I have a Casio AZ-1 controlling my Motif7. Pitch bend doesn’t match up. As soon as I use the pitch wheel on the AZ-1, the pitch goes sharp about 1/4 tone.

Is there any way to offset the pitchbend in the Motif7 to match/calibrate with the controller’s pitch wheel??????

Here’s a post on another forum that may help:

http://www.keyboardforums.com/casio-keyboards/1228-casio-az-1-repair-manual.html

Nothing personal, but I’ve never been fond of Casios. I always put them in the toy category in my mind - especially compared to Yamaha.

JC - I’ll have to agree with you, but the Casio has no problem with my other more expensive keys.

I edited my post above. You may want to go check out the link I posted in it.

LOL - thanks, I saw that post, too. Seems like there’s no real answer out there. Anybody?...Anybody?....

I can feel your pain. Having a keytar without a pitch bend wheel would be like having a car without a gear shift.

Another guy on that thread I posted said this: “Mine has a pitch bend wheel problem that results in it playing my Kurzweil about 1/4 semitone sharp. It’s aggravating. My guess is that the pot is out of adjustment, but I have no idea how to adjust it. Any suggestions?”

So it doesn’t seem to be a Motif issue, but rather, something incompatible in the Casio. Given the brand name and the date it was made (1980’s), I’m guessing there is some type of glitch in the programming of the unit itself and it cannot be fixed. But I could be wrong… it’s just a guess.

I was looking online to see if I could find a Roland AX-7 for you, but it looks like they have been discontinued and are selling on Ebay for double what they cost new a few years ago. That sucks… I was hoping to buy one of them since I just joined a band playing keyboards. I was going to encourage you to sell the Casio on Ebay and buy one of them… but the cost may be prohibitive due to Roland’s discontinuation of the AX line.

Hopefully one of the major keyboard manufacturers (Yamaha, Roland, Korg) will do something about this and put out a nice keytar for a decent price in the near future. They can’t be any more expensive to make then the other keyboard controllers out there which can be purchased for as low as $100 nowadays.

Does anyone know about any new off-brand keytars out there that are decent? Surely someone like Edirol or one of the newer MIDI controller manufacturers have got one. They could probably have them made in China for $10 each.