PSR Keyboards (11 Boards) > PSR-E Series
Update on the competition -- Casio CTX-700 >>> And now, CTX-3000!
SciNote:
Okay, so I know this is "PSR" Tutorial, and not "CTX" Tutorial. But I think it's good to see what else is out there and how it compares to our Yamaha keyboards for anyone getting ready to make a purchase. And, if Yamaha does review this board, I think it's good for them to not only see what else is out there (as they probably have people employed who do that research, anyway), but also for them to see what else is out there that may be important to their customers.
So, I went back to the music store, and this time, there was something to see! No PSR-E463 yet, which, as previously noted, probably won't be available for a couple months. But they did have the new Casio CTX-700, and I was able to get my paws on one to see what it could do.
So, first, the good...
As previously noted, this bugger has portamento! Maybe I put an overemphasis on that. Perhaps it was because when, as I was growing up and first getting interested in keyboards in the 1970's, synthesizers were getting more common in popular music, and they'd often include that Classic sliding buzz of analog synth portamento. And while I have had a variety of portable keyboards from both Yamaha and Casio since the 1980's, this is the first time I've ever seen portamento in a keyboard remotely near this price range (this keyboard is supposed to sell for about $180).
I didn't go through each and every sound, but for what I did check out, I saw portamento in about ten sounds. Of course, it is preprogrammed into the sound. You cannot switch it on and off, and you cannot adjust the speed of the portamento. But interestingly, it only works with mono-playing. If you play chords, such as playing a chord in one octave, then releasing that chord and playing another chord in a higher octave, there will be no portamento effect. But if you play single notes (and it appears to not matter whether you play legato or whether you release the first note before playing the second), you'll get portamento from the first to the second note.
The overall quality of the sounds are quite good, especially for its price. As the PSR-E400 series pianos aren't great (unmodified), I would say that the acoustic pianos on this keyboard are at least on par, if not better, than those on the PSR-E400's. Other sounds I tried, which include the organs, synths, and choirs, sounded, in general, on par with the PSR-E400's. I did not have a lot of time, so I did not try brass, reeds, or other instruments yet.
There is a wide variety of reverb and chorus selections, including 4 flangers, but I did not see a way to adjust the intensity of these effects. Certain sounds have preprogrammed DSP effects, like distortion. And with the distortion that I saw on one sound, it is a true distortion, where playing more notes at once increases the overall intensity of the distortion.
The styles have two parts, like with the PSR-E400's, and like I've been asking Yamaha to do for four years now, they have two distinct buttons for each part. If you are on the "A" part (I believe they label it "main"), and just want a drum fill without switching parts, you just hit the "A" or "main" button. If you want a drum fill and also want to switch to the "B" part, then you hit that button, which I believe is labeled "var", as in "variation".
Now, for the not so good...
While the above features are very impressive for a keyboard in this price range, and it looks like a great keyboard for a beginner or for someone who wants to add an auxiliary keyboard to a set-up, it is no replacement for the PSR-E400's. Of course, it is about $100 less than a PSR-E453. It might be a more fair comparison to compare it to a PSR-E363, which I am not as familiar with.
But to touch upon some important limitations... First of all, Casio still needs to work on the keybed, or key-feel for these instruments. While the feel is an improvement over some of their older models, it still felt kind of spongy to me. I think they're trying to give it a little bit of resistance to more closely approximate the feel of an acoustic piano, but it certainly does not have a hammer-action feel to it. And I could definitely feel the difference from playing this keyboard, to walking over a few feet and playing the PSR-E453 they also had on display. In my opinion, Yamaha's key-feel allows me to play more quick and precise than on the Casio's keyboard. As higher-level lines of this series (CTX-3000 and CTX-5000) become available, it will be interesting to see if the key-feel improves.
Like the PSR-E400's, this keyboard can layer two sounds on the right-hand side and split the keyboard for one additional sound on the left-hand side. But unlike the PSR-E400's, I did not see a way to adjust the volume of the two right-hand parts independently (which is very similar to how an inexpensive Casio stage piano that I own works -- you can layer two sounds, but not adjust their volumes independently). This, to me, is a major limitation. Just as a Hammond organ's drawbars are so popular because you can so easily fine-tune the sound by adjusting the volume of each component, the ability to adjust the volume of the main and dual voices gives you much more control over the overall tone of the keyboard than just being able to layer the sounds at a preset volume. Also, I did not see a way to change the octave of the layered voice, though the main voice can be adjusted up or down an impressive 3 octaves.
Additionally, other than the above-mentioned reverbs and choruses, there is no way to really modify the sound. No filters or envelope generators. But again, this is a much less expensive keyboard then the PSR-E400's.
So, overall, while it is no real substitute for the PSR-E400's, it is still quite an impressive keyboard for the price. It will be interesting to see how the higher-level models of this series stack up.
SeaGtGruff:
--- Quote from: SciNote on March 08, 2018, 10:40:49 AM ---I didn't go through each and every sound, but for what I did check out, I saw portamento in about ten sounds. Of course, it is preprogrammed into the sound. You cannot switch it on and off, and you cannot adjust the speed of the portamento.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: SciNote on March 08, 2018, 10:40:49 AM ---Additionally, other than the above-mentioned reverbs and choruses, there is no way to really modify the sound. No filters or envelope generators.
--- End quote ---
You should be able to turn portamento on/off, adjust the portamento time, and modify the envelope and filter parameters (the attack/decay/release times, cutoff frequency, and resonance amount). However, you can do that only through MIDI messages sent to the keyboard, or played in a song or accompaniment, and I'm pretty sure those messages will not affect the three keyboard parts (Right1, Right2, and Left, or whatever they're called on the CT-X700). But if you're willing to pipe the MIDI to a computer and then echo it back to the keyboard, you can turn off the Local Control and use MIDI software (DAW or whatever) to merge the desired CC messages with the Note On/Off messages being bounced back to the keyboard, thereby letting you modify those parameters-- including the channel volumes for the Right1, Right2, and Split tones.
SeaGtGruff:
The User's Guide and Appendix for the CT-X3000 and CT-X5000 have now been posted, if anyone wants to look at them. I've only just grabbed them myself, and haven't looked at them yet.
Jay B.:
Michael, can you have a look at the polyphony on the 5000 and post here, kind sir?
SeaGtGruff:
I think that screenshot is from a manual for two older CTK models, the CTK-4000/CTK-5000.
The manual for the new CT-X3000/CT-X5000 models says their polyphony is a maximum of 64 notes, or 32 for certain tones.
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