Yamaha vs Casio home music keyboards

Contents

• Introduction
• History
• The Contenders
• Features Comparison
• Comparison Table
• Which is Best?
• Where to Buy

Introduction

When it comes to budget-friendly, feature-rich home music keyboards, two names consistently sit at the top of the pile — Yamaha and Casio.

They are both known for producing high quality instruments at reasonable prices and with plenty of interesting and useful features built in to make learning to play a keyboard instrument fun and productive.

Which brand should you choose? In this article we’ll look at a handful of the latest offerings from both companies, and provide our honest opinion on the best one for your needs.

Spoiler alert: you can’t really go wrong with any of the keyboards reviewed here, particularly if you or your child are a beginner musician keen to have fun with music and improve their playing skills.

History

Both Yamaha and Casio have a long history of producing musical instruments. These two Japanese companies have been producing home keyboard instruments since the 1980s, and although Yamaha has a much longer history of making high quality acoustic and digital pianos, both companies have a fine reputation for quality and value.

The Contenders

Minis

Seven of our contenders are miniature keyboards and would be very well suited to young children.

• Casio SA-50
• Casio SA-51
• Casio SA-80
• Casio SA-81
• Yamaha PSS-E30
• Yamaha PSS-F30
• Yamaha PSS-A50

Full Sizers

Seven of our keyboards are full size instruments, suited to older children and adults.

• CasIo CT-S1
• Casio CT-S500
• Casio CT-S400
• Yamaha EZ-310
• Yamaha PSR-E483
• Yamaha PSR-E583
• Yamaha PSR-EW320

Find out about the history of Yamaha’s PSR range of home keyboards

Features Comparison

Keyboard Size

The mini keyboards have miniature keys. This means they are far smaller than those found on a piano keyboard.

They’re well suited to smaller fingers, and young children may develop a greater sense of achievement than struggling on a larger keyboard. Transitioning to a full-size keyboard later on may be difficult but is certainly not insurmountable.

The larger instruments have full size keys. It’s far more common to find keyboard instruments having keys which are roughly the same size as that found on a piano.

While they may be more difficult for younger children to play more complicated pieces on, they do make the transition to more advanced instruments, such as workstations and digital or acoustic pianos, far easier.

Casio 88 note keyboards and digital pianos compared

Number of Keys

The miniature keyboards vary in number of keys from 32 to 44. The Casio SA range has either 32 or 44 keys, while the Yamaha PSS models have 37. More keys offer greater playing range but fewer keys means the instruments are even more compact.

The full-size keyboards generally 61 keys, with the exception of the Yamaha PSR-EW320 which has 76 keys. This wider range makes it more suitable for playing pieces of music with a wider range, as well as offering greater flexibility with such things as keyboard splitting and accompaniments, but 61 keys is still perfectly fine for beginner use.

Keyboard Weight and Touch

The miniature keyboards have a very light touch and (excepting the Yamaha PSS-A50) no touch sensitivity. This means there is no difference in the volume or timbre of the sound based on how hard the key is struck.

The full size keyboards are all light touch organ style keys and all have touch sensitivity.

None of the 14 keyboards have aftertouch, which is where the sound can be manipulated by pressing down on the keys after the initial touch.

Polyphony

Polyphony refers to how many notes can be played at once without cutting out. Unlike an acoustic instrument, digital keyboards use sound-generating chips which have a finite limit as to how many sounds can be created at one time.

When considering the amount of polyphony required, you have to take into account the melody notes being played, any accompaniments and other sounds, and whether notes are being sustained.

The mini keyboards all have 32 notes of polyphony, while the full size instruments have either 48 or 64 notes. This is generally perfectly fine for playing most types of music.

Sounds

Every keyboard has a range of sounds which tends to include acoustic pianos and other keyboard instruments such as electric pianos, organs and harpsichord, plus strings, brass, percussion and synth sounds.

Yamaha primarily uses its Advanced Wave Memory sound generation system while Casio uses the Advanced Integrated Expression sound source. Both offer high-quality sample-based sounds.

A greater number of sounds isn’t necessarily better, but it adds more playing possibilities. The Yamaha PSS-A50 features 40 sounds, the Yamaha PSS-E30 has 49, while the Casio CT-S1 has 61. The Casio SA line has 100, and the Yamaha PSS-F30 has just over 100. The others have a huge number, ranging from 600 to 890.

Accompaniments

Most of the keyboards have some kind of accompaniment system, which can play rhythms and chord-based backing tracks, often controllable by pressing one or more keys in the lower section of the keyboard to change which chord and harmony is played.

While not essential for learning to play, they do add a lot of fun to the experience. All but the Casio CT-S1 and Yamaha PSS-E30 have some kind of accompaniment feature.

Read about the history of Yamaha’s PSS line of home keyboards

Pedals

A sustain/damper pedal allows you to sustain played notes after the fingers are lifted from the keys. It’s rarely found on much cheaper keyboards but a lot of entry level instruments do have provision for one to be used.

The Casio CT-S1, CT-S400 and CT-S500 can all be used with a sustain pedal, as can the Yamaha EZ-310, PSR-E483, PSR-E583 and PSR-EW320. The PSR-E583 can also accommodate an expression pedal. None of the mini keyed instruments feature pedal inputs.

Learning

All of the full-sized keyboards have at least a rudimentary learning/tutorial system on board. Functions are usually fairly basic but can provide a useful introduction to learning to play the keyboard.

Recording

Even a basic onboard recording system can make learning and playing more fun. All the full-size Casio instruments allow recording, as does the Yamaha EZ-310, PSR-E483, PSR-E583, PSR-EW320 and PSS-A50.

Speakers

All the keyboards come with built in speakers. The mini keyboards have much smaller speakers than the full-size models.

Some of the Yamaha PSR models in particular, along with the Casio CT-S1, have rather good speakers for their size.

None of them will put out the highest quality of sound possible. All the keyboards have some kind of audio output, either for headphones or to connect to external speakers.

Power

All of the keyboards here can run from either battery or AC power. Mains power is definitely preferable.

Price

The mini keyboards all retail from between $60 and $100, while the full-size keyboards range from $230 to $490. They are often discounted online.

Comparison Table

The following table compares key features. A more comprehensive specification list and descriptions is available on our comparison page.

Which is Best?

Quite honestly, any of these keyboards would do a fine job as a basic introductory instrument for a child or adult.

The mini keyboards are great for younger kids, are ultra portable, and yet still sound very good.

The full size keyboards are good for older children and adults. They’re still portable and have better speakers.

The functions on any of the instruments are great for learning and having fun playing.

Our personal take is that the Yamaha keyboards just edge the win, but honestly, Casio’s offerings are also of very good quality.

Ultimately your budget decides whether to go for a double-digit mini keyboard or pay more for a very capable instrument like the PSR-E483 or PSR-E583.

Yamaha PSS-F30 vs Casio SA-81

Where to Buy

All the usual online retailers sell these instruments. They can also often be purchased directly from the manufacturer’s website, or in music stores.

Minis

Full Size