Hi to al,
As you know, I have been searching for a new portable keyboard to complement my faithful but bulky DGX 650 for some time now.
I bought a PSR E433 for the second time but sold it again after one month because of its limitations.
Since then, I have been watching all YouTube videos with demonstrations of middle-range keyboards, focusing esp. on Yamaha and the PSR E463.
Having found a music shop 30 miles (50 km) from were I live which agreed to give me the same conditions as Internet vendors (same price as on Interned i.e. 298€, 30 days to get a refund if I am not happy with the keyboard), I departed yesterday to the Big City (Perpignan, hometown of Salvador Dali LoL) with the idea of coming back with the so-long-awaited PSR E463.
Before departing, I had the silly idea to phone another music store in the same vicinity to ask them whether, by any chance, they had a Casio CT-X3000 or 5000 on show because the first shop wasn’t a Casio retailer and I wanted to try the Casio also to be sure I would not regret my choice. By chance they had both units on show (but not the PSR E463, mind you).
Since I had already tried the older PSR E453 earlier this year and since I had twice be the owner of a PSR E433, I decided first to go to the second shop to try the Casio boards, more to rule them out than for any other purpose really.
Well, the shop manager was very friendly. He put the CT-X3000 on a counter for me to try it at length and even put a decent pair of headphones at my disposal.
I started by playing the first sound (Stage piano on the Casio) and I wasn’t impressed at all. I then promptly realised that Casio doesn’t quite classify the keyboard voices as Yamaha would do, and other piano voices better suited my taste, in particular the Ambient piano.
What surprised me is the quality of the keybed. Some people here know how sensitive I am on that matter. This keybed is really good, believe me. I don’t give a **** about the fact that the keys imitate piano keys, this is sheer marketing. But I simply loved the response of the keys and the control it gives you to the sound, which in my opinion, is very accurate. Much better than the PSR E433 keybed, which was already good.
I started to consider this keyboard with more respect, since the keybed is precisely what deterred me from buying a PSR E453.
I then started digging in what is the bread-and-butter of any arranger keyboard: the styles!
Here again, Casio’s classification is really strange for any Yamaha fanboy (or fangirl LoL). The first style, EDM Pop, is quite nice and very different than the usual Yamaha styles. There is a category labelled “Orchestral” and it has a few nice surprises, like a style named String Quartet, and some styles which could be nice for reproducing movie soundtracks. There are some nice jazz styles. I didn’t have time to explore all categories at length.
Honestly I found the style quality quite good. It goes way beyond reproducing Dance tracks (akthoughI love that) and Chart numbers.
Each style has one Intro, one Ending, four Mains and four Fills. There is thus much variation in each individual style. It is a pleasure to play them and you find yourself quickly trying to improvise a melody line on top of those styles.
These styles are also very flexible, since you can mute or remix all the parts, or even fully edit or completely rewrite these styles, including the panning of the different voices and a set of effects.
You can also better control those styles with your left hand chords than on the PSR E keyboards, because the CT-X3000 and 5000 understand subtleties such as on-bass chords and chords played on the full scope of the keyboard.
Oh, and here is the icing on the cake: there are THREEdifferent split points for the Upper1 (Main) and Upper2 (Dual) voices, the Lower1 AND Lower2 (yes, you’ve got TWO Split voices), and the Accompaniment.
Icing on the icing: there are two Pedal slots at the back, one for the usual Sustain pedal; the second one can be used either for a volume pedal (for organs, synths, pads, strings sounds for instance), or a second sustain pedal with which you can toggle the accompaniment on and off, or activate effects like a rotary speaker on an organ sound etc.
Well I won’t go deeper into this. It was already running late and I had to come home, so I didn’t make it to the first music shop with the PSR E463 on show.
Once home, I noticed that the CT-X3000 was advertised at a very aggressive 284 € price on Bax Shop (a website selling music instruments in Nederland, which also shops to France), so I immediately ordered it because I want to try it out more at length before deciding whether this is the right keyboard for me or not. If not, I still can send it back and go for the PSR E463 which, as you all know, has these great Cool! and Sweet! sounds, the Live! Knobs, an integrated digital audio interface and the ability to record audio directly onto an USB stick.
Well, the Casio is due to arrive in next Wednesday and of course I’ll give you my first impressions.
Hope I don’t get kicked out of our great Yamaha forum
Regards and a nice weekend to all,
Vinciane