CT-S400 "Wish List"

[Steve F]

The Casio CT-S400 does have a lot of bang for the buck: compact and nicely
designed with 600 sounds, 200 rhythms, registrations, layer and split functions,
speakers, a battery option and a nice LCD screen with a customizable interface,
but its potential for greatness is undermined by some serious shortcomings.

 

1) I wasn't able to find a CT-S400 locally to try out at the time, but I ordered

   one because I had been misinformed by a Casio rep that it had the same
   "action" as the CT-S300, which I found to be natural and easy to play, in
   spite of its keys being "unweighted". However, in an apparent attempt to
   make the CT-S400 keys feel more weighted, they now also feel unnaturally
   springy, with constant push-back against your touch, and though playable,
   it's more of a struggle to play than it should be.

 

2) The ever-important piano sample is fine at the low-end but could be better
   elsewhere, especially in the fourth octave, where the "D" and adjacent keys
   sound a bit clunky. This is also true for the Casio CT-S1 and needs a fix.

 

3) No 1/4" line outputs means you may have to combine the stereo headphone
   channels for input to a mono amp, which can damage a keyboard. I contacted
   Casio about the safety of doing this, but they didn't seem to understand the

   issue and "summing cables" with resistors for doing this safely are expensive.

   The CT-S400 also lacks MIDI DIN connectors, a CV input for volume control      
   and the mic input found on Casio's similar LK-S450, all useful.

 

4) Though the split function for left-hand bass is great, a 61-note keyboard is
   an octave too short to make using it a painless experience, though the
   CT-S400's robust octave shift function can help. A 76-key or 73-key version
   ("F-to-F", please) would have been my preference.

 

5) The Casio's small speakers can't reproduce its acoustic bass at full volume,
   which necessitates lowering the volume of the upper zone's tone(s) and the
   drums to achieve the right balance, but this and the absence of rear-facing
   speakers reduces the overall volume too much without external amplification
   for listeners at any distance.

 

6) Balancing the volume of the four parts individually in this way is tricky and
   requires using menus, which is cumbersome. Much better would be three

   knobs (or one knob with three selectable functions): balancing two layered

   tones in the upper zone, balancing the upper zone with the lower, balancing

   the overall keyboard volume with its drum machine.

 

7) To give you the authentic inferior experience of playing an obsolete organ,
   the organs in today's keyboards are rarely touch-sensitive, in spite of their

   ability to disable touch-sensitivity should you want that. The CT-S400 is no

   exception, but a way around this is to layer one of its better organs (all not

   touch-sensitive) with one of its not-so-great GM touch-sensitive organs with

   just enough volume to create some touch-sensitivity and be more playable.

 

😎 I play with both hands and don't have a third one to control the drum machine
   as I play. "Sync Start" takes care of starting it, but if a song has a break, you need

   to stop and restart it manually, as well as do the fills, change the variation and cue

   the ending. That's four functions, but the Casio's lone pedal can only be assigned

   to one function at a time. Consequently, the CT-S400's drum machine is only

   barely useable for something simple. You also lose the pedal's sustain function

   by using it for drum operations. (Study the "Beat Buddy" for a lesson in how to

   make such a pedal multi-functional.)

 

9) The only way around this limitation of the drum machine is to record a drum
   track separately using your hands, then play along to it, albeit without the
   flexibility of being able to lengthen it for an extra solo. However, to free
   up the slot it occupied in the recorder, you store the recording as a "song",
   but the CT-S400 only allows ten user songs, though it has 160 pre-recorded
   songs of dubious value. Furthermore, doing this requires that you export
   the recording to a flash drive, then import it back into the keyboard as a
   "song", which makes no sense. If that weren't enough, the CT-S400, contrary
   to what's stated on page 84 of the manual, appears to record a blank measure
   at the top of a recording made using the "count" feature, which provides a
   virtual click track to enable you to restart the rhythm at the right moment
   after a break. This, however, undermines the "pre-count" feature that would
   enable you to start playing along in sync with a drums-only track with no
   drum intro, since the audible pre-count is then followed by that silent
   blank measure that shouldn't have been recorded.

 

10) Some other improvements that could be made to the drum machine are:
    * Automatically play a fill prior to a variation change.
    * If "Sync Start" was used, then default back to it if the drum machine
      is stopped for a break in a song.
    * Many of the endings are screwy, such as "Bolero", and some don't append
      seamlessly to their rhythm patterns or with the same volume.
    * Some of the fills also don't fit well in these ways.
    * There's a shortage of "Country" rhythm patterns.
    * It would be great if a rhythm's variation were assignable to a different
      rhythm and tempo to accommodate a song requiring such.

 

11) The manual is necessary for a keyboard of this complexity, but it isn't
    included and Casio wants $10 for one (though a PDF of it is downloadable
    for free). The documentation is generally very good, but the section on
    recording lacks clarity, perhaps partly due to the CT-S400 recording

    interface being somewhat confusing and less intuitive than the keyboard's

    other aspects.

 

12) I've now contacted Casio support about three different issues pertaining
    to this keyboard and have been misinformed each time. Beware.

 

[Steve F]

Here's a few more things I'd add to my CT-S4OO "Wish List" (on which a few items have now been addressed in the newly released CT-S500).

1) Set a split point by simply pressing that key, rather than having to scroll through cryptic names of keys on the display.

2) An option to automatically play a fill when stopping the rhythm for a break.

3) A button (or lowest key?) to which you can assign one of the sound effects, saved with a registration, so that the keyboard can bark like a dog for your "dog song", for example.

4) Roland has a "Jazz Scat" voice that's a ton of fun to play with, providing different vocal sounds depending on key velocity (i.e. how hard you hit it).  I haven't seen this in a Casio keyboard.

    

[timbr]

Interesting that you seem to find the CT-S300 keybed superior to the CT-400 one (if I understand it right; this post  seems to also point in the same direction). 

I was actually about to start a thread about the relative keybed/key action quality of the CT-S300/400 (the second sub-topic being the durability of the CT-S400 keybed, but that's another matter entirely), as pt.2 of my small "CT-S300 vs. 400" series, if you will.

[Steve F]

On 2/11/2022 at 7:24 PM, timbr said:

Interesting that you seem to find the CT-S300 keybed superior to the CT-400 one (if I understand it right; this post  seems to also point in the same direction).

The post you link to here was also written by me as a reply to a posting about this subject. The feel (AKA "action") of a keyboard is somewhat subjective and different players favor different types of keyboards. I favor reasonably "weighted" keyboards that don't wear you out, but in spite of that, I find the CT-S300 easier to play than the CT-S400, so you could say "superior" for me, someone whose playing is intensive and often speedy, requiring a responsive action that doesn't fight you as the CT-S400 does me. On the other hand, if you're not an advanced player and your right hand will only be playing chords or simple melodies, the CT-S400 might be more suitable in this regard.

[timbr]

Thanks for the response. You're probably right that this matter is quite subjective, so it's probably necessary for everybody to try it for themselves.