Casio CT-S1000V Review: A Synth That Can Sing Leave a comment

You would possibly need to learn music, however no person needs to spend a thousand {dollars} on a keyboard solely to understand they hate it. Most folks purchase a newbie keyboard to pound out “Hey Jude,” the form of plasticky mannequin that you simply most likely keep in mind from center college. They work advantageous as instruments to fabricate sound along with your fingers, however the precise tones go away a bit to be desired.

That’s why I’ve loved my time with the Casio CT-S1000V. It’s a modern $470 mannequin that acts as a wonderful newbie keyboard, however with one notably cool get together trick: You can program lyrics into it and have the keyboard sing for you. It’s a rad instrument for these of us with voices like indignant crows.

Between stable development, good sounds, and an easy-to-navigate interface, I believe this board is the proper place for learners to begin. The vocal synthesis engine is cool sufficient that even die-hard synth nerds will wish to fiddle after they come verify your progress.

Classic Casio

Vintage Casio fashions are beloved by indie darlings like Mac Demarco for a cause. These primary, utilitarian keyboards sound as nostalgic as they’re useful. Like many Casios earlier than it, this one has a good keyboard and 800 built-in sounds, with the whole lot from boring piano to spacey synths represented. You additionally get 243 rhythms to play together with, must you want some inspiration.

You’d be shocked how far sounds have come because you final messed with a keyboard at Guitar Center earlier than Covid. The crew at Casio has included some legitimately nice sounds, stuff you’d have paid hundreds of {dollars} for earlier than the iPhone period (hear samples beneath).

You can plug the keyboard into an amp or use it as a MIDI keyboard with a pc, however I truly appreciated simply utilizing the built-in audio system on the highest. It makes it simple to jam together with music, or to shortly pattern sounds with out the effort of turning on an amp or opening the Casio Music Space app (which works for iOS and Android and pairs to the keyboard).

The included LCD show works effectively in darkish rooms, and it provides you fairly granular management over the whole lot you would possibly wish to modify when taking part in. You can assign two knobs on the highest left of the board to do numerous filters, results, and EQ strikes, and there’s a very usable pitch-bend wheel on the far left facet, for once you wish to really feel like Herbie Hancock within the Seventies.

Getting Connected

You can get sound info out of the keyboard 4 methods: by way of the aforementioned audio system, a headphone jack, stereo ¼-inch outputs, or by way of USB. You may also use the keyboard as a sampler in your favourite music, with the power to seize sounds from Bluetooth audio and use an inside six-track sequencer to line up a beat.

Once you’re plugged in, you’ll be able to simply fiddle and save any sounds that you simply discover you want for later. Speaking of mucking round and discovering cool sounds, I actually did fall in love with the brand new vocal synthesis engine. It’s simple to kind lyrics into the Casio Lyric Creator app (iOS, Android) after which switch complete songs of lyrics to the keyboard.

If you actually hate to sing, otherwise you notably love Daft Punk or Peter Frampton, you’ll be in love. You can use 22 totally different vocal sounds and manipulate them with a reasonably extensive number of results and different sound parameters. The vocal synth is polyphonic, which suggests you’ll be able to play actually cool harmonies (hear beneath) over your personal phrases.