Casio WK-3500 Keyboard 76 Full Size Keys and Pro Quality Touch Sensitive Response

by Casio

Product Features

• 76 Full-Size key Musical Keyboard
• 790 Tones and 232 Digital Effect with a Digital Equalizer
• Powerful bass reflex loudspeaker adds volume to the lower range
• SmartMEDIA Card slot to upload MIDI files, timbres, drum sets, rhythms, wave data and much more
• Integrated floppy disk drive to upload files

Product Details

• Item Weight: 33 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 33 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B00029U0ZE
• Item model number: WK-3500
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,858 in Musical Instruments (See Top 100 in Musical Instruments)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Casio's newest portables utilize the high performance Zpi sound source to deliver the most realistic piano, organ, and synth sounds, plus a huge library of built-in tones, rhythms, and DSP settings. These powerful instruments feature an on-board sequencer and a mixer, for unmatched creative possibilities, plus powerful built-in speakers to take your performance to the next level. These keyboards are ideal for home/project studio use, open-mic performance, education/classroom applications, or simply for pure musical enjoyment.

Introduction

The 76 Full-Size WK-3500 Musical Keyboard has a incredible 790 Tones and 232 Digital Effect with a Digital Equalizer. The WK-3500 also features a Floppy Drive and SmartMedia so you can load in your own sounds.

2-Way Bass Reflex Loudspeaker

The powerful bass reflex loudspeaker adds volume to the lower range.

Pitch Bend and Modulation Button

Allow you to produce impressive keyboard solos.

Drawbar Organ Function

Provides 50 drawbar sounds.These give you direct access to optimize the individual foot positions in live performance. 100 user channels are available for your own combinations.

SmartMEDIA Card

The SmartMEDIA Card stands for professional data management: not only MIDI files but also timbres, drum sets, rhythms, wave data and much more besides can be loaded directly and saved thanks to the large-scale data capacity.

Floppy Disk Drive

The integrated floppy disk drive is one of the three memory media featured on the WK-3500 and provides additional data capacity on 3.5 in. disks.

Internet Data Expansion System

The latest wavedata sounds, rhythms, DSP settings, registration storage data and melodies can be downloaded from the CASIO Music Site. Then the data is transferred to the keyboard via MIDI.

Product Description

Pro Quality Keyboard with 76 Touch-Sensitive Keys, Floppy Disk Drive, SmarMediaTM Storage

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond the average for an attractive price, September 27, 2004

By 

Normund (somewhere in a capital city) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Casio WK-3500 Keyboard 76 Full Size Keys and Pro Quality Touch Sensitive Response (Electronics)

There are plenty of professional synthesizers on the market. Pro gear, semi professional and beginner's level. This one is in the middle range as to its technical capabilities and in the highest range as to its value for money. The good sides are plenty:
1) you can load into the synth new sounds transformed from standard wav files and the synth has in-built sound editing capabilities; 2)new sounds and effects constantly emerge from the Casio music site; 3)the synth has a good many keys (light keys, unfortunately) spanning 5+ octaves, two programmable wheels, audio/midi ports; 4) the sounds are very very good (especially the organ sounds); 5) the price compared to competitors such as Yamaxa or Roland is simply marvellous. The drawbacks as I see them are mainly related to the software which accompanies and supports the keyboard, namely: 1) the software absolutely fails to respond when transferring large files (500 KB to 1MB) through the MIDI connection (that's where Smart Media Card helps immensely); 2) the manufacturer was EXTREMELY niggardly with respect to the internal memory size. It's far too small. Why provide large sounds on the Website if there is no sufficient storage space for them? Nevertheless, I rate the device at 5 stars.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for the price!, September 14, 2004

By 

MyName - See all my reviews

This review is from: Casio WK-3500 Keyboard 76 Full Size Keys and Pro Quality Touch Sensitive Response (Electronics)

to save space and time, mine as well as yours, let's view the good and the not so good sides, features and capabilities (one cannot call them altogether bad) of the keyboard.
In the good to excellent range: price and functionality ratio. 76 keys, 2 wheels, programmable and uploadable sounds, digital sound effects for the small price! That's more than you would ever need not to think twice.
Shortcomings: uploaded sounds can be very large and quickly take up all the internal memory. The option of using a SmartMedia card saves the situation but nevertheless Casio's approach in this respect shows a desire to mark the line between semi-professional and pro instruments very clearly. This instrument is clearly above the beginner's level so what's the use in the manufacturer being so niggardly with respect to the internal memory?

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Sound - Low Cost, August 2, 2005

By 

Elaine L. Butler - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Casio WK-3500 Keyboard 76 Full Size Keys and Pro Quality Touch Sensitive Response (Electronics)

This keyboard is not a toy, but it's not the expensive Performance keyboard either. It uses Smart Media or floppy disk for storage, and feeds into your computer via a Midisport Uno plug. The keyboard comes with a power cord. I added a sustain pedal (the keyboard allows you to program it for other functions as well), for $30.00, the Midisport Uno plug, and headphones (with the larger jack). You may also need a keyboard stand and a case if you want to tote it.

The primary purpose for us getting the keyboard was to feed into Finale for song-writing/arranging. It works fine. We've also created song tracks and look forward to discovering what else it will do.

It is not designed to teach people how to play. This is good. I'm a piano teacher, and I think music should be taught by people, not machines. But it does display the location of pitches played both on the keyboard and on the grand staff, so it's useful for beginning students who want to check their accuracy.

The salesman at Guitar Center told me the Zpi sound chip was taken from a $2000 performance keyboard. And if you don't like the sounds it's set with (300 of them), you can create your own with the sound synthesizer, or split the keyboard to play two at once. When recording your own songs, it allows up to 6 different tracks, including a rhythm track with 139 different rhythm options, and space to create and save 16 more of your own. The organ drawbar feature lets you create your own organ sounds as well.