Casio Casiotone CT-S300 61-key Portable Arranger Keyboard Reviews

I have only had one other keyboard which was also a Casio but much older. I researched reviews as to what was recommended at this price range and this seemed to be mentioned most of the time. I paid full retail price. I was looking for mostly a piano keyboard so it suits my needs. I think the sound is clear and I like that I can connect to my amp to. I see a couple reviewers calling it a toy but I imagine they are seasoned musicians. I am a beginner and I think it is a good value for the cost. You can find something for less money. I also like the carry handle making it portable. I would recommend this for a beginner.

I bought this keyboard for my girlfriend almost 2 christmases ago and she has learnt to play beautifully on it. Cannot recommend enough for first time players!

I would like to begin by saying Sweetwater's customer service both during and after sales is the best I have experienced. Within seconds of ordering, I received an email from Chad Cusson who was our allocated music specialist. An hour or so later he called on the phone. We weren't home but he left a very nice, and helpful message. This level of communication continued.
I had done some YouTube watching to decide on the best keyboard for our 7-year-old granddaughter who is just starting with piano lessons. I wanted something above child level, but within a certain price level. I thought this keyboard fit those parameters without being too complicated or overwhelming, and still have plenty of room for future improvement. Although she hasn't had much time to play, as the keyboard is at our house for now, she seems to be enjoying her time on it. Time will tell. I will update this review after that time.
The sounds are very good with most of the 400 instrument sounds quite accurate. There are beats and music you can utilize without much music knowledge required, but we haven't used that any more than a scan through. But all that is just a time issue.
Oh, I must mention the super fast shipping! I ordered quite late in the day, but received the keyboard the NEXT day! The box and packing - excellent. This shipping was free, too.
I can't say enough good things about this company. Their prices are extremely competitive - I mean, what more can you ask?

If you haven't watched the youtube video reviews on this keyboard, you should. I bought this to learn to play piano, and I am completely satisfied. The quality and features are amazing for a $149 instrument! Even if I had paid twice that, I believe I would be happy with this keyboard. I use 6 rechargeable AA batteries to run it and they last a week!
Also worth metioning is Sweetwater's customer service. Not an hour after placing my order, Hannah from Sweetwater called me to thank me for my order and let me know they would be happy to help with any issues with my gear or even my playing! I am always trying to find vendors to replace Amazon, and when it comes to music, Sweetwater is now that replacement!

great product, good sounds, lightweight, fun and easy to use. Definitely recommend.

Great piano, great price, fast shipping, great service. Sweetwater is the absolute best company to deal with for musical instruments.

It was a gift to my sister who used to play awhile ago. Thought since it raised her spirits then, why not know!
So far she Loves it!

The service here is great. I'd rather buy from a small business than a large company. The attention given to the details are significant plus it keeps the money local. My keyboard arrived earlier than expected and I got a call to check on it. Cool. Sweetwater has me now.

I've had this about a month now so I've pretty much learned how to use it. I love this little keyboard! Heres the rundown:
1. The rhythms inspire you to practice and write songs. Having some pre-made material to work with is really efficient. Yes, I could write these on a drum machine, but why reinvent the wheel?
2. This thing is great for putting together a quick set for a small gig. The accompianment is not overdone. Plus you can use the dance mode to set the mood between sets. It's easy to carry too.
3. My children love it. We hooked it up to our smart tablet and played with the Chordana app. I'm using it to improve my slow sightreading.
4. The action isn't terrible. Mine is broken in and feels ok. The touch dynamics are good enough.
5. Excellent service from Ian. What more could you want?

I absolutely love this keyboard, so does my partner and my daughter.

I'm new to the whole piano world but and I've been a drummer for over 30 years now and just recently discovered my second new love for music...The piano.This keyboard is perfect for beginners and professionals alike just looking to give themselves more sound to there arsenal and also learning anywhere from the very basics of piano to just learning how the instrument works all together,there's plenty there,plus it has 400 voices to play around with,I've had this piano for a few weeks now and I'm only on number 168,yikes,this is a great instrument,you should at least try it once.Also Sweetwater has great advice as far as which piano best suites your needs.Thanks John Krempel.

Going head-to-head with more expensive models, this is a full-featured well-designed keyboard with more bells and whistles than the average user might utilize. Delivery was swift and keyboard well packaged. Sound is better than expected. Glad I bought it. Sweetwater seems like a unique and down-to-earth firm with a wife variety of products.

Nice and light and portable. Respectable tone quality. Tone wheel is a nice feature on a lower cost keyboard.

Great sounding little keyboard! Very compact. Fits well in a compartment in my RV so that I can travel and keep up my practice.

Customer service with this company has been over the top.

Nice, feature-filled, portable keyboard at a great price - perfect practice tool for my college-aged daughter, plus my younger kids love playing with it, too.

The Casio CT-S300 is a really good choice in a portable keyboard. It's lightweight and easy to transport (I got a stand as well) and packs a punch sound-wise.

Not only that, but this keyboard got to my home in record-breaking time! My service representative called me for a follow-up on my order the day after I placed it to ask if I had any questions. He was very professional and knowledgeable, definitely gave me a lot of reassurance that my product was coming from a company that cares about their customers! I've never had a more positive, memorable customer service experience.

That's all, just wanted everyone to know that it shipped on time (I received it a day or two early), and the product is exactly what I was expecting. Thanks Sweetwater.

It performs exactly as I wanted for my 9 year old who is an absolute music freak (daddy is proud). Sweetwater is always a dream to work with and Jordan is a fantastic rep.

I bought this a instrument learn the black and whites on. It's more than satisfactory for the task.
Keybed feels substantial and the tone is more than adequate.

A very good way to start the process!

And the candy is a bonus!

Thanks Sweetwater!

I still have my Casio VL-Tone, and I smile every time I turn it on. Same with this instrument. This is a throwback to when keyboards were almost usurping guitars as a portable go-to instrument. No issues here. Easy to play, although the keys do have a grippy feel to them, plenty of sound through the built in speakers, sustain pedal jack, 6 AA's powers it or the supplied wall wart works as well. Velocity sensitive, sturdy bend wheel, and a music rack, this thing just begs to be played. No top line triple strike piano samples, or drawbar nirvana, but no General MIDI grunge, just decent sounds (although it does have a compliment of GM aboard). You will need a 1/8" to 1/4" adapter wire to plug into an instrument amplifier, which also disables the internal speakers.

This feels sturdy in spite of all plastic construction, and the built in handle doubles as the music rack anchor. A beginner would love this and drag it all over just to show what it can do. I'm hardly a beginner and I'm doing just that anyway.

It's surprising what $... buys these days, and it's a pleasant surprise.

Where this keyboard really shines is as a travel keyboard. If you want a travel keyboard with this manny full sized keys I don't think anything is slimmer or lighter and nothing else has a handle which is extremely useful when opening it up putting a guitar strap on this thing with some ribbon and taking it with you wherever you go. I played this while walking slowly and while waiting in line at the post office. Another great feature is a sustain button so you don't have to attach a sustain pedal to it or mess with trying to trigger the sustain with a quarter inch adapter. the sounds are nice and they got some cool mixed sounds. 14 is my favorite right now. So good I might record with it. I think shabby sounds can only be found in toy keyboards these days and even those are sounding pretty good. ya its battery powered. 6 double A. Probably best full sized keyboard to carry around and fit in anyplace so you can play all day.

I play keys with various bands, plus have a nice acoustic grand at home. I was looking for something extremely portable that could travel well, and have enough volume for the occasional acoustic jam session. This unit does the job for me. I'd much prefer a weighted 88-note unit with beefy speakers, but size/weight would be a big problem. So I went for this one.

Positives: there are useful voices (esp. pianos and organs), the user interface is dead simple, it sounds pretty good for what it is, and the unweighted keybed action is minimally acceptable. Oh yes, and there's a useful pitch wheel to practice your bends.

Negatives: playing this keybed will be bad for my weighted AP technique, many of the voices aren't all that useful, the auto-play features are interesting for maybe a few minutes at best, and it won't get very loud. It's going to take me a while to learn how to modulate the touch-sensitive action -- right now, it seems pretty much like a coarse switch vs a continuous effect.

No sustain pedal is included, but you do get the power supply and a useful music rest. Build quality seems acceptable, so we'll see how long it lasts. I can sit on a chair, put it on my knees and wail away. The unweighted keybed is sufficient to do fast runs and turns, but doesn't work well for rhythmic comping.

A fun toy and a great value, in my opinion.

I bought the Casiotone CT-S300 because I wanted a very lightweight, smaller 61-key keyboard, and the handle was a plus. It lives up to that - it's several pounds lighter than my Yamaha E353, has a much smaller display, which makes it smaller front to back, too. The handle is useful when it's not in a gig bag. The keys are very slightly textured. I was concerned about this, but it turns out it's pretty subtle - once I got to playing, I didn't even notice. The Casiotone is touch sensitive, nice for the price. And while it doesn't feel like playing a piano, which I didn't expect, it has less clack at the bottom of each keystroke than my Yamaha, which I'm very happy about.

I definitely like my CT-S300, but there are a couple things I want to mention. First, it doesn't sound as good as my Yamaha. The speakers are small, and you can expect less bass and on some settings a slightly thin sound unless you use a keyboard amp. Also some of the tones are just a little electronic sounding. Don't get me wrong - this doesn't sound like a $50 no-brand keyboard. It sounds pretty good. But I feel that Yamaha has the edge for tone in the under-$250 range. And while the minimal screen means a smaller, sleeker keyboard, it also means there's no quick way to get to a particular sound. If you want to get to a sound, you have to turn the dial, and if you want sound 220, it will take some turns. Luckily for me, I prefer one of the piano settings.

I was looking for a lighter weight keyboard with a sleeker profile, and it's hard to beat the CT-S300. I chose it over the CT-S200 because for a few bucks more, you get touch sensitive keys and a pitch bend wheel. After checking some reviews and reading about it, this keyboard delivers exactly what I expected as well as good value for money, and I'm glad I got it.

After playing some synth with my band here and there (I mostly gravitate towards guitar, but also bass and drums) I figured it was finally time to learn the piano for real. We have a few different synths and an organ in our rehearsal / studio space, but I needed something I can keep at home and learn on / write with. This thing fits the bill perfectly. Don't expect huge sounds from the built in speakers. I also wish it came with a sustain pedal in the box but it's not a big deal

For the money this has some pretty good features... touch sensitivity, transpose, drum beats, 400 sounds, reverbs, etc. but the downside is the speakers are pretty bad and the piano sounds could be better

I simply needed a smaller keyboard for composing in an office with limited space. As such, it fits the bill - except for the lack of a cable to connect it to my computer. Unlike most keyboards, this does not have the usual MIDI port. It's a 5-pin mini USB port, so I'll have to be careful to select the right cable for it. As an instrument, it feels and sounds more like a toy. Fortunately for me, I don't think that will be a problem.