Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Casio PX-S1000/3000 black keys heavier than white?

So, it's like with Apple and the "Antenna Gate":
- You are holding it wrong!
- You are playing it wrong!

Of course if the pivot length weren't so short then measuring the key weight at the front of the key would better correlate with the playing feel elsewhere along the key. But no. The keys are short.

So, how am I supposed play e.g. any scale with mostly white keys but with some black keys in it too? By moving my hand back and forth to find the "sweet spots" on white and black keys to find the similar feel from each? Or play the white keys awkwardly from between the black keys so that I don't need to move my hand back and forth and maybe the playing feel is then more equal(?)

Rant over. 😊 I haven't ever even played a PX-S, but those were my initial thoughts.

I am a pro and didn't notice the action problem (short pivot) on my PX-S3000 until I played some gigs with multiple 45 minute sets. Then I noticed I was being fatigued by the action. I replaced it with a Kawai ES-110 and am quite a bit more comfortable with its action, it's less tiring. I also prefer the Kawai piano samples.

"We recommend that you always play in C."

I think James' critique of the PX-S3000's action should be taken as one person's perspective, especially coming from a classically trained player's point of view.

I read some other forums besides PW, and the general consensus of the PX-S3000 is that it's pretty exceptional for the money. Over at Keyboard Corner, there are some folks with pretty strong jazz chops who consider it to be the best gigging board under 38 lbs (the weight of Yamaha's CP4, which is also far more expensive).

It'll be interesting to hear more from good classical players regarding whether they feel they can't play with nuance on the black keys or if the slight (10g?) difference in white key/black key weight balance affects their playing to a noticeable level.

Yeah, overall people say the action is good. This downweight difference for sure has an effect on playing, the question is: how big is this effect? It'd be nice to hear other opinions from classical music experts.

Still, it bugs me that they could've made a better action just by making the piano slightly bigger. Bummer.

I’m not a pro. Just an amateur. I’ve played both jazz and classical and I find the two genres very different in regards to demands from the keyboard. For jazz you need light keyboard that’s easy to play since the most important aspect of jazz is the rhythm of both comping and soloing. With classical and especially romantic repertoire it’s about very fine control of dynamics and inertial control of the key. Heavy is not necessarily bad and is even preferable. The guys over at the Keyboard Corner are jazzmen. Most of them will use the Rhodes patch more often than an acoustic piano patch. Most of them will play a dotted eight and a sixteenth as a swing triplet Each to their own.

I think that's well stated, Gene.

My son is a moderately accomplished high school jazz piano player and takes the S3000 out when he gigs as it only weighs 25 lbs. I think he'd only notice the 10g difference in white key/black key weights if he was soloing a ballad, for the majority of his playing with his trio or quartet I don't think he does. He has a Crumar Mojo 61 with a lighter action he uses on predominantly Rhodes gigs.

My guess is that the key weight difference is probably not egregious in total, otherwise it would have been discovered long before James' review. But if you do focus more on dynamics/control, it's probably one of those things you can't "unfeel" once you know it's there. Personally, I think the short pivot is more of an issue (and may exacerbate the key weight difference if you really need to strike more forcefully to get a white key down next to a black key in a chord).

While I don't think Casio designed it this way on purpose, I do feel that issues like these are probably accepted tradeoffs in the design of the keybed. Casio is clearly targeting more than just the beginner home piano student; these are being positioned as lightweight, full-featured easy-travel gigging DPs (Kawai is chasing this market with the ES-110 too) and Casio is clearly willing to accept compromises to the action in order to hit the sweet spot for that market.

I have not heard anything like this before (that you need a different weight of keys for classical and jazz). A lot of opinions which people write on this forum - are a bit eccentric to say the least.

I can't even notice any different weight of keys. And I play a lot of different pianos.

The criticisms of it are really weird, considering it is just $600 - I wonder what people expect from such a keyboard. For the price, it is just what I needed and I would rate it 5 stars out of 5, and it seems like people who are complaining so much about it have OCD or unrealistic expectations about budget products. (If you are a fussy princess and can't enjoy this entry level product, get something else and triple your budget).

Actually I use the PX-S1000 as a tool for practicing scales and other exercises before bed late at night. Sometimes I even enjoy it for improvising. It sounds pretty good on headphones, when I play it. Any adjustments to it happen automatically, like they do with most pianos and keyboard I play.

I suppose people expect the same they expect from all other $600 pianos: black and white keys with the same downweight.

I’m sorry to hear that you haven’t find the proper forum for you.

3am_stargazing,

It seems you're taking the observations/opinions about this digital piano somewhat personally. And while I can't speak for anybody else, I just wanted to say that I don't think anything has been the intent here. If you have this keyboard and you like it, then that's great, But it's a bit unwarranted to go off and claim everyone who disagrees with you is weird or eccentric.

People who buy $600 keyboards do not usually measure the downweight of the keys. And there's no perceptible difference between the black and the white keys. Just the stiffness near the fallboard for all the keys.

I'm not viewing this personally, and I'm not saying the people here are weird or eccentric.

I mean, that the opinions which I said are weird or eccentric opinions - i.e. that you need a light keyboard in jazz, and a heavy one in classical - they are weird and eccentric opinions, in the sense that they are new and idiosyncratic beliefs, which I have heard for the first time on this forum.

Well the number of "eccentric" opinions I've encountered is quite large - but the number of people espousing them is not (for example, they are all concentrated in the digital piano forum).

It's not a problem to espouse eccentric opinions, but the tone where novel idiosyncratic opinion are written as if they are long established facts: "For jazz you need light keyboard".

Someone needs to inform Thelonious Monk, or inversely Horowitz, that they are doing it wrong.

I'm not familiar with the UK elementary school system but in Bulgaria the first graders have a course called "how to read and study with comprehension"

Well there's no perceptible difference for you. Clearly there is, otherwise James Pavel wouldn't have noticed and all this issue wouldn't even come up.

People who buy $600 DP also don't usually check if there's hammers inside, so let's put springs on them!

"I find" - to me it reads like you have found out some truth about the genres, rather than being just your unusual subjective experience.

E.g. if you write, "I find that men are more intelligent than women", then women you haven't met might still assume your comment applies to them.
This is interesting as a personal opinion, which is telling us about your idiosyncratic preferences, but it's not about jazz or classical music. On the other hand, someone might misinterpret and assume you are trying to describe an objective reality, and that you will soon be recommending different keyboard weights for different genres.

I think it's not an uninteresting topic. Surely key weight has had an influence on the development of certain pianists and composers, although it doesn't seem fixed to different genres in any blanket way?

For example, Chopin practiced (always with a metronome) on a piano with very light keys.

On the other hand, Horace Silver was apparently composing on a stiff, beat up and out of tune upright (and I feel like I can hear this in his music).