26 Feb 2015

A question about : I want to buy a portable keyboard

My son is learning the piano (has done his grade 2) and we want to buy a portable keyboard. Its first outing will be to cubs next week where he and other piano players will be entertaining their fellow cubs as part of a hobbies evening.

I know I want it to have a minimum of 61 full sized keys.

I have some questions, if anyone can help?

- I want it to feel vaguely like a real piano keyboard if possible, so does this mean I need weighted keys?
- I want it to be able to play soft and loud sounds depening on how hard you hit the key, would this be listed as 'senstive' in the description?
- Thinking ahead, ideally we would be able to connect an amp/speaker. Most of the descriptions that I've seen don't say anything about this. I called Dawson's (our nearest music shop) and the cheapest one with audio out was Ј389, which is about Ј200 more than I want to spend. I'm confused though - if there's a headphone jack, does this also work as an amp connection, so anything that can take headphones would do the trick? Or is it more complicated than that?

If anyone has any answers or general advice I'd be very grateful.

Best answers:

  • I'm thinking the Yamaha PSRE 333 might be a good choice. Amazon has it for Ј165 or Toys'R'Us for Ј150 (but no local stock so would have to pay for delivery).
    The instruction manual says:
    'You can connect the PHONES/OUTPUT jack to a set
    of headphones, keyboard amplifier, stereo system,
    mixer, tape recorder, or other line-level audio device
    to send the instrument’s output signal to that device.'
    so I think I'll be OK attaching an amp later.
    Or maybe the Yamah NP-11. No bells and whistles but probably sounds more like a piano. I think my 10 year old will love the bells and whistles though.
    In the absence of any input from the good folks of the forum I'll discuss with DH and order tomorrow, or this evening.
  • The only weird and annoying thing with Yamaha keyboards, they never seem to come with power adaptors (how difficult would it be for Yamaha to put one in the box?) so perhaps add around Ј20 onto the asking price or try to find a generic cheap one.
  • Looking at the reviews and Youtube demonstrations, possibly Yamaha's "Touch Response" is actually what I'd call "weighted" so that might be exactly what you're looking for. I didn't know you could get it on starter keyboards.
    IMO, velocity sensitive takes a bit of getting used to (and I tend to disable it anyway). And after touch is really only for whacky synthesiser type stuff
    It's definitely worth a trip to a local shop to try this out before you buy.
  • Just thought I'd let you know - in the end I bought a Casio CTK 5000. 61 velocity sensitive keys, USB MIDI, line out as well as headphone jack, sampling, 152 built-in tunes PLUS SD card slot to expand the built-in memory. (I plan to ask my son's music teacher to record the piano accompaniement to his violin exam pieces to make practising easier).
    Ј199 inc. delivery from Dawsons, extra Ј10 for the power supply. It arrived today and sounds and feels a lot better than I was expecting. I'm really pleased with it and the kids will be thrilled when they see it in a few minutes.
    It does a lot of things that we won't use at the moment but as we get to know it I'm sure we'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it.
    (I did consider the CTK 6000 for the same price but that looked a lot more technical and had things we would definitely never use).
    Thanks so much everyone for all your help.
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