CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. OVERVIEW
3. TONES
4. AUTO-ACCOMPANIMENT
5. SEQUENCER
6. ARPEGGIATOR AND PRESETS
7. OTHER FACILITIES & CONCLUSION
OTHER FACILITIES & CONCLUSION
There are some more facilities I've not yet touched on. On the
back, in addition to the headphones output, pedal jack and SD card
slot, there are left and right outputs for hi-fi or P.A. (¼ inch
jacks,), and a 3.5mm audio input jack for connecting another sound
source (though this is simply for playing through, not recording, and
there is no independent level control).
There is also a USB socket for connecting to a Mac or PC: you can save
songs and data to the computer using Casio's Data Manager (download
here),
and also transmit key data to a MIDI program so you can use the
keyboard to play it - this is plug-and-play with GarageBand; Windows
users may need to download the MIDI driver (near the bottom of
this page).
The 'Function' button gives you access to various settings - among
other settings you can:
- Fine-tune the overall keyboard pitch
- Turn the touch-sensitivity off or alter it
- Change the pedal function from the default Sustain to Sostenuto,
Soft or Rhythm stop/start
- Change the pitch bend range from the default 2 semitones to 1 to
12 semitones
- Change the Arpeggiator to play when the keys are released rather
than when they are down
- Change the Arpeggiator speed and which half of the keyboard it
reacts to
- Adjust overall or accompaniment volume
- Format the memory card (you should do this before first use)
- Set the keyboard to remember the previous setup when powered up
(default is to start from scratch, though of course it retains memory
contents)
- Return the keyboard to factory settings
Conclusion
(This was written in 2012, since then Casio have released an updated
but broadly similar model, the CTK-6200.)
Keyboards in general range from cheap toys with miniature keys and few
facilities, through full-sized keyboards with no touch control,
keyboards with touch control, then with more facilities (as here) at
around £200+. then upwards to very expensive professional level
keyboards ultimately at several thousand pounds. This Casio is
positioned as a mid-level keyboard, its main competition being the
Yamaha PSR-e423. I've not had a chance to try the latter, so I shall
never know whether it would have been a better purchase: possibly the
tones and auto-accompaniments are better, but the increased price and
size were a negative consideration. (The CTK-7000 was a temptation, but
apart from a microphone input and increased sequencer facilities it
mainly offers an extra 100 or so drawbar organ sounds, with slider
controls to vary them, so at £300 odd it wasn't worth it for me.)
The Casio is, it has to be said, quite remarkable value at the (2012)
target price of £200 (some vendors are selling it a good deal dearer so
it's worth shopping around: I got mine from Amazon). There are an
extraordinary number of facilities, and a wide range of sounds: though
some could do with improvement. The control layout and general
appearance is good and very neat looking, and I prefer it to Yamaha's
attempt at styling (their cheaper keyboards may sound good but they
look even worse). Some users have commented that it's not particularly
solidly built: it seems to me to be fine for home use but perhaps it
may not be up to being bounced around by a band for stage use - you do
rather need something heavy duty for that.
In use, it's for the most part comfortable, and easy to master the
basics though some of the more advanced facilities to require more
effort. The use of auto-accompaniments means that people with limited
playing skills (or declining skills like mine) can enjoy attractive
results while within their capabilities: the accompaniments themselves
range from good to, occasionally, somewhat tacky, and if you are
principally interested in jazz their number is a bit limited, so that
your performances all end up sounding much the same. If you're into pop
(and as I say, I'm not) there is a good range.
The manual (which you can download from
here
if you wish to pre-purchase peruse it) is for the most part clearly
written; the list of tones, rhythms and presets is included on a
separate large sheet (with rather small print) which is going to get
creased after a time - it's also available from the same download page,
but only as a large sized PDF which most people won't be able to print
(and it's locked so you can't copy from it - I ended up taking screen
shots of bits of it and printing them). Casio really need to make these
lists available online in a basic paper size so that people can print
spares.
One could always wish for extra facilities - a small drum pad for
inserting the odd sting while playing would be nice, for example, or a
handful of buttons to store favourite tones for quick access -
but
inevitably this sort of thing would push the price up. As said, for the
price the facilities are very good - only a few years back this level
of complexity would have been horrendously expensive.
So I have very few adverse criticisms of it, and on the whole I'm very
pleased with its behaviour and the results I've been able to achieve.