Thank you very much for your answer, I’m going to try this and I’ll let you wheter it worked or not!

Dominique

All keyboard instruments are based on the same 12-key octave system. All that changes is the playback style.

Instruments such as Piano / Dulcimer / Xylophone produce sounds based on hammers striking wires/metal and can be played with both hands. Instruments such as Organs produce sound by blowing air through pipes and can be played by both hands. Instuments such as Accordion and Harmonium are mini-organs and require one hand to keep pumping air while the other hand plays the keys.

And electronic keyboard such as Casio allows the best of all worlds. You can not only play keyboard instruments, but instrument types such as pipes, strings and drums too.

You can either invest in a Casio CTK-810IN or the CTK-5000 (more advanced) as they both have the pitch wheel which is essential to play flue and string type of instruments. The CTK-4000 does not have a pitch-wheel but has excellent sounds (and within your budget) and will be right for you if you intend to focus on primarily playing keyboard type of instruments.

HTH

Congrats for helping so many people by your valuable comments.I too have a question regarding electronic keyboards.I wanted to learn harmonium from childhood but did not find a chance do it till now.Now I m 26 and has finally decided to learn a synthesizer or electronic keyboard.I do not know if there is a difference between these two.I have no knowledge of music at all.While googling casio 810IN model attracted me as it has been depicted as indian key board on casio site.Please help which model should I buy.My budget is around 10k.

Thanks
Nishikant

You can connect the Casio to the comp in two ways: as a MIDI device (only notes are communicated,not sounds) or as a Sound Source.

If you are a good player, you can connect the Casio as a Sound source. This is simple to setup, allows you to take advantage of the Casio sound chip and allows extensive editing, effects & mixing. To do this, simply connect the headphone out of the CTK 3000 to the Line-in on the PC.

Since headphone out current levels are way higher than Line-in, start by setting the PC’s Line Input levels at 75% and the Casio volume at 0. As you play a demo song, increase the casio volume till your PC’s Line input monitor is showing input at about -3dB. I use SoundForge (ver 5, really old but good) for this. It’s line level monitor is fast and reactive.

Once this setting is done, you don’t have to worry much about exceeding peak levels in the course of recording.

You can play songs on the Casio, one layer at a time and record invidual layers into your favorite multi-track audio editor. Reaper is an excellent option as a multi-track editor.

Start with recording the drum track. This will help you keep pace as you play the lead tracks later on. You can also only record the metronome for starters. Add the Bass and backing Chord track. Add lead in sections. All the while, since you are using the Casio as a sound source, you can change the tones, layer them up, split the keyboard etc.

For post-production, you can add additional tracks with sound effects, ambient sounds and filters to add effects such as echo/reverb.

HTH

I am from Holland and I’ve just bought the Casio CTK-3000.
The sound is excellent, but now I want to record my music in multiple tracks by using the usb-cable from the keyboard to my pc. Unfortunatly it doesn’t seem to work…
I’ve got a couple of recording software, but all of them seem to have problems with recording.
In Sony Acid Pro 6.0 the Casio device cannot be recognized.
In Cubase LE the device is recognized, but I can only record tones up to number 126.
I tried Audacity but that was just one big misery.

Please can you help me out? Maybe you know a software which is able to recognize my keyboard fully so I can make recordings which will (hopefully) sound as great as yours!

Thanks very much!
Dominique from the Netherlands

I am surprised that the Yamaha PSR E423 is retailing cheaper than the Casio CTK-4000.
The Casio CTK-4000 is technically superior to the Yamaha PSR E423, but you should check out both the products to decide which one you like better. This is particularly because many have a brand preference for the Yamaha and the Casio CTK-4000/5000 are not so far ahead of the Yamaha that they make a compulsory buy.

HTH

I want to start learning to play the keyboard. I found two interesting keyboards that are in my budget: Casio CTK-4000 and the YAMAHA PSR-E423 (the Yamaha being a little cheaper). Could you tell me which one to go for and why?

Regards

From your email, I am assuming that you do not know how to play a keyboard instrument but you are willing to learn.

If you intend to pursue learning seriously and achieve some mastery, then I would suggest you to go for the Casio CTK-5000 or the Yamaha PSR I-425. Both these keyboards are similar in many ways with the Yamaha being slightly more expensive.

If you just want a keyboard for home for an occasional bout of tinkering and maybe beginner level learning, you may want to consider the Casio CTK-2100 or the CTK-3000. Both these keyboards are quite economical and excellent for beginners.

The Casio CTK-5000 at 12.5K on offer is an excellent deal and you can go for it without any doubts in mind.

HTH

U seem to be helping a lot of people in selecting keyboards. I am an amateur and no nothing about keyboards, but i need your help selecting one, i found CTK5000 and it is being offered @ 12.5K with adapter, bag n stand, is it a good deal, is there any othe keyboard comparable to this one.
Thanks in advance.

It’s been a while since it was possible to dump audio samples out of the keyboard. Today, the best you can do is send/receive MIDI data to the keyboard and hear the sound being generated by the keyboard’s internal sound engine. High end keyboards allow you to load your sound samples and even fewer actually output the data in digital domain. All keyboard output data in analog domain over headphone out or Line out.

The analog output though is quite good and can be recorded with pristine clarity on computer systems/digital recorders. On my lowly P4 PC featuring a basic Creative Sound Blaster Live sound card, I was able to record the audio from my Casio CTK 4000 keyboard and playback without any noise/distortion creeping in. You can hear the sample recordings that I uploaded.

w.r.t. using a software to compose your music and then playing it back either through the keyboard or a virtual instrument, it’s perfectly possible to use these low end keyboards to accomplish that. If you want to compose in Cakewalk and then assign the tracks to a specific patch on the keyboard, so that when played back through the Keyboard it uses the desired instrument and not the nearest equivalent in General MIDI soundset, it is possible to do so. No program comes preloaded with the patch definitions of keyboards (there being so many models which are frequently updated). All keyboards though come with documentation that illustrate parameters like LSB/MSB that can be used with Bank Select command to access a particular patch on the keyboard out of thousands in it’s portfolio instead of the default 127 in the GM set.

It took me a while to figure out, but I was able to finally configure Cakewalk Sonar (v1) to set the Casio Keyboard to use the ‘Stereo Mellow Piano’ sound when I wanted to playback Yanni’s One Man’s Dream.

I hope I was able to answer your question, would love to hear from you further on this.

Regards