Casio CTK-4000 Portable Electronic Keyboard Review

If you love music and you play instruments, specifically the piano, you most likely want to have your own keyboard at home. There are several kinds of keyboards that you can buy. There are small ones for beginners, bigger ones (with more keys) for intermediate players or even a real piano. You can also opt for portable electronic keyboards and there are lots of models to choose from. I recently bought a Casio CTK-4000 portable electronic keyboard and thus far, I really like it.

It has 61 keys and there are more than 500 instruments that you can choose from. There's a small digital display in the center that you can easily use to navigate through the functions of the instrument however I find it difficult to see at a certain angle especially when you're playing it at night or with a much dimmer light.

Among the important features and functions of the CTK-4000 is the song bank with 152 songs. It can actually teach you the songs through the lesson feature. It will guide you note per note until you successfully perform measure. Piece by piece you'll learn how to play the song and after that, you'll just notice you can play the entire song. There are also a lot of other features such as reverb, change octaves, a metronome, record feature, auto accompaniment and many more.

One very neat feature of the CTK-4000 is its touch response. This means that the keys will sound differently depending on how you press them. If you press it lightly, it will produce a weak sound. Of you press it quickly and hard enough, it will produce a much louder sound. This actually affects piano tones and it sounds a lot better and more realistic.

The audio quality is excellent even with its built-in speakers. It sounds really good compared to lower-end keyboards. There's an audio jack if you want to hook it up to a better sound system. At night, I plug in my headset so that I won't disturb the neighbors while I'm playing.

You can easily connect the keyboard to a PC using the USB port. You'll need a standard USB cable though. You can record while you play. You can also play your favorite MP3 files if you want to play at the same time. For example, let's say you have an MP3 with drums; you can play along with the piano for some jazz.

I got my CTK-4000 at roughly $300. It's a fair price for the features and specifications that it has. The saleslady gave us a copy of their 2011 catalog and the CTK-4000 will most likely be available the entire year.

We have an old Casio CT-808 that only has 46 keys. It's actually not enough to play a lot of good pieces so I decided to buy a new one with more keys and a much better audio quality. Casio has always been respected when it comes to its line of electronic and portable keyboards and the CTK-4000 is among the top in its class. The only drawback that I see is that when you have a piece that requires more than 5 octaves, you'll need a keyboard with more keys. Whether you are an expert and/or a professional player or even a complete beginner, the Casio CTK-4000 will probably meet most, if not all, of your expectations.

Source:
CTK-4000 - Portable Music Instruments - Products - Casio
http://www.casio.com/products/Musical_Instruments/Portable/CTK-4000/