If they don't know, Now they have to know.

[XW-Addict]

I was pondering something for a few weeks now , So clearly some people retain an image that not true anymore. 

Few weeks ago I went to one of musical instrument shops I love to go to and play some. While playing with on a 

few brands I got into a conversation with a young shop assistant how this and that brand sound like, be great on stage 

and a go to keyboard to work with. Than the shop assistant ask if I'm an artist, I said no but that I give a little performance 

once a while at company parties, bbq , Family and other venue's. 

 

I said either I do some sound design mostly or practice playing and the practice part was an item we talk bout good sounds for performance

and musical taste , I then said I'm using Casio and the shop assistant replied Casio no they don't have good sounds. Was a 

bit surprised hearing that , so you don't know the latest or even the CT-S1 (I didn't bought mine at this shop which is huge shop to go at)

No that person said, I said really cause you would amazed, Casio changed their ante sure assistant thought about the older version good 

for 8 to 88 hobby beginners. 

 

Shop assistant looked at me "like serious no its you're thing" , Looking around didn't see any CT nor CTK they did have once.

I plugged them right there to try it me saying that in  a Moss voice from "the IT crowd" nerdy :)) . I understood it was my enthusiasm talking

but we where on "the good sound topic " for practice and idea's. Stopped the conversation cause well some don't know. 

 

People still think toy keyboards its like this old view hits them with that believe , Maybe there no exposure off course people can look it up 

on internet but it has to be word of mouth to know or bump upon to. This is this but what if , I mean there less musical exposure nowadays

I use to see in electronic shops, books stores and what not keyboard from 15 to 400 euro setup people toggling on keyboards. You don't have

that anymore maybe its obsolete with online shops and youtube but that not the same like tactile response. I'm kind of old fashioned with that. 

 

Time changed but if they don't know now they know. 

 

 

[Chas]

Totally agree with what you say, and I've experienced the exact same scenario too many times. 

 

Sadly, it's just a form of snobbery and elitism, as well as utter ignorance. Same thing happens in the guitar world, with some looking down on the affordable brands and assuming that they must sound and be built poorly. Ironically, some of the more expensive and "elite" brands suffer from worse quality control than the more inexpensive alternatives. Similar attitude is prevalent in the synth world with accusations of Behringer having poor quality and sound just because they don't have "Moog" or "Sequential" etc. as a badge. If anything, it's more confirmation bias and the owners trying to justify to themselves for paying more just to have a mythical brand name on their instrument. 

 

I even recall the comments section in a recent Guitar Center page where GC was promoting the new Casiotones. You'd think that GC had insulted people's mothers by the incensed comments from a lot of the comments, clearly from a bunch of snobs.  It came across as "how dare they promote an affordable keyboard, it must sound crap because of the name and I'm so offended"! Same attitude you see when these people hear the name Behringer. 

 

I'm almost certain that in a blind test, these elitists would not be able to guess the manufacturer when A and B'd with a more expensive equivalent. I tried this once when playing some of my tracks to a friend (who isn't a snob or elitist btw) and asked them to guess whether they were recorded with my Roland JX-3P, Korg DW8000, Yamaha SY85 or one of my Casios.  Out of all the tracks I played, they never once guessed Casio, and yes, all the tracks that I played were recorded entirely with Casios!

 

You can bet that these Casio detractors have never even laid a finger on any of the models they criticize. Because if they did, they'd likely realize how much they overpaid for their keyboards just to have a particular brand name on it. 

 

 

Edited October 16, 2021 by Chas

[Jokeyman123]

It's unfortunate that very often if one can generalize in the retail field at least, salespeople are beholden to their place of work-and often are being pressured to sell a certain item, in order to keep their job. And truly knowledgeable sales reps-there are, but not always and not just in the field of music products or services. As Bruce Hornsby said (not about keyboards though) "That's Just the Way It Is".  But in support of what XW and Chas have already stated....

 

Several years ago, I did an exhaustive and exhausting audio review of most the professional digital pianos in the marketplace as well as "soundfont" acoustic pianos, and the real grands-I have a huge collection of solo piano performances by Horowitz, Rubenstein other "old world" classical pianists and many of the major jazz players-Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson come to mind, on vinyl and CD. I am listening again to Thelonius Monk lately, after changing my mind about his acoustic piano work, definitely a challenge to really hear what he was playing. Quite a few pros had already posted audio demos all over the Internet, and i dug out every one i could find. I also auditioned several complex classical and jazz pieces for solo piano as midi files-well played midi files, ones designed to test the largest range of octaves generally used in several demanding pieces., with my own keyboards and with "soundfont" pianos.  I listened to the Yamahas, Rolands, Kawai, Korgs-every major I could find that had full demos-and listened carefully through my best headphones-to monitor as accurately as I had the equipment to do, and compared to what was then the newest Casio-the PX350 sampled acoustic pianos. imagine my surprise-that this, and the later PX560-sounded at least as accurate as any of the best much more expensive digitals-and except for a true acoustic grand piano experience in a concert space-and even then-how astoundingly accurate and realistic the Casios were. A bit of a humbling recognition for me too, as I had a bit of the "brand" snobbishness in me for awhile back then until again years ago in my music classroom-I purchased a "lowly" CTK-back in the 90's-and was shocked at how good the acoustic piano was-and several of the organ tones were pretty impressive-a few were as good as my pro boards at the time. I knew then I needed to start paying attention to Casio.

 

I have, and have had quite a few "pro" workstations, digital pianos, samplers and have tried some of the 'bigger" supposedly more accurate virtual pianos and soundfont pianos. IMO, my PX's are one of the few acoustic simulations I can play for a long time and not get "ear fatigue". In the field is what matters-what does it sound like on a gig, in the real world. and when recording. Well, as a professional player, I have most certainly kept my Casios. And would my fellow "pros" really care about my brand? No, but i better make sure i know how to play well and that my sounds are reasonably realistic at least.

[XW-Addict]

Chas , Jokeyman123 like totally right the experienced of well known music pieces played as they should be, or self compositions played on an instrument

The thing that makes me happy as well when people listen to demo's I've made they don't ask what instrument its made with, More like

"did you make that music", I go yeah yes you like. If they really interested I tell them how and with what made that magic happen 😄 

 

 

[mike71]

I think also that, because Casio still sells model designed years ago, like the px-5s and the WK-7600 marketed in 2013, means that these model are using an older and less capable technology.

Of course, as Jockeyman123 said, salespeople are pushed to sell a particular brand. When I bought my last car I was interested on a Skoda model, and the dealer absolutely wanted to sell me the equivalent Volkswagen model. Bought VW if you are curious because he put a 10% discount, so I paid less the VW model than the Skoda one, the parking lot was full of VWs.

 

 

 

[Jokeyman123]

Skoda-wowI Will gladly trade one of my Casios for one of these! and of course, in the US? NO. What beautiful cars. Is this Swedish., German or other manufacturer? i can always buy back my Privia.....any takers? Just found the main website-Czechoslovakia. Nice. Now back to my Casios.

 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Jokeyman123

[Chas]

@Jokeyman123- yes, originally Skoda was a Czech car company and built some pretty amazing cars. They were hampered a lot when Czechoslovakia came under the control of the USSR and they could no longer produce or develop their cars to be as advanced as they were previously, but when the Iron Curtain came down they were then shortly incorporated into the Volkswagon VAG group. Since then, Skoda, along with the Spanish Seat car manufacturer, platform share with VW models. In essence, they are rebodied and rebadged VW's these days though IIRC, Skodas are assembled in the Czech republic (and Seats are assembled in Spain). The Skoda and the Seat models have their own visual identity and design, both inside and out, and features aimed at different markets, though their platforms are fundamentally VW. That's why the dealer Mike71 bought from had both VW and Skoda on their forecourt, as VW is the umbrella company and I think all Seats and Skodas are sold via VW dealers now.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group

[LeonardoDaMusician]

Being an actively growing (teenage) musician with not much money and just a CTX-5000 (and not much else), I have a fondness for CASIO products. At the moment I'm looking to upgrade to something like a Yamaha MODX6 because there just aren't any CASIO keyboards that fit my needs as I advance that are also at that quality level. This is one thing that has kept people from taking CASIO seriously for a while. They don't have any flagship professional instruments. They do have some really solid semi-pro keyboards/synths that are great, like the CTX-3000/5000, but not much beyond that. The discontinued MZX keyboards go a little bit further than the CTX line, but that seems to be where it stops. I'd love to see CASIO release a solid line of keyboards on a level of at least the MOFX or MODX keyboards, but especially on the level of the Montage. If they build off the AiX sound source, I could see this being possible.

 

I believe that instruments are only half of the equation when it comes to music, and that the player is just as important. An amazing musician could make an entry-level keyboard sound like it's professional by taking advantage of what it can do, instead of restraining because of what it can't do. I think elitism, especially in music and instruments of all kinds is foolish and destructive. Even if I became an exceptional musician one day with the best keyboards and the nicest equipment, I wouldn't look down on someone who is just starting to explore music and their own sound with the best that they can afford; if that means a $350 CASIO, more power to them. Who knows what they'll create. 

 

I digress. I love bikes and work at a bike shop, and I started out mountain biking on a $250 Walmart bike. That bike was terribly built, but it lasted me for at least 500 miles, a few adventures, and some tough trails. When I finally had enough money and skill to justify a much better bike, I didn't just toss the old one out.  No- I took it apart, down to the frame, and rebuilt it the best I could so it could last another 500 miles for someone else. Never forget where you came from. 

 

That's just my two cents.

[Jokeyman123]

Might want to take another look at the PX560 specs. No its not a Montage, Fantom, Kronos or Kurzweil, but its the closest thing to a workstation Casio currently still manufactures-I have several workstations to compare. Lacks some sequence editing features-but you might be surprised at what this puppy can do.

 

Some pretty powerful sound editing, can layer, split, zone keys-256 voices can do some pretty serious multi-track work. You might not like piano action keys, I run organ or piano parts on it pretty easily. Many of the touchscreen features are similar or identical to the MZ-X500-the touchscreen is very handy, and the 560 weighs about 1/3 of what some of the other 88-key workstations weigh, about the same as some of the lighter-weight 61 key workstations. Not AIX, but uses the AIR-3 technology for pianos and has a huge database of raw wave samples to work with. Decent drum kits, which can be edited. Many of the best tones have been ported over from the PX-5S and that has been pretty favorably reviewed and used professionally. 3 programmable knobs are useful-maybe its not a Nord or other analog beast, or a knob/slider-filled controller style keyboard  but overall I find mine very playable-good selection of inputs and outputs too, with the audio recorder, and both USB and MIDI DIN ports-not too many other Casios have both. The MZ and XW do, but none of the recent CTK/WK or CTX do. Then, it has an entire arranger section-with rhythms that use the AC7 format, or older CKF-nice if you want to create and import your own rhythms, or just load the huge collection of rhythms that are here already including some of my own custom rhythms which I use for practicing my keyboard riffs and runs. I wish it had drawbars for programming or for organ modelling like the XW or MZ-X, and a bit more editing with the song recorder/sequencer but otherwise i find this as much fun to work with as my other workstations.

 

One other thing i've noticed after carrying the 560 around a bit, and this seems to be so with much of the lighter-weight equipment despite the plastic-I've been less accident prone with these lighter Casios than I've been with my heavier workstations because it is easier to position and move around a PX than other keys I own. It will still break if I drop it, but the impact will be less damaging and I have been less likely to drop it, something I appreciate growing up in the age of tine pianos, leslie cabinets, Hammonds and some pretty heavy and nasty keyboard controllers even in more modern times.