Casio WK-3000

I found it somewhat easy to use. It has so many features that it going to take a while to learn everything. But out the box, you can start playing the piano and organ with just pushing one button. The manual is OK and you will read it a lot if you want to use all the features.

The keyboards seems light weight compared to my Nord Electro but still it works fine. There are a LOT of features for the price. The effects work very well and everything can be tweaked.

I am an organ player. The organ is very very good. I own a Hammond and a Nord and this "cheapie" compares to the high end stuff. In fact I will probably be selling off my expensive keys because as I play the Caiso more, I realize how good it sounds. I have used it to record and everyone thinks it is a B3 with a good Leslie. If Casio made just a sound module of this machine they would sell the heck out of it. I bet some where some one did just that - take off the cheap keyboard and put in a Nord (Fatar) keyboard.
Also the pianos (rhodes, wirly, acoustic) are fine, the sax, the drums are all use able. I also like the rhythms and use it to write songs.

Never breaks

Never had to use them.

I have been playing for 40 years. I have owned a lot of gear - Hammonds, Nords, Yamahas, etc. I would replace it - if it were stolen.
I am curious to see what Casio will replace this model with. I can not imagine how they can improve the organ. Maybe a Bose or Mackie speaker system would be fun to have have on board. Also a foot switch for the Lesie would be nice.

I just bought the WK 3200. Haven't even looked at the manual yet. It's pretty well laid out and easy to get around the tones/sounds.

Keys are cheapo to the max. Spacing of keys are not uniform, some pretty big gaps, but this is expected on such a cheap board. Haven't used the sequencer yet.

This is were I somewhat differ with most and agree with a few. There are tons of sounds, most I'll rarely if ever use. I'm not in to syth sounds and will likely not be creating my own pathes, but the stock syth sounds sound like most more expensive syths I've played.

Ok, lets get into where I differ ...

Pianos: Range from "fair" to "a little better than fair" to "good considering the price". The Stereo Grand is IMO not that good sounding. Even with the DSP off you get a metalic ringing in the upper range that just sounds unatural. There are other paino patches I think are more realistic such as the Mellow grand, the non-stereo grand and a couple others. None of these patshes blow me away like they do others. To be fair, I've had more expensive boards that didn't impress me either.

Electric Painos: Some pretty decent E-Pianos that rival more expensive boards.

Strings: For the most part a little below average even for this price range. I used to have a very old very cheap Yamaha PSR (like $150 bucks, forget the model) thing and if memory serves me right the strings sounded at least as good if not better and even those didn't sound that good. I'm pretty disappointed in the strings.

Drums: "OK" sounding, but typical. Not much if any better than the old cheapo PSR.

Organs: Good to very Good. Just about all of them are useable and some really do sound quite impressive.

Bass: So-so overall. Again, "typical" comes to mind. Some of the fretless and acoustic patches seem to be the better ones.

Guitars: I hate all guitar keyboard sounds. There is one Electric/waw sound patch that is pretty cool, but I'd never use any guitar patch on a keyboard for anything other then screwing around for two minutes.

Brass& Reed: I find these range from substandard to decent.

Syth: Good for what they are.

Would I buy it again? Well, only had it a few days so I need time to use it more. I will say for $230 shipped you are not going to find anything in that price range that is better. It is probably on par with the Roland EX-3 I owned. That board is only 61 keys and the sounds are overall not really any better and you get a whole lot less of them. The strings and the brass on the EXR were better, the paino and most of the other sounds were no worse but not better, IMO. The EXR cost $500 and you get a lot more for the money with the Casio WK. I also owned a higher end Roland syth for a while. I forget the model but it did not impress me. I was not blown away with the Casio, but for the price you get 76 keys, a zillion sounds (some very useable and even good), a sequencer and programable syth. It's worth the price, make no mistake. I'm a songwriter and mostly write on guitar. I'm looking forward to using the Casio in the mix as I do my own demos at home, I suspect it will do fairly well to round out and fill up my recordings. Once again, for the price you can't lose. I think whenever you put 700 + patches into a board you are bound to have some stinkers, but take your time and weed through the forrest of sounds and you'll find that the good sounds and options on this board probably couldn't be had in this price range anywhere else.

Very easy to use. No need really to look at the manual.

I bought this keyboard for the organs alone and Casio really did a great job with this. The leslie simulator makes it worth so much more than 300 bucks. Add a little distortion to the electric pianos and youve got an excellent rhodes tone. Acoustic pianos are fine, but nothing special in my opinion. Synth tones kinda suck, but I would never use them anyway. I like how they put all those different DSP effects which you can manipulate to create your own effects.

I'm a funk, blues, rock musician and this keyboard fits in well with my taste and style. The only thing I don't like are the keys, because plastic synth keys like these are not ideal for playing organ, but then again, waterfall keys wouldnt work well with every other sound!

I use it on gigs without fear of anything happening to it. It's light weight, but pretty sturdy.

Never needed it

If I lost it I would probably buy another, unless I had the money to buy a Nord Electro. The organs alone make it worth buying; so much better than the yamahas of the same price range. Excellent value.

Bought this board to play hammond organ sounds. In that catagory I give it a 10. Setup and usage is pretty standard for this type of keyboard. I have pretty much ignored the manual except for specific functions that I was personally interested in. Preset organs, and Tenor sax are excellent. Pianos and synth sounds are in my opinion kinda so so ... Actually the piano is GREAT on this board for what I paid for it (200 USD..used). As I said earlier I bought this for the drawbar organ which is VERY VERY GOOD and worth triple the price. I sat thsi on top of my hammond and A-B'd it with my eyes closed until I dialed in an almost EXACT replica of my organ using the drawbar organ feature. Very cool !

Polophony is 32 note. I have see a lot of ^%$#@ing about this but have not noticed any problem for my own use. I'm playing this thing as a substutite for hauling around my hammond and in that role it is working just fine. The DSP effect manipulation could be a little more intutive but once you get used to using it as descripbed in the manual it works pretty good. The board accepts a data card for storing additional patches and sequences. I haven't tried many of the midi functions yet so I can't comment on those yet

Hammond sounds are AWESOME. The rotary simulator works pretty darn good and has a nice ramp up / ramp down effect that very closely mimics a real leslie. For a REAL treat plug it into a REAL leslie (I have a 145) turn off the DSP and hold on to your hat, closest thing to a B3 I ever heard (for less than $400 bucks no less !!)and a lot easier to haul around. on board slow rotary effect sounds a little phase shiftery in mono ... much better in stereo. fast leslie sound is awesome, almost indistunguishable(sp)from the real thing(trust me I have one, I know). The velocity sensing keys to me seem a little stiff (you have to play hard like a real piano player). This may just be a personnal thing for me cause I'm an organ player and not used to velocity sensing keys anyway. I was messing with the velocity and after touch for the sax tones and they were very cool and quite realistic with the right technic.

Seems pretty well made. I built a foam lined road case for it and intend to gig with it. I have drug it from practice and it seems to hold up just fine. I would have no qualms about gigging with it. These guys on here who say they can't gig with a plastic keyboard, I don't know what they are doing with their boards (jumping on them ??? Dropping them down stairs???) I had a old Yamaha PSR-400 that I used to use for LH bass that I dragged allover the country in a cardboard box and it always worked like a charm (still does). I would expect that the casio would hold up just as well (time will tell)

Never used it ...probably never will !

Casio does havea pretty good web site where you can download manuals and software to edit the samples on the wk series keyboards. I do intend to try out there software as they have a very cool drawbar organ edit interface.

Would I buy it again ...In a heartbeat ! I have been playing keys( on and off) for over 20 years and used to own a music store in the 80's so I have played a lot of pro gear. This keyboard is far and away better than the Prophet 8's and Akai samplers that I sold for thousands of dollars each back then. My one complaint is the keyboard itself, I find the black keys to be a little 'skinny' for my fingers, something people with smaller hands might not notice. Makes great Hammond tones which is what I bought it for. Any other sounds and features on it are just gravy IMHO. Well worth the price even at full retail.

I'd better explain. I'm a bluesman. I don't play classical, Latin or easy listening for Karaoke parties. OK, so I play a bit of rock, jazz, soul and reggae too... I wanted a keyboard with good piano, electric piano and organ sounds. So this review is from a basic, no-frills viewpoint. If I had the money I would probably buy a Clavia Nord Electro 73, but this Casio gets pretty close for a fraction of the cost.

Before buying this keyboard I downloaded the PDF version of the manual and familiarised myself with it, as well as trying the instrument out in music shops. The manual is relatively clearly written, but inevitably leaves a few important questions unanswered - I have been able to get answers via the Internet, by joining a WK forum and asking other users!

The main presets rely heavily on reverb - not only do the "advanced" presets all use the onboard Digital Sound Processor - DSP - but the keyboard also has global reverb and chorus which can be turned down. There is also a set of basic presets (which have the DSP switched off by default but can use it at the press of a button), and these make a good starting point for your own "user" sounds.

The "virtual drawbars" are nice to have, but a little difficult to visually associate with their respective footages - the buttons don't line up with the bars on the LCD but are linked by "dog-leg" lines that are a bit confusing. Unlike a real Hammond (and most copies) there are only 3 drawbar levels per footage rather than 8, but that still gives you plenty of different sounds.

The onboard sound editor is basic (attack and release controls but no decay; vibrato of various forms and a simple but effective low-pass filter) but can drastically change your sound and is quite easy to use.

The WK-3000 is 32-note polyphonic, dropping to 16 for some sounds and 10 for certain Drawbar Organ sounds. I'm not too fussy, since I'm not going to be doing much layering, multi-tracking or playing great long hand-over-hand Romantic-style arpeggios.

The keyboard feels just fine - obviously not weighted, but solid enough to really be able to dig into the electric piano sounds while being fast enough for funky organ work. It is velocity-sensitive with 3 global settings, but each sound additionally has its own response (e.g. organs and harpsichords quite correctly do not respond to touch).

There is a pitch-bend wheel with a nice smooth action and assignable range up to +/- 1 octave. Above this is a button and an LED. The button has two modes depending on the sound you are using. It can either be a momentary vibrato switch (fine for string or wind instruments) or it can be a latching switch assigned to any DSP parameter. The latter mode is ESSENTIAL for the Drawbar Organ sounds, as it allows the Rotary effect to speed up or slow down at the tap of a button. It can also be used to turn effects such as tremolo on or off for electric piano sounds. Incidentally, the latching mode is not applied to incoming MIDI commands. You CANNOT use the mod wheel on an external keyboard to change the Rotary speed. Shame...

There is a socket for a footswitch which by default is a sustain pedal but which can be assigned to "soft pedal", sostenuto (the middle pedal that some expensive grand pianos have but that nobody uses because most people don't own those pianos...) or rhythm start/stop. There is also a headphone socket on the front below the bass end of the keyboard which doubles as a stereo line-out. It would have been nice to have a socket for a volume pedal, especially bearing in mind the drawbar organ feature. I just use a guitar volume pedal between the keyboard and my amplifier.

The keyboard can be connected to a PC via a pair of MIDI leads and a MIDI interface (not supplied) and Casio has provided a suite of sound-editing software allowing an owner to produce his or her own sounds from existing .WAV files. I haven't tried this yet, and neither have I tried the Flash Media slot which accepts a standard 3.3v card to allow sounds, rhythms, MIDI files etc to be written to the very small amount of user RAM (about 1.4MB) on board the keyboard.

The DSP has some useful features, particularly the Rotary and Overdrive/Rotary patches, essential for Hammond organ sounds. There are also phasers, flangers, various types of distortion, auto-wah and Lo-Fi, with which you can add tape hiss and colouration for a convincing Mellotron effect...

There are also global settings for Chorus, Reverb and EQ, which are separate from the DSP.

This keyboard has vast tracts of capabilities which I am never likely to use, including rhythms, song styles, auto-accompaniment, auto-harmony, a six-track real-and-step-time sequencer and a transposer. I gather from other sources that these are all top-notch, but if you want more information, better ask someone else!

Well, this is the crunch.

Acoustic pianos - 9/10
As good as, possibly better than my old Alesis NanoPiano module. And you can turn the reverb off!

Electric pianos - 9/10
While the Rhodes sound is pretty impressive, the Wurlitzer sound, "60sEPiano" is in my opinion a good enough reason by itself to buy this. It goes from sweet and tinkly a la Carpenters to funky and swampy just by digging in with your fingers. Add some tremolo from the DSP and you're Ian McLagan! The Electric Grand is a bit twangy in the bass, but it's not my bag anyway.

Drawbar Organs - 10/10
This is awesome! You have control over those sine waves, you can add key-click and (correctly single-triggered) percussion, and then you put the whole thing through one of the best Leslie simulators I've heard, with or without a bit of overdrive. You can also turn off the DSP and, using the Synth facilities, produce some quite convincing Vox and Farfisa combo organ sounds.

Others - 9/10
I particularly like the saxes, brass, strings, pipe organs and some of the vocal sounds. I have even edited the flute sound to make a realistic "Strawberry Fields" Mellotron sound! The guitar sounds are pretty good, but I haven't found a use for them...

It seems quite solidly made, although not heavy for its size. With the kind of jams and gigs I play at the moment, I can't see any potential problems apart from (as always) the external power supply. But you get what you pay for.

If it were lost or stolen I would buy another one immediately. In my opinion it is worth twice what I paid (which incidentally was the manufacturer's list price!).

I have been playing for 27 years, and have used Casio keyboards for 25 years - I bought my first one in 1981. At the moment I have a Studiologic SL-880 MIDI keyboard and a Yamaha EMT-10 module. All my other equipment was recently stolen, hence the need to buy this one!

I love the fact that it has all the sounds that I need, plus a long enough keyboard to make the most of them.

I dislike the fact that it doesn't have a volume pedal facility, and that silly matter with the external mod wheel.

This is more than just another Casio home keyboard - it is a true musical instrument, and it makes me play better than ever.

This keyboard surprised me. Especially the ZPI based organ sounds. I wish the modulation button is bigger and more responsive, since I use it all the time to emulate the leslie effect. Works on most organ presets. I only use the organ sounds. Have tried to edit patches, but found that the factory presets are good enough. Manual is actually helpful.

Best features (not in any particular order):
a. Modulation button for leslie organ effects (fast/ slow)
b. Display angle can be adjusted
c. Unit is relatively light-weight.
d. The organ sounds (with DSP on)

The organ sounds are awesome, in my opinion, especially considering the cost of the unit. Works well for the blues/ jazz band that I play in. Coupled with an Ernie Ball stereo volume pedal, I am able to create convincing "swell" sounds. Jazz organ style is easy to play on the 73 keys. Key action is well suited for organ playing. The "drawbars" don't really work.

Have gigged with it for over two years (averaging 8 gigs per month)without any problems. I use it as a top tier keyboard specifically for the organ sounds ONLY. It's also my band practice keyboard.

I actually called Casio technical service at one time. Response was timely and couteous.

At this point, the alternative is Nord Electro 73. Much better unit but cost a lot more (but still light-weight). Haven't decided yet. For the money, this unit has the best organ sounds.

This keyboard is very Easy to use.. its very intuitive!! but the visor is a small..

The polyphony is the minimum possible.. it shold have 64!
the inbulit efect are very nice.. but this keyboard has no real time slide or something like..
the keys are really bad.. they are too noisy and the plastic is bad..
I have never used the sequencer.. good Flash rom capacibility .. more then the PSR-3000 , but the OS is VERY slow!!! take minuts to load a Wave tone.. forget loading wave tones on a gig..

The sounds are amazings... Very nice Piano.. so god as much $1000 digital pianos.. very good EP, but horrible Strings but chamber tone is pretty good.. the Organs are just incredibles.. very good Sax....

this isnt a gig keyboard.. this was built for home ! its a fragile keyboard..

no problems ...

I dont think i will buy it again.. but is a good keyboard.. it have so many features for this price.. and the sound quality is amazing..

I have not used any but the basic features, i.e. I am using it to play piano and organ, not as an effects machine. It is very straightforward for the basic uses, the more involved effects will take some time to learn. The manual is fairly clear, but this machine does so much that learning all of the features will take awhile.

32 note polyphony is offered with its 76 touch sensitive keyboard. There are over 700 voices, primariliy MIDI, and many DSP effects. The onboard sequencer can hold up to 5 complete songs or six tracks and there is smartmedia expension available.

This machine has an incredible variety of features, some I may never even use, but as far as I can tell anything you want is there. An outstanding variety of features for the money.

I think the piano and organ sounds available on this machine are excellent, especially when you consider the price.

You can do all types of music, many instrument and drum sounds, most are very good, particularly the piano and organ. Saxophone and accordion sounds are very good as well, and it has impressive synth functions and sounds.

I like the key action on this, it does not feel like a real piano, what does, but there is some sensitivity to touch and velocity. I bought a pedal which works much better than I thought it would to add sustain. The feel of the pedal is very good, surprisingly similar to a real piano. For a keyboard of this type, the feel of the keys and expressiveness are very good, the sounds are outstanding.

I have no way to judge this since I just bought it. I do not gig so I can't comment there. The machine seems very solid to me. I looked at some others before I bought this one and this was as well constructed as any in this price range.

Never dealt with the company, so can't comment here either. I sent in the warranty card, but I hope I don't have to use it.

This is the best machine of this type in its class. I looked at machines that were significantly more expensive, and did not see anything that I thought was as good, much less better. This is a winner in every way, just a great machine, outstanding value for the money.

Pretty straight forward. My only nit is the dead slow IDES interface. It takes forever to manage SMF files between your computer and the keyboard.

32 note poly is fine. The thing that blew me away was the depth of user control over a myriad of DSP widgets. Amazing for a $300 machine.

Dynamics are OK ... good response to to key velocity. Awesome DSP.

I wouldn't gig with it unless I had a couple backups - but at $300 ... ;-)

Never had to talk to Casio yet ...

Definately would replace unless Casio comes out with something hotter. Was going to get a Yamaha DGX305 or 505 but after checking out the details the Yamahas can't touch the WK3000-WK3500

I found the manual for this keyboard to be better than most. If you read the thing cover to cover about 4 times, things start to fall into place. The only place where I found myself doing things by trial and error was when using this keyboard with an Alesis MMT8 sequencer. I had just about given up when I had a revelation and now it works great. With the sequencer, I'm not limited to 6 tracks when composing but can record to the full 16 MIDI tracks without linking to a PC. This keyboard is a lot easier to use than my Yamaha S08 which is a real synth, not a unit meant for diddling around at home. But anyone with some exposure to MIDI and portable keyboards should be able to master all the features with maybe the exception of Step Recording. Editing and saving patches is a piece of cake.

32 note polyphony which is half my Yamaha's but enough. Effects out the wazoo, I think over 100 and they're good ones. Very easy to program. The onboard flash memory is good for a couple hundred MIDI files and the flash card slot gives you a couple hundred more. Plus you can download drum kits, rhythms, tones, etc. from the Casio website. Also, you can store more than just the 5 songs you can store in onboard song memory to a flash card. Has a 6-track onboard sequencer but can be used with PC or external sequencer to record all 16 tracks. When using the onboard sequencer, it is WAY too easy to nuke your work by accident. I've done it several times already. They need an "Are You Sure?" step or an undo feature in there or something. Keys are okay, a little rickety if you're used to a semi-weighted or fully weighted board like my S08 and Alesis QS7.1. Pretty expressive tho. Hundreds of tones, most of which you'll never use. Pianos aren't bad but can be tweaked into top drawer patches. Yamaha offers some superior electic piano tones, IMO.

It is possible to create a very good piano patch with a little EQ and effects tweaking. The stock Grand patch is a little over the top with effects and it could use some mids. Organs, as has been well established here, are awesome for the money. A lot of the GM patches are predictably cheesy but many are very good. Strings are pretty weak but brass and reeds are good for the most part, some are extremely good. Drums kits are great and plenty of rhythms...toss out your Alesis SR16. Effects are exceptional. For 300 bucks, this thing really is a hell of a value. Speakers sounds pretty good to my ear.

Seems okay but I probably won't gig it. I bought it mainly for MIDI sequencing since my gigging board's stiff action is not that great for doing drums. I might take it out for the B3 patch if the occasion arises. The organs on the WK3000 blow away the ones on my Yamaha. Nice and light, it would probably work out okay for light gigging. It has never crapped out on me or frozen up.

I would buy this keyboard again. It is a fantastic value and I'm very pleased with it. Wish they'd gone ahead with the 1/4" outs in the back for PA use but no big deal. It's not worth the extra 100 bucks to get the WK3500 in my opinion. I'm amazed at what they've managed to pack into this thing for 300 bucks. You can't go wrong.

Reading the manual is really of little help. You really just have to play around with the thing to see how it works. I found the manual very confusing to follow.

The features on this machine are excellent. You have the ability to alter any sound on the machine through the syntesizer by changing the attack, velocity of the note, and reverb settings. There are other abilities also, but it is hard to decipher exactly what they are by reading the manual.

One thing that really annoys me is if you are sustaining one voice and want to switch to another, the first voice simply stops and a couple of seconds later the new voice kicks in under the old sustain. This makes it very difficult to switch from one voice to another smoothly.

This is where I disagree with most people here. Compared to the sounds of my Yamaha PSR500, my Yamaha beats the sounds on this instrument hands down, and its over 10 yearrs old! I find many of the sounds like the piano are very unclear and muddly sounding. I don't care if you take the DSP button off or not, there is not a clarity of sound in the piano. It is very weak sounding and has no depth. The lower register of the keys sounds pretty good, but midrange to high notes lack any clarity or carrying power at all unless you bang on the keys. THe speakers are extremely weak,and this adds to the lack of clarity in the sound. The speaker system really needs to be improved on this system. You cant even hear the piano unless you turn the volume up more than half way. That's ridiculous. My Yamaha produces sound that is four times the max volume of the WK 3000. THe organ sounds on the WK 3000 are incredible. THere is no other word for them. They are rich, full, and are the highlight of the sounds on this instrument. The strings are horrible. I mean horrible. They sound fully synthetic and unconvincing. I tried to alter them with the synthesizer to no avail. They still sound like crap. If you are serious about a string sound, you are not going to like this instrument. Voice sounds are ok at best, and all of the brass sounds are real tinny and very unconvincing. Flute and Saxaphone sounds are pretty good. Awesome drum and mix sounds. Way better than my Yamaha.

The touch sensitivity of this keyboard is severely lacking when compared with a yamaha. As far as I am concerned, the sensitivity of this machine is about a quarter of what I have with my Yamaha. I find it very difficult to get this machine to respond to the sensitivity of my hands at all. I do like the fact that the keys have a weighted feel however.

I won't really own it long enough to tell in the long run. I'll be selling it to purchase another Yamaha. In the short run I can tell you that my left speaker starts making a hissing noise after it has been on for over a half hour. I also bought my unit as a "refurbished" unit, so that means that it must have been returned for repair at some time. The speaker issue really bothered me, especially since the depth of the sound coming from the speaker was minimal anyways. I don't feel that this is a quality machine.

Don't know.

From my point of view, this instrument is for someone who just bangs around on the keys with no expression and wants a whole bunch of different sounds and rhythms when they're playing. If you are a serious player that is looking to express yourself in a more classical or folk style, this instrument is not for you. Stick with a Yamaha. If you simply want to mix music under different rhythmic beats and bang some music out along with the rhythms, this keyboard will work well. The rhythmic underpinnings of this machine are hard to beat and surpass my experiences with the Yamaha.

Used to own a Yamaha PSR-630, and the casio kicks serious butt. It's easy to use once you get your head around the menu system and how it works. Manual is ok yet I've found my way round the board myself most of the time.

Great polyphony, keyboard action is good but keys tend to be a bit noisy, but I'm giggin the keyboard so in a band situation this doesn't not matter. Great inbuilt effects!!! The best I've tried, I amy expand the 3000 so it has an output jack, there are diagrams available to do this but in the mean time the headphone stereo jack with a specially made lead does the trick. Don't use the midi at all. You won't find a better featured keyboard for this price.

The only thing I don't like compared to my yamaha is that the registration memory slots don't sho up as their saved names they only show up as bank 1-1 or bank 2-4 for the stored sounds and there are only 32 slots so I have to load different songs in during the night and write down the numbers. :-(

Sounds are great, wouldn't mind a few better string sounds but if you layer the right ones you can get some great sounds, offers exeptional versatility for covers bands. Would like to have an aftertouch/pressure availability but for the price I can't complain.

Hasn't broken down yet but I've just bought a nice gig case for it to protect it, it doesn't really look like a gigging board but it has all the features and more I need for gigging.

Great support from other users on the casio.co.uk sight. Had a couple of questions on it and they were all answered on this site, haven't had to deal with casio yet. Quite a few downloadable tones, etc etc on websites also.

All round just awesome for the money!! Would definately buy another one if it got stolen!

The sounds are exellent, bought it from a local music store, but having hard time programming. Didn't come with manual.

I don't know much about the features, even though the majority of the keyboard users have had alot of good things to say, I'm going along with them. Does anyone know if I can loop, quantize, etc. on the WK-3000?

Instruments are professional sounding.

I can depend on it once I get the hang of it.

Never had to contact them.

I probably would get it again, even though I had a Radio Shack MD-1700 which is the same as the Casio WK-1630. I soon figured out how to use the pattern sequencer and synched it to my drum machine.

While the piano is terrific the manual is a nightmare. It operates on an advanced assumption that everyone knows everything about pianos. Furthermore, while it touches on MIDI translation it gives no inroads on how to translate between a computer and the keyboard. When it doesn deign to mention it, it focuses only on external cards. I'm all for PR and product promotion but all I'm interested in is the use of my flash memory and Bank adapter and the manual chooses not to address either one. The schematics are great if you are an engineer but arrow left-arrow right concept-flow mapping doesn't mean a whole lot -- the graphics were obviously designed so that the manual writers could hesitatingly guess what it was they were writing about. If my college students wrote the way this manual was performed they'd be retaking my class.

Keyborard action is smooth and changes are quick although buttons are too small for efficient changeover. Therre may be MIDI capabilities but you'll have to know them before you purchase -- which I would venture to guess that most of your purchasing target does not -- because the manual gives nothing to go on. Ease of use is probable unless you are new at it. A lot of trial and error (which I personally respect) but I can see alot of people returning it out of frustration.

Velocity/after touch is weak without a substain petal even with the on-board computer modifications. People like me want a long substain because we can cover up the fact that we can't play :) - Half as many notes, twice the length and that deep, cultural, heart-rending moment of the lingering note. The jazz, blues, Latin, appegio works well but rock begins to sound like a video game.

Dependeable - Yes. Gig use -yes

Haven't yet -- I believe in self-resolution. Besides, most tech support know less than I do anyway. Egocentric I'll admit but I've got to ask some places from which country and province did they hire their people?

Please Don't rely on the website. It is pretty but it plays havoc trying to get past the Korean Language (even if you put in English as a language choice) Company's today rely to heavily on web pages which seldom do no more than "sell" their product. Like I said, I respect commerce but when I am frustrated with one aspect of your product don't attempt to sell me another. It is insulting. If you must use a website than develop a troubleshooting FAQ and slip your sales "links:" within the FAQ responses so I can go if I want. With that many links I am more than likely to have one catch my eye and after I resolve my problem, I'm likely to go back because they took care of me.

I really like this keyboard except I have discovered a problem with it. ON all piano settings using the sustain pedal, from middle c and every key up a full octave does not sustain correctly. The sound drops off sharply rather than sustaining the full sound. I went back to sam's club to get another one. I tried two other keyboards and they both had the same problem. I have contacted Casio and am waiting for an answer. I might return the Casio and get a Yamaha.

This Keyboard does so many things !
I am finding it relatively easy to find my way around and use most of the features.
I gave it a 7 simply because there are so many things you are able to fiddle with and alterate, the keyboard is quite user friendly.

The keyboard is loaded with features, the BEST by FAR for the money.
I have only had this keyboard for 7 days, but am having a ball playing with its many features, including the many many effects !

The sound quality is VERY strong, and easy to express yourself.
the three levels of touch sensitivity is a great addition.
the piano's are nice, they sound even better with a SUS pedal.
guitars were surprisingly usable and the distorted guitars have taken a big step closer to sounding realistic.
the Saxaphones are REMARKABLE, as are alot of the wind instuments, icluding the flute.
the drum kits have HEAPS of kick and are very versatile to use with any style of music from rock to world music and dance.
incredible sound quality for the money

7 days and NO problems :)

havent needed any yet.
the instruction manual is quite unhelpfull at times though.
trial and error is always fun !

for the price payed, its leaps and bounds in front of the competition.
if it were lost or stolen YES i'd buy it again in a flash.
it does soo much and sounds so great.
If you lovce to play keyboard and dont want to spend thousands, this is the board for you, sounds pro, costs next to nothing :)

I'm a guitar player by nature and keyboards are a second choice so when looking for a mid priced #300-#400 keyboard I looked at both Yamaha and Casio.Having been a Yamaha owner for years(PSR340 - Psr 540- PSR740 )I was inclined to stick with the make but decided to check out the Casio WK3000 and was imediately knocked out by what was on offer.Casio have really excelled themselves in offering a budget priced keyboard with features and sounds that my Yamaha PSR740 at #1000 did'nt have.76 keys,ZPI sound source taken from the MZ2000 and added to.Smart media storage and ability to take in sample waves,styles etc.Brilliant piano.Excellent bass & synths.Ease of use with the sewuencer is fairly straight forward and set up though the manual leaves a few questions neaded to be answered.

32 note polyphony is offered with its 76 touch sensitive keyboard.There are over 700 voices though many are midi oriented and finding the parameters when using MIDI can be a pain.This applies to any keyboard with voices outside the GM standard.Ther are many DSP effects available from standard reverb/chorus to phase,wah and distortions.The onboard sequencer offers 6 track/5 songs though the ability to save as midi files on the smartmedia expansion offers hundreds to be available on the fly.Brilliant,and was the main reason to buy this keyboard for my backings when playing live.I generaly programme the midi files on PC and download onto the media card allocating lead voices,etc and just plug and play away.You can also add your own samples upto the internal memory limit(around 1.5 megs)so you could sample a favourite snare drum or maybe a females voice for Ooh type sounds.This makes the keyboard very versatile and again is incredible value for money.

The main sounds I use are the drum kit with bass and acoustic guitar for a basic backing track.On these I am fairly fussy but the Casio impresses in large ammounts.The bass is full and solid with lots of punch and the 12 string acoustic is full of life and ambience.The drums when balance right sound authentic in the mix once all the reverb is drained away.Other voices are the piano and electric piano which are full of life and harmonics.The organ sounds of which there are many are impressive and there is also a whole section dedicated to drawbridge control offering exstensive variations.The sax and Accordian are excellent as are the human voice variations.The strings are probably the weakest on certain songs though there are a few variations and of course there is the synth capabilities for modifying tones.The synth sounds of which there are many offer some startling space voicing sounds and I was duly impressed! The light blue display screen offered a lot of display data and was very clear and concise.The feel of the keyboard was an improvement over the Yamaha PSR740 I previously owned.The general robustness seemed fine and no worse than any of the Yamaha keyboards.Sizewise the keyboard feels large and looks impressive.The speaker system sounds good for 12 watts total available but when played back through a good PA system driving 15" and horns sounds awesome.

Reliability seems ok,again no worse than other brands.I feel confident to gig regularly with it though I want to get a good gig bag to protect the chassis from bumps and scrapes!The PSU lead is quite thin and care neads to be taken on not damaging it.

There are a few Casio sites offering Data downloads and support Forums and these are excellent.Ther is all kinds of data available from new rhythms and synth sounds to midi files and sampled wave sounds.

Simply put Casio have a winner with this keyboard,the WK3000 and the WK3500 with diskdrive.If you thought Yamaha was the only horse running then think again as this keyboard walks all over Yamaha for its' price and features.Unless you pay over #1000 these days you wont find a more feature packed keyboard than this!

The Casio wk-3000 is easy to use if you have a lot of time to sit
around and play with it. The instruction manual is not to specific
with telling you how to use it, but if you an intermediate musician
you should be able to work it out after a while.

This keyboard is one of the best Casio keyboards that I have ever
seen. Without the shadow of a dout this keyboard is a serious
professional keyboard. I been around and I've heard alot of keyboards
such as Roland, Korg, Yamaha, and many of the other professional
keyboards, and this one is certainly in their level. The piano is
excellent, and the Drawbar Organ is extremely excellent. When I first
heard the Organs on this keyboard I seriously felt as if I were sitting in church. All the organs sound super realistic, and the
drawbars give it a Hammond sound. The speakers even have special effect of the leslie on the Hammond organ.

The Casio wk-3000 is extremely expressive. The Different piano settings makes it sound as if you were sitting play at a 1,000 dollar
Piano(iam very serious). This keyboard also has the Drawbar Organ
function which allows you to be able to control the way the organ that
you are using sounds. The keyboard is also sensitive touch, so when
you play hard you music comes out hard, and when you play soft you
music comes out soft. The speakers are made to play with super bass
and not have any static in them.

Well I haven't had to long so I can't really say If you can depend on
it, but From what I know from having it so far it seems pretty good
to me.

Basic controls and settings are easy as are the more advanced settings: what you see is what you get, and if the board cannot do what you are trying to do, it simply won't. Presets sound REALLY GOOD for a board under $600 these days. I own a Yamaha P60 and it was sold this morniing after I bought the Casio and compared them extensively with and without external amplification. The casio's speakers do not need improvement, they are so rich and deep, yet they do not produce distortion. The manual is fairly complete but could be a little more in-depth when doing finer operations as there are tremendous amounts of possible combinations of settings on this unit.

DSP effects are more than adequate. 32-note polyphony is quite adequate and is seamless in all but the most demanding situations (for example, when you are playing the full keyboard plus full accompaniment and computer arppegio to boot). MIDI controller ability is excellent and simple. Keyboard expressiveness and response is superior to many keyboards in this price range; I would swear that the piano setting has at least 3 or 4 different response samples for each note depending on the amount of force that is applied to the keys. I do not like the cheezy plastic feel of the very light keys but then again what do you expect for $250? With an external controller such as my P60, the piano playing is better than the P60's internal sounds. I have not explored the on-board sequencer in detail but they appear to be adequate. The salesman was demonstrating the ability to silence certain tracks and re-record them, plus a host of other features, using numerous buttons which are dedicated for this purpose; this board has more buttons than a 747 has windows! Expansion comes in the form of a SmartMedia memory card which can hold song files AND samples, which is a very unique and wonderful feature.

The built-in Grand Piano is a wonderful expressive instrument equalled only by the Yamaha P80 and similar instruments at 3 times the price. This keyboard can do it all -- dance, pop, rock, classical, and Latin music (especially important for gigging at those Mexican birthday/wedding parties out here in Los Angeles these days). Velocity is surprisingly robust and expressive for such a cheap cost. There is no aftertouch, but I never use it, so I don't really miss it. As far as built-in effects, I can only say that the DSP has too many settings! There are some 24 parameters to adjust and it can take you all night to play around (which is a pleasure on this beast). The DSP settings are really nice and you can instantly shut off the DSP if you don't like it, without adjusting the parameters through menus or other means. Programmable buttons allow you to save DSP/Voice/split/layering/rythm settings and recall them in the middle of gig performance, adding yet another wonderful convenience. Somebody has really thought out this keyboard. Finally it should be added that the sound is crisp and realistic, unlike previous Casio units that I have had which sounded like toys.

I would take two of these to a gig, one for performance and one for spare parts in case I break the keyboard while jamming ;-). When I get jamming on it now, I hear some funny noises like springs popping or boinging inside the keyboard. Nothing has broken, but it is unnerving. This Casio unit is a flimsy-looking, light-weight, mass-manufactured appliance -- not a sturdy, rock-solid console like a Yamaha or a Roland. The guts are fantastic but the keys and springs inside them are cheap. Needless to say, since it is so light, I would definitely take it to a gig and make it the main instrument at a small household party because of the weight and features.

No info here, never tried.

If I were rich, I'd buy 10 of these and hand them out as party favors at my next social event. If mine burnt up, I'd buy a new one in a flash. The Casio WK-3000 is the "disposable" model of gig-worthy digital pianos, in my opinion. I have been playing for 30 years on classical pianos and about a dozen various casio and yamaha boards, also a Kurzweil PC88. I wish this board had more hammer action and heavier keys/88 keys, and a better pipe organ like the new Yamaha P90 does. Aside from that, I can't complain.

The presets sounds are great (strings are a little weak but the piano and organ sounds are great). It was very easy to find your way around (especially for a beginner like me).

It has a 32 Note Polyphony with decent touch sensitivity along with a modulation button and pitch wheel. It comes with a ton of DSP effects which I haven't really played with yet. As far as expansion, there is a Smart Media slot in the back for downloading & uploading sounds, rhthym, and songs. Unfortunately you only get about 1.2MB of usable space to upload sounds into which limits the amount of Tones with Waves that you can put in. Also the Smart Media card seems to be really slow to load. It has a decent 6 track sequencer built in which is pretty basic, but usable.

The piano and organ sounds are great.
The DSP effects are great.
It does lack aftertouch, but what do you want for $299?
It packs in the features and is a great keyboard for the price.

I don't know if I would use it to gig with... but it makes a great home keyboard or controller.

I would buy it again.
I just started playing keyboards... but have been a guitar & bass player for 20+ years.
It was a toss up between the Yamaha keyboards, but the smart media card was the deal maker for me.
I wish it had More Internal Memory or had a way to expand it, or to play the sounds directly from the smart media card.
Great keyboard for the price.

The keyboard is straight forward to use. There are so many features, that it may take a little experimenting to get around at first, but you can always just punch the "grand piano" button.

I haven't edited the patches much, except to change some the effects, but typical functions ADSR stuff.

Manual, well, I have seen more information in my son's gameboy games. Might as well get ready to experiment.

The polyphony is 32 notes, more than enough for most of the stuff that I do.

The keyboard is typical plastic keyboard, but not bad. I had a Yamaha p80 for a while, but the weighted action was too much for my wrist.

You can expand this machine with an SD memory card, but you may not need one. There are 10 places to store downloaded wave files, and at least that many for custom patches. If you can have a computer, you can just use it for storing your patches.

It has a simple song recorder built in. This one has a modulation button, which is enough for me. It is killer on the organ leslie. For a $289 keyboard, amazing.

The piano and wind instruments (brass, sax, etc.) are very good. The strings are marginal. Voice is poor. Hopefully I can download a sample to the internal memory which is decent.

Effects are good, and plentiful, some 180 or more.

It's a casio. I figure I can throw it out the back of the car and it would still work.

I use it at church, hauling back and forth from home and practice. No problem. Light and easy to use. The piano is more expressive than the church's Kurzweil pc88

I would probably spend the extra $100 and get the wk-3500, since it has the modulation wheel, and has a set of output jacks (the 3000 does not have that, so you have to use the headphone jacks).

I hate to compare with the Yamaha, which everyone is doing. I will just say this. I had a Yamaha dgx300, which I thought had an outstanding piano. When I heard the ck-3000 at Sam's, I bought it on sight (rare for me), and put the yamaha on e-bay. There, got it out of my system.

It's fairly straight forward when it comes to playing and using the tones and rhythmns. For recording or using the synth and dsp settings you'll probable need to review the manual. All in all it's easy once you've played with it for a bit

The keys are a bit tighter and have a more realistic feel comparied to the other models. Not bad. With 32 poly it'll probable give you enough room to do what you want. The only difference between this and the 3500 is the lack of a floppy drive and the two line outs and a modulation wheel. You still get the pitch bend, all the same sounds, and the SmartMedia slot. Otherwise, why pay $70 more?

The new advanced ZPI sounds are great. The piano is really, really good. Much better than the Yamaha PSR 550 I've played for awhile. With 600 tones and the ability to add user tones, either by creating them yourself or downloading from the Casio site, it'll give you a lot to work with. The Drawbar organ is amazing, there is a row of adjustable buttons that simulate the bars of a real organ. Amazingly good sounds for the price.

Sure, Casio makes quality stuff. Had keyboards for years and still going.

Never used.

It's worth more than the price paid. Considering what you get and the quality of the product this is one of the best deals going. Why pay more for a Yamaha and get less?

7 The user interface is not exactly intuitive though it seems to have improved since the WK1800.
The presets are quite impressive with some (100) that include wave forms as well.
Editing is fairly straightforward. There is no patch editor as far as I know. The onboard editor seems to be adequate.
If this keyboard had more flexible (multi-split and multi-layering) ability it would be really incredible.

The manual is comprehensive and covers all the main features well. Some procedures require practice and careful reading of the instructions. There are only a few minor glitches or errors. One is a reference to using only 3v Smart media cards when it should refer to 3.3v cards ad it does eleswhere in the manual.

Casio provide a librarian (no editing) software application. his seems to have been written by someone as a last minute effort. It really does lack user friendly features. A pity. Hopefully they will release an improved version soon.

And why not an external editor?

The keyboard has 32 note polyphony. It feels reasonable to play though definitely not weighted. There is a touch responsive button.
It accepts Smart media cards. My 32Mb card cost $14USD anf the card reader was free after rebates. There are card readers (for use on a PC) from about $5USD Cards can be up to 128Mb though I think you can go higher if you want to.
MIDI is basic In and Out. There is an assignable footpedal too.
There is an on board Song sequencer and you can record in real time or step time. Song editing is available too.

Many of the sounds are very inmpressive. They use wave samples as well as synthesis for what Casio calls 'Advanced Tones'

I think it would work well for any type of music though perhaps not for every aspect of course.
The onboard effects are very useful and have many options to adjust.
There are 100 presets and 100 user effect storage spaces.
You can combine effects too. Examples are Wah Delay Distrotion.
There is a 4 band EQ as well.

The effects go well beyond normal 'home keyboard' territory. They can really add zest and chage a basic sound.

Casio are making available wave smles (some are 500kb or more) for downloading. I have not had a chance to play these yet.

Not a bad feature for a $299 keyboard. I think these are in some Casio format so perhaps you cannot simply import your own samples. If so, why not Casio?

No problems so far.

Probably would buy another as there is nothing close to this at this price. I've ben playing for 28 years. I own a Yamaha AN1x and a Kawai K5 (sadly defunct due to dead keys). I also use softsynths and Acid Pro 4.

I started out with the Casio wk-1630, and was very happy with it, for use with my home computer. So when the WK-3000 came out... I wanted to check it out. I found mine at a Sam's Club, played with it there... and decided I really needed it! The Organ settings are really excellent...a wide range of organ types. Neat features include the ability to make 'tones' (instrument sounds) from wave samples. Also, the ability to take a midi file, and turn it (with some effort) into a rhythm, is a really neat feature. It has a total of 790 tones, 32 note polyphony (maximum...some tones take more power to create.... lessening the total notes that can sound at one time. I bought a 'Smart media' card to use with the keyboard..... but found that if I am hooked up to the computer (most of the time in my case)...the Smartmedia card isn't really needed. Probably the most versitile part of the keyboard is the 'DSP' effect. You can customize the tones with over 150 effects....really great effects! Like most manuals....Casio's leaves a lot of 'blank spaces' in the 'how to do....' information. So prepare for a big learning curve to get a handle on all the 'tricks'. I'm just starting in this part.

The keyboard is typical 'organ feel' keys. there is touch sensitive settings, with 32 note polyphony...76 keys. The DSP effects are easy to use (once you find out that they use the channel buttons to control the effects .....when in the effects mode). It works great with the computer....making my collection of midi files sound awesome!

With all the effects.... the instrument sounds and feel are very much in your control to shape. There is a wide range of rhythms (with the ability to load in sound packages from the Casio web site) I downloaded all the things available from the web site... including the 'loading/ editing software'....all free. There is a Techno pack, Chinese, Latin, and Arabic.....so it is expandable to fit any style.

I just got it.... so don't know

Don't know.... we do have a good user forum, so I'll rate it from that experience.

The wk 1630 is easier to 'master'.... but the wk 3000 is several steps up in capabilities. I've have keyboards for probably 10 years... and this one (of course) is my favorite. I miss some of the wk 1630 features (like free session), and I am going to try and capture some of the 1630 rhythms to add into the user area of the wk 3000.

I haven't bought this keyboard yet but i'm sure it's going to be like all their keyboard very easy to use.

There are tons of feature on this board. so many i don't even want to list them. They even have a synthensizer too. plus many more.

The sound on this board are just great. Pack with over 700 sounds it's a crazy little board. And the sound are better than ever because of the new Casio ZPI sound genterator. THe intrument sounds are very good. Althought i think that Yamaha AWM sound are still a little (just a little) better than Casio ZPI sounds but Casio are giving like 300 ZPI sounds and Yamaha only give you about 200 max. Heck, i think that Casio sounds are much better because of the heavy watt that its speaker and produce. Yamaha speaker are just cheap and are not good while with this board you can fill the sound to about a good size room.

The yamaha when you trun the vol to max it sounds like when you trun Casio vol at 1/4 of the way. MAn i love Casio Speakers. They are great. If you want to make music and puch the sound to the addiance this is great.

One more thing, this might sound a little crazy but the keys on the board feels so much better than yamaha psr 292 or dgx 202. IT's good beacuse it goes down farther, that might not matter to you much it doesn't feel like a piano if it's goes down so little.

i think that this keyboard will last for years as with my other Casio.

Never need too.

This keyboard is great. So many function that you can only get at a much higher price board. The speaker and function are just amzing. Yamaha's keyboard around this price are just not up with this board, THis thing kill the Yamaha so bad with the price, function and speakers. I think that this keyboard will be good with pros and are wounderful for begener. I know that this is the board you will want to go with and be very happy after you bought it and have no secound thought. If you are still jugging between a YAmaha or a Casio in this price rang i wish that you'll choosese this board because i went out and research on many board on this price rang and nothing came close.