Casio Casiotone CT-S1 61-Key Touch-Sensitive Retro Keyboard Sleek Portable Design for Beginners to Pros Stereo Grand Piano 60

I own a top flight acoustic piano and professional digital keyboards. I searched everywhere for a portable, super light-weight keyboard that I could carry on when flying/traveling to use for practicing and composition. The Casio CT-S1 fits the bill well, with a few very minor nits. This keyboard weighs in at less than 10 lbs. yet is very well built and 'feels' sturdy and solid. It's physically impossible to have weighted or semi-weighted keys on a 10 pound instrument, but the key bed is otherwise very good. The keys are nearly full-size, have a matte finish and a good touch sensitive response. The body of the keyboard is well constructed and does not feel fragile. The 'retro', minimalist look of the instrument with the cloth covered panel across the top is easy on the eyes. There is a built-in handle which allows carrying around your house or hotel with ease. It comes with a external power supply, but also runs on batteries. I sprung for a set of AA rechargeable batteries, worth the investment. Nit #1: You'll need to purchase a sustain pedal - not included. There is a very good and wide range of sounds, most important of which are decent acoustic piano, electric piano and organ voices. A nice feature is a set of physical buttons and a volume knob across the front panel. There are dozens of additional sound and tone controls accessible via the function button and the piano keys. Nit #2: I would like to have dedicated buttons for the most used functions: transpose, octave shift and reverb. The built-in speakers are very serviceable. There are 1/8" inch stereo IN and stereo OUT connectors, so I carry a couple of 1/8" stereo patch cables for connecting my Klipsch Groove bluetooth speaker (sounds great), tablets, phone, etc. The USB MIDI interface is ideal for for writing or transcribing music. Nit #3: The Casio case for this instrument, when available, has an awkward design (load from the end ??), and has questionable padding for travel. Casio would do well to make available a decent, well fitting, padded case - even at half the cost of the keyboard, it would be worth it. I scoured the retail world for days to found a good quality, padded, but otherwise snug fitting case for airline carry on, but a case designed for this unit would be better. This instrument is an excellent value. Read more

I've had this Casio for 6 months now, and have learned how to play piano/keyboards on it....and have no intention of upgrading anytime soon, because this thing is great! It's just what I had been looking for- just a simple basic electric piano/organ, without all of the endless nonsense that all the other ones seem to have...and most important of all, the piano and organ voices sound GREAT! I don't need accompaniment, and rhythms, and 600 voices, and all of that crap. With this, there's not too much to distract you or get in the way- yet it odes have a ton of useful features, such as octave shift. I love that it is not festooned with dozens of buttons and displays. You access the additional features by pressing a program button and then hitting one of the 61 piano keys. Every key does something different; and every key also turns on another voice (in conjunction with a different button)- but the beauty is, to look at it, it's just a simple, clean keyboard with only a few buttons. Playing this thing is addictive! The one thing I dislike, isn't the product itself, but the manual- or rather, lack thereof. It comes with only a cheesy fold-out, small-print basic starters guide, and you have to access the actual manual online-which wouldn't be a big deal, as really, you can just turn it on and play...easy-peasy...but the thing is, to access the features which are controlled by the piano keys, you have to refernce a chart, so that you know which key does what; and also which key implements which voice, as there are no markings on the unit or the keys. Don't let that dissuade you from buying, as this is the best keyboard you find for anywhere near this price...but it would be nice if it had come with a proper booklet style manual- or at least a decent quality chart showing which key controls what. Read more

For the price, a great at-home practice piano for my teenaged daughter. The sounds are very good, it's easy to use, lightweight and compact. She hasn't tried performing with it outside or using advanced features such as midi but leaves it set up in her room and plays it regularly. Very happy with it. Read more