WORLD OF MUSIC ; PORTABLE KEYBOARD - Latest Portable Music Keyboards, Synthesizers and Music News

Immediately hailed as one of the greatest headline sets that the festival has ever seen, Elton John’s Glastonbury performance delighted audiences both at Worthy Farm and in living rooms across the UK. In fact, so inspired were fans by his appearance that Casio Music UK is reporting a Rocket Man-fuelled uptick in sales of its pianos and keyboards in the following days.

In the week after the festival (June 26 to July 3) Casio Music says that sales of its digital pianos and keyboards more than doubled in comparison to the same period last year – they were up a whopping 133%. Traffic to its website was up by 70%, and Google searches for ‘pianos/keyboards for beginners’ increased by 20%.

It’s been suggested that the crowd for Elton’s Glastonbury performance was the largest ever seen, and the BBC’s combined audience figures across BBC One and iPlayer confirmed that the still-standing-songsmith had the biggest overnight audience for any Glastonbury headliner.

Here’s what Neil Evans, Head of EMI at Casio, said:

“To see an icon such as Sir Elton play out his final ever UK performance at Glastonbury was a special moment, yet to see how many people tuned in and have been inspired to play the piano is even more remarkable.

“Sir Elton is a piano-playing legend and off the back of his performance, we’ve seen increased interest in a range of our pianos and keyboards, especially for beginners. Who knows, his Glastonbury show may have just inspired a new generation of Sir Elton Johns.”

Piano sales have been buoyant for a while now, with lockdown, YouTube tutorials and social media all helping to bring the instrument back into favour. Show’s such as Channel 4’s The Piano, which saw members of the public unknowingly having their skills judged as they played public pianos at train stations, have also helped.

Elton John’s trip to Glastonbury was one of the final stops on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which concluded in Stockholm this weekend. Closing the show, he thanked fans and told them that they would remain in his “head, heart and soul”.

Casio, 61-Key Portable Keyboard (LK-S250)

In the early ‘80s, Casio released the Casiotone range of portable keyboards. Now after almost 40 years later, Casio is introducing a revamped line-up of Casiotone models for the new generation of music players.

The Casiotone CT-S200, CT-S300 and LK-S250 are similar to their predecessors, with each offering a wide range- 400 of built-in sounds and 122 rhythms. plus 50 patterns of Dance Music Mode. In addition, you will also get USB MIDI and a rechargeable battery, and portability is aided by the inclusion of a carry handle. Weighing in at just six pounds, thanks to the slim chassis which has kept the weight down and make it more portable then ever, and there are 61 full-size keys.

Expect to see the new Casiotone  CT-S200, CT-S300, LK-S250 in stores later this year. Prices are $109 for the CT-S200, $139 for the CT-S300, and $159 for the LK-S250.

Casio teamed up with aNYthing, a lifestyle brand located in New York City, to create a limited edition XW-P1 synthesizer. Since it’s released in October this year, the Casio XW-P1GD rendered in gold color, by any standards it is a bold colour choice but, Does the capability of the synth match its shiny personality?

What is in it’s name?  The somewhat wordy tag line for the XW-P1 – ‘Hybrid Processing Sound Source’ – is certainly worthy of some further explanation. Put simply, the XW-P1 is capable of producing sounds in a range of different ways, namely as a ‘PCM’ synth with a generous onboard library of ‘stock’ sounds, as a Drawbar Organ, as a Solo Synth and as a player of Casio’s own ‘Hex Layers’, of which more shortly.

The Casio XW-P1 offers a range of features which push it firmly towards the ‘workstation’ territory, hinted at by the busy back panel, which offers Microphone Input – with gain dial, stereo Audio Ins, Instrument Inputs, a USB port, SD card slot alongside stereo audio outs and MIDI ports. The 20 Preset Drum kits are put to good use within the onboard sequencer – as with other contemporary workstations, the Performance Presets have been tailored to ensure that a stylistically-relevant drum groove will be triggered for each program.

The PCM sounds are solid enough, offering sounds under dedicated Piano, Strings/Brass, Guitar/Bass, Synth and Various buttons to access the relevant categories. You can edit a sound you like with control over extended parameters available from the LCD menu of which four can be controlled from the K1-4 Assignable Knobs in the top-left hand corner. There are 400 PCM preset sounds onboard, with space for 100 User programs of your making. The Drawbar Organ option offers 50 presets with a further 50 spaces for your own variations. Above the Pitch Bend and Modulation wheels, you’ll find 8 ‘Drawbar sliders’, as well as additional controls for Organ parameters including Rotary speed. The sliders make careful creation of modelled organ sounds really fun and intuitive.

In addition, the XW-P1’s most unique sonic category, the Hex Layer. This is a single tone with six independently adjustable components. Each component layer features its own filter, pitch data – for transposition offsets, envelope data, key splits, velocity range and effects mix, with balances between each part assigned to the sliders. The first six of these control the levels of each layer, the seventh acting as a ‘Total’ control for the six combined. Finally, the 8th and ‘Master’ sliders control Effects parameters.

About Solo synth secrets – A Solo Synth patch can actually feature six separate sound sources or ‘Blocks’, namely two ‘virtual analogue’ Oscillators – Blocks 1 and 2, two sampled PCM ones – Blocks 3 and 4, an external signal -Block 5 routed in from the back panel inputs and a Noise generator -Block 6.

Pros – Solo synth mode is versatile and infinite in its sonic potential. Without doubt this is a competitively-priced, feature-packed instrument. Casio XWP1 61 Key Performance Synthesizer vast features would definitely rewards your sonic experiments.

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