Casio CT-S1000V Assessment: A Synth That Can Sing

You may want to be taught music, however no person desires to spend a thousand {dollars} on a keyboard solely to understand they hate it. Most individuals purchase a newbie keyboard to pound out “Hey Jude,” the form of plasticky mannequin that you simply in all probability bear in mind from center faculty. They work effective as instruments to fabricate sound along with your fingers, however the precise tones depart a bit to be desired.

That’s why I’ve loved my time with the Casio CT-S1000V. It is a smooth $470 mannequin that acts as a wonderful newbie keyboard, however with one notably cool get together trick: You’ll be able to 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 strong development, good sounds, and an easy-to-navigate interface, I believe this board is the proper place for newbies to begin. The vocal synthesis engine is cool sufficient that even die-hard synth nerds will need to fiddle once they come verify your progress.

Traditional Casio

Classic Casio fashions are beloved by indie darlings like Mac Demarco for a cause. These fundamental, utilitarian keyboards sound as nostalgic as they’re useful. Like many Casios earlier than it, this one has an honest keyboard and 800 built-in sounds, with all the things 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 Heart earlier than Covid. The group at Casio has included some legitimately nice sounds, stuff you’d have paid hundreds of {dollars} for earlier than the iPhone period (hear samples under).

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

The included LCD show works properly in darkish rooms, and it offers you fairly granular management over all the things you may need to modify when taking part in. You’ll be able to 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 whenever you need to really feel like Herbie Hancock within the Nineteen Seventies.

Getting Linked

{Photograph}: Casio

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

When you’re plugged in, you’ll be able to simply fiddle and save any sounds that you simply discover you want for later. Talking 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 entire songs of lyrics to the keyboard.

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