Casio CT-S300

I bought this keyboard as a simple keyboard for practicing and learning until I thought myself good enough to buy something better. I feel like I had my money's worth and it has everything you need to start practicing and learning, but I feel it's very easy to outgrow it pretty soon.

It is exactly what you would expect from a Casio keyboard at this price range. The keys are velocity sensitive but they have no weight to them, so it's a bit hard to handle velocity with it but, yet again, very hard to find anything much better at this price.

Sounds are ok. They are the classic Casio sounds you might expect. Although it says it has 400 sounds, it has a lot of repeated sounds. Sounds are decent enough. Sustain pedal function changes based on the sound, sometimes it works like a piano sustain and sometimes it just holds notes indefinitely, which can be a bit awkward for some sounds. The built in reverb makes sounds much nicer.

I did not get too deep into other features as they are kind of gimmicky. Rhythm section accompaniment is useful when you're tired of hearing the metronome. Dance music mode is really nothing too interesting or useful. The learning app might be interesting to some, but here I'm reviewing the keyboard itself.

It can work as a MIDI keyboard but without any sort of velocity sensitivity, which I think is quite an odd quirk.

Overall, it's an excellent beginner keyboard that has everything you might need to start learning songs and practicing, it also serves as a really compact jamming tool to bring to a friend's house to have some fun. For the asking price it's features are more than appropriate and I'm satisfied with it.

I'm not a keyboard player, but I needed one to use other sounds (guitar, strings, organs, etc) in my recordings. I was looking for something cheap, compact and good quality. I was in between a CTS200 (because of the colours), the CTX700 (because of other comments and reviews. It's so ugly though!) and this one. At the end the CTS300 won because of size, portability and sensitive keys (compared to CTS200). The sound is more than ok for an eternal amateur like me. My favourite thing is the small amount of buttons since it has only 9 (not counting power and volume) so it is really easy to use. Just plug it and play! It has a really handy control wheel that allows you to move in between sounds. It also has a pitch wheel which I don't use much particularly.
The quality is OK, but the feeling of the keys is too plastic. I'm not complaining though.

Pros: size, portability, low amount of controls, sensitive keys
Cons: Not many to mention, just the plastic feeling.

In my opinion, if you are an amateur like me, get this one. The CTS200 is tempting but CTS300 has sensitive keys.

I liked my CT-S100 (the slightly cheaper sibling of the CT-S300) so much that when the time finally came to upgrade to a keyboard with velocity sensitive keys, the CT-S300 was my first choice. The difference between the CT-S300 and the CT-S100, which has no velocity sensitivity whatsoever, is night and day! It is a lot more inspiring to play the CT-S300 because I can express myself better with it. Sure, for a professional pianist or somebody accustomed to much higher quality (and multiple times more expensive) keyboards, the playing experience of the CT-S300 will probably be sub-par, but to me, a guitarist for whom the piano is a secondary instrument, it is more than satisfactory. All the most important (to me) sounds, such as acoustic and electric pianos, are pretty convincing, and the minimalist user interface makes it very easy to find them whenever needed. Finally, the build quality is great, especially considering the price of the unit. It is a perfect balance between being light enough to carry it anywhere (thanks to the ingenious built-in handle!) and feeling dense enough to give an impression of quality. Oh, and it can also be used as a MIDI controller!..

• Extremely light and compact

• Lots of variety in sounds, and some great dreamy presets.

• The piano presets are not the best, especially the first one, which sounds more like a harp to me. That's a bit annoying as you know that any time you turn the keyboard on, you know you'll immediately have to switch the preset.

• The response is slightly strange (When you press down a key, its lowest position will feel a bit high) but the touch is light enough to allow you to train to play fast for long or play big chords without getting tired easily.

• The interface is a bit annoying if you want to use the metronome a lot. Once you activate the metronome, you assume that the main knob will allow you to change the bpm, but instead, it allows you to change the time signature (What???) I definitely think they should update that. There's also only one sound for the metronome, so if you like it, great, but if you don't, you'll have to use your own (which I personally didn't want to spend the time doing every time I'd want to practise).

Overall, the keyboard is great. I mainly bought it to be able to leave it vertically in-between two pieces of furniture of the living room to be able to pick it up and plug it in any time without having to go to a different room that might not be at a nice temperature, and it fits that purpose very well. The fact that it's light will make it a great travelling instrument if I ever choose to go around with it. The feel is also light which is good to practise for a long time. The only small downsides to me are the first piano preset, the metronome sound and access to bpm, and the keys that don't go down completely. If those were resolved, this would be a straight 10/10!

I'm an absolute beginner on the keyboard so I can't make an expert review but only a few remarks. First, the sounds are nice and soulful, unlike the other keyboards under 250€, and I listened to thirty of them, this one lets the emotion through and that's what a musical instrument has to accomplish, first and foremost.

The screen should be backlit but that's not essential. The build is strong, no ugly gaps, no misjoined plastic parts, the fit and finish are good. The feel of the keys is grippy, not too much, not too little. The controls are simple and clear.

Because it has a lower octave the keyborard sounds okay in a six-string guitar amp but much better in a bass amp, my Ampeg is the natural complement for it, and the amp's distortion is a really a good mach for the Casio's tones, no excess grit at all. Equalize more highs and mids and that's it.

One last thing about the sound, the headphones output is not just convenient, it also reveals the whole quality of the sounds, much better than the included loudspeakers, and even better than the 10-inch bass amp. I had not noticed when I played a two-notes chord slightly not synchronized with the loudspeakers.

But through the headphones output the clarity is so high that it became obvious, and allows more accurate practice. I hesitated between this and other larger keyboards but it's only 25cm wide so I can play it resting on my knees, on batteries. Or on the same table with my computer; I couldn't watch a tutorial and place the instrument on the table if it was wider.