Digital Piano Keyboards

Casio CTK-4000 usability and the feature level make it beneficial for the novice level and the expert users. Many of the keyboards are designed to replicate the looks of a traditional keyboard and this one too falls in to that category. However, the most attractive point about the Casio CTK-4000 portable keyboard is the affordability. Though it is grouped by Casio under the portable keyboard variety, none can underestimate the quality of sound and the features employed. All in all, the Casio CTK-4000 is one of the best priced products and is worth every penny invested.

Overview

The CTK-4000 Electronic Piano Keyboard is of touch sensitive type with a total number of 61 keys. The highlight features are the 570 tones, digital effects and 180 rhythms. In addition to this, Casio’s Step-up-Lesson system a highly appreciated one for its convenience is integrated along with music challenge feature, thus making the keyboard an excellent companion for budding keyboardist. The user can connect MP3 player and is also equipped with MIDI capabilities.

Design

The CTK-4000 keyboard gains a classy and yet a contemporary look by fusing the technology at the right place. The core attraction is the keys layout, which has been arranged neatly. The white and grey body colour composition accentuates the appearance further. The buttons and control knobs are scattered in the area right above the keyboard layout. Since the breadth of the keyboard is quite broader, the set-up does not look cluttered. The built in speakers are elegantly placed at the either corners of the keyboard.

The power switch turns off automatically after six minutes of inactivity when employed using the batteries. The volume adjustment knob is directly placed below the power switch. Four controls are placed directly vertical and adjacent to the power switch. The four acts as a direct access to the specific function such as the metronome, scale editor, rhythm editor and recorder. The music controller switches such as the forward, rewind, start and stop are placed in a row. The tempo button to control the instrument speed is aptly positioned.

The Casio CTK-4000 Piano Style keyboard comprises of a number button layout (from 0 to 9) to change the parameters appearing on the display. Though it appears distinct, it is rather too tricky to operate the same. First and foremost, negative values cannot be fed, instead the decrease and the increase buttons must be used. The number buttons can be used to perform a wide range of operations. However, the ease of use can only gradually increase on continuous usage. At the same time, the idea of adding such intricate details for a lower budget keyboard is appreciable.

The display shines brightly with the blue back ground. The screen size is reasonably visible and denotes the menu that is currently chosen. To put it in a nutshell, the design parameters of Casio CTK 4000 is made somewhat unique. Almost all the features of the keyboard are laid out in the form of direct one stop button.  In most of the cases, such aspects are folded within the main menu and the user must navigate the same. Instead this approach is also user intended. It is because the user can get the maximum mileage of exploring the features. Considering the expertise level of the user, such a design permits them to explore the device in a wider context, thereby improving their playing skills to a greater extent.

Features

Keyboard Controls
The keyboard offers a great number of tones including a large variety of musical instruments such as the violin, flute and many more. Notable highlight is the layering of two tones so they reverberate simultaneously when the keys are hit. Furthermore, the keyboard can be split in to two tones by affirming each tone on the left and the right. It gives an astounding effect of two instruments being played. The pitch of the song can be alerted at ease suiting to that of the singer in three ways, viz transpose, fine –tuning and the octave shift. The fine tuning function tries to match the tune with that of the other musical instruments and the singing artist. The octave shift increments or lowers the overall pitch by + or – two octave units. However, the cut above the rest is that the pitch can be altered even when the keyboard split is active. It means either sides of the keyboard pitch can be altered to the octave shift.

Sound Sampling
The Casio CTK 4000 61-note Full Size Keyboard permits the user to sample up to five sounds that can be stored in the memory. It can be picked and played from the melody part of the keyboard. There are a total number of 570 sounds and hence the piece which the user would sample is stored from 571 to 575. Sadly though the sampling time is ten seconds and if the memory is occupied with other data, it cannot even complete the ten seconds time limit. This is too short duration to hear the glimpse of the soundtrack tried. But admit the fact that Casio has not cut corners in integrating such features, because it is highly useful for amateurs. It is even possible to add effects to the sample sound. Furthermore, the sounds sampled can be protected against the accidental deletion operation.

Built-in Songs
The demo songs can be directly accessed using the song bank button. Besides the regular functions such as the forward, rewind, start and stop, some active elements are also added. The user can select a particular length of the song which is difficult to be trained and can listen to it. But the start and the end measure has to be specified. Alternatively, the left hand or the right hand part of the song can be turned off and the user can play with the existing part. Customisation is the chief tool employed by Casio to utilise the keyboard to its fullest extent.

Step-up Lesson
As the name implies, the step-up lesson enables to break the songs in to shorter phrases and practice the phrases and finally blend it together. All the songs are pre-split in to the right, left and both the hand phrases. Simultaneously during the playing session, the user is notified with various messages such as the wait, next phrase, from top and complete. Once the song is selected, the voice fingering guide and the display shows the correct keys to be hit, even if the wrong keys are entered, the keyboard waits till the right key is entered. The keyboard allows the user to continue the practice at their preferred pace. At any point of time, it is possible to cut the length of the phrase, stop and turn off the voice fingering guide. A score card based performance evaluation can be activated, if the user is keen to develop the skill seriously.

Music Challenge
It is something extra-ordinary feature to be added to the portable and affordable keyboard brand. The music challenge measures the user’s reaction speed in responding to the on-screen indicators and the fingering guide instruction. The efficiency is measured based on the time taken to switch from one note to the other within a particular song. The maximum limit is 0.1 second and higher score means, the time taken must be less than 0.1 second. The music challenge ends on completing 20 notes. At the end of each session, the playing time is displayed followed by the average score.

Registration Memory
The registration memory is something like that of storing the keyboard set-ups that are used frequently. The facility lies in the ability to collect the stored one instantly. It is possible to register up to 32 set-ups. Registration bank button allocated separately on the keyboard can be accessed easily. Prior to saving it to the registration bank, the details such as the rhythm, tone, tempo, transpose and many more have to be configured first. The only draw back noted here is the maintenance of the registration memory. Once the power is exhausted, the data is no longer stored in the memory. Hence, it is advisable to use the batteries and the external power adaptor simultaneously during critical conditions.

Recording Features in Casio CTK-4000
The user can record the song being played directly on the keyboard. The songs can be divided in to parts and each part can be recorded to a track. The recorded tracks can be mixed up to give a song. The flexibility in recording the built-in songs even while playing along is good. Up to six songs can be recorded and saved in the computer. Similar to that of registration memory, the recorded ones can delete automatically if the keyboard is not connected to power source or drained off batteries.

Performance

The sound quality is something good in CTK-4000 for a compact keyboard. The in-built songs are a good collection. The keyboard can actively split in two layers and produce different sound effects. The touch sensitive keys are soft and keep the music going for long hours without any major strain.

Verdict

Casio CTK-4000 surely gives a surprise for the beginners and also for master players. It is because for a compact variety it has features that are added to improve the playing skills to a greater extent. With the step-up lesson and the music challenge feature, the user can extremely capitalise the opportunity to learn the keyboard in a professional manner as tutored by a teacher.

Casio CTK-4000 Digital Keyboard – Technical Specification Table

other Digital Piano Keyboards

• Yamaha NP30 Portable Digital Piano
• Yamaha PSR-E323 Portable Keyboard Review
• M-Audio Oxygen 8 v2 25-Key USB MIDI Controller Keyboard
• Casio CDP-100 Digital Piano Review