Casio WK-3000 Professional Series 76 Key Digital Recording Studio Styled Keyboard

 A Roland guy recommending a Casio...
I'm a die-hard Roland fan, and have always loved the Roland sounds and keyboards. Well, I recommend this Casio, because for $300, it really can't be beat. The piano sound on it sounds almost as good as my professional Roland, and the other sounds are very good too. My Roland still has the best orchestral sounds, but... I have to give my respect to this Casio unit. Keyboard Magazine reviewed this Casio and gave it a very favorable rating, which surprised me, because they usually don't "stoop" to consumer-level keyboards like the Casio. The fact that they reviewed it AND recommended it says a lot, since that magazine is a pro-keyboard magazine, not a consumer-keyboard magazine.
My roommate has one, and he's a very serious keyboard player. He's a Korg fanatic, and yet, he owns the Casio. This keyboard is going to convert a lot of people. When it comes down to $1000+ versus $300, and the sound quality difference is negligible, well, $300 wins.

 Amazing . . .a review from a skeptic
I am a pro writer in Nashville. I needed some sort of highly portable keyboard to have access to in the trunk of my car, etc. for writing dates. It needed to be light, have it's own speakers, I wanted it to have a way of recording what I was playing, preferably have the option of battery operation and, most importantly, have a good piano sound. My final criteria was that I wanted 76 keys instead of the normal 61 key that are found on smaller keyboards (ala the Yamaha PSR series). I had decided that - for the money - the only contender was the Yamaha DGX series. What a surprise when several keyboard players recommended I check this unit out. I have to admit total bias against the casio name. But I tried it and it sounds great. The piano, organ and electric piano sounds are wonderful. It is a bit larger and heavier than the 61 key PSR series by Yamaha but the sounds really beat the DGX until you get to the top of that line (or certainly the top of the PSR line). One word of caution, the only audio output on this keyboard is the headphone output. So if you plan on playing it live you'll want to get a cable that goes from 1/4" TRS to Left and Right outputs. I can't believe what $300 can buy in a keyboard. Casio has really shocked me with this one.

 Nothing but incredible
One word describes the WK-3000: amazing! I thought Casio was not all that great until I got this. It boasts over 300 different voices, almost any kind of rhythm you can think of, a SmartMedia memory card slot, drawbar organ, SMF player and much more.
You can also record your own song with up to 6 instruments. So you can sound like a ear-blasting rock band or a full-size orchestra.
I tried the SmartMedia card slot. It worked great, but I thought it was for putting your songs on the computer and burning them to a CD. Turns out it was for expanding your keyboard's memory.
Haven't tried the SMF player yet, but like all the other features on the keyboard, it should be great!
Advice: Buy if you love music.

 Novice first impressions
1. Magnificent grand piano sound easily selectable with one dedicated setting button.
2. Mine came with the casio power adapter in the box. I would expect others would receive the same therefore no need to order the adapter separately at addiional cost.
3. lightweight!
4. keyboard action OK, but not the same as a weighted mechanical keyboard action. Keypress (touch) sensitivity works as advertised- 3 levels: very light, medium,full. Of course a real keyboard action that throws a felted hammer at strings has an infinite range, so three levels simply cannot match. But if you play carefully you can use and hear all three levels while playing.
5. Wide range of drum accompaniment and sounds very realistic.
6. No training program built in. I bought a seperate midi compatible training that runs on a connected laptop.
7. LCD display is very good- easy to read, has lots of info.
8. Keys do "clack" a little if you move around quickly on the keyboard. The key action will just not match a real keyboard, but what can you expect for the $$.

will add more info later as I use the board...

 One Fantastic Keyboard for the Price!
Well folks I think casio put out a winner on this one!

It is absolutely amazing for the Price - Honest, I have had alot of pro gear in my time, and have used many synths - Currently just use modules right now... I use the WK 3000 - as a cheesy controller, but that works for me... I record with Roland VM series digital mixer and I am cookin brother, love it...

Now, about the sounds - You get the best sounding keyboard bar none at this price point - Really - there is nothing that comes close to this price wise... I have played a Korg Triton keyboard a couple of times and I am hard pressed to find some of its "basic" sounds besting this Casio... - Honest - A Far Off claim... maybe, but this is thing fantastic!

Yes, it does have alot of reverb on the paino, saxes and trumpets - But I love it, the sounds are processed very well and are clean. The sounds are all mostly very usefall - the piano's are great; 12 string and nylon string guitars, good (sounds better than my Roland JV-880 -and that's hard to do); EP's, very good, saxes and trumpets are outstanding; the distortion guitars are good - I mean for $200-300.00 you can't beat this thing with a stick! Basically, you get alot of really good sounding keyboard at a great price...

I would compare this easily to 1998-2001 professional synths that costed 5-7 times more than this thing - the polyphony could have been more like 48/64, and that is the only downside -

SO for what the Casio Wk-3000 does, it does well (again at this price point)... When it comes to MIDI implimentation - casio has improved alot, could be better (this where Yamahas really shine); However, sequencing with it is not too bad... The Smart media card was a great addition... Yet, simple things like a USB port would have been great, Other than that - GO buy one!

abstract - ALESIS QS series keyboards could have taken a lesson in technology here, Bigtime!

 So much more than I bargained for!
For years, I turned my nose up at the CASIO brand of pianos, always choosing the other brands supposedly more respected my musicians. But, while I was at a music store looking for a second keyboard to gig with, I compared a YAMAHA with the CASIO and after at least an hour of astonished comparison, I went with the CASIO. Boy, CASIO has gotten it's act together, and come up with a rich sounding keyboard that rivals even my KORG sometimes. I love the rich and very real piano sounds and other beautiful effects that I can produce with this keyboard that is also a synthesizer. I've gigged with it several times this summer with my band, and always get complements on how real the piano sounds. The higher and lower octaves are pearly and bright too. For the price and quality, I'm so happy with it. So maybe you'd like to give CASIO a second thought when you're looking for a keyboard, and are bored by the overrated options offered by other keyboard-makers. My only criticism is that the manual isn't always so easy to read, some trial, error, and patience are needed.

 Welcome, Casio! Yamaha: so long, until you can beat this...
After having being away from playing music for almost three years, I was curious as to what would portable keyboards be up to. As it was my habit (having owned three previous Yamaha Portasound keyboards) I went for the latest release in Yamaha's portable lineup, only to be dissapointed at the lack of versatility and mostly at the lack of power in the keyboard's output. Since I am up for portability (not wanting or being able to hook it up to a whole bunch of external gear to make it sound good), this was a major deal breaker for me... for the first time in my life, I turned Yamaha down.

Then, I turned around (I literally turned around, since I was in a Sam Ash store!) and I glanced at this baby. "A Casio!" -I said to myself... Wasn't thrilled at the prospects, I must admit, because I remember Casio's cheesy-sounding tones of ole. It's almost like I wanted to forget them: oh, how much I hated the tones that the Casio keyboards came with. But I gave it a shot, and today I am happy that I did. This keyboard, even today, almost two months after I bought it, comes with far more options than I think I will ever come up with uses for!

It comes pre-loaded with far more high-quality tones than you will ever need, with a wide array of pianos, electric pianos and organs, opening the line-up. Are you a synthesis freak? No problem! You can play with a bunch of parameters within all the tones and save up as many as 100 of your newly created tones,. and if you want more, you can download more tones and rhythms from the Casio music or elsewhere in the Web, ad nauseam, since you can expand the memory with an standard SmartMedia card.

As for rhythms, there's plenty of those too (you can also make different drum kits play different rhythms than those they're programmed for, for an array of very interesting combinations), and you can save quite a few of your songs for playback, as well as keyboard configurations, or split the keyboard, or mix two sounds to be played, with awesome control over volume of each, etc. I mean, with the Casio WK-3000 Professional Series 76 Key Digital Recording Studio Styled Keyboard by Casio (now, THAT's one deserved mouthful) you really have it all.