Casio Casiotone CT-S1BK 61-Key Keyboard

I own a top flight acoustic piano and professional digital keyboards. I searched everywhere for a portable, super light-weight keyboard that I could carry on when flying/traveling to use for practicing and composition. The Casio CT-S1 fits the bill well, with a few very minor nits.

This keyboard weighs in at less than 10 lbs. yet is very well built and ‘feels’ sturdy and solid. It’s physically impossible to have weighted or semi-weighted keys on a 10 pound instrument, but the key bed is otherwise very good. The keys are nearly full-size, have a matte finish and a good touch sensitive response.

The body of the keyboard is well constructed and does not feel fragile. The ‘retro’, minimalist look of the instrument with the cloth covered panel across the top is easy on the eyes. There is a built-in handle which allows carrying around your house or hotel with ease. It comes with a external power supply, but also runs on batteries. I sprung for a set of AA rechargeable batteries, worth the investment. Nit #1: You’ll need to purchase a sustain pedal – not included.

There is a very good and wide range of sounds, most important of which are decent acoustic piano, electric piano and organ voices. A nice feature is a set of physical buttons and a volume knob across the front panel. There are dozens of additional sound and tone controls accessible via the function button and the piano keys. Nit #2: I would like to have dedicated buttons for the most used functions: transpose, octave shift and reverb.

The built-in speakers are very serviceable. There are 1/8″ inch stereo IN and stereo OUT connectors, so I carry a couple of 1/8″ stereo patch cables for connecting my Klipsch Groove bluetooth speaker (sounds great), tablets, phone, etc. The USB MIDI interface is ideal for for writing or transcribing music.

Nit #3: The Casio case for this instrument, when available, has an awkward design (load from the end ??), and has questionable padding for travel. Casio would do well to make available a decent, well fitting, padded case – even at half the cost of the keyboard, it would be worth it. I scoured the retail world for days to found a good quality, padded, but otherwise snug fitting case for airline carry on, but a case designed for this unit would be better.

This instrument is an excellent value.

Honestly one of my favorite purchases. HOWEVER, I’d like to get the one negative out of the way. I was planning on using this as a midi controller along with it being a fun portable option. There’s no midi port!!! Listen Casio, I get it we’re trying to further things technologically but if I don’t want to buy a $60 Bluetooth midi adapter, I shouldn’t have to. ADD A MIDI PORT!!! That being the only negative, I’ll start with the sound quality. Right out of the box it sounds great! Such nice tone. The keys are sensitive enough to where you can tell there is quality. I would have loved it to had come with a sustain pedal (even a cheap one would have been fine…) but I went ahead and ordered one today. Sound quality is beyond what you could expect of a portable and very affordable keyboard like this. The sounds it comes with are strong to quite strong. The only section I would say it could use a little more variety on is the actual piano sounds. Maybe instead of having 8 piano sounds and 16 electric piano sounds, they should have gone 8 electric piano and 16 piano. Other than that very happy with the preset sounds. Portability is great, super light, and I love the fact you can put on straps and hold it like that. The usage of the piano and figuring out how to get it to work is very easy, anyone could figure it out even without the instructions. Lastly, my favorite part about this product is IT’S BEAUTY. But really, this is a great looking keyboard. Personally I went with the red option and it is so slick, the red(which I do recommend) gives a great mix off a retro and slick conciseness feel to it. Over all I’d give it a 4.5/5 and would recommend. Thanks for the great product Casio!

Love tbe portability and unique design of this instrument. Has an expensive look to it. The sounds are amazing for this price range. I don’t miss weighted keys at all with this. The keys have a matte textured feel and they are touch sensitive. Lots of great hidden features on this keyboard. Tone layering, octave shifts, etc. If you want great sounds and aren’t wanting drum beats and accompaniment then this is a great instrument. I love that you can use batteries and take it anywhere. Played it in my backyard and my neighbors were coming out to listen!

Update: Loving this keyboard more and more as I delve into the full instruction manual (available on the casio website). I recommend printing for easy reference, as there are a lot of hidden features. I just discovered the hidden piano and organ tones, along with a piano/bass split. The organ tones are KILLER> if you love vintage sounding keys (wurly, rhodes, pipe, and gospel organs…even has a nod to vintage video game organ tones). My new favorite features are the simple record/loop feature where I can record one hand playing and then play the other hand over it. Super helpful for learning Bach pieces especially. This keyboard is exactly what I was looking for in that it has super impressive, high quality sounds/tones in an inexpensive keyboard. I love the styling on this. It is quite unique and premium looking with its fabric covered speakers. I think its great that it comes in 3 colors. I often find arranger keyboards a little cheezy and I really just want to play sheet music where I play my own accompaniament. The recorder feature allows me enough layering capability for my tastes, but if you prefer rhythms and arpeggiators I would go with the new Casiotone ct S500 or the cts1000v. Both of these are arranger keyboards and they have my attention currently, as they have the same updated soundchip but I still think the ct s1 has some sounds that are unique to it.

The aesthetics of this keyboard is what caught my eye first (and it was also on sale). Then after watching some reviews on youtube and seeing all the positive comments, I knew this was going to be a good buy and it lived up to it. Playing the keys felt a bit weird at first since I am used to playing on a traditional piano but I got used to it after 20 mins or so. Another thing is that it is hard to navigate all the different functions and tone variations, but I liked how it looked without the screen, distraction free, so I guess that’s the compromise.