Casio CDP-S100BKC5 Full Weighted Hammer Action Digital Piano

Product Information

Chordana Play also lets you control some functions on the keyboard, like switching between sounds and controlling metronome tempo. With chorus and reverb off, certain notes sound a little weird when holding them down. On a real piano, while a sustained note decays in volume its timbre also changes. You can hear on this model that the designers have carefully looped the sustain part of many notes as they fade them out. Unfortunately, a few notes do show a little “beating” during the sustain part of the envelope. But you really have to listen hard for this and for 99% of music you will never notice it. The funny thing is not all notes do this: it’s particularly noticeable in headphones from C5 – E5. I had a grand piano and also am incredibly impressed with how much digital keyboards have improved over the years in terms of touch and action. Again, repeated notes, trills, blues/jazz slurs and grace notes are all very responsive.

Personally, I recommend practicing with the standard preset, as it has the clearest tone of the bunch and allows you to pinpoint mistakes and weaknesses easily. In one dedicated article, we’ve covered the best keyboards in this price range, so feel free to give that a read before diving into this review. That said, the fact that this is compact may not be as relevant as you’d think. The PX-S series was designed for stage use, hence the portability factor, but I don’t exactly see why the CDP-S series needed the same treatment. Heavier settings require harder keypresses to trigger louder sound samples, and the reverse is true for the lighter setting.

Slim body just 232 mm in depth

Next up is material. Read through the product description for Casio CDP-S100BKC5ST Digital Piano with Stand to get an understanding of the materials the product is made from. Some materials will obviously be known for delivering better quality item than others. You might also have decided that you’ll only accept a product made from a particular material. This is a common way for manufacturers to compensate for having no screen. Since the CDP-S100 is a budget keyboard, I can accept the screen’s exclusion. Apart from its slim form factor, the chassis is standard. The materials are plastic, though the surface has a matte texture, so fingerprints are less of an issue. The next step after looking at products in the same category, was to look at products from the same brand, Casio. While the compact form factor is nice to have, it comes with the caveat of a shorter pivot length for the keys.

This app is available on Android and iOS and streamlines navigation. We’ll cover this in detail in the Connectivity section, but the experience was just fine without it. This applies best to organs and electric pianos to emulate running real keyboards through an effects box. In short, a digital piano is meant to emulate an acoustic piano to the best of its ability. Good digital pianos do this well in the sound department and the feel department.

Now, that isn’t to say these keys are perfect. Sacrifices to the pivot length were required to achieve the smaller size, so the keys are harder to play at their upper points. Good digital pianos will have nice key-action, great sampled piano sounds, nice speakers, and a durable build. Can you give me your thoughts as to whether or not, as a rote beginner, I would benefit from weighted keys and a full 88-key keyboard enough to warrant the extra expense, or would a good sounding 61 (or even 76-key) Piaggero give me a good foundation with which to begin learning? I could then consider upgrading later on. Even more impressive is that these are powerful, dual 8W speakers, when other competitors like the Roland FP-10 and Yamaha P-45 rely on dual 6W ones. I’d say definitely, but your mileage may vary, so it’s hard to tell unless you try them for yourself. To me, the PHA-4 just overall feels more realistic, including the key movement, the key pivot length, etc. It’s also a heavier action than the one CDP-S100 uses, which some actually find too heavy for their liking. In my opinion, it’s one of the most realistic key actions in this price range for sure.

I would say that this would make a great kids piano if you can afford it. I often urge students to go for digital pianos over traditional keyboards as I do believe they’ll get more out of them. What Makes A Good Digital Piano? Definitely a big selling point for this keyboard. It is extremely light and can be powered by 6 AA batteries. When I was younger and learning the piano, I wanted the freedom to take my keyboard outside and play. The problem was that I didn’t have the ability because I didn’t have power sources to make it happen. While I found this app indispensable during my PX-S1000 review, I’m of a different stance with the CDP-S100. The first is brand. Looking at the brand of the product is often a really good indicator for judging product quality. For example you’d expect a much higher quality product from a brand known for providing excellent quality than you would from an unknown or even a budget brand. In terms of controllability, the CDP-S100 resembles other budget keyboards in this price range, including their button and key combos.I found that most sounds worked best with the subtle level 1 and 2 settings, with higher levels being a bit too much for my taste.

Even though Lucas highlights the relative short key pivot length, again at my level of skill I can pretty easily play up high in the white keys. Something worth considering here is that the presence of physical buttons on the CDP-S100 might be important for the visually impaired. First of all, many of today’s digital pianos use stereo samples, which sometimes require two or even more notes for each key played. My thoughts on the Casio CPD S100 is that it is a good look at a portable digital piano. There aren’t a ton of portable options with 88 keys due to the weight, but this is one of them. You sacrifice a little bit in the sound department, but that is to be expected when paying such a small price.

Our nominated carrier is Parcel Force. Deliveries are made Monday – Friday between 9.00am – 6.00pm (excluding Bank Holidays). Chordana is a cool feature it comes with as this is a good program for beginners. We are starting to see this program working with a lot of keyboards as it is a really good instructional program for all ages. One of the reasons why I wanted to review the Casio CDP-S110BKC5 piano was the fact that it advertised Scaled Hammer Action II technology. This is essentially a form of graded hammer effect, which means that the keys are heavier at the bottom and lighter at the top. For the beginner players out there this may not seem like much, but I can assure you it really does feel great. Although this may not be something you initially notice when you first play, after a few months you will really start to reap the benefits the more advanced you get. The Reverb has 4 algorithms and an option to turn it off as well. The algorithms differ primarily in their size parameter, going from a small room at level 1 to a large concert hall-style reverb at the maximum level.