Casio CTK-691

Really easy to use. Same as all CTK keyboards.
The backlit LCD screen gives you good information, and the manual is correct.
The presets are great for the price.

32 notes. Good polyphony. A lot of tones (around 700), 145 styles, over 200 effects like chorus, reverb, DSP. Just great!!!

The action is good (like synthesizer), the sequencer is only for joke, never use to make a real sequence.

The great thing is the possibility to create new sounds on this keyboard (like a real synth!!!). You have 230 user tones for that.

The best features in a portable keyboard in this price i ever seen.

SO-SO.

For the price this CTK-691 have a good sound quality. But compared with Yamaha's PSR 293/295 (same price), the quality is bad.

Seriously Anonymous (last review), I compared this keyboard with a PSR-295 around 2 hours. The piano's on this keyboards sounds bad. The strings are so-so. Flutes are good. Organs, leads and some woodwinds are good too. But for I, is insuficient

You talk about WK's (same ZPI source). OK, read: The pianos on the WK-3500 are bad too. I Choose a DGX-305 (with features the LIVE! Grand Piano) and the WK is destroyed by the DGX.

Seba's keys: you are right!!! The great thing of CTK-691 is the chance of create your own sounds and your features (really incredible!!!!), but the sound quality is only decent.

Never compare with Yamaha.

I trust in Casio. Like the calculators are great, i guess the portables are great too!!!

No opinions.

This is a GREAT keyboard!!!!

Have a great and lot features, Very good design and various synth functions. The sound quality is good and is easy to use....very easy.

But i say it again: In this price range, the Psr-295 sounds much better than this CTK-691.

Bye Bye.

In reponse to the reviewers that have trashed the sound quality of this board.

What planet are you on? The CTK-691 has EXACTLY the same sound generator as the WK-3000 and WK-3500, which both get great reviews for sound on this site. Read the others for a more balanced opinion.

Maybe the sound from the speakers is not up to par. So what. I normally use headphones, put it through a decent stereo system, or amp it up with a PA and it sounds good, and is nearly noise free. What do you expect from 1 way, bass-reflex, 3W per channel speakers? You're not going to get great fidelity or rock da house with these puppies. Don't judge the sound by the speakers.

It's really easy to use!!! The presets are great, the "piano button" it's a good feature to people who wants play only piano.
Manual is correct.
All CTK's keyboards are easy to use. Very Good!!!

Awesome!!!! Incredible!!!!
Read this:

790 tones (compared to the 487 of new Yamaha PSR-295), includes 224 user tones, 16 drums kits....etc)
232 digital effects like chorus, reverb, DSP.....Fantastic!!!
Split and layer functions, advanced tones, etc.
140 rythms, and 156 one touch presets, auto harmony....
32 note polyphony. (good number for the price)
Sequencer works good (6 tracks), but NO professional.

A lot of nice features...really incredible; compared with Yamaha PSR's and Roland EM's !!!!

This is the weak point.

ZPI...the new technology ??....OK. Pianos are bad....a lot of junk compared with Yamaha's or Roland pianos.
This keyboard are great for the number of tones...NOT for his quality.

The sound quality is good! but compared with Yamaha PSR-295 or Roland EM's....it's very ugly...really bad.
The strings are poor....the guitars sucks. Only some leads or pads...(maybe flutes) are good. The organs have a good quality too.

But Remember: PSR-295 sounds a million timer better than this casio.

You choose: Sound quantity or sound quality

It's plastic.....but CASIO. It's a good brand and trust him.

Never need the support

OK...this is my review.

I have a Yamaha PSR-295, this Casio CTK 691, a Yamaha PSR 1500, Korg X5D and Roland Xp-10.

I compared this CTK-691 with my PSR-295(both with same price).

The answer is simple: If you want features and the posibility of make your own sounds (like synthesizer), choose the Casio.
If you want sound quality, the best portable piano, the best strings, sax's, leads, organs....choose Yamaha.

The CTK-691 have a lot features than the PSR-295. (including create sounds)
But the PSR-295 sounds a thousand times better than CTK-691. (no comparisson)

YOU CHOOSE!!!!! GOOD BYE!!!!

Very easy to use, especially since most of the keyboard settings are maintained each time you power up (no battery needed - all Flash ROM!). I've had it for a couple of months now, and am still finding out new things.

The menus are far, far better set up and easier to use than any comparable Yamaha keyboard, even though the Casio has many, many more functions and parameters. Many parameters that are buried deep in a function menu (like split/layer voices and settings) in Yamaha boards are easily accesible from the front panel on the Casio.

32 note polyphony, drops to 16 or 10 for some tones, but still more than enough for most music. The keyboard action is typical for a home keyboard, however with touch sensitivity on 3, the feel is vaguely piano like, and allows fast runs to be played softly without getting uncontrollably loud notes.

The DSP effects are outstanding. There are 100 DSP effects, roughly 10 times as many as the Yamahas, and each effect has up to 7 parameters, compared to the typical Yamaha set of on/off/depth. For example, the rotary speaker simulation lets you control stop/slow/fast, slow and fast speed, and up and down acceleration rate. You can also (with a bit of mucking about), change speed as you play (the WK-3000 and WK-3500 are better set up for this for live performance).

Chorus, reverb, and equalizer effects are also richly supported.

Expansion is done by loading new sounds, rhythms etc via MIDI. With the Casio website software you can create your own styles from MIDI files, and create your own tones from WAV file data. This is a great way to get new sounds and patterns into the unit. The onboard synth function lets you edit the normal suit of synth parameters to further tweak sounds. I don't believe any board anywhere near this price range has similar capabilities.

The sequencer is 6 track (including chord / auto-accompaniment) so can handle quite dense sequences.

With 516 sounds (plus user adjusted or loaded) you get a lot of variety, with many more choices and variations than the typical GM set. Piano sounds are good, as are EPs. The Drawbar organ simulator (50 defaults, 100 user variations) is very good, although to get best results amplified (especially with piezo tweeters), the equalizer and maybe resonance needs to be tweaked down to tone down the high drawbars. There is a good selection of rock/pop/jazz organs, some of them with touch sensitivity, which is useful sometimes. There are some good pad sounds, with some nice pads beyond the typical GM set.

It amplifies very well, as it has a very low noise level, even at its' highest volume setting.

The full-fingered chord mode allows you to play notes , which also trigger the chords. So you can both play, for example, pad or string sounds with the left hand, which also control the chords. This gives you either another chord voice, or lets you actively play with two hands during auto-accompaniment, rather than the usual RH play, LH chord control only mode.

Don't know how well it will last. It is extremely lightweight (5.6kg) so if dropped will not hit very hard, and chances are only the outer case would break. For $US200 I don't really care - chances are I will buy a high-end board before this thing breaks.

The Casio website is good, with a lot of software to interconnect with the board. Also has a variety of tone and rhythm data to download.

For the money, this is the best keyboard out there. It has the same ZPI sound source as the MZ-2000 and Privia series, and is internally identical to the WK-3000/3500. You get the sound of a $400+ board for $200.

In my opinion, out of the box it sounds as good or better than the PSR-292 (its' closest competitor by price), but is easier to use, and has far more features and effects to enhance the sound and performance capabilities. With the ability to download new WAV data and create and edit your tones, it also has real synth capability. To get a comparable board in the Yamaha range, you need to pay a LOT more.

The Casio factory pedal sucks. Get an aftermarket one.

Well I just bought it not too long ago. It seems fairly easy to use. The manual does a good job of explaining what the instrument can, and cannot do.

Only 32 voice; seems enough for me. The new ZPI technology does make the sounds shine a little. Of couse the many effects that's on board really makes the sounds come through. Speaking of effects; there are many effects on board. No other keyboard in this price range has this many effects. Alot of styles and sounds on board. There is 6 track sequencer, which seems easy to use. The sequencer won't save your work after you're done, so down load your songs to a computer.

As stated before there are alot of sounds on this keyboard. Alot of pianos and organs. Not much variation between the pianos I find. But the good thing about this is the same sounds are also in the user area. Sound if a particular piano sound or whatever isn't doing it for me I'll go to the user area and tweak alittle. A synth function goes aliitle deeper into the sounds. One review I read somewhere stated that they concentrated on the pianos and organs, but hey, isn't that what most people want. Well anyway the rest of the sounds are ok. Oh and by the way the organs are fantastic! Too bad I can't modulate the sound in anyway; no real time controllers, but I knew that before I bought it, so no gripes there.

Well I just bought it so time will tell. It is made of plastic so I'll be very careful in handling it.

On the Casio website there are manuals for their keyboards to download. I haven't dealt with customer service directly.

If lost or stolen I might get its big brother, the wk3000, or the wk3500. Got to shell out some more money though to buy these keyboards. But if I didn't have that much money I'll buy another ctk691. I compared it to the yamaha psr292 and the only feature that the 292 has is the education suite feature, which could be very useful. The piano sounds on the psr292 isn't really that good. The organ sounds isn't that good either. So I think I made a good choice in buying the ctk691. No regrets at all.