More than 1000 new sounds, 5.3-inch color touchscreen (like the PX-560 piano), hundreds of accompaniments, Flash Sample memory, virtual tone wheel organs, and a remarkably powerful 40 watt speaker system. As you can see there are 16 pads that will likely be velocity sensitive. The keys will be velocity sensitive including aftertouch most likely. The big question is will it have 256 note polyphony like the PX-560? I certainly hope so since I believe it would increase overall sales of the MZ-X and thus enriching Casio's own bottom line so they can continue to invest in the R&D necessary for future cutting edge products. And thereby compete directly with the Big Three i.e. Korg, Roland and Yamaha for additional marketshare and the consumer dollars that go along with it. If Casio continues to gain ground in cutting edge technologies they could eventually surpass the Big Three in terms of product quality and consumer loyalty. I admit that's a big challenge because Yamaha has essentially dominated much of the market for many years. Roland seems to be focusing on lower-priced products targeting the general public as opposed to actual musicians and that is I think because they lost a lot of money and also some customers during the last economic recession. Korg is a smaller company with a loyal following but they have also experienced a bunch of quality control issues that affect many of their products including the Kronos and even the new Pa4x. If Casio "strikes the right tone" with quality made products at very competitive prices Casio could soon dominate the musical instrument market which is to say keyboards in general. And kudos to Casio if they can pull it off. Increased competition is a win/win situation because it leads to lower prices and better products. Those who snooze lose as they say and therefore it keeps all of the competitors on their toes looking for new ways to improve their products and subsequently consumers are the benefactors of the increased competition. But you guys already knew that.

NAMM should be very interesting this time around. The MZ-X looks very promising and of course the Montage will likely steal the show.

All the best,

Mike

I like the Blue color but that's about it so far,....kinda looks like an older GEM Genesys unit,.....screen is too small in this day and age but at least it's tilted up....we'll see soon at NAMM.

I love the blue one. I hope it has the Hex Layer mode then I will certainly buy one. About the screen at least it is a touch screen you can't say that from Yamaha psr series.

The screen and interface are the same as on the px-560 privia... It works like a dream... Its pure functionallity, the way a touchintrface should work...

You should take some time and try and play one in a local music shop.

In no way is the MzX for my needs, ...
and those box keys I really don't like. But I'm interested in hearing and seeing what it can do..

I was at Sam Ash looking at pianos last week. I ended up playing the Yamaha and the.......Casio Privia PX860.

They're both great pianos, but the Yamaha is HEAVY and more COSTLY. It also has a very sweet, mellow sound that I'm wondering if you'd get tired of it fast.

The Casio on the other hand won in all areas hands down. I'm also a professional pianist. It was a dream to play. Every generation of Casio pianos is noticeably better the the one before it.

And get this. The sound was strong, powerful. I looked down to see what they were playing it through and there was nothing there on the floor. I was playing with the internal speakers on. Well, you could hear that piano out in the parking lot.

I'm not saying it's the best piano on the market, but, for the money, it's a winner in my book.

I'm glad this MZ-X got posted here. I'm so impressed with the 860 that I might just wait to hear it before I purchase anything.

Mark

I know a little bit about the MZ-X. there will be 2 models :
MZ-X300 and MZ-X500. Both have 128 note polyphony.
These products are to compete with the Yamaha PSRS770 keyboard. There will be more intro's, endings and variations. I was told that the quality of the drum kits and styles have been totally upgraded. I hope so! The instrument voices will have a type of articulation but I haven't heard this until I get to NAMM to know how the sounds compare to the Yamaha super articulation The MZ300 will have 4 sample pads and the 500 will have 16. Pads can be used for:
Sample Triggering
Drums
Effects, Instrument Articulations (Guitar Harmonic, Trumpet Fall…etc)
The sound development for the MZ-series has been a gigantic undertaking with the creating of new sounds and DSP effects to support them
Basses and Guitars:
Multiple acoustics, nylon string, steel string guitars, jazz guitars, even ukuleles.
Multiple Electric guitars including a variety of pickup positions
Many articulations: Harmonics, mutes, ghost notes, slides, fret noises and more
New Electric and acoustic basses
Drums: 3-8 velocity splits for some sounds for incredible realism and dynamics
Wind Instruments
Soprano / Alto / Tenor Sax
Clarinets
Monophonic mode for melodic playing
Electric Organs: Vox, Farfisa…
Accordion: Scandalli, Hohnor, Excelsior and more
New Drawbar Organ Mode with new Rotary Speaker Effects
Synths, Pads, Monophonic leads and basses
World Sounds and Percussion: For Latin, Indonesian and Indian Markets
The two MZ models will also have SAMPLE MEMORY for adding additional instruments.

George Kaye, thanks for the info.

George, does it have real MIDI jacks? How about Sync stop (or a way to turn arranger "memory" off so that the style section goes silent when you release the keys.) So far none of the reissued Casios have this. Thanks for the update!

thanks George...

great info..

Only one downfall so far, that being 128 polyphony where the Casio engine in all piano's is 256 by default...

Looks however like Casio made huge progress..

Wow, Casio may have something here. The field needs some competition, and they have the clout to do it if they want to.

I am excited to see what this is about - Casio seems to be willing to come back in the arena. They used to mean something a while ago, so why not.
Maybe Panasonic will revive Technics too, if they still own it.

I will be at NAMM on Friday and will make a point of visiting the Casio booth and will report on what I see and hear.

http://casiomusicgear.com/products/menu_mz-x/mz-x500

They created a beast..... I dar call the MZ-x500 a total arranger...

They upped their game, styles now have 4 variations and fills...
Phrases are there
And an arpeggiator

And much much more...

16.5 pounds, including speakers. Wow. Very interesting. Might make excellent backup for my PA4X!

Its almost as expensive as the pa4x... (In a way of speech)

I think $1500 for a 61 key Casio is huge...

The 300 will sell for $899 and the 500 will be $1099 MAP. These are priced to compete with the PSRS670 and PSRS770. If the styles sound as good as Yamaha's the ease of use with their touchscreen will make this a very desirable keyboard. For me, it's if Casio's styles and drum kits can compete.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/890c7908-9ab2-11e5-be4f-0abd1978acaa.html#axzz3xuvr6p2f
"Panasonic spins revival with Technics turntables" from Dec 2015

I think the interface of this arranger is the best on any arranger ever....

The intuitive touchscreen...
The assignable knobs
The programmable drumpads that can be assigned to almost any function

It has 6 different sound sources
- normal sounds
- advanced sounds
- piano sounds
- organ sounds
- drum sounds
- hex sounds.
All have their own sound structure
With insert effects for every sound..
4 main parts with an option to add an arpeggio to each of them
Each of those 4 mainparts can be a hex sounds which is 6 layered sounds


The arranger has been highly advanced..
8 tracks/4varriations
Up to 16 samples on the pads
Up to 16 midi pads

A few years ago I had heard from a 'Casio guy' that a number of the techs and developers from technics had been hired by Casio ... perhaps this is the result ...



I still have my technics turntable that I purchased in 1973 for my component stereo system ... it still works !!!

Casio conducting live streaming KB demos from NAAM including new MZ board.

http://www.casiomusicgear.com/resource/namm2016/index.html

The manual was posted today at Casio's international site.

I'm sure the sound engine is better than what was available in 2001. Keyboards from the other brands have evolved along similar lines. But does this really give us a better ARRANGER? It seems that the core engine (which permits a user to compose styles, and specify how they react to played notes in real time) is missing a few customizable settings compared to its predecessor. (Look at the MZ-2000 manual, pages E-113 and E-160 for example.) The sequencer resolution is decreased, and some potentially useful features (such as Roland style compatibility) are missing entirely.

Frankly I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping for a full port with all features preserved intact. Instead, this appears to be a beefed-up WK-7600 with four variations per style and some added features. At least it has sync stop and MIDI jacks. We'll call that progress!

I think you misread some of the features... its ways more advanced in almost any way then the 2000..

THe only thing missing is articulations... with many of us playing acoustic instruments a lot, to me its a must to have articulations and legato playing like the DNC on Korg, Roland Super Naturall acoustic, or the SA1 voices on Tyros and PSR keyboards..

Not having this, puts it at half a mile distance to its competitors for me..

I just got home from the NAMM zoo. That many musicians in one place is always an experience, like the photo Kerry took of the guy below "Everything Else Is Just Waiting" . But I made a point of finding the Casio booth to see the MZ-X. I spent about 5 minutes on it trying out styles and voices. I had just been to the Korg stand and they still have the Korg PA4X at NAMM and I hadn't played it before and I was impressed with its sound quality. Some very nice voices. Now the MZ-X sign said MSRP was $1000. Briefly here are my impressions of the MZ-X and Casio public relations.

I attend NAMM because Synth Zone allows me to receive a Media badge meaning I am press and will publicize products.

I made a point of going to the Casio booth which had very few visitors when I arrived. I saw they had the MZ-X which is all I was interested in seeing because of reading about it here. I played around a bit with it testing voices and styles. Then I was interrupted by Mike Martin ( who is a very good Casio demo musician I have seen before ) saying "Sorry I want to use this to demo something to someone else". Mike may be a good musician but his public relations is lacking. He didn't bother to see my badge said I was press. Also dumb is that Casio releasing a new product would only have one of them at NAMM. So I didn't get as much time on the MZ-X as I wanted. Here are my impressions ( and please appreciate any negativity is not at all due to my experience with Casio PR ).

The semi weighted action is better than many cheaper Yamaha arrangers. It still isn't stunning but maybe if the sounds it triggered were more dynamic I would mark it higher. But the sound triggered tends to influence the perception of the feel of the action.

The styles and sounds are far inferior to cheaper Yamaha arrangers. I have an aging PSR-550 which is so much more musical than the MZ-X. The sounds on the MZ-X just don't have an organic quality and sound synthetic which isn't appealing. I really wanted to like the MZ-X because I like a lot about Casio's contribution to keyboards over the years, but I just couldn't find much to like about the MZ-X. I sure wouldn't fork out $1000 for it. Even at half that I think I would pass. Yamaha and Korg sure won't need to worry about competition from Casio.

Maybe if I had been allowed to use the keyboard for another 5 minutes my impression may have changed. We will never know. The MZ-X is nowhere near the class of the Korg PA4X I had played just 10 minutes before.

You said it yourself. Five minutes with a pre-production model isn't enough time to give it a fair shake. And who else has compared it to a PA4X?? Casio hasn't AFAIK. The PA4X-61 is around $3,800. It's in another league entirely. That's like comparing a Huyundai Sonata to a Jaguar XJ.

thanx for the review Nigel...I am not surprised at all with this Casio release,...people wanna believe it's not a Toy when they see the name CASIO..
they might sell alot in the big box stores like Costco, Bj's, Sams, Toys R US, etc, to kids and beginners,....

I think Casio possibly made a mistake here with showing the MZ-X at NAMM. From the info I've seen it appears that the prototypes are nowhere near production level yet. It looks like Casio is rushing the prototypes to NAMM just to show the feature list (a mistake IMO). I think we are going to have to wait for demos of the production models. Had a friend attending NAMM email me this morning. Said it looks like the sounds and styles aren't finished in terms of effects settings, and the styles don't appear to have finished mixer/effects levels complete either. So..., looks like any quality demos will have to come later. Surprised Casio actually rushed a model. With the prices they are going to sell for Casio IMO is going to have a hard time justifying that with the prototypes.

Demo

Here is another YouTube link. There are a few. What I find interesting about this arranger is the versatility of the touch pads. In this video it chow cases a small bit of that where pads can be used to trigger chords (which the arranger follows) and even a chord sequencer. So in essence it has a form of chord sequencing. Interesting stuff.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CVfTQhv7TRU
Jim

At 2:35 in that video he shows articulations on that trumpet... Glad to see articulation are in the new soundset... Good job from Casio


The pads, which can assigned to all those different items combined with the touchscreen interface are what makes this instrument having the best interface... Less knobs more options...

( if you look at the montage, you see the same strategy, there are 4 lines of 8 buttons, that can be assigned to a lot of different functions..)

Nigel,
I won't be going to NAMM until Sunday and so yesterday I had the USTREAM feed on at my store all day from the Casio booth. I posted on the live comments several times that why are we not hearing any thing other than Clavinets, Organs and a few bass sounds. I even called my Casio rep who was at the show and asked him to have Mike Martin play some of the Jazz, Latin, Rock, Country, etc. styles and let's hear the brass, guitars, strings, woodwind sounds which Casio have assured me would be much improved. Someone stated that these were pre-production units and if that's the case............they shouldn't have been there! I will find out more on Sunday. And Nigel, there is no excuse for the way you were treated at the booth. Mike has always been very kind to folks when I've been at NAMM shows in the past but NAMM shows can also bring out the worst at times as well.

The keys were clicky & plasticity loud sounding when doing slides in the demo..
nice low end unit...but in no way a contender for the big boys from Yamaha or Korg.

Nigel,
I hope you have a chance to stop back. I'm sorry you felt that I interrupted you I'm juggling many things throughout the day including dealer meetings, artists, press and more.We had scheduled artist appearances throughout the day on the main stage. Several of these appearances are coordinated with outside video crews whose schedules are beyond my control. Regardless of what is going on the main stage, we have other MZ-X keyboards around the booth including one in a private listening room.

We have done some demos of all the various styles in the MZ-X on the main stage and when the show is over we'll edit the footage that has been taken and provide these examples and much much more before the product is ready to ship in March.

Take care,
Mike Martin
Casio America, Inc.

Sorry I didn't mean it to sound like I was comparing it to a PA4X. I had just played that so maybe that tainted my aural palette. But I also said that I didn't really think it compared to a Yamaha PRS in the same price range. I just didn't find it inspiring.

Thanks Mike. I understand the demands on you at NAMM. I guess I was just a bit put out as yesterday was the only day I could attend and I was on a tight time schedule so I couldn't wait around to try it out for longer. But I really do appreciate you responding to this and I will definitely be watching further demos. You do bring out the best in an instrument when you demonstrate and I have seen you play over many years. Sorry for sounding negative but I just wasn't able to get a good impression in the few minutes that I played with the keyboard. I am hoping you will be able to change that impression for me.

George I spent a few min with it on Thursday I was not impressed and demo guys seem to have no clue about the unit as well to have a unit in a booth the is incomplete is a big mistake .

I was hoping for more the 560 is a nice unit but they have a long way to go with this one.

George.. Maybe if you get a chance, could you ask a question for me on the Yamaha stand, could you ask if there are SA2 and ensemble technollogy in the Montage? I also would like to know if from the Montage you can send and recieve midi over USB and the physical midi cable at the same time. The manuall is not really clear on that..

(Its hard to reach Yamaha with your questions online...while I am pretty sure that Mike Martin will answer all Casio questions in the weeks to come)

USB on the right side?

Much better then on the back.

doesn't really matter when using a NANO Usb .. just sayin.. ;-)

Bachus,
I asked your questions to Yamaha. No, you cannot use both the USB midi and the actual midi ins and outs at the same time. It's one or the other.
There are no SA voices on the Montage

That's too bad. I see some keyboards this year with USB type A which will allow usb hubs and usb midi controllers to connect. If a keyboard allows internal midi routing between usb and regular 5 pin midi connectors, one could have a more flexbile midi setup. I have an iConnectiviy iConnectAudio4+ that allows that. Some might be interested in the following devices; Bomebox http://www.bome.com/products/bomebox and the Cerebel USB MIDI Host interface http://www.juno.co.uk/products/mode-machines-cerebel-usb-to-midi-serial/564328-01/

Thanks for asking...

I guess this puts the Montage in another light for me...

George, what was your impression of the MZ-X?

Nigel,
I was disappointed with the styles that were in these first units. I thought I was going to hear a pro arranger from Casio that would compete with the styles I'm hearing in the other similarly priced competitors products but I didn't. The level of sophistication these keyboard has is great but I wanted the bread and butter sounds, guitars, woodwinds, brass, etc. to be up to the same level as their great piano, elec. pianos and organ sounds they've been doing now for many years with the Privia line of products. Casio really needs to nail their cymbals and up their accomp. styles. to compete with the likes of Yamaha and Korg.

Thanks George for your review..

Hopefully the user styles converted from other brands can help out in this department.. Our is the soundquallity of the non Organ/Piano/Synth sounds still below par?