New Casiotone S1 Announced

The Lounge Other Gear
#1

Hello!

I stumbled upon the newly announced Casiotone CT-S1 from Casio and thought I would share it with you, as I have not found a topic about it.

Here are some specs, official webpage as well as the product presentation video:

  • 61 full-size keys with touch response
  • Available in black, white or red to match your style
  • Stereo grand piano plus 60 other AiX-powered Tones
  • Powerful bass-reflex stereo speaker system with surround effect
  • Easy one-button recorder
  • Strap pins for playing anywhere
  • Class-compliant USB-MIDI connects to free Chordana Play app
  • Optional WU-BT01 Bluetooth MIDI/Audio adapter
  • Optional 6xAA battery power (AC adapter and music rest included)

Official website

Product presentation video

It’s nothing wild, but it turns out, it sounds really good to me, and I like the looks of it. The features are fairly nice, but it’s the price that makes it very enticing I think. It is supposed to retail for 199$ (I’d love to know how many euros that will be).

It’s quirky in all the best ways (strap buttons, VL-Tone and Mellotron sounds) and looks like a competent electronic piano that doubles as a MIDI keyboard. It appears the speakers are good too and the recorder can be pretty useful. It comes with a stand for notation (with a built in plate to put a phone or tablet on said stand) and a sustain pedal.

My only real gripe is that I could find no description of what the action is like. I would expect it to be only semi weighted at this price point, but non-weighted at all would be a hard no for me. If you find this information, please share it!

Anyway, I never thought I would be excited for a Casio product. They were never my jam, and now here I am.

In other words, I have a nice MIDI keyboard to play Ableton Live, but I still want it. Please send help.

Anyway, feel free to share about your thoughts on it, and have a nice day!

EDIT : Action was described as “little semi-weighted” in a review from Jeremy See (link with timestamp to the key action section).

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#2

Review by Music Player Network’s Dave Bryce

#3

Classic Braun/Rams industrial design. :black_heart:

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#4

I had never heard that name before but after looking it up, I have to say I’m a fan. Thanks a ton for sharing this reference. It’s stunning :scream:

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#5

The work of Dieter Rams also informed the Octatrack and Analog series design language (MK1).
6913947923_726cc14fe5_z

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#6

Love the look and if the price range is true they’ll sell loads of them–perfect for beginners, low-budget churches, school labs.

The keys are wasted on me but I’d love a modern rompler with some basics on it.

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#7

Man, now I want to buy the red one just to hang on my wall.

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#8

Now that you mention it, it makes a lot of sense. It’s really awesome stuff. I feel like teenage engineering too might be aware of his work haha.

#9

I still have my Casio PT-20, brand new under the Christmas tree in 1982. Yes of course I sampled it into my Digitakt.

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#10

I only realized today with the CT-S1 demos that these old VL and PT series and similar are probably the synths used for Animal Crossing. Which played a big role in my desire to get one, I’m not going to lie.

Also how the VL-1 is the inspiration for the OP-1. It’s unfortunate that they are quite expensive in Europe (or at least in France from what I have seen).

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#11

You can wear it with a guitar strap! There’s a pic of the red one strapped on here

#12

Some more vids

Official no talking demo:

Demo for people who speak British
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j5eF5VtsAA

#13

More insight on the action…
“Action feels like it has more travel than Roland Go keys”

:thinking:

#14

Just started watching this. Watch this with me and lets see who spots mention of the action/keybed/whatever first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUG2PnDy05w

#15

Notes from the Jeremy See video:

  • Optional wireless dongle for wireless MIDI connection to DAW or stream backing tracks into the internal speakers by Bluetooth
  • Audio In jack can be used if you don’t have the dongle
  • Voice Canceling on both dongle and Audio In jack, to let you play or sing along with backing tracks
  • Speaker fabric resistant to cat fur
  • Felt strip where keys meet chassis for some dust protection
  • 4 velocity curves
  • Semi-weighted action, not hammer action
  • Matte texture makes repeated note (on single key) playing easier
  • Less tones than now-older Casiotone models, in favor of quicker tone selection.
  • Dual voice layers
  • Reverb 24 configurable types
  • Chorus, Delay and “DSP” (dunno what that is) effects are hardwired into most tones
  • EQ: 10 presets
  • 7 user Tone Memory
  • Audio output might not be stereo?
  • Pedal can be used to start/stop metronome and configured to control only 1 Layer if using 2 Layers (eg. Piano plus Strings).
  • Recorder is single track
  • Does come with music stand but looks kinda cheap. Probably don’t want to put a heavier book like my copy of Metaphors for Musicians on top of that.
#16

DSP means Digital Signal Processing. I think it refers to the EQ stuff in this context.

Also, I think the output is stereo, but the « surround effect » only works with the internal speakers. It appears to be a special, fancy stereo thing.

#17

They had me at:

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#18

This is why I love the MK1. design. MK2 looks like it was more influenced by gaming aesthetics.

I should really buy a backup Octatrack MK1 before they get impossible to find in good condition.

#19

Well, all the effects are DSP. Reverb for example is typically implemented via DSP, hence my confusion. I don’t blame him though because I don’t think he’s a native English speaker.

I later found these images:. I think the “DSP” he is talking about is in them. You are probably right that each DSP block is EQ. My guess is the Voice Cancelling is part of the DSP block(s)

Description:

The new AiX Sound Source for Casio keyboards has been completely redesigned from the ground up. It combines a cutting-edge processor’s high-performance DSP effects and EQ with meticulouslysculpted instrument sounds, such as acoustic and electric pianos, guitars, drums, and more. These sounds come to life with clarity and expression that is unparalleled in portable keyboards.

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#20

Clarification from Mike Martin of Casio regarding Casio’s AiX article and the chart in the article:

There are a few different components to AiX. One is the sample playback engine, the amount of memory it is accessing for those samples and in some cases the interpolation between samples that is happening in real-time.

Then there is the DSP stuff. That chart is an over simplification. Referencing that picture “DSP1” is actually 4 separate effects. In the CT-X3000/5000 and PX-S3000 you can actually dive deep into this stuff.
DSP1 could actually be Wah->Pre Amp Model->Speaker Simulation->Modulation effect…then you have send levels to System Delay, Chorus and Reverb.

I’ll add that some of the pre-amp and speaker modeling is based directly on a very high end system that guitarists adore. When you have 100+ speaker models plus variants to choose from it is rather amazing.

In the context of CT-S1 / CT-S400 - yes some of this DSP is being used. It is preset within the tones so there isn’t any ability to dig in like you can on the other instruments I mentioned.

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