Casio CTK-650

After a short time, you dont need manual or to ask some more educated band members :-) Presets are quite good, some are better then you can hear from other keyboards of this price range. No patches editor available, manual is really brief. It has only 3 point LED display, but sometimes it is more usefull then multi-color LCD, where you can hardly find, what are you looking for. But you need some time to get it "into eyes".

Polyphone - 32, I think, Keyboard action is good, keys are not weighted but you have nice feeling, playing it. No sense of touching a frog or trying to compete in bench-pressing. Effects are good, reverb, chorus, flanger, expand stereo - most of them you can enjoy only after connecting to some amp. Memory, new boards, cards... hey man, this was made in ninetees!!! MIDI capabilities... oh, well, it is really good, it can cooperate with almost all MIDI machines, but CASIO engineers had forgotten to incorporate some wheel or joystick!

Some istruments are very realistic, some have that mighty 80's sound. But I ve chosen 10-15 of them, which I use almost every day. You can find many nice and applicable sounds. While playing, you need to use reverb, to have "natural sound", other effects are also powerful, but only occasionally. Velocity sensitivity is good, and aftertouch - you can dream about it :-)

CASIO keyboards are not the famous YAMAHA, KORG or MOTU... but it IS reliable. I played it for more then 7 years, then it started to make some dizzy sound. But after 2 weeks of "holiday", it was OK, and I play my CASIO CTK-650 now for more then 10 years!!!

I have never asked company for nothing, it this cathegory you dont expect upgrade or some expandable posiibilities.

It is worth what I paid, I have it from some senior church player, who lost his job and needed some money... I love the pink rubber on the lower side, which was glued there by the first owner / to remove some noise made of resonance. I played YAMAHA PSR-350, GS-76 and others but CASIO has really specific CASIO sound. And when I compare prices - it is better to buy a keyboard and use it occasionally also without computer then buy a MIDI keyboard.

This Casio keyboard is very easy to use. No problem to use.

The features are OK. The # and selection of sounds and beats are OK.

The touch velocity is great, considering the keys are not weighed. The effects are great and the sounds are OK. The piano, strings, organs, and trumpet sounds are great, except the electric pianos are not that great because of the lack of sustain. The MIDI controls I wouldnt complain with.

A 100-lb board fell on the Casio twice, and it still works fine! A couple scratches, though.

As I write this review, the AC jack is getting repaired, so I guess C.S. is O.K

It's a medicre keyboard great for beginners or intermediate players. I use it for professional use in a church, although I should be playing a professional. I'd recommend it to a beginner.

It's fairly easy to use; If you're familiar with other home keyboards, it's only slightly more complicated. Some of the presets are really great: Trumpet, synth strings, pretty good piano, good bass guitar sounds, elec. piano, even a decent sax sound. Some are not so good, though, like the distorted electric guitar and the brass sounds. It's a General Midi set, and it was a big improvement over my Soundblaster 16 soundcard. You can't edit the patches, although you can apply different effects to the sounds. The manual is fairly straightforward, except for the section on midi, where they try to explain what midi is

For a home keyboard, this thing is pretty powerful. It has 32-note polyphony, 16-tone multitimbral, and 61 standard-size keys. It has three levels of velocity-sensitivity (it can also be turned off). It has ten different effects, including a pretty good flanger & phase shifter, but since you can only use one effect at a time, I usually leave it on the middle reverb. It can be split in two(you can move the split point) and layered with two sounds for each section. It has a song memory that can hold up to 1300 notes. Not much, but good for saving ideas on a moment's notice. And since it IS a home keyboard, it has several auto-accompaniment rhythms (128 of them), some of which are very, uh, interesting? It's a great way to generate ideas if you're stuck. And of course, it lets you do one-finger chords, fingered chords, even "full-range" chords, meaning you can play the chords anywhere on the keyboard, not just the lower "chord" section. It also has what are called "magical pre-sets" (again, 128 of 'em!) that do different things. Some are rhythm loops, some are chord progressions where you control the tempo, some are interesting layered sounds. But where this thing is really useful is as a General Midi module hooked up to a sequencer. There's practically nothing that needs to be set up for it to send and receive midi (except the midi cables, of course!) When its General Midi control is off, some of the sounds (mainly bass sounds) are an octave lower. You can also turn Local Control on and off (didn't expect that, did you?) Also, you can send the auto-accompaniment stuff to the midi out port, so it can be recorded by your sequencer, or played by another midi keyboard. Some features can ONLY be controlled by external midi commands, like panning, modulation control, or volume balancing. It also has eight drum kits accessible via midi, although it really only has about four or five distinct drum "sets" placed on different keys on the eight "kits". You also need midi to use the sounds beyond the range available on the keyboard. Alas, it's not expandable, although you can plug in a foot pedal.

Some of the sounds are great, like the trumpet, violin, acoustic guitar, and bass guitar sounds. A couple of good synth sounds, especially the synth strings. And halfway decent piano and sax sounds. Nice jazz organ and electric piano. Some are pretty disappointing, like the french horn and flute sounds. Since it's General Midi, you can do a variety of styles passably, but don't expect miracles, especially not heavy metal. It has ten different effects, including 3 different reverbs, a good flanger, and a pretty good phase shifter. I'm not impressed by its chorus, though. But, as I said, you can only use one effect at a time. It has three levels of velocity-sensitivity (or off) but no aftertouch. The only thing to really watch for are the sustained sounds, like organ or strings, they stay at the velocity played until you let up on the key and re-strike them. The keys have a light touch, as most plastic keyboards, and they don't really feel as good as, say, my Korg DW-6000 did, but it's not hard to get used to the feel. The one thing I really regret is the lack of pitch bend and modulation wheels. It has some pre-programmed pitch bends that can be played with a key pad, but that's not really very useful. Pitch bend and modulation can be controlled via midi, though, with a sequencer or from another midi keyboard.

I've never had any problems with it in the three years that I've had it, but I admit that it doesn't travel around very much. It can also be run on batteries (six 'D' batteries!) for a few hours.

Never tried to, or needed to, contact the company.

If it were lost or stolen, I would probably spend the extra bucks to get a low-end professional keyboard, like the Korg X5D or the Alesis QS6, but I would love to have the CTK-650 or the similar CTK-750 as a second keyboard. As I mentioned, it makes a great General Midi module. If only it had the pitch and modulation wheels... Its auto-accompaniment has especially been helpful in giving me usable drum patterns (since I'm not much of a "drummer"). Overall, I think this is a great beginner-to-intermediate keyboard, easy to use, powerful and flexible enough for a variety of uses. Just don't expect miracles with it.

Very easy to use for the beginning synthesist. The manual is pretty explanitory except when it discusses MIDI. All the presets sound nice but there is no editing of patches. The only other sounds or ideas you can make are using MIDI w\ other things.

Has standard MIDI instruments. The built in effects are nice and easy to use. There is no room for expansion. Its MIDI capabilities are nice... It does not have an onboard sequencer but it does have pressure sensative keys if chosen. Do not buy this keyboard if you are looking for something with a lot of options. This has many sounds and rythms and nice MIDI but thats it...

The instruments are easy to use but sound a little cheesy. This keyboard is nothing special but it is really easy to use.

I would not use this on a gig w\o a backup. My AC adaptor jack broke on mine and their support takes forever. It is OK if you are gentle though...

Customer support takes forever and there are only a few factories in the US.

I would not buy this again... It is very unprofessional and is meant for a home player who is not really using it professionally. It seems very closed w\o any room for expansion... It needs more editing options.