Hi Experts
Can anyone out there tell me why you never see the Casio styles available to share anywhere on the web? There must be a lot of them... I listened to the WK-1800 and thought it had some nice styles. Why hasn't any one started collecting & sharing Casio styles - and converting them for use in other arranger keyboards? If they are available, where can I find them?
Tom

I agree with you Tom.... The styles on Casio's new models are pretty good, and the one's on the MZ are EXCELLENT! It is odd to see that no one is sharing or exchanging styles. A while back I was at the UK site for Casio and I went to a discussion forum and if I remember correctly someone mentioned that there was supposed to be a site for Casio users to exchange styles.. It's worth investigating though...

Squeak

The reason that Casio style sites can't be found is that Casio is new to the upper end arranger market. Arranger styles, support, and sharing are all demands made by end users. Until recently, Casio's keyboard marketshare was simply low end keyboard techno toys so the number of end users demanding support and arranger styles is infinitesimally and unprofitably small.

If the MZ2000 takes off, and if Casio values and fills customer needs for additional styles, then its only a matter of time before their end user customer base will grow large enough to begin message boards, style sharing, style conversion and the rest.

But for now, they can't compete with the big boys. If you buy an MZ2000, then you get what you get at purchase time and that's it . . . forget about getting more styles until Casio sells enough units to make their arranger style market profitable (and that could take a very long time).

The best you can hope for right now is that someone can figure out how to convert other arranger styles into Casio's MZ2000 format so you can use them. Of course, Casio could throw a lot of money into developing a huge base of arranger styles and support in the hopes of luring customers from other manufacturers. But customer brand loyalty (as seen on Synthzone) makes this highly unlikely.

Probably the best marketing ploy Casio could make right now would be to develop a style conversion program that handles most of the available formats and simply give it to all of their MZ2000 customers for free. That would relieve Casio of immediately having to develop styles for a tiny unprofitable market and help satisfy customers at the same time.

Sorry, but I've been in marketing and technical communication for the past 25 years, and this is just the way it is . . . its just business.

Hi

How is the Casio style format? Can anyone mail me a Casio style? And perhaps a midi recording of it too?

Jørgen
js.dk@mail.tele.dk

Hi Stevizard,
Thanks for the reply - and I tend to agree with your comments. But, I don't own a Casio. What I'm interested in is getting the styles from the Casio's to use on my Roland, Technics or Yamaha keyboards. I know Casio doesn't sell style disks (yet), but I'm surprised somebody hasn't sucked the styles out of existing Casio and converted them to other formats. People seem to have done this with all the rest of the major keyboards.
Hi Jorgen,
Since I don't own a Casio - I don't have any styles to send to you. If you get some, and are able to convert to another format, please let me know.
Thanks
Tom

Sorgen,

Is that an offer to attempt to convert Casio styles to say a PSR9000 style format? If it is, then I heartily recommend that casio owners do as you ask and send you some casio styles and midi files. If you're able to convert them, you could post them for the rest of us (said with a greedy smile on my face).

Hi

Well I do really not know if I can convert the Casio styles as I have never had one.
But I will take a close look at byte level and if possible give it a try. But I have to have at least one style.
Besides any information about the style file format would be great too. Does the manual mention anything about this subject ?

Jørgen

[This message has been edited by LindaFus (edited 12-07-2000).]

[This message has been edited by LindaFus (edited 12-07-2000).]

[This message has been edited by LindaFus (edited 12-07-2000).]

OK Linda, I get your point. Since I don't own a Casio (never have, likely never will) I can't speak from personal experience about Casio. I was speaking from a marketing prospective, and saying that Casio wouldn't make a huge effort developing arranger styles until it became profitable for them to do so.

A built-in (FREE - like I said) converter does help but they've got a long way to go before Casio instruments will be on a par with Roland, Yamaha, and Korg. In fact, not a single Music Dealer in my area carries any Casio products at all -- no demand -- no market among professional and semi-pro musicians, just amateur home users. That's probably why they're being advertised in toy catalogs. (Say, does your MZ2000 also have "Magic Keyboard Lights?).

<== Hmmmm ==>

Good points, Linda. The quality of a product and the market's perception of it two different things. We all know Casio has an image problem, but you see the MZ-2000 for what it can do for you. The Casio MZ-2000 has features not found on other arrangers and features found only on more expensive arrangers. It competes well on the merits against other arrangers in its price range. If it had vocal harmony and mass storage, it could compete at the high end. There is certainly nothing about Casio that would suggest they could not compete at the high end if and when they chose to. The lack of Casio styles on the Web is due primarily to the recency with which Casios have accommodated custom styles and the fact that they are not badly needed since abundantly available Roland styles can be used.