Casio LK110 Electronic Keyboard Key Lighting / Midi Review

This exact Casio LK 110 can be purchased new for $69.00 at Guitar Center, Musician's Friend---just to name a few.

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Product Description:
The LK-110 is a perfect starter-keyboard for any player at any age. The key lighting feature helps players develop timing and accuracy, highlighting areas of concern so you can direct your practice for more efficient learning. With 100 songs, an interactive lesson function and a wide variety of tones and rhythms, you will be able to play a host of different musical styles and time signatures in no time

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Casio WK-3800AD 76-Key Electronic Keyboard with Power Supply Review

The Casio WK3800 is a fun and very versatile keyboard with good quality onboard speakers.My previous keyboard, which I still have, is an older Yamaha PSR series.The WK3800 gives you a good deal of control and "fine tuning" for each of the preset digital voices/tones (e.g., attack/release, touch response, reverb, vibratto, resonance, octave, pan, equalizer, and other effects, which can be saved as new user tones ... and then mixed(using layer and split) onto the keyboard and saved as an entry in the register. You can monitor/record on several separate tracks of and, later, put them all together for a rich composition playback. The only downside with recording to the separate tracks is that you lose the layer/split functions during recording (a small hassle that I hope the next series of Casio keyboards will rectify). If you would like to have a layered and split recording (four tone settings used), you have to record each of the four tones separately (i.e., record yourself playing your song four times). This limitation of the record function is the only reason I did not give the Casio WK3800 4 stars out of 5, instead of a perfect 5.

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Product Description:
The Casio WK3800 keyboard is ideal for home/project studio use, open-mic performance, education/classroom applications, or simply for pure musical enjoyment.The WK-3800 76 Key Musical Keyboard with touch response, allows you to select up to 894 tones that include orchestral sounds, synthesized sound and more. The Auto Accompaniment that will allow you to simply play a chord and the corresponding rhythms, bass and chord parts play automatically. A big LCD screen graphically shows you fingerings, keyboard keys to be pressed, and notes, making keyboard play more informative and enjoyable than ever before.This powerful instrument features an on-board sequencer and a mixer, for unmatched creative possibilities, plus powerful 2-way bass reflex speakers to take your performance to the next level. Computer connectable via USB and also includes an SD card slot and floppy drive.AD-12 AC adaptor included.Casio WK3800AD FeaturesRich Advanced TonesA total of 400 Advanced Tones are programmed with DSP tones to make them richer and more powerful. Advanced tones like Stereo Piano and Tremolo Electric Piano enhance the Piano and Electric Piano tones to create a totally new sound.50 Drawbar Organ TonesThe keyboard includes 50 realistic drawbar organ tones. Drawbar organ tones can be controlled using nine digital drawbars. You can also select percussion or key click, and even edit the parameters of preset tone and save up to 100 original tones in user tone memory.Flash MemoryBuilt-in Flash memory lets you expand your selection of tones and rhythms by downloading data from the CASIO MUSIC SITE, or by the CD-ROM that comes bundled with the keyboard. You can also store up to 200 SMF format music files for playback.Piano Setting ButtonThe press of a button optimizes the keyboard setup for piano play.166 Preset Rhythms + 16 U

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Nord Electro 3, 73-Key Electronic Stage Piano and Organ (AMS-NE373) Review

I sold my Electro 2 so I could partially buy the latest model. After using it a few weeks it's clear how much better it could have been. Here are the good and bad:

Good:
- New sounds including Vox Continental, Farfisa, harpsichords and samples.
- Better Hammond organ sound.
- Better piano sounds but they take up a lot of memory and do not have keyboard resonance features of the Nord Stage EX.
- Sample software allows you to create your own sounds, organize your patches and is easy to use.
- More built-in effects including reverb, compression and 3 different amplifier distortions.
- USB MIDI interface.

Bad:
- Limiting up/down buttons plus A/B patch selector makes it difficult to get to the sounds you want quickly. The Electro 2 had 8 buttons plus bank up/down which is more useable.
- Unergonomic button layout makes navigation difficult. For example, the shift button is too far from the organ presets making it impossible to play and switch presets at the same time.
- Lack of effect amount knobs as on the Electro 2. You are stuck with toggling through only 3 preset amount settings.
- Ring modulation should not be an oscillator like tremelo. The Electro 2 is correct.
- New Vox and Farfisa sounds aren't that accurate.
- Only 64 MB of onboard sample library memory means you'll be limited to how many sounds you can use at a time.
- Sample software is limiting and doesn't allow for more than one sample per key, assigning polyphony, glide (portamento) or other patch functions.
- No pitch wheel. Nord provides many synthesizer samples but, there's no way to control them. The Electro 3 cannot receive pitch bend MIDI commands from another keyboard either.
- No modulation wheel. Why bother having any synthesizer sounds without modulation.
- Same non-weighted keyboard feels junky.
- Expensive.

[DW]

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Product Description:
How do you improve on a classic performance keyboard like the original Electro? You could take it gently, or you just do what Nord did with the Electro 3; push it as far as you can, and then a bit further. The demands from a performing keyboard player haven't really changed all that much, good quality never goes out of style. They just want to offer you some of the best stuff they have, in a affordable and easy-to-use instrument. They hope that you will have as much fun owning and using the Electro 3, as they have had developing it. The Nord Electro 3 is compatible with the new Nord Piano library. It takes full advantage of the Library's multitude of velocity layers, pedal-down samples and extremely high quality samples providing you with an unprecedented expressiveness. Any current or future piano that is available for the Stage family will also automatically be available to the Nord Electro 3.

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Clavia Nord Electro 2 61-Key Stage Piano/Organ Review

For the gigging keyboardist, the Electro 61 falls somewhere between a Godsend and a no-brainer.It's hard to avoid hyperbole when discussing this instrument, but anyone who has toted a Hammond rig and a Wurlie and a controller and peripherals and every other blasted thing will get my drift.For 29 years, I've been condemned to driving a cargo van full of vintage keys which weren't designed to leave the living room in the first place.I've herniated myself in the process, and was almost killed in a rear-end collision that flipped my 'B' upside down.I have made every effort to 'scale down' -- Korg CX3, Micro B, Roland VK7, Oberheim, Hammond XM3, and oddball stuff.All of the aforementioned fell woefully short of Hammond heaven, and of course, didn't offer any EP features or anything else.

The buzz about the Nord was intriguing, so I checked one out at a local store.Typically, the young, cooler-than-thou clerk could barely get the thing to power up, and I was pretty much left to navigate on my own.But five minutes on the Electro made me a believer (of COURSE I ordered one online -- any dope on the floor of a music store who can't get a keyboard that produces five sounds to work doesn't get his commission from me).

Here goes (note -- run this guy stereo, even if ya have to buy a little PA to do so): the Hammond end of things is simply exquisite.I did a little EQ stuff (the Electro features EQ and presence knobs on the dashboard.What a concept!You know, you can actually tweak your sound during performance...), rolled back the key click, and entered my own registrations.Fat, juicy, and soulful.Big, even in the high harmonics.Not a trace of cheese.Outlandish chorus.Completely persuasive percussion.The best Leslie ever, and I don't mean 'pretty good.'It sounds like the real deal.I personally don't have an issue with the 'draw-buttons' and I like controlling the Leslie speed via footswitch.The last thing I want is another broken bakelite switch hanging pitifully on my 'board.

Rhodes: ya want Richard Tee?Yassah."Just the Way You Are?" (you'll actually want to play the old warhorse) -- roger roger.Steely Dan ala Victor Feldman and/or "Nightfly" stuff?Yes jones.Through the Electro, younger players might actually discover what a Rhodes really sounds like.Twenty years of screaching over-cranked synth knockoffs did the Rhodes sound no favors.

Wurlie: intitially, I couldn't find one quite 'mean' enough, but five minutes with 'presence' did the trick.Early Ray, in a big way.A little tremolo and it's Mussel Sholes central.Just like my 200.Plays like it too.Light, but CONFIDENT feeling.

Clavs: good grief.Perfect.

CP80:Back in the day, I wanted one desperately.But, of course, like every thing else back in the day, I coudn't afford one.Now I OWN one.I LOVE it.Newbies probably won't 'get' the CP80, but us old timers will have our fun.

Piano: contrary to most opinions, I think the piano is very good.I don't like it as well as my Kurweil 1200 Pro I, but it's entirely usable.I re-EQed it, rolling off some of the not-so-pleasant highs.Prior to a gig recently, I played some standards using the piano sound.I was testing the waters to see if the relatively short keyboard and on-board piano would work for jobbing.Absolutely.It won't cut stride, but an Evans-esque approach is A-OK.

Conclusion: the Electro 61 is hands-down the most impressive and exciting 'keyboard' I've ever owned, and I have had a ton of stuff.Unlike a synth, it is designed for the player to make music on it.In that sense, it is a bonafide musical instrument.

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Product Description:
The Nord Electro 2 is the next big step in the development of the Nord Electro series of stage keyboards. Among the features of the Electro 2 you'll find the new Mega Clavinet sound which offers all the filter and pick-up variations of the original Clavinet D6! This means that you'll be able to access no less than 60 + 4 different Clavinet D6 sounds in the Electro 2!Thanks to the remade piano sample playback engine, the polyphony for the piano sounds is now greatly enhanced. The new piano sample playback engine also made it possible for Nord to digitally model the sounds you get when you release keys on a piano instrument. For example, the Clavinet and the Wurlitzer have very characteristic key release sounds. In Nord Electro 2 this is very faithfully modeled. The new sample playback engine also allows for playback of stereo pianos. In the new factory sound library Clavia has included a great new Acoustic Grand piano - in stereo. The Electro 2 also features great new vintage-style effects in the Effects section. Nord has also beefed up the Overdrive distortion to sound more like an overdriven tube amplifier.Nord Electro 2 fully supports USB download of Nord Electro piano samples. Now you will be able to download new piano instrument samples using Nord's specially developed Electro Tool sample dump program for Mac and PC! Additional piano sounds are available on the CD-R that comes with the Nord Electro 2 and also for download at www.clavia.se - free of charge! More...

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Kurzweil SP2XS 88-Key Stage Piano With Speakers and Stand Review

Now that all Kurzweil's can be layered and split, their glaring weakness is all the more conspicuous.The company, in my opinion, makes the best digital pianos--in terms of sound, versatility, and keyboard "feel"--but with the most convoluted, incoherent, least helpful instructions.Guaranteed to lead to many all-nighters for musicians just trying to "set up" the keyboard for the next day's gig, which may not have a bass player or drummer.

If you have q friend, or a knowledgeable techie/gear-head who works cheap, by all means hire him.The manual, as usual, looks like it's been written by a committee.After talking about the most "powerful" dimension of the keyboard as its adaptiveness to set-ups, it fails to explain or illustrate how to construct sounds in the favored "set-up," or "500," mode rather than the more limiting "performance" mode.It gives no directions or helpful illustrations on how the user might be able to use one of the factory set-ups (all of them unusable) as a "template" to help the user with the creation of his own more practical set-ups.It doesn't explain how to transpose a good acoustic bass sound up an octave into a playable range without having all of the notes in the treble, or right hand, also transposed, except into an unplayable range.It provides a paragraph on doing a "hard reset," so that the player can get rid of all the monstrosities he's created and start afresh--unfortunately the manual fails to provide the vital information that before the "reset" button will activate the instructions permitting a hard reset, the user must first depress the "Global" button.(By accident, and several hours later, I finally stumbled upon it.)

Whether the reader finds it merely curious or confounding, the manual will introduce and begin to discuss some of the specifics of splitting, layering, set-up programs, etc.Then in a late section of the book, the reader finds a paragraph stating that the instrument is capable of "layering and splitting, which means adding on another sound or dividing the keyboard into two or more zones so that different sounds can be played, a feature that can often be convenient for a musician, especially one who is playing in a show" (!!!).In other words, the paragraph sounds as though the authors are unaware that anything preceded it.Instead of specific instructions, we're given a reductive introduction that sounds like it belongs in the ad sheet!I's in details like this where Kurzweil seems determined to cut the corners, in the process cutting the frustrated user to shreds.

I could say that this latest Kurzweil gives me more problems when, during the middle of a fast-moving passage in the middle of a tune, I attempt to go from one program to another.Often the button doesn't register my quick press, the light blinks back at me when it should have changed--but for all I know I've programmed it wrong.The same goes for the sustain pedal.It's the slipperiest pedal I have yet to encounter on an electric keyboard.At one time, Roland marketed a pedal with a heel flap, which made eminent sense and was quite effective (enough reason to get rid of it in this inscrutable market).The bottom surface of this Kurzweil pedal is less abrasive than Kurzweil pedals I've had with my K1000, PC2, or PC1se, squirting across a linoleum floor like a hocky puck repeatedly over the course of a 4-hour job (might as well have been 40).Maybe that's the way they like them in Minnesota.

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Product Description:
The Best...The SP2X delivers the legendary Kurzweil sound, with all of its detail and refinement, in a digital stage piano which is both professional and easy to use. Using the next generation of Kurzweil technology, the SP2X provides some of the be...

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Casio WK-200 76-Key Personal Keyboard with MP3/Audio Connection and 570 Tones Review

I played piano on my family's old baby grand piano all my life and then I went off to college where I had no piano. I finally asked for one for my birthday and this is what my family chose for me. The sound is GREAT (the 5 main piano tones are very nice, I love 002), the keyboards have a very nice weight to them that makes them feel like a real piano (not something cheap and plasticy).

Some accessories I'd recommend for any buyers:

Headphones-- This keyboard can go really loud and if you're around others, you may want to consider headphones so you can enjoy all the sound :) If you use regular stereo-mini phones (like iPod jacks), you will need a Stereo Mini Jack (1/8") to Stereo Standard Plug (1/4").

Pedal-- This is an M-Audio keyboard so it works with just about any pedal but I really love this one:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00063678K

It has a very realistic feel to it; much better than those cheap plastic ones that you get from the manufacturerOver all a great keyboard, I couldn't be happier!

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Product Description:
The Casio WK-200 is an affordable instrument with a 76 Key Piano Style Touch Sensitive Keyboard, 570 total onboard Tones, 180 Rhythms and Reverb plus Chorus Digital Effects. Packed with great features such as Casio's famous Step-up Lesson System, audio inputs for a MP3 player, Mic input, 10 seconds of sampling and a USB port for MIDI. All this makes WK-200 more realistic and expressive than ever before at this price range.
A feature-packed portable keyboard that's perfect for learning. Click to enlarge.


76 touch-sensitive, standard-size keys.


Intuitive editing and controls.


Built-in stereo speakers.


Standard-Size Keys with Touch Response
The WK-200 features 76 standard-size keys and two sensitivity levels for a more piano-like experience, along with 48-note polyphony (24-note for certain tones).


570 Built-In Tones
Find just the right sound with 570 built-in tones, from strings to woodwinds and plenty more. You can layer two different tones (such as piano and strings) or split the keyboard down the middle for an ensemble approach.


Reverb and Chorus Effects
Select from ten different reverb and five different chorus effects to add depth and shimmer to your performance.


USB Port
For many musicians, the computer has become a music-making center. Connect the WK-200 to a computer using a USB cable and exchange MIDI data between the two devices. Send play data from the keyboard to music software running on your computer, or send MIDI data from your computer to the keyboard for playback.


Built-In Sampling
You can use the WK-200 to sample a sound from a portable audio player or other device, and then play the sound with keyboard keys. Sample up to ten seconds, and store up to five sampled sounds to keyboard memory.


152 Built-In Songs and Ten User Songs
The WK-200 comes with a bank of songs for your learning and enjoyment. You can also record your own performances, using up to six tracks of different instruments.


Step Up Lessons
To master a song, it is best to break it up into shorter parts (phrases), master the phrases, and then put everything together. The WK-200 features a "Step Up Lesson" feature that helps you to do just that. The built-in songs are pre-divided into phrases to help you master keyboard play. Step Up Lesson takes you through practice of the right hand part, left hand part, and both hand parts for each phrase of a song. Master all of the phrases and you master the song.


Music Challenge Keyboard Game
Music Challenge is a game that measures your reaction speed as you press keys in response to on-screen keyboard indicators and fingering guide indications.


Auto Accompaniment
With Auto Accompaniment, simply select an accompaniment pattern. Each time you play a chord with your left hand the appropriate accompaniment will play automatically. It's like having a personal backup group along with you wherever you go. The WK-200 features 180 built-in rhythms, and you you can also edit and save up to 10 of your own auto accompaniment patterns.


Auto Harmonize
Auto Harmonize automatically adds harmony to notes you play with your right hand, which adds rich depth to the melody of your performances. You can select from among 12 types of Auto Harmonize to suit the type of music you are playing.


Arpeggiator
The Arpeggiator makes it possible to play an arpeggio pattern automatically. There are 90 different arpeggio patterns from which to choose in order to match the music you are playing.


Transpose Function
An easy operation instantly changes the key of the keyboard.


Line-in and Mic Input
Play along with MP3 or CD players or other devices by plugging them into the stereo mini input jack, or plug a mic right in and sing along.


Battery or AC Power
Power the WK-200 with six D-sized batteries or purchase the AD-5MR adapter separately to power from your electrical outlets. Built-in speakers make the keyboard entirely portable.


An Auto Power Off feature turns off the device six minutes after the last key is touched, helping you save batteries.


What's in the Box
WK-200 Keyboard, Song Book, Safety Precautions, Appendix, Warranty

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