Casio CTK-671

ease of use- fine, no complaints

lots of features on board- not used half of them

i am a piano teacher and i find the '671 quite a lot better than some equivalent Yamahas (PSR-275 etc) in terms of piano action, tone and touch response. Sound quality is good too. I thought most Casios were tat, to be honest and this really surprised me.
Rhythms sound impressive. I only use the piano voice.

I'd use it on a gig, no probs

never dealt with Casio

i'd buy another. They're cheap on ebay and underrated, which means great bargains

It's really ease of use. The presets has well ubicated in the board, the LCD display is full color and great.
Manual is good.

Polyphony of 32 notes max. Great number, compared with Roland EM-15 (offers only 24..)
This keyboard have a big number of voices and styles, effects and DSP over 100. (Really good for a keyboard of this price!!!)
The keys are light but, at this price it's good. YES touch response, YES secuencer (sucks!!!) and other good features.

OK..This is the point where CASIO's keyboards are poor. The piano's and strings are only decent. Yamaha's pianos and strings are a million times better than the Casio's. This keyboards has good flutes, hornes, some leads and pads; but PSR's Has 1.000.000 times better than CTK's. No comparisson.
In Portable keyboards, YAMAHA is the leader.
Roland's portables (E, EM) have a really good sound (much better than Casio), but insuficient to equal PSR's.

CASIO = Keyboards for kids, whit good sounds enough.
If you are not a kid, try with Roland EM's o Yamaha PSR's (over the model 292)

It'a very reliable keyboard...No Problem whit it.

CASIO ever says present!!!!

Keyboard whit great features, functions, effects, number of tones, styles, etc. But the sound quality....is very inferior than PSR's or EM's.

!!!!! PLEASE DON'T COMPARE THIS KEYBOARD WHIT PSR'S OR EM's !!!!!

A keyboard for kids!!!!

I am a pro keyboardist.I have a yamaha psr 630 but I feel that its sounds are a bit outdated.So I decided to buy another one.Well,I wanted to try the Casio's new Zpi sounds and how good are they when compared to the yamaha's AWM technology.They had released their two new models-MZ 2000 and CTK 671.I checked out the cheaper version.

The most presets sounds are fantastic and had a better depth than that of the PSR.The advanced sounds are very good and I liked most of them.The Grand Piano 001 has to be modified with some onboard digital effects.The guitar sounds are very realistic,the strings are also very good.In my opinion,most of the sounds are better quality than those of the psr's.But some sounds like the Ad Tenor sax are aweful to hear as they sound more like an accordian!!Only a vey few pads are there and they are not so good.Very bad for a keyboard like this..

Patching is not a very complicated thing.The real time recording is good but another words the keyboard suck at this point.No real quantizing capablities are there.So do it correctly without any mistake in timing!I thought the step recording would be an advantage.But it works only as a cheap arrpegiator.If you are trying to compose a pattern with this function,then forget it all the way..
Sucky that it has no pitchbend wheel.O.k,atleast you can use the synth for pitch bending capabilities ie,the slow vibration effect.

The manual is good ,with only a few hickups here and there.(very common in most Asian equipment's manuals)

Polyphony is good for a keyboard from Casio.Keyboard action is better than any PSR models.The digital effects are very good all around and very easy to use the preset ones.Synth is a bit complicated when compared to the synthless PSR dummies!I did'nt like the expansion capabilities because they don't have a Flash Rom to store any standard GM songs or datas!Only we can download the casio's new stuffs from the site.The touch sensitive keys works well.
As I told earlier,THIS KEYBOARD SUCKS AT SEQUENCING CAPABILITIES!!!

The sounds are very good all around.Scores at this point and thanks to Zpi!Check out the sax sounds,they are better than most PSR models except the a la PSR 8000,9000.I like the tenors very much,as well as the guitars.The drumkits are cool.But some patterns are not very clear and are outdated.Bad.Anyway works well for all types of music.

DSP effects are very good and works well.I give it a 10 here.

ITs a CASIO and they are tough as hell.Most of the people are mistaken at this point.I will use it on gig.

Not anything need so far.

I liked this keyboard and it is better in sound quality than my PSR.If it is lost,then it is not good to buy the same stuff once more.So I would go for the CTK 691!

I bought this keyboard only a week ago (June 2003) and I still quite don't know when it was released on the market. From other reviews I red. I would say around two years ago. I am an amateur, mostly used to Yamaha products.
Haven't got to play with patch editting- doesn't look teribly friendly though.
Manual looks OK- understandable.
Presets- quite dissapointing for a keyboard bought new from the store in 2003. Nore on that later.

As for manu others (from what I read on the net) the sotware downloaded from thei site does not work for me. Still have not managed to get it send files from my desktop to the darned thing.
Has sequencer and I would be happy with 6 tracks but I was very dissapointed to find out there is no rhytm programming option.

As mentioned before- my at least 10 yo PS 51 yamaha keyboard has sounds almost as good as this one. Expected more of it, thinking that sampling has gone a long way in the last 10 years. Not very impressed though. Could it be because I'm used to sound fonts? I get much better sounds from my home computer on my Sound-Blaster live! card. True- sometimes you need around 50 MB for a good sound font GM bank, but is it only a limited memory problem?Outdated styles- very dissapointed with that - I understand that such an instrument should provide a variety o styles to meet everyone needs, but I do believe waltz, tango and bossanova should not replace contemporary styles practically (well- almost) unavailable. Together with not being able to program any rhytms and not being able to use the software, well. even my Yamaha PS-51 (mentioned that before, I know) had rhytm programming capability.

Yes.

Casio has an on-line forum for the ctk keyboars NO-ONE (Casio people) ever reads or answer. Bad.

Wouldn't buy it again. I hate the sounds and the styles.I chose it because it was supposed to be the best in its' price line. (bought in Israel, therefore the high price).

Very easy and intuitive, although I do not go into it to "tweak" the sounds. Tweaking is not that easy in my opinion.

From the previous model, the CTK-601/611/651, Casio went up from 24 notes to 32 notes on the polyphony, which was nice. Also they now give you two octaves each way to transpose, as opposed to one. Plus they added some very good effects, such as rotary speaker to sound like a Lesley.

From the model CTK-601/611/651 to this one, they changed the basic sound engine. Sounds are very good all around, although some of them were better on the olded model. Still, for the most part the CTK-671 is much improved over the predecessor, which was pretty good to begin with. I would keep this unit for the organ sounds alone, because it's difficult to simulate a good Hammond organ. I have showed it to a semi-pro musician who has played many expensive keyboards for probably 30 years, and he was pretty impressed with some of the sounds.

I gig with it all the time. Very dependable. Also very lightweight.

Never had an issue.

I like it so much I bought a spare. It is hard to believe that for so few bucks you can have a keyboard that sounds so professional. In my opinion, the competition between Casio and Yamaha is so fierce that we consumers have really been given some nice products in the past few years.

This review is from a piano teacher who does occasional performing. I love this keyboard and highly recommend it to piano students, and semi-professionals. Parents can buy a quality instrument at the low price level. Beginners can use this keyboard easily, and advanced users have most of the bells and whistles they dream about. You can grow, learn, explore and express yourself with this keyboard for years. Its a musical playground I would describe as a 'sound pallette'. The almost limitless preset tones are professional quality, warm, realistic and varied.

Ease of use for a non-professional user is a 9, the same all low cost Casio keyboards. Pick your tone, your rhythm, split the keyboard and pick an accompaniment if you want, and off you go.

A person who has had little experience with professional midi equipment may find that use of the diverse advanced features, which include reverb, chorus, equalizer, DSP, 16 channel mixer, 6 track ( single channel )recorder, synth, 4 bank registration memory, to be confusing at first, and not adequately explained by the manual. It took me a couple of days to figure out that the reverb and chorus and equalizer settings do not change when you change tones. However, the mixer settings, which determine the volume and amount of reverb and chorus applied to the selcted tone are changed when you change tones. Store you keyboard setups in registration memory ( a patch ).

The recorder is single track, therefore you can't record a performance of yours which uses a split and/or layered setup. One tone, one track. You can, however, record multiple tracks by recording them one at a time, while listening to the others ( just like in a recording studio ).

Keyboard action is acceptable. More importantly, the touch sensitivity at level 3 combined with the excellent piano sampling, results in an awesomely adequate piano simulation. I routinely review my Mozart sonata quite satisfactorily on this little keyboard. A great bonus comes from layering the many varieties of piano presets from which you can create your own warm and rich performance tones.

Setting effects is a little cumbersome, mainly because there is so much to chose from. But you can play the keyboard while you adjust settings, so you hear what your fiddling is accomplishing.

Batteries ( 6 D cells ) last a long time, if you play at low volume. Don't ever let your batteries run out, or you'll lose all your settings.

The audio system produces magnigicent sound and pretty high volume with little distortion.

I do a little of everything with this baby. Ellington, Beach Boys, show tunes, classical. Saxes and brass are realistic and varied. Built in orchestral introductions, endings and accompaniments are good enough to gig with. Drums sounds are terrific.

Tailor you effects to anything you like. This keyboard can take on your own personal character. The equalizer really affects the quality of the sound, so enjoy it.

Touch sensitivity at level 3 is as great as a real piano. I love it!

No compromises when it comes to sound production! ( If I spent $1000 I'd expect more. )

I've had other Casio keyboards and this is built better than the others. I expect no problems. I will gig with it.

Casio, who ?

There is an internet site devoted to downloading new sounds, settings, songs, and accompaniments, however.

I cannot live without this keyboard, now that I have one. I've played piano for 12 years, have a master degree, been a professional drummer and keyboard player. It expands my musical capabillities enormously, and is easy to use, now that I'm used to it.

This is an update to my previous review, now that I've had the board for a long time.

The presets sound overall good with a few exceptions.
Editing patches requires a lot of button pressing but it's quite self-explanatory and easy.

The manual is OK.

Polyphony is 32 keys with the DSP off, 16 with it on, which should be considered fully adequate. Synthy plastic fairly noisy keys that are adequate but not more. It has 100 built-in DSP FX, they are easy to use and programmable. No hardware expansion though. General MIDI and 16 ch multitimbral is good. It has a basic 6-track sequencer that is fully OK and it has a step mode too.

OK, here's where things start to lack a bit. At first, I was very impressed with the sounds, but I have figured out a lot of the sounds are weirdly looped when sustained. For example, the grand piano sounds sound impressive - as long as you don't hold keys for too long. The same goes out for many sounds. Note: IT EVEN SOUNDS LIKE THE SQR AND SAW WAVE PATCHES ARE SAMPLED AND LOOPED! Weird. Why? Despite this the sound quality has great and crisp fidelity. And, the instruments that has no sustain do not react this way of course. For example, the electromechanical instruments are excellent: Organs (Farfisa/Hammond), Rhodes EP, CP-80 etc.. This thing has a virtual Leslie speaker too, which is extremely nice.
What makes this keyboard very expressive, is the sound production engine: it's more like a synth than an ordinary cheap keyboard. Hit harder = the timbre will sound more distinct. You can even adjust settings such as oscillation according to key pressure, resonance and much more. Likewise, it reacts nice to all kinds of velocity but it has no aftertouch feature (physical such, tho it reacts by MIDI).

The built-in effects are really good. All you need and programmable such. I only wish you could plug a mic/external source into this FX module and you would have the best and cheapest effects box on the market.

Yeah, hell, this is a CASIO. I fear those cheap keys will say good-bye some day... time will show, but I guess this is just my paranoia. Otherwise CASIO products use to be reliable, even if this thing is made of almost only plastic.

You don't deal with CASIO. You TRY to deal with them. And it's basically hopeless. I have, since December 2001, tried to contact them in ALL WAYS regarding an update to the PC software to this keyboard: at least five times via E-mail... tried the telephone, several times... THEY ARE SIMPLY NOT REACHABLE AND DON'T GIVE A *!@# about their customers. Such a nonexistent customer support can only be given one grade, which is the lowest one.

I would buy it again. It makes a great cheap keyboard, even if it isn't perfect, but I would like to have a pitchbendwheel. I guess the features and sound quality is more than OK for what I paid. Love the electromech instruments and the DSP. Many other instruments can be spooky due to the looping, though. Well, it helps me out. For the price it gets a fairly good grade. But that customer support really is rock bottom, and finally, all keyboards this cheap look awful compared to all those professional synthesizers. They almost make you puke more or less...

Pretty nice, common sense control layouts for what I do during gigs (changing patches, touch sensitivity, and transposing.) Other than that, I couldn't say, since I haven't asked anything more of it. Manual is not as bad as others say, maybe because I've seen worse and have low expectations.

Effects are kind of cool, but again, I'm a meat-n-potatoes guy who gigs in a 5-piece band, but we don't record, so I don't use the fancier features much. Keys are mushy-springy, even for a cheap synth - - You get used to it eventually, but at first it's a serious "yuk." I liked the music stand,though. Easy to put on, strong enough to hold a book. Touch sensitivity is very nice, too, in the way it changes the piano sound (but read on) Also I have hit the unfortunately prominent cheesy drum track button a couple of times on accident which is pretty damn embarrassing during a gig. I finally had to tape a bottle cap over it. Arrgghh.

If I were a paranoid person I would smell a conspiracy here, as in somebody's trying to stack the deck. It seems everybody and their brother is dumping these on eBay and everywhere else at bargain prices. Maybe trying to spur some demand with inflated reviews of sound quality? Hmmm. . . Anyway, when I read here how great the piano patches were I said, "Cool! Sounds like a no-brainer for 200 bucks." Well, I'm here to tell you, I'm on my fifth synth in the last 12 years, and the pianos ain't great on this Casio. Yes, they sound fine through the on-board speakers (remarkably nice for the money), but through a real PA they don't cut it, DSP effects or no. Ten years ago they might have raised many eyebrows, but now they don't. I'm in a blues-rock cover band, which means piano, Rhodesy stuff, Hammondy stuff, and a few horn fills. The piano on the CTK-671 is grainy and mushy all at the same time - - not a tone I want to perform with, and would never fool anybody into thinking they're hearing an acoustic piano. So I'm back to using my Roland XP-10 (which lots of people trash here) for all my piano work. To be fair, I really do like the organ patches (which I send through a Leslie 145 at full-throttle), and the fact that the CTK-671 gives me twice as many of them as my Roland does. (BTW, I own a Hammond A-100 and have a pretty good idea about what an organ patch should sound like.) Also, the electric pianos blow the XP-10 away, as do the Breathy sax sounds (you get an Alto as well as a tenor) and a couple of synths (loved the Fantasy). So I use each keyboard at different times during performances, which works for me. And for the money, I'm satisfied with what I got. But let's not go overboard, folks. It's not a performance-grade piano tone.

First time gigging with a Casio, which is, ahem, a little humbling - - (I wish they'd put the logo in letters about a quarter-inch high.) So far, so good. I did have to put velcro fasteners on the bottom which is very smooth and wanted to slide right off my stand.

Haven't tried it yet.

Mostly I give this high marks for cost-to-value. It has some valuable sounds in a friendly lay-out and enough tweakable gadgetry to give you lots of creativity, but it's NOT gonna replace your $1,500 Korg or Alesis or Roland that you bought in the last 5 years. But hey, at $175 you shouldn't expect world-class, and you at least have a decent organ and a 61 key MIDI controller with some other fun pre-sets. If somebody stole it I wouldn't go seeking a new one, though maybe a used piece at even cheaper. But this is not the breakthrough piece you've been hoping you could finally afford. Sorry to burst the bubble, but I gotta calls 'em like I see 'em.

I don't know of any s/w version, or if it's even updateable. Manual tells nothing such. Presets sound truly excellent - this is a keyboard you can use right out of the box without fiddling to make usable sounds.
Manual sucks in a way (I guess the Japanese explain in another way compared to europeans) but at least you can understand it.
But you don't really need to read the manual! This keyboard is very feature-packed - still, it's easy to use.

Easy to use, but, manual is not good. Let's go for a 7.

You must be extreme if 32 notes is not enough for you. Keys aren't the best but fully usable. They make a fair deal of noise - but are good enough to use in a live/gig situation.

This keyboard has LOADS of great effects - all you can imagine; ring mod, rotary speaker, phaser, delays, lofi... 128 DSP effects in total. They are all programmable with a few parameters each. My favorite so far is the rotary speaker simulation which sounds kinda impressive.

No expansion except for that you can upload new sounds/rythms to it via the midi cabel.

Midi - applies key pressure, sends ALL changes in FX; cutoff, resonance filters, DSP. Midi implementation document is 60 pages long, so there should be enough possibilities indeed :D

It has a basic 6-track sequencer which is OK to start with if you are a good key player.

The price/performance ratio is extreme. Definitely a 10.

It has built-in speakers which sound quite good.
What should be mentioned is that this keyboard emits a very, very slight digital noise in the background when you play tones. It is not irritating in any way; but if you listen carefully you can hear it.

The piano is really impressive, to get a good piano tone listen to 001 Gr.Pno_W with some slight room reverb. Pretty close to a good digital piano, eh?
Most other instruments are decent as well, except for the guitars (suck on all keyboards).

Quality of onboard FX can be described in five letters: R U L E S.

Reacts to my playing of course - it is key velocity based and not channel velocity based. Aftertouch - what is that?

Very hi-fi, but due to this extremely slight b/g noise I cannot give it full score. Still, it's very impressive.

Casio products ARE reliable - never needed support. I would use this on a gig. Made of plastic though :(

Never dealt with em'.

If it were lost or stolen, I would definitely get a new one. This keyboard has really redefined the budget segment of keyboards. I am a two-handed player but likes it the best to play with one hand so that you can fiddle with the controls while playing.

Love the sound quality and versatility of the CTK671. Hate that it has no pitchbend wheel. It helps me make music. Has all the features you need except for a pitchbend wheel. Maybe some portamento would be cool too?

Helps me make music. Had no problems with it so far. With a price tag of $200 it blows all other keyboards at that price away. Your friends WILL laugh when they see the casio label. But once you turn it on and start playing, you will quickly see them being turned into CASIO fans. Even those who have expensive gear may want to get this one as a cheap performance/live keyboard.

Conclusion: The CTK671 is a keyboard you want to get. If you pay a price consisting of four digits you CAN get better stuff - but the price makes it extremely attractive.

Love mine and will be getting an extra soon.

The CTK-671 is a very easy to use keyboard. It is simply logical! However, just as the person below points out, why so low weight required to start the rythms?

Editing patches is fairly easy. Manual does its job.

32 notes for standard tones; tones where the synthesizer & DSP is acting simultaneously is counted as 2 standard tones, so you can only play 16 such at the same time. But this polyphony should satisfy most users. Keys feel a bit cheap, but what do you expect for $200...

Now for something great:

The 671 has features found first in $1000 ROLAND/Korg synthesizers. A dedicated DSP with 127 effects, all warm, rich, PROGRAMMABLE with a lot of parameters... and top quality. 15 Reverbs and choruses as well. They are all as good as the DSP effects; warm, rich and top quality.

And it has a 16 parameter syhthesizer as well! Vibrato, cutoff freq, attack, resonance, release... all you need for gigs and music making...

No expansion capabilities except for the midi data link. It sends all you need via midi out. And has a 16ch mixer/multitimbral. There is an equalizer as well... a kind of cheap arpeggiator and loads more...

There is an onboard sequencer, but I doubt anyone to seriously record their music on six tracks.

Again - remember the price - $200. I cannot do anything else than giving it a 10 here.

Overall, the instruments sound very good. But this keyboard's most stunning indeed must be the pianos... Take Tone Adv 00 StereoPiano... Just LISTEN... Add some Room 1 reverb and it competes with professional digital pianos (except for that you cannot really play piano on synth-action keyboards).

Synths sound fine, flutes etc are good too. Guitars are nothing but crap, as on most keyboards. learn to play guitar if you want to play guitar! Drumkits are nothing special but they aren't bad... Although the synth drums are very cool...

It works well for most kinds of music. It reacts pretty well to my playing. But as noted before the keys are a bit cheap. But they work - and the keyboard measures tone velocity well. Again - remember the price, $200! And all brilliant sound quality!

I hope that this keyboard will be as reliable as my CASIO SK-10, that I recieved as a gift at 4 years of age... I cannot count the number of times I have dropped this on the floor. But, as I have never mishandled this keyboard (ok, I dropped it from 1ft height in a gigbag once..) But I cannot say anything about it yet. Even if it is made of plastic (and a little metal in the base) it feels pretty reliable.

Never dealt. But it's crappy the internet data expansion system won't work with W2K/XP yet.

If this was lost or stolen... I would become DEPRESSED for the fifteen minutes it would take to drive to the music store and grab a new one immediately. I now own three; one in my studio, one at home, and I keep one in the trunk of the car (loaded with batteries) if I would need it.

DO NOT FOOL YOURSELF that this is a kiddie keyboard when you see the CASIO label + built-in accompaniment patterns and rythms. Instead, think of what FEATURES it really has. The builtin speakers can be fun for on the road practicing. And the jack seems to autosense if you have connected it to a mono or stereo amp! But I H-A-T-E that it has no PITCH WHEEL! I wish there was a $300 deluxe version with a pitchwheel and a jog wheel!

Otherwise, this is the BEST you can get. A BARGAIN! Grab it today! If you are a hobby musician, it REALLY appeals to you, if you are a professional, well, you might want to spend the money on a $1000 Roland with some even more features and a pitchwheel.