Casio Casiotone CT-S1000V 61-Key Portable Keyboard with Vocal Synthesis

Love this board. Great sound and very fun creative sound. Very happy with purchase.

I am a huge fan of Casio keyboards. My first keyboard ever was a Casio PT-87 but since then I have owned many others, including their more professional synthesizers like a HT-7000 or CZ-1 or even their old 1000P. Like those other synths, this keyboard is quirky, but not really.Casio in recent years has been putting out some interesting instruments that have neat and unique features like their hex layering or drawbars but they always seem to be lacking or miss the mark somehow. Sure they are good but they could have been great.Tge Casio XW-P1 and XW-G1 have some neat features but feel like they could have been combined into a single instrument but they seem to walk a fine line between stage piano and full fledged synth. Their XW-PD1 and XW-DJ-1 are neat Millennium Falcon-looking step sequencer with pads thingies but have confusing button combos and like the other synths, seem like they can be combined into a single synth, or even cooler, given a guitar-like neck attachment for even easier access to it's functions.This keyboard, the CT-S1000V is nothing really special, but then again it is part of their CT branding, or Casiotone, which I take to mean stage piano or something you'd see in a church or coffee house. It has some great sounds and okay responsive keys and they kept the menu easily accessible to where you can assign the 3 knobs a different function, so this isn't really designed for some monophonic knob twisting synth play but does provide for some okay editing. But I'm sure what is the only thing catching people's eyes are the voice synthesis.This is the main reason I bought this keyboard. I am a sucker for robot voices and this thing checks all those boxes. The numerous voices sound great and while it comes preloaded with a bunch of short phrases, I felt they were generic and gave that demo appeal but you can program your own in what I think is the only downside to this thing - the app.Don't get me wrong. The app is actually not that bad and syncing a phone or tablet to the keyboard isn't too hard. I did have to buy separate cables to transfer, as it has a micro-usb input, which is weird since most things are moving to USB-C. I was able to connect to my phone via Bluetooth while trying to figure this all out and it played audio from music on my phone. I suppose my biggest complaint stems from the app being an app.You can access the instructions for the app via the website or... the app. Making your own phrases works pretty well but I did have issues trying to transfer larger lyrics and was uncertain if this was due to my using the app on a crappy Nokia smartphone or if I had to use the other parts of the app like phrases. But even then I was able to get what I needed to play around.To me this keyboard is just a weird curiosity. I was kind of in the market for a more modern keyboard. I do wish this had regular MIDI inputs but the wireless and micro-usb are fine. I personally think Casio would have benefited from making this a kind of boutique synth. Maybe halve the keyboard and use smaller keys, eliminate the speakers (or at least shrink them), and improve the display and integrate the app into the keyboard. Maybe a few more knobs for easy editing of parameters. The voice feature is awesome but seems weird on a Casiotone keyboard so if you really like synth voices and have the space this may be what you've been waiting for.

I like the box keys, but the key action feels spongy to me. I like the color and styling. I like the interface. I dont like the micro usb. I dont like the main piano sound, which is noticeably behind the competition from Yamaha and Roland. The new Roland Go:Keys 3 & 5 have better synthesizer sounds and a chord sequencer. The vocoder on the CTS-1000 is fun, but not worth the extra $100. If you really want this keyboard, save the extra money amd get the Casio CTS-500. It is the EXACT same keyboard, minus the vocoder. I ultimately returned the Casio CTS-1000v and got the new Roland GoKeys:5, which launched about a month ago. It is a MUCH better product at the same price, $500. I am very happy with the Roland Go:Keys 5.

This is a very nice keyboard with a lot of features and a great build quality. I have been playing Casio keyboards since the 80's...and they all still work! Thanks Casio for quality products and being part of my life :)

wonderful real keyboard Casio has greatly improved its sounds and also offers incredible portability to be able to have a portable instrument of excellent quality and with a very good finish. this keyboard is extraordinary 👏👏👏