Hi Everyone!

First:

Tom,

Congrats! I am still not a Grandma! I am too young! hehe

Dan, congrats on the being a new store owner! Good for you! Still have my PSR you sold me and very happy with it.

AJ,Tom,Denny,Squeak and Uncle Dave,

I have to say that this new Casio is nothing at all like the older model WK-1800. So far, I have found that the software that you download from their website,
http://www.music.casio.com/e/data_ex2/

is pretty darn good. I had no problems downloading and transfering the data to the keyboard. The entire keyboard can be accessed with this software. I have not tried all of the options yet but there is 2MB of flash memory and a memory bar on the software so you know how much memory you have used. You can create your own sounds in wave format and use them as tones in the keyboard as well. I have not created one yet but it looks very simple to do. There is so much you can do with the Music Data Management Software 2.0 that it would be best to read the manual that you can download from the link above. The entire keyboard settings can be changed from this software.

Now for the SmartMedia card. All of the keyboard settings can be saved into the smartmedia card. The slot takes up to 128mb of data. I believe you can also save your songs as midi SMF0 with this card. I am not sure yet. This was a big reason I got rid of the MZ2000. It would not let you save your accomp data to a midi track in SMF0 format. It used a proprietory format. I will let you know if it allows for this soon. I believe it does.

Squeak, I see no information in the recording tracks section about loop recording. However, thats not to say it does not. Casio manuals are not ever complete.

The breathy alto sax tone. Oh my, they took it right from the MZ! Yep, its there. I love that sound. It has many many more tones that I believe are from the MZ. Only bad thing is that the keyboard is 32 note polyphony and I believe that many of the styles would be fuller if there were more.

The feel of the keyboard is great! I use it mainly to control the PSR 2000 but now there are so many features on it that I will use. For $399 I can not see how they did all this for that price. Its a very nice board and not what you would expect from Casio. I am happy with it and would recommend this board to anyone who is techno minded and wants to be creative.

The speaker system is also improved and it has a real volume knob! No sliders! Also, the drawbar organ function is similar to the Mz. They put an exit button near the screen so you can get out of submenus easier. They also have curser pads. The DSP is very extensive. The synth functions are also very extensive (I do not use these if I can help it LOL)

The styles are a bit more modern than other keyboards and different from the PSR which is a plus for me. I like having different styles to pick and choose from. You can also make a rythm pattern from a midi file.

My final conclusion I will not give as I know as I learn to use the board it will have those oh so familar limitations. But, for the price? I am not and will not complain. I will keep you all updated.

Take care,

-Linda

P.S. The WK-1800 is up on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2573889673