REVIEW - Casio PX5S Digital Stage Piano Synth & Controller - Awesome for a Very Low Price!

Review - Casio PX5S Privia Pro Stage Piano ($999 internet price) - Highly recommended as an all-in-one 88-key weighted hammer action stereo digital stage piano synth, performance keyboard controller, and all around fun instrument to play! This new model is due out around the end of April 2013 in limited quantities.

Here's a thought; What if you could get a tasty restaurant quality sizzling hot steak for the price of a basic hamburger? Well essentially that's what a Casio PX5S is...it's an entire yummy steak dinner (see yummy dinner pic on left) for the price of one basic hamburger, if you can relate to that:) and the PX5S really does sizzle too! I recently played a prototype PX5S stage piano and it had an impressive weighted acoustic style piano action (same action as in their Privia PX850) in a lightweight 24lb package that combines fairly realistic piano playing with lots of higher quality instrument sounds and effects for a very low price. It's not that this new instrument is the best synth, controller, or digital piano in the music business, because it certainly is not. It's really all about the PX5S being so good and also doing so much at a really low price. It just cannot be beat for what it does, and its super low price (as compared to anything else out there right now) will quickly propel this instrument past all other brands and models in my opinion.

Casio PX5S Privia Pro

Flexibility coupled with great sound is what everyone wants in a digital piano and when I play on a digital piano I want not only a high quality piano sound and key action, but I want the other instrument sounds to be great too. On the lower priced instruments out there for under $1000, flexibility and high quality great sounds just do not exist when it comes to a higher level of playing and skill. At best, the instruments tend to be average or just adequate overall in terms of sound flexibility and control, but not great. Now comes along the PX5S and the discerning person looking for high quality playing experience for a very low price can get pro sounding vintage electric piano sounds, synths, brass, strings, great real-time sound editing controls while you play, 4 super impressive arpeggiators with the ability to use one on each of 4 individual sound zones, 6 layer presets with up to 14 different sound layers at one time and changing the sound while playing (wow!), live "key up" sound triggers which means that after you press a key down to get a sound when the key comes back up it triggers another different sound...and more! Yikes...all of that is incredibly cool:).

The PX5S also has a synth "phrase sequencer" with up to 1000 sound phrases. What I mean by a phrase sequencer is that you can access animated rhythmic sounds that move in different ways over time and you can play along with them, modify them with a vast array of assignable editing controls, and just make up your own music while paying along. It sounds like you are in outer space performing gigantic music scores and playing multiple instruments at one time and yet you are just improvising and creating music you may not have ever dreamed of before and doing it all by yourself. In other words, you get rich, full, moving sound without doing much. It can put you in a creative musical place you have never been before and yet when you are through with all that, you can just revert the PX5S back to a piano and play traditional piano music without anything else but you and the piano with a convincing key action and acoustic piano sound. Whether you like Jazz, pop, classical, country, Latin, oldies, or whatever, the PX5S Privia Pro piano sizzles with excitement at its $999 internet price.

The instrument is quite versatile and really much more than a piano. and in reality is a synth performance controller keyboard that is also a very nice piano. So what came first...the Casio chicken or the Casio egg? Is it a piano with stuff, or a keyboard with stuff that is also a very impressive hammer weighted action 88-key piano? Well, it is both, but really more the latter.  It is also important to note that the PX5S does not have piano "half-pedaling. Half-pedal" is the ability to have medium length sustain (not just on & off) on the damper sustain pedal when pressing it down while playing the piano sound. The PX5S does not have this feature and I wish it did because I am primarily a piano player although I do play keyboards, synths, and organs and enjoy that very much and have done that professionally too. But as a piano player I want it to be as realistic as I can get it and not having the half-pedal feature is a bit disappointing to me. Oh well, can't have everything I suppose, especially at the $999 price. I can live with that because the PX5S is so cool otherwise and if I really wanted more of a pure digital piano playing experience without a lot of this extra stuff, I would not buy a PX5S but would likely get a Kawai MP6 for another $500 more. See my review of that model here: Kawai MP6 Review

The Casio PX5S is using the powerful 256-note polyphony chip from the Casio PX850 and that polyphony memory is super important in allowing for all those layers, arpeggiators, effects, and instrument sounds of the PX5S to work together all at one time without sound or note dropout which is so important and no piano in this price range comes close to that. The most polyphony available in this price range on any major brand digital piano or synth right now is 128 notes of polyphony so the PX5S is twice as powerful as anything else out there right now.

The 3-sensor (Casio calls it tri-sensor) key action is also very impressive and really does feel like a realistically weighted acoustic piano with enough resistance and bounce to make you feel as if you are not playing a digital piano. The 3 sensors are also a big deal because they allow for noticeably more dynamic range of piano sound and quick repetitive sound response which is normally only found on instruments over $2000. The key tops have a synthetic ivory and ebony material giving the fingers a sense they are playing on an organic material like real ivory and ebony and that allows for a smoother playing experience on the keys while helping to absorb sweat from the fingers. I have played on this keyboard and it really does feel that way, at least it does to me...and that makes it more fun to play.

The PX5S looks contemporary in its custom cabinet with easy to use buttons and a cool looking LCD display screen for easier navigation. There is an audio USB wav file recorder (using a USB flashdrive) on-board so that you can record yourself and save it as a real audio recording including singing or playing another instrument through the piano or import recordings directly into the instrument for play-along...very cool. There are also lots of ways to connect things including having high a speed USB output direct to iPad, etc and being able to control four independent devices through the USB output at one time while also having access to traditional MIDI input & output for those devices that require standard MIDI ports. There is also an 1/8"audio input jack to run audio sound back through the PX5S such as from an ipad audio output into  the
PX5S audio input...also very cool. I don't want to forget that the PX5S is a real live controller piano keyboard in that you can control multiple aspects of the sound and functions with 4 independent knobs and 6 sliders to assign independent effects, sounds, and other parameters for live sound mixing and creation at the touch of a finger or the turn of a knob...easy to do and the results are impressive.

Casio is also coming out with additional sound libraries which you can load into the piano from a USB flashdrive and save into as many as 220 user presets along with having 340 built-in sounds already in this keyboard. So when you consider what this new piano controller synth can actually do, what it has, how it works, how it feels to play, what it looks like, and how it actually sounds, there really is little reason not to buy it if you think it fits your needs. It is certainly not the best piano solution for everyone but in reality it can be super fun to play for a large majority of people. It is also worth noting that there are no built-in speakers in this instrument because it was created as a "stage piano" although it can be used anywhere including home, church, school, studio, etc, etc. You'll need an external speaker system (stereo monitors are best) and a good stand, although Casio does make a furniture style stand for this piano which is nice for people who want to use this instrument in a more formal setting, and the Casio stand sells for about $100. Also, the PX5S can also work on regular AA batteries (8 of them placed in an internal compartment in the back of the piano) so you do not need electric power if you are somewhere that doesn't have it like a park, beach, indoor facility, or your electric power just goes out! Then all you need to hear it is to plug it into a stereo battery powered keyboard amp like the new Roland KC110 and then everything is powered by batteries and sounds great...how cool is that from a pro sounding piano synth keyboard at this price?!!

So the bottom line is if you want to buy a very flexible keyboard instrument for a very low price and have a fantastic piano playing and sound creation experience along with having great preset electric pianos, acoustic pianos, synths, organs, and other sounds in a cool looking lightweight cabinet that you can easily take anywhere you want and easily set up, and you want to stay under $1000, then there is nothing else like the Casio PX5S on the planet right now, although I have not personally checked every inch of this planet, but for $999, it's pretty impressive:). I would suggest that if this one sounds good to you that you rush out and place your order NOW (I can give you advice on where to do that at lower prices) because I'm sure these little puppies will be in very high demand and hard to get for quite awhile. I know that I am sold on one, even with all of the digital pianos and keyboards I already have:)

By the way, the PX5S is now on its way to the US and once it officially comes out and I get a chance to go through everything that it can do (and that may take me awhile), I will update this review to reflect those experiences, so stay tuned for more:)

If you want more info on new digital pianos and LOWER PRICES than internet discounts, please email me at tim@azpianowholesale.com or call direct at 602-571-1864.