The Casio CTK-3000 is an affordable instrument with a 61 Key Piano Style Touch Sensitive Keyboard, 400 total onboard Tones, 150 Rhythms and Digital Effects. Packed with great features such as Casio’s famous Step-up Lesson System, audio inputs for a MP3 player, USB port for MIDI implementation and a pitch wheel for additional expression over sounds. All this makes CTK-3000 more realistic and expressive than ever before at this price range. An affordable, full-featured portable keyboard. Click to enlarge. Standard-Size Keys with Touch Response The CTK-3000 features 61 standard-size keys and two sensitivity levels for a more piano-like experience, along with 48-note polyphony (24-note for certain tones). 400 Built-In Tones Find just the right sound with 400 built-in tones, and select from ten different reverb settings to add depth. USB Port For many musicians, the computer has become a music-making center. Connect the CTK-3000 to a computer (more…)

The Casio CTK-4000 is an affordable instrument with a 61 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 and a USB port for MIDI. All this makes CTK-4000 more realistic and expressive than ever before at this price range. A truly feature-packed portable. Click to enlarge. CTK-4000 Premium Pack The Premium Pack bundles the CTK-4000 keyboard with a Yamaha power supply, keyboard stand and professional closed-cup stereo headphones. Standard-Size Keys with Touch Response The CTK-4000 features 61 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 to (more…)

The Casio CTK-3000 is an affordable instrument with a 61 Key Piano Style Touch Sensitive Keyboard, 400 total onboard Tones, 150 Rhythms and Digital Effects. Packed with great features such as Casio’s famous Step-up Lesson System, audio inputs for a MP3 player, USB port for MIDI implementation and a pitch wheel for additional expression over sounds. All this makes CTK-3000 more realistic and expressive than ever before at this price range. Everything you need to get started. CTK-3000 Premium Pack The Premium Pack bundles the CTK-3000 keyboard with a Yamaha power supply, keyboard stand and professional closed-cup stereo headphones. Standard-Size Keys with Touch Response The CTK-3000 features 61 standard-size keys and two sensitivity levels for a more piano-like experience, along with 48-note polyphony (24-note for certain tones). 400 Built-In Tones Find just the right sound with 400 built-in tones, and select from ten different reverb settings to a (more…)

The actual keyboard is the thing to look at next. That is the keys that make up the keyboard. Most keyboards in our price range have 61 full size keys to make up the keyboard, some of the lower price ones maybe 49 full size keys, as a beginner this is not a problem because even with the 49-note keyboard you won’t need to play all the keys.

Make sure however that the keys are full size and not half size. Even if you have young children that want to play. There is absolutely no advantage in choosing half size keys over full size keys. Full size keys are approximately the same size keys as piano keys and are also referred to as standard keys.

Also some keyboards have a “touch sensitive keyboard” this means the harder you press the keys the louder the sound this is a great feature and can create expressive music however, for young children, they may not be able to press the keys hard enough to produce a respectable sound. Therefore, it would be advisable to check that the “touch sensitivity” can be turned off or adjusted.

Next, sounds and rhythms. Keyboards in this price range should have at least 128 sounds. These sounds are known as a “General MIDI” sound set. Most new keyboards made today of any price will include a “General MIDI” set of sounds and so it has become very easy and cheap for manufacturers to include these sounds.

The rhythm section should contain a minimum of 20 different rhythms and many keyboards in this price range contain a great deal more. Normally when using the rhythm section or drum machine as it is sometimes called it is used in conjunction with an “auto chord” feature. This means when you play a left hand chord, the computer inside recognises the chord being played and adds a bass line and maybe a rhythm guitar and possibly a brass section, which results in a great sound and makes the whole learning/playing experience a lot more interesting.

The “auto chord” feature is called different names on different keyboards, such as “fingered chord” or “magic chord”. There is also a feature sometimes referred to as “single finger chord” or “easy chord”.

This feature is utterly useless if you want to learn to play the keyboard properly but it is included on most if not all keyboards and is a great selling point used by sales staff quite legitimately to create the initial interest in a keyboard. You can use this feature to show family and friends what a great player you are and simply switch back to “auto chord” to learn to play the keyboard properly.

Finally make sure the sound you are listening to is coming from the keyboards own speakers. Keyboards are sometimes connected to amplifiers, which can make then sound better. Make sure you know what your keyboard sounds like from its own speakers before taking it home.

In part three I will discuss keyboard features you might find useful and still stay within your budget.