- Casio CTK 3000 over 1/3 Off
The Casio CTK 3000 keyboard is one of the most popular portable keyboards around. It has everything you need to progress from rank beginner to excellent performer almost ready for the pros. There’s many other reasons for its popularity. You’ll love the sound and the rich and extensive set of features for an amazingly low price. Most people simply won’t outgrow it. There’s a few things to look out for, so read on!
This CTK 3000 delivers the usual great audio together with features for beginners just learning as well as those seriously into music. Its very realistic grand piano voice has made it especially noteworthy and well suited to those interested in classical piano music. But there’s hundreds of other tones as well.
The Casio Step-Up lesson system guides beginners in basic keyboard playing, developing hand as well as music skills. It can supplement a teacher, and for casual players it may eliminate taking lessons all together. There’s also a fingering guide and keyboard indicators. These act sort of like training wheels for learning a melody and reinforcing sight reading. The Music Challenge systems pushes speed as a sort of game. This will certainly improve dexterity, and might even nudge sight reading a bit faster.
One feature the CTK 3000 offers that many other models don’t include is digital sampling. Here the keyboard can record up to a second of audio and then use it for notes. This is a great tool for innovation and adding unique effects to your playing.
This model also provides accompaniment in the form of automatic chords, rhythms, and bass. This can beef up the sound for beginners and enhances the music for all levels of players. A leftt-hand cord can generate an accompainment and a right-hand note can cue an automatic harmony. There’s also a huge list of built-in rhythm patterns. With a little practice you can sound like several musicians at once. Add the sampling and other features and you have the start of a digital studio.
Casio CTK 3000 Features
This electric keyboard has 61 touch-sensitive keys. Although not that of a full acoustic piano, that’s more than sufficient for true two-handed playing. A couple of touch-sensitive levels adds some expressiveness, this model is still unfortunately a way from the subtlety of an acoustic keyboard.
With 48-note polyphony, there’s no shortage of notes that can be played simultaneously. This lets you do lots of layering and take full advantage of the automatic bass, harmony, and rhythms. It has 300 built-in tones with the capacity for 100 more. So you can quite literally select from hundreds of sounds including classical instruments, ethnic and other acoustic instruments, plus lots of electronic synth sounds.
You can also draw from 150 built-in rhythms to accompany your playing. Some 20 of these are drawn from piano styles and over 50 are ethnic beats giving you a wide range of selections to fill out your performances.
Here’s a few more specific features.
- Audio Input – for sampling and play-along
- USB Port – lets you connect to your personal computer and potentially other MIDI instruments
- Pitch Wheel – for pitch blending and synth effects
- LCD Display – makes configuration and selections easier, and provides a quick check
Special Sauce
The combination of 61 keys, touch-sensitivity, and polophony make the 3000 a serious keyboard. And the long list of tones, rhythms, and auto-accompainmnet help make it a joy to play. The other features are nice touches that can expand how you use this keyboard.
The USB MIDI connection lets you hook this Casio up to your personal computer. With your choice from lots of free and moderately priced software you can then record and edit your playing. You can even use it as the keyboard input for Apple’s GarageBand and other recent MIDI gear.
The sampler is a particularly nifty feature. You can use it to record a live instrument and add it to your tones. Or capture up to 1 second of sound and import that into your performance. Finally, the analog audio input lets you play along with CDs or MP3s.
Accessorizing
There’s a few accessories you might want to consider. If you don’t have an AC adapter, get one first thing. It’ll save you a fortune in batteries. If you practice (or learn) with other people around, you just might want a good pair of over-the-ear headphones. I personally haven’t bothered with a stand. To me, most are either too flimsy or too expensive in comparison to the keyboard itself. But you just might want one, especially for portability. If you have an iMac or iPad, look into GarageBand. You’ll get some really great tones plus added recording and editing capabilities. But for an iPad you’ll also need Apple’s camera (yes, camera) adapter to make the connection. You can also get great music software for PCs, and only need a USB cable to make the hook-up. Just be sure the software is compatible with General MIDI over USB.
CTK 3000 — My Conclusions
The 3000 is low cost, often available from discount sources for around $130 but loaded with features and capabilities. When I first ran across this keyboard I was surprisingly pleased with the sound and amazed by the low cost. I’ve personally found it to be a sweet spot, in between the Casio CTK 2100 and the Casio CTK 4000.
It’s hard to find fault with this model. The included power adapter and stand could be better, so I recommend buying just the keyboard (not a premium package) and purchasing better quality accessories separately. The keys don’t have the touch and sensitivity one might like, but you’d have to pay several times as much to get that. Even so, the keyboard itself has a solid quality feel that you’ll enjoy playing.
With other brands and models you’ll pay a whole lot more, and get very little more. With this keyboard you’ll have all you need at the best price around. In brief, this is great for taking lessons as well as taking it further into music creation and performance. Priced low enough to be a casual purchase, the Casio CTK 3000 can be the one and only electronic keyboard for most of us with no push to upgrade to a more expensive instrument.
“It is good as and better than most other keyboards that cost twice as much.”
– David Drofdoow, eZine Articles
Pardon My French
… but this is the best video on the CTK 3000 I’ve been able to find.
