2021 Casiotone CT-S1 Keyboard

Nope, this isn't for sale -- I just wanted to share -- and no I'm not a seller or endorsee for these!

These CT-S1 models were new for 2021 and cost about $200 online -- maybe $25-40 more if you want to bundle a stand and sustain pedal with it. We bought it for our kids to use upstairs to practice for school and also just for fun. It's lightweight (the main important feature because I knew it might need to be dragged-around) and can be used with batteries if need-be.

It's also easy on the eyes which was sort-of important to me. As someone who's had random "vintage" (read: hideous) keyboards left to linger in the shop until grabbed, I'm very aware of these things in the environment and I can't stand black rectangles with huge LCD displays and millions of toggles and buttons. The product design on this is simple and stylish, the speakers are covered with fabric that takes-up the whole upper-deck, and the controls are all "hidden" into the design. They light-up with an LED indicator when in use, though, so they're not awkward to use as references.

Once you learn how to use the octave up/down controls (hold a function button and use a pair of keys) and the voice selection controls (hold down the tone control and press any key -- every key is mapped to one of the 61 voices), it's easy to get good and useful sounds out of this -- a good selection of acoustic pianos, electric pianos, a few organ sounds, and a bunch of weird ones. The EPs, vibraphone, vintage synths, and (amazingly) the (sampled) accordion voices are the ones that I like best.

There's a "surround sound" toggle and I just turn it on every time I turn the keyboard on when I'm plinking-around on this up in their room around bedtime -- it gives the whole thing a bit more of an "acoustic" presence when engaged that makes it fun to play.

So, yes, it's "synth keys" in resistance. There's about 4 or 5 settings of speed/pressure, though, so you can alter the tone of each note pretty well with your hands.

It also has a line-out jack (to pop into an amp) and a mini-USB port for MIDI-out so you can use it as a controller for your recording software. Yessss... and Little Elsa has already been playing-around in GarageBand with it hooked-up as a controller as she's super into synth sounds. She yanked my laptop away from me for half an hour the other night just tweaking one patch... I love seeing little ears perk-up.