If your interested in accoustic piano voice, I am very impressed with the Roland EP-760, but this is not in the same price range as the Casio WK3000. A true die hard piano teacher will encourage you to purchase a weighted keyboard. I'm not sure if the EP-760 is weighted or semi-weighted, but it feels and sounds like a piano to my ears. The other voices on it were crap. It also has 76 keys. You are going to demo these keyboards before you buy right?
Starkeeper

If you want learn to play piano,
do not buy a Yamaha keyboard.
All Yamaha keyboards (not Clavinovas) have smaller keys than standard pianos, and you may learn no good habits (lenght of chords...) to go afterwards to a piano. Some people may do it without problem, but others not. Moreover, Yamaha's key feel is bad.

Roland, Casio, Korg, Technics make its keyboards with standar piano key size.
And, usually, have better key feel.

But, if you want play keyboard ONLY, then Yamahas kbs may be a good option: they have a lot of possibilities, good sounds, easy O.S., support in the net, etc.

It is my opinion



[This message has been edited by Bluebird (edited 01-27-2004).]

George,
Could you give a quote on what you sell the WK-3000 for? I can't seem to find one in my area and I would consider getting one from you when I make a decision. Also, how would you compare the Yamaha PSRK1 to it, including price? I realize the difference in the number of keys and the addition of a pitch blend wheel. Both pluses. I've checked out the specs so I guess I'm interested in the sounds, etc. between them. Thanks.
Chuck

i demoed the wk-3000 today... it is very nice here is the plusses i found

-the grand piano button is good and robust... dont see any problems with it

-there are seperate outputs for l/r channels plus a headphone/output jack on the front too the yamaha dgx 202 only has one output jack

- the smartmedia port... the yamaha only has 8mb of built in flash rom compared to the limitless possibilities of the flash media port

- the pitch bend wheel can also be assigned as a modulation wheel at the touch of a button

- the keys are full size as on a piano (Bluebird pointed this out)

- the area of the lcd is bigger on the casio compared to the dgx202 and can be viewed from any angle while with the yamaha you have to almost be sitting in front of it to see the screen

-the casio allows settings to be saved in memory and assigned to a button... with the yamaha you can not do this, you must enter the settings each time

-the dealer i looked at sold the casio for $300 with a piano style footpedal and ac adaptor. the footpedal usually sold in the survival pack with the yamaha is not piano style

-the casio is louder

the yamaha has these exclusive features --
-the survival pack usually sold with the keyboard comes with a cd (dont know whats on it or if it is worth it???)
-the survival also comes with a warranty extension card (dont know about casios warranty???)
-the yamaha has the Yamaha Education Suite 2 (from what ive heard this isnt needed)

that is what i have come to find...

thanks
DirOFCIA

correction the wk-3000 may not have individual l/r outputs on back and may not have seperate headphone output on front not sure?

does anyone know???
i know the 3500 does but it is out of my price range

thanks
DirOfCIA

The key feel was better on the WK3500 than the Yamaha PSR's sitting next to it in the store. It has some sounds ( including a few that I liked a lot ) that reminded me of the MZ2000. In one respect, I could see myself buying this board as a 76 key controller, with the bonus of being able to use a few of the sounds / styles.

I think I instead may go to a dedicated controller though, because I would want to assign cetain midi paramters / cc's to enhance real time playing with One Man band.

AJ

I sell the Casio WK3000 for $299.00 including the AC adapter and stand.
I have a couple of refirbished WK3000 keyboards (from the factory in clearly marked boxes) for $229.00.
The WK3500 sells for $399.00. It offer seperate stereo outputs rather than just a headphone jack to go line out. The WK3000 only has a headphone jack in the front to use as line outputs. Using headphone jack turns off the internal speakers when using an external system but not with the WK3500.
The other two differences would be the floppy drive on the WK3500 and the modulation wheel on the WK3500 instead of a modulation button on the WK3000.


------------------
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Which would you suggest?
A Blemished wk3500 for $339, or a refurbished wk3000 for $229?
I think I may jump in here with a purchase of one of the 2 also.

Is The main diff between the 2 the addition of the floppy, mod wheel vs. mod button, The headphone/speaker/line-out difference?
Other wise pretty much the same board?

Thank you in advance for your input.
Jim

I am sorry, I just read my reply as it sits right under Georges, and realized everything I asked he had already stated... I really fool foolish.

I guess the only thing I do not understand is: What advantages does the floppy offer over smartmedia?
Smartmedia is more expensive (cards vs. cheaper disks)So floppy has advantage there.
But, the smartmedia has much larger storage capacity than floppy, correct?

Can the data from either be accessed equally?
or can the data from one or the other be directly read from it's format versus possibly having to be loaded from it's format to the keyboard first, before it would be usable?
Am I making any sense or should I go back to bed for a while? lol
Thank you.
Jim

Jim,
the smart media card offers faster access times. Also, although the smart media might seem more expensive, a 128 MB card can be bought for approx. $25.00 and it is the equiv. of buying over 100 floppy disks, so the cost is really not a concern. Also, you can use one little smart media card instead of having to switch between all those floppy disks.
The two keyboards are identical in sounds and features except for those things mentioned above.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, Calilfornia
818-881-5566