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List Price: $1,099.99
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- Over 250 voices and 4 band EQ
- Includes USB, MIDI, SD-card, Line in/out and 2 headphone outputs
- Incredible 128-note Polyphony
- DSP with 64 effects/combos
- Weighted, scaled, hammer-action keys precisely replicate the touch of a real Grand Piano
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As a 34 year Band & Choir director and professional musician, I've owned a number of weighted digital pianos from Korg to Yamaha to Casio Privia and Celviano models since the 80's. This piano is amazing the sounds are great and easily tweaked and saved. The "base" piano, organ, instrumental, gm sounds, etc. are great and can be easily mixed, layered and split. I didn't even use the manual for the first 6 weeks I owned it and still had a blast programming it. I've been playing piano since 1964 and this has one of the most real piano actions and touch that I've played. The "ivory touch" keys are just icing on the cake but I'll take it. Real midi ports, 1/4" outs, headphone jacks, USB connection and memory card round it out as a true professional keyboard that just so happens to only weigh 23 lbs.
Hardly a problem, but I would have made the buttons a little larger with a little bigger / brighter lettering and maybe a slightly larger display.
I have to admit, I just love to sit at it with a set of good headphones and just play I've "wasted" many hours doing that since it arrived.
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Please note that I'm writing this as someone who went looking for a piano-first instrument. My review is based off of this requirement. Also, the Yamaha I'm comparing it to is a mid-range ($1,200) composer/workstation keyboard with semi-weighted keys, so please take this into account.
I have been working with the Casio PX-3 for about a week now, and it's going back. I had hoped that it would be a relatively low-cost alternative to a Kawai, Yamaha or Roland DP, but it just isn't. To preface my review, I must say that my current home situation mandates that I use headphones fairly often, and this is, perhaps, where the problem lies (then again, many of the other commenters here indicate they use headphones often with this DP, so, it might just be my ears). Also, I play a lot of slower ballads that require large chord voicings, particularly in the midrange, so if you play a lot of ragtime, rock, etc., you might not hear any of this.
In general, I like to feel of the pseudo-ivory keys under my fingers. The key action is a bit mushy and heavy and they keys are a bit noisy and "thunk-y," but I don't mind this aspect of the piano as it falls within my normal boundary of acceptability. The controls are easy enough to work, all things considered, but they are a bit small and lack good tactile feedback. The decay on the piano sounds is a bit abrupt, but changing some of the custom settings helped this somewhat (but not totally to my satisfaction). Also, the note falloff under sustain pedal seemed far, far too abrupt, as well, but there might be a way to change that.
The piano sounds themselves are fair/good (nothing to write home about--again, under slower playing conditions), but some of the piano notes sound electronic-y to me, particularly in the midrange and during a sustain. While my Yamaha's piano sounds ring and resonate as they start to fade away, the Casio's sound like they're buzzing (it's somewhat video-gamey in nature; I guess this doesn't matter a ton except on the last chord/voicing of a phrase or the entire song?). Things also start to get a but muffled during complex chord voicing, even in the midrange (where I normally want chords to be well defined). My Yamaha seems to shine under the strain of complex chords while the PX-3 seems to falter. All of these things I could probably live with for $800, though.
What killed this DP for me was the amount of distortion behind the notes, particularly in the first B, C, and C# keys above middle C. If one turns the brilliance to 3, it's really, really noticeable. It's almost like the sampling rate used to record was much lower for these keys that all the rest. Put another way, while most of the other keys sound like MP3s sampled around 192, those three sound like they were sampled at around 96-112. The pronounced hissing behind these notes is terribly bad, even without the harsh distortion.
I noticed this initially through my speakers--I thought these two notes were simply hitting the harmonic resonance frequency of my speakerboxes at first (my speakers are quite good, so why I thought they had any time of resonance in this sense is beyond me). Unfortunately, clearly this wasn't the case after I put on some cheap headphones. Things got downright nasty after I put on my Ultrasone closed-back studio headphones. I played all of the other keys one-by-one to see if this very high level of distortion was isolated and it generally was; however, there's noticeable distortion behind all of the notes on the PX-3 which makes the overall reproduction of the piano sound a bit harsh (my Yamaha workstation also has this tendency, but it's far, far less pronounced--strangely, the worst distortion on my Yamaha comes from these same very three keys; what's up with that?? Even these three keys on my Yamaha at their worst is still better than the Casio's other keys at their best). I might be able to live with the harshness if I played faster songs or on a stage where detail isn't as important. More to the points, though, the distorted B, C, and C# keys are so incredibly bad that one can easily hear it even during complex chord voicings. If it were on one of the higher or lower sets of B, C, and C# keys, it would be alright, but since these are the set above middle C, I use them quite a bit. I even tried to convince myself that I could work around these three keys...but, yeah, that's when I realized I was trying to rationalize this far too much.
Now that I've heard this distortion, it can't be unheard. I noticed this same level of distortion in roughly 3/4 of the piano sounds. I didn't bother with the rest since I purchased this as a piano-first instrument. The distortion is exacerbated by turning the brilliance up to 3. The distortion can be mitigated by turning the brilliance down (especially to -3) and changing the attack to about 5 or 6. However, this leaves the piano sounds very muted and muffled, so this isn't really a good work-around for me.
If you're playing on stage or in a church, my guess is there will be so many other sound artifacts running around, you'd never notice this distortion. In these instances you might be playing through these notes quickly, anyhow, which will cut back on the distortion that seems to happen in these circumstances. If, on the other hand, you've purchased it to be used at home and you like to play songs with a slower pace or if you hold chords in your right hand for at least a beat, just be aware that this might be a problem.
I'm trying to be as even-handed as possible here--I'm the kind of person that got rid of a one-year old car because of a constant ticking noise it developed. No one, not even my SO, claimed they could hear it. It was there, though, and I wasn't crazy, and sounds like that simply bother me to death. Be sure to take this into account when reading this review. Also, you simply might not be bothered by the distortion at all. For $800 compared to $1,000 or more, most people could probably live with a few quirks. I wish I was one of those people sometimes.. Frankly, if you've heard this, I'd appreciate it if you'd leave a comment to let me know what your take is on this.
Given all of that, if you're looking for a light, portable, and budget stage piano, you should certainly give this a shot. As always, see if you can play it in the store before bringing it home. With this model, it would also be a good idea to bring some closed-back headphones with you, as well.
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Received my PX-3 from JR Music through Amazon a little over a month ago. It arrived on the date promised with no problems with the packaging or the setup. The PX-3 is what it is; a lightweight, small footprint, digital piano and midi controller. That is what I wanted and I am very happy with it.
It fits on my desk, it is easy to move around, and it is not flimsy. I'm big and play rather heavily and it seems stout enough.
I like the feel of the matte keys and the piano action. The piano samples are good, I don't use the EP tones much but they sound fine to me.
It works my JV-1010, "Band-ina-Box" and "Power-Tracks" with no problems. Setting up the layers for internal tones and external controls is easy after reading the manual. On the controller side I would have liked knobs, sliders and after-touch. It is possible to change the volume of an individual zone on the fly, but it takes a lot of coordination if I'm playing at the same time. Even given that, as a controller it is a lot easier to set things up on it than my old SL161 and it has the nice piano action.
I received the free gig bag for registering the piano from Casio within a month, it is very nice.
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I am volunteering a review as I have been reading them for months and it is time to pay forward and back. Comments can give one a sound understanding; you just have to skip the ones that say: "I never played before, but this...." I have a Roland but never understood the half Japanese instructions since 1991, so I used it as a piano. Not a bad sound, thin, but old school toy keys. I did significant research and decided to try the PX-3, it being well received and was the least in price for items I was following. I have a suspicion that if you are well versed in all the options, voiced, splits, etc., and play band stuff, you will get a kick out of the PX-3. I wanted to join you and figure out all the magical functions, but I could not keep the PX-3 because the piano sound was, simply, not fun. I just realized I do not feel compelled to sit at the board and noodle. The resonance of a piano was missing, the sensual touch could not be achieved (and I worked at the settings to see if I were missing something.) If you play classical style music, ballads and enjoy the round sounds of a soft melody, the PX-3 is disheartening. That said, the bells and whistles seem impressive to me. So, piano people should move on; band people check it out.
I am a professional pianist if that means getting paid to play: musicals, weddings, receptions, choral accompaniment. I've owned several digital pianos and used several more while teaching music in public schools. Favorites include Kurzweil, Yamaha and Roland boards.
But due to cost and weight, my go-to rig for several years has been a Privia PX-310 through Mackie SRM350 powered speakers. The PX-310 has never failed and I play with a fairly heavy classical touch. The piano sounds are decent though heavily processed. (Funny thing is, that board sounds quite good when I record it directly to my computer hard drive for demos and choral practice tracks.)
So why did I buy a PX-3? I wanted more editing capability, splits, layers and more realistic acoustic piano sounds. Did it deliver?
The editing options remind me of an Alesis QS-1 I owned years ago almost too much! It takes some time to drill down into the menu pages, but the power is there. The key touch/response differs from my Yamaha G2 grand in that the DP is clunkier and not as sensitive but certainly as good as the Fatar controller actions I've liked in the past. And there are many good sounds in all categories. But at first I was seriously unimpressed by the acoustic piano voices.
There's another review on Amazon that goes into detail about digital buzz, artifacts and uneven sample response across the keyboard range. If you're a purist, you should pay attention to that review. I had some of the same concerns through good headphones and in my studio with the monitors close to the board.
But today I used the PX-3 for the first time outside of my studio: a rehearsal for a classical piano duo recital in a retirement center chapel. There was no second acoustic piano available to pair with a well-maintained 5-8 grand piano. The room was fairly large with a bit of reverb 'hang time'. I spaced the Mackie speakers about 10 feet apart four feet off the floor.
As my duo partner and I ran through the program, I was stunned at the transformation in the perceived tone of the PX-3! The sound evened out, buzz became overtones (sort of) and the warmth/body almost matched that of the grand! The other pianist commented several times on the authenticity of the sound. (I was using "Grand Piano 2" with brightness set at +1 and no equalization.)
Bottom line: I probably wouldn't use the PX-3 for critical recording, but as a performance DP it is very impressive for its price, light weight and realistic acoustic piano sounds.
