammond or Nord). So when I saw a pricetag of $399 for the 61 and $499 for the 76-key I was interested.

I was able to find a guy selling the 76-key wk-7500 on eBay, in like-new condition, and got it for $360, which is quite a bargain. I've had it now for just under a week, and here are my impressions (comparisions to Yamaha inevitable)

Pro:
- Drawbar organ controls really are a great feature. Ability to select the harmonics, leslie speed, and drawbar settings on-the-fly is great

- Decent sounds. Great pianos and organs, nice wurlitzer. Good analog synth voices.

- Ability to modify tones is great. Can't do this on my Yamaha. I can take a basic synth tone, tweak the attack and decay, add some chorus to fatten it up and boy, does it sound good. ALMOST as good as my Korg.

- Ability to modify DSP settings is great. Again, not able to do this on my Yamaha. I can change the slow and fast rotation speed, ramp up, etc. on the Leslie, the chorus depth and feedback. Anything you need to change on an effect is pretty much available.

- Ability to assign the slow/fast button to other params, such as pan or tremolo rate is a great feature.

- Keys are nicer than the organ-style keys on the Yamaha when playing piano and EP sounds.

- Yamaha doesn't have a Mono out 1/4" but this keyboard has both a left/right with one a Mono.

- Sequencer is as full-featured as on the Yamaha (which has a 16 track sequencer built in)

Cons:

- The fast Leslie effect is a bit better than on the yamaha, but isn't nowhere near as realistic as on the more expensive clonewheel keyboards

- Chorus or DSP - but not both. I'd love to have a chorused rhodes sound with auto-pan.

- LFO allows sine or triangle wave, but not square wave. Sample and Hold would have been nice. But this is nit-picking probably.

- Casio dropped the ball on the sliders. I can't assign things to them for realtime control. Would have been nice to be able to assign tone parameter to them (like delay time, or attack). C'mon Casio - you've got all those hardware do-hickies on the board - put them to use.

- More than 3 levels on the organ drawbars would have been better, plus they are not smooth at all. It doesn't sound very nice when you change drawbars while holding down notes.

- No realtime control of volume on the split or layer voice. I'd like to be able to have a layered voice (like a pad) with a piano, and be able to vary the volume of the pad in realtime as I play. Can't do this.

- No MIDI ports, meaning no MIDI out, meaning this keyboard cannot be used a controller for my other keyboards.

- Rhodes sounds are not my favorite. They sound too compressed or something. I'm trying to tweak them to get something that sounds good, but so far have not gotten anything satisfying yet.

- In general, the EP sounds seem to be too short - they don't sustain as long as I would expect them to. But that may just be me.

- The mixer is a mess. Way too complex to just mix tracks. It would be better to have a mode switch that puts those sliders in dedicated track-mix mode or something. Again, a realtime mix for the basic board setup (Upper A/B, Lower, Rythm) would be enormously useful.

- This may be a Casio vs. Yamaha thing, but when playing in accompanyment mode, hitting the Variation button does not do a fill leading into the variation. In addition, the transition from Primary to Variation can be abrupt if you don't hit the button at the "right" time during the measure.

- In general, the accompanyments are not as good as the Styles on the Yamaha. Sure, I can edit them, but the canned ones should have been better. The difference between Primary and Variation is just way too subtle. I also miss having the Yamaha "one-touch" where I can add in more instruments to the background band.

Overall, I'm pleased with this keyboard, although it would be hard to tell based on all the "cons" listed. If I were to be able to add tone and DSP editting,organ drawbars, and piano-style keys to the Yamaha, that would make an ideal "fun" keyboard to me. And for the price I got this for, it was a steal. If I wanted to sell it, I could probably get my money back (and perhaps more). But I typically don't sell old gear - it just accumulates.

-Tom

Thanks Tom:

That's an impressive list of pros and cons. I still have not put my hands on one of these interesting "boards" but it's on my current "bucket list." (LOL!)

With gasoline prices nearing $4 buck per gallon, I'm having to plan my excursions to do multiple events or tasks.

Thanks again, Tom.

Best Regards,

Dave Rice

http://www.ShowCaseYourMusic.com/DaveRice/

Welcome to the forum, Tom, and thanks for the great review.

Ian

Tom,
You cant compare a new Casio high end with a 10 year old Yamaha low class keyboard.

Impuls

Thank you for the feedback on my review. My hope is that it is helpful for anyone considering the WK-7500.

I am going to post a follow-up soon, now that I've played with the thing a bit more.

But to Impuls let me say this: Yes, of course I can!! ...compare the PSR540 to the WK7500

While the WK-7500 is currently near the top of the consumer line for Casio, I would never consider the PSR-540 a low class keyboard. It wasn't the top-of-the-line Yamaha workstation when I bought it, but it was very much on par with high-end models from Casio at the time, and it certainly has held up very well over the years.

The two share quite a few features, among them:

- Extensive sound bank (10 years later - some sounds more realistic - perhaps)
- onboard speakers
- Auto-accompanyment (10 years later - more "modern" beats, less traditional)
- 16-track sequencer
- Split and layer
- ability to create your own rhythms
- external storage (10 years later we have SD card rather than floppy)
- registration memory
- Chorus, DSP, Reverb effects
- Fast/slow DSP switch (e.g. for rotating speaker)

There are probably other similarities I am missing. But the bigger question is: why not compare? Sure, time will allow probably a lower price for similar features, but if someone owns a consumer keyboard (like I did with the Yamaha) that did its job well, then why shouldn't it be the basis against which I evaluate newer keyboards that are being offered? I'd be crazy if I didn't.

Whenever I was in a music store, I would make a point of checking out keyboards, with the thought of perhaps replacing the Yamaha if something really grabbed my attention. Up until the WK-7500, nothing really did. And there are still things that the Yamaha does much better than the Casio, even for what someone might call a "low class keyboard" (e.g. MIDI ports, direct button access, syncro start/stop, multi-pad, numeric keypad, simultaneous DSP/Chorus/Reverb). So IMO, the PSR540, even for its age, stacks up very well to the WK-7500. Honestly - as I was making the decision to get the Casio, I kept thinking of all the things that the Yamaha did better - wishing that the Casio had them. In my mind, features should be added, not phased out or replaced. Of course these are two different companies. If Yamaha made a consumer keyboard with organ drawbars, I probably would have gotten it instead.

So what was it that tipped the scales for getting the Casio?

- Organ drawbars and control buttons
- Piano-style keys
- 76 keys
- More sequencer storage room on a more modern media
- Stereo/Mono output (rather than just a headphone jack for PA output)
- Great piano sounds
- Internal sounds editable to a degree
- Internal effects editable
- Mic and instrument inputs
- Price + Good deal on eBay

I probably wouldn't have bought it if I didn't get that great price from eBay.

I will follow up with more thoughts on the WK-7500 now that I've fooled with it a couple weeks.

-Tom

OK - here are some additional thoughts on the WK-7500. Mixing pro and con so they are somewhat random.


Sounds:

- Great variety of quality piano sounds
- Why no good caliope sound?
- The EP sounds die out way too soon.
- I don't like the jazz guitar, english horn, or steel drum sounds
- Great breathy sax sounds
- Great pads and synth lead sounds
- I'm not impressed with the drum kits, mainly kick drums. And even though it sounds kind of fake, there is a vibra-slap!

Features:

- I would have paid extra (not sure how much extra) for a numeric keypad.
- Ditto for MIDI ports. I find I'd love to control my Korg EX-8000 or DW-8000 with this wonderful keyboard, but I can't. So if you are looking to use this keyboard as a controller for other synths, look elsewhere (unless I'm missing something).
- Even though the organ drawbars have only 3 levels, I still love them. They are the single best feature of this keyboard, IMO.
- Being able to tweak a sound to make it more to my liking is a GREAT feature. I can then save it to a user patch.
- Also, I've hooked this up to a laptop and run the data storage application. So I can save/load settings. This I can tell will be handy in saving a setup for specific gigs, etc.
- I love the fact that I can hold a sustained chord, switch sounds, and the sustained chord does not cut off. I know that many EXPENSIVE pro keyboards don't work like that. Not sure what the reasons are, but I love being able to sustain a sound, call up a new one, and it all sounds seemless.
- Including an arpeggiator is nice, but I have yet to find a setting that will just play back what I play into it, in the same sequence. Maybe I just haven't fooled with it enough.
- For as full-featured as the sequencer is, I'd love to see it do pattern sequencing, so I can compose the verse, the chorus, and the bridge of a song, repeat sections, etc. - instead of start to finish all one monolithic sequence.

Auto-accompanyment:

- Overall, the rhythms seem kind of boring
- Why no sync stop mode?
- Casio needs to fix the fill-ins - pushing the fill-in button more often than not interrupts the accompanyment. It's like there's a "hit" right when you push the button, so if you push it at the wrong time in the measure, it just sounds wrong
- The play-along feature, Music Preset, which does a canned chord-progression accompanyment, is a lot of fun. Not sure where it would be useful - maybe an impromptu jam session? But it's fun.
- Combining Harmonize with Arpeggiator makes no sense to me. I would think those would be used in two completely different contexts. It makes realtime finding of a good harmonize setting very difficult, since there's no numeric keypad to go directly to a setting.

Overall, I'm still glad I got this keyboard, especially for the price. The true test (for me at least) would be using it for a gig. After that happens, I will probably post another followup.

-Tom

here is a very thorough demo of the Casio WK7500. For the money this is an excellent keyboard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItTdzP_09ag

also i have afound a user demo that demonstrates the sounds briliantly. this is an awesome keyboard period . the price is just a bonus.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFoODXzNjz0&feature=related

and this demo is just plain fabulous ! Korg need to emply this guy to demonstrate their instruments. Just imagine waht they could do !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkozonnSfEY&NR=1

and here are the styles demos. A bit cheesey but its under £500

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM3grHlPGEI&NR=1

Jeff Dunmire is an excellent demo player, but I found it somewhat odd he didn't demo, at all, utilizing any accompaniments(styles)
...speaking of...

Yamaha has tons of custom styles, sounds, registrations, etc. readily available in many places, both free, and paid. It's one reason Yamaha arrangers are #1.

Does anyone know if Casio offers any custom styles, patches, etc.? And are there any Casio forums, groups, or similar where user styles and files(accompaniments)can be shared?

Finally, are styles, registrations, sound patches, etc. from past Casio arranger workstations compatible with the 7500?

Yes I'm thinking of buying one...

Yes Larry there are alot of styles available on the casio site for free and all are compatible with the new Casios. You only need to do some tweaking on most styles.

There are no special forums as far as I know. I have the CTK 7000 and it is a great keyboard for the money.

Thanks so much Tom:

I enjoyed your comparison and tasteful review. I'd love to get my hands on the CTK 7000 for a day or two. "Kicking tires" on keyboards is a "rite of passage" and absolutely essential to those of us with restrictive budgets. (My wife, the gatekeeper, continues to reinforce this idea!)

Thanks for your input.

Dave Rice

Thanks Fran,
But I've search around the World, and I'm unable to locate any downloadable styles from Casio. Anyone have a direct link?

Here is a link Larry http://www.casio-europe.com/euro/emi/cms/

Thanks again Fran, but perhaps it's me, or my computer, but the link you provided (Casio) does indeed lead to the Casio Music download site, but for me, the download links within are dead. (Not found, Unavailable, etc.)

Can someone else try downloading a file from the above Casio Music Site?

Yes Larry you are right. Strange. Here is a other link
http://music.casio.com/e/
If you want I can send you all the styles also from the specials site

Frans, how are the Casio styles?

Any genre better than another?

Are they still Two Variations?

Do you have your PA3X now?

Ian

Ian the styles from Casio are OK but not the quality of Yamaha or Korg styles. I find the modern pop and dance styles from Casio the best. Yes Casio still use only 2 variations.

Yes I have the PA3X for a week now and it's great. Sound quality is amazing and totally different then the PA500 Musikant I had before. The PA3X has 450 styles onboard plus I have all the styles from the Musikant so no short on styles here

Great news, Frans!

Did you notice a big difference when using MaxxAudio, as opposed to without?

Would it be something you would leave on all the time?

Ian

The sound have much more power using the MaxxAudio. So yes I have it on all the time but also test different settings all the time.

Thanks Frans, that link is more stable. I'm not 100% sure about buying the 7500. If and when I do, I'll take your offer...appreciate it.

Thank you for the kind words, Dave. Often reviews are written by someone with an ax to grind, or with unrealistic expectations, or other things that render the review either useless or infuriating. I've read some 7500 threads on harmony central and they tend to get a bit nasty. I do try to just state what my experience has been with the instrument rather than do too much commentary.

One other thing that has proved very, very useful on this board - the 1/4" instrument input. When you don't want to power up your entire PA system, this is a great feature. I've run both my Rhodes and Korg DW-8000 through the WK-7500's speakers this way, and it's very handy.

One thing I'm trying to do, though, with this input - use it as an effects loop. For example, I want to run the output of the WK-7500 into a Phase 90, then run the output of the Phase 90 into the instrument input, and only hear the instrument input. So far I haven't been able to do this - you always end up hearing both the original sound and the external sound. I'm hoping it can be done, because that would be a really cool thing to be able to do.

Tom,

Have you tried any files from either; previous Casio's, or other external types, such as styles, registrations, and voices?

Thanks for your detailed report, it's very informative.

Curious: Have you tried tweaking styles and voices, and if yes, are you satisfied with the ease, and results?


Larry

I've not yet done any kind of file import but I plan on it, eventually.

I have tweaked voices, but not styles. Tweaking voices is a great feature of this keyboard. Once you change a voice, you can save it to the user bank of sounds.

In general I don't really like any of the Electric Piano sounds, and there's no good way to get a good phased rhodes sound. The build-in phase DSP is really not that good. This is why I want to try to route internal sounds through my phase 90 then back into the Casio. But I have created some nice variations of EP sounds - autopan w/chorus is one I like.

Voice edit comments:

- You can assign the rotary fast/slow switch to the auto-pan speed, giving you two speeds on one patch. That is really nice.

- You can alter the attack and sustain on the amplitude envelope, which allows you to create some nice variations on the built-in analog synth sounds.

- When modifying sounds, you probably would do well to keep a notepad handy so you know which user voice slots are available and which are not. By default, they are all populated, so even on your very first user sound, you are asked "Overwrite existing?" That's because they all exist out of the box.

- The available librarian software (free on the casio site) is a great tool to save your stuff after making a bunch of changes.

I have not yet tried modifying rhythms. Just haven't had enough free time to fiddle with the sequencer on this keyboard yet.

Tom

OK - tried to load some styles from the Casio site. Some loaded, but the one's starting with "p_" did not - something about the file being too big. The ones that loaded sounded good. Seems like you have to download them one at a time, though.

-Tom

Using the WK-7500 live

I used the WK-7500 in a live band situation this morning (church band) so I thought I'd post some thoughts on how it did.

The short of it is that it did great. Typically I use a Roland Fantom X7, so I may make some comparisons to that board (which costs considerably more of course than the Casio). For this set, we did 5 tunes. Prior to the rehearsal earlier in the week I set up 6 registrations that I figured would cover these tunes (they did). So when it came time to play I would be ready.

Pro:

- The sound was great. I used layers (Stereo Grand/Warm Pad, Stereo Grand/80s Strings) and they really had a great, full sound. Thick, yet not muddy. The contrast between the "Warm Pad" and "80s Strings" was enough to cover both the softer and louder sections. Something that I probably will do is create several variations on "Warm Pad" just by tweaking the filter resonance, saving them as user patches, then saving those in piano/pad layers in registrations.

- The output from the L/Mono through the PA was excellent. Band complemented the keyboard on its sound.

- Being able to switch from one Registration to another while the previous sound was still audible was very handy. I could transtion from verse (soft) to chorus (louder) with no interruption in audio output. This is something that the Fantom cannot do.

- Onboard metronome helped us set the tempos.

- Onboard speakers also served as additional monitor sound (we were in a small room without the Aviom system, so this came in handy)

- Great feel to the keyboard, especially when playing piano sounds. The Fantom X7 has synth-style keys, and although the WK-7500's keys are not weighted, their feel is much less springy than a synth. And 76 keys is the only way to go, if you can afford it over the 61-key version.

- This thing is light! I just tucked it under my arm and carried it around. Very gig-friendly. The Fantom probably weighs upwards of 30 pounds - ugh.

Con:

- Perhaps I need to tweak things, but it was not easy to play really soft on the piano sound. I maybe should mess with the Touch sensitivity or some other parameter.

- A couple times I wanted to have the metronome flash the tempo rather than hear it. Short of digging into the menus and muting the metronome, I wish there was a quick way to turn its audio on and off. I ended up just turning the volume down when I needed to mute it.

- I know I'm greedy for functionality, but again - it would be so useful to allow realtime tweaking to sounds using the sliders. This is something the Fantom X7 can do (assignable knobs to tweak things realime). One small addition in particular would make using this board in a live situation so much more effective - the ability to modify the mix on a layered sound (the Upper 2) without muting the others (Lower, Upper 1). That is, allow the mixing sliders to act like a REAL mixer. Casio - can you update the firmware to allow this? What a feature this would be!! I'd love to be able to mix in more of a layered pad without changing the registration - just slide a slider.

This was just one gig, and it really didn't challenge the WK-7500 too much, but I was pleased with its ability to do the job well. Given its great performance, and portability, I won't hesitate using it again.

-Tom

Oh - one commment on loading rhythms from the SD card: It's not very intuitive. At first I tried hitting "Card" but the only files that showed up to load were a couple MIDI files. After scouring the manual, I found you first EXIT CARD MODE - talk about non-intuitive! Then press the USER RHYTHMS button. Then, while holding down Function, press the CARD button. Then you can load a rhythm.

Loading a registration bank I had saved was similarly confusing. To do that, you have to press the BANK button, which displays the bank selection. THEN you hold down Function, then CARD.

Oh - and when choosing a name for one of these when you save, I don't believe there's a space key choice.

-Tom

Thanks Tom,

Your detailed report is very helpful, and for anyone considering the 7500, I'm sure they appreciate it as much as I do. I'm looking for another keyboard, mainly to be used to teach beginner lessons, and this reasonably priced unit may be just what I need.

That's kind of a crazy round about way to load styles and saved registrations from the SD Card, certainly not practical. But the pros seem to outweigh the cons, and for the price, it may be the best deal around.

Thanks again. I look forward to more reports of your experiences with the WK-7500

I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I posted here.

Since then, I've been able to try out the latest Casio - the XW-P1 - at my local music store. I only mention it here because some of its features line up with some of the "Cons" I have with my WK-7500. I'm very tempted to sell the WK and get the XW-P1 because of this.

Casio really did it right with Performance features on the XW-P1. I've listed just a small few below that directly address those shortcomings of the WK-7500.

1 - Hex mode - this pretty much uses the sliders in a way that the WK-7500 needs to. You can do real-time mixing of up to six PCM tones (one can be drawbar organ). This is huge.

2 - Assignable knobs give you the ability to assign 4 knobs to control pretty much anything, including volume of course, in Performance mode (the mode that gives splits/layers of up to 4 tones (again, one tone cane be organ drawbar or solo synth tone).

3 - all 8 levels for organ drawbars, rather than the 3 on the WK-7500. You can't hear the discrete level changes. This is a huge step up.

4 - Performance set-up (similar to Roland Fantom) allows for up to 4 tones in a split/layer, overlapping if you want, with velocity switching. This is a very, very versatile feature. The "Split" and "Layer" on the WK-7500 are nice and quick for realtime use, but not as versatile. I've wished for velocity switching on the WK-7500 - the XW-P1 delivers it.

5 - Real MIDI ports!!!

Some other observations after playing this unit in a band setting for the past year:

- I love the onboard speakers, even when the floor monitors drown out their sound. The feedback provides vibration through my hands, very similar to what I'd get with an acoustic piano. There's just something different about feeling the sound of an electronic instrument that a rig with no onboard speakers can provide.

- The acoustic piano sound is superb, and sounds great in a band setting

- After editing a sound, when you try to Write that sound, the unit always seems to select the first user location(K-1) rather than the next available, unused location. The problem is that all user locations are already used when you get the unit from the factory. It would be nice to be able to erase all user locations - or somehow identify them as unused. I have to keep track of them externally so I don't overwrite existing user locations.

- Every time you power off the keyboard, the EXT/MIC input section resets - things like chorus send, reverb, level, etc. I usually have my Fender Rhodes output going to the EXT INPUT jack. Whenever I power up, I always have to go in and remove the excessive reverb. Maybe I'm missing a way to save this parameter so I don't have to keep doing this.

So will I sell (or mothball) my WK-7500 and save up to get the $499 XW-P1? I'm thinking about it, that's for sure. I'd give up a lot of "fun" features on the WK-7500 (auto-accompaniment, built-in speakers, etc.) but I'd gain a pretty capable keyboard. I know for sure of one tune where I could put several features of the XW-P1 to use (Florence and the machine "No Light") - Hex mode, realtime mixing, phrase sequencer to trigger a harp run.