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🎹Casio CTK-2550 Portable Keyboard Review & Demo – Best Budget Keyboard?🎹

by MayaOfLagos 28/04/2020, 8:21 PM 27 Comments

Piano Layout – 1:25
Piano Sounds – 4:06
Specs – 16:46

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Alternative Options – Comparable Digital Pianos
🛒 Yamaha PSR-E263▸
🛒 Casio CT-X700▸
🛒 RockJam RJ561▸
🛒 Casio SA-76▸
🛒 Roland FP-90▸

#Casio #CTK2550 #Keyboard

Introduction:

In this piano review video, Stu Harrison of Merriam Pianos guides us through an overview of Casio’s portable keyboard, the CTK-2550. It’s a value-packed, fun and lightweight keyboard that works equally well as a musical toy, or as a small stage augmentation to a band or primary keyboard.

Although it’s unusual for us to review an instrument that’s shorter than 88 keys here on the channel, the popularity of this specific model made us curious…and, well, here we are!

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Tone Engines & Sound:

The tones and sound generation on the CTK2550 are definitely basic in nature – it is capable of stereo signal, but many of the patches are mono to preserve processing capacity and keep the price as low as possible. It goes without saying that for something under $200, my expectations were low to begin with, and the key to this instrument lies in the simplicity of its use, and its ability to quickly and quite competently generate a rhythm / bass accompaniment for a singer or other instruments.

The CTK2550 has over 400 sounds and about half as many rhythms on it, so while the quality may be rudimentary, the variety is stellar. In fact, I might even say there’s a bit of a lo-fi charm about instruments like this that definitely have a place in the sonic fabric of professionally-made music.

The Action:

Much like the sound, the action is a simple straight-forward design. It’s a spring-loaded, single-part key with no touch sensitivity, doesn’t have graduated weighting, and no acoustic action simulation. Big deal if you’re already a player and this is either for fun, travel, or as a novelty addition to your stage setup. If you’re a parent however, I’d strongly suggest passing on this as an ‘at-home’ setup and look for something with weighted 88 notes.

Other Features:

The biggest feature areas of this keyboard are 1) Intelligent Accompaniment, which allows the user to select different styles of drum+bass accompaniment, such as rock, pop, jazz, waltz, etc…. and 2) “Dance Music” mode…which is similar to many of the EDM synced phrase machines like ROLI blocks or some of Ableton’s functionality. You can basically activate or deactivate layers of instrumental sound that are all synced together in time, so it’s like muting and unmuting layers that are already there in the background.

This is where the imnstrument is likely to be used the most in my opinion..I could see this being the backing tracks along with a bass, solo instrument like a guitar or sax, and a vocalst, for a small wedding band or street entertainment group. Or as I found, just having a blast yourself in a living room.

Conclusions:

While it can’t be called a piano, it doesn’t mean it isn’t an instrument. Inexpensive, portable, and well thought-out, this could make for a great travel instrument, a writing partner, or a basic backing instrument for a small band. Have fun with this one!

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