Casio SA-46 -Key Portable Keyboard

As a studio musician, I have owned and tried more than a few electronic keyboards. Some are beautiful works of art, some have excellent sound, and most boggle the mind with functions and features 99% of people will never use. The Casio SA-46 combines a few features and functions into an attractive and insanely-bargain-priced package. You really get a lot for under $40 US: 1. Battery-powered, go anywhere keyboard. Works for weeks on 6 AA batteries (not included). 2. Nice, functional drum pads. 3. 100 Tones. Are all of them accurate? NO. Are all of them useful? NO. But all the important ones are there, and enough optional tones are included to make it a useful and fun assortment. 4. 50 Patterns. All the ones you can really use every day are included. By varying tempo, you can easily make some patterns more useful. 5. Song Bank. It is what it is. You will probably not use it too often. This is a musical box built for fun and it accomplishes the goal easily. Anyone from age 5 to 100 will find hours of fun here for a very little price. If you are a more serious musician, and have goals of producing music, it can easily be done with the Casio SA-46 and a free audio program like Audacity. Build a song from multiple, separately-recorded tracks you perform and record using the audio output jack on your keyboard and the microphone input jack on your PC. If you get really motivated or want to use the SA-46 for live performance, I recommend the addition of a Looper Box and battery-operated speaker. You can easily use the stomp box button to record a a basic track and overdub a new track on top of the first one, etc. You can then perform the melody on the keyboard or even sing while your tracks loop and play on your speaker. A basic battery-powered Looper box with unlimited overdubs and 10-15 minutes of loop available is about $45 here on Amazon. Hope this review helps you to understand how fun this SA-46 really can be if you take a little time to practice with it.

This keyboard is very portable and convenient. It can fit in a carry-on bag. It can be used on your lap without a stand, if you want. It has more sound volume than comparable keyboards. The "free session" category of patterns is unique to the SA-46 and SA-76 series of keyboards. Those patterns sound really good when you play to them because the accompaniment is more complex. The SA-46 is a real keyboard, being in tune, not a toy.

Bought this for my two year old grandchild, or at least that was my excuse. This keyboard is a very good value for the money. It plays enough tunes to get children interested in playing along. It's light weight and small enough for a child to confidently handle. I added a few colored dots on the most-used buttons so that my baby girl can more easily find the off-on, auto-play, and volume controls. She can turn the machine on and get it to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to which she performs a stunning ballet performance (just kidding, it's only a so-so performance). I also added colored dots to the C keys to help her understand how the do-ray-me sequence repeats along the scale. She's only just beginning, but I am certain this keyboard is helping her appreciate and learn the basics of music. I don't expect an early failure of the keyboard because it's very well made, but even if it only lasts a year or two I will have gotten my money's worth out of it. Every home should have something like this for "kids of all ages" to enjoy.

The points below are based on my personal experience only, but perhaps they may apply to you as well. Pros: + It includes a great number (100) of different instrument tones. Most of the orchestra's in there, for example, and there are also more fun sounds like lasers, trains, and helicopters. + It comes with a booklet with sheet music for the onboard songs. + Hooked up to a speaker system, some of the sounds are surprisingly full-bodied, with low end. For example, upright bass. + It's lightweight and portable. + It's fun to play. Cons: + It doesn't include any way to power it. You have to supply your own batteries or an AC adaptor, sold separately. The official Casio adaptor is $20+, definitely not cheap. + Some of the sounds have buzzing/distortion, even at low volumes. Mixed feelings: • The price is okay. Not too expensive, but not super cheap.

My daughter recently began showing interest in playing my stepson's humongous keyboard but of course he doesn't always want her in his room pounding out hits, so I wanted to get her one of her own for her birthday. I had read really good reviews about this particular keyboard, and that is why I bought it, based on the great feedback. So in turn, I'd like to leave my positive feedback for this product as well. For starters, I have only heard good things so far about Casio as a keyboard brand in general. My daughter opened it and she loves it (she's 8), and it fits her perfectly. It has a lot of fund buttons that keep her entertained, and the sound quality of the keys is great. I especially love that it has such a simple to find volume control =) so that she can turn it down and not drive everyone else crazy with her quirky taste in keyboarding! I would definitely recommend this for other parents looking for a fun, entertaining gift for a child around my daughter's age. She is actually pretty picky about what she wants to play with and she's been dragging this keyboard around for the last couple of days since she got it. So if my baby is happy, then I am happy, and I would much rather her be playing a keyboard than a video game or being a couch potato. One happy kid = one happy mom =two thumbs up for this product.

Who was the weirdo who had the idea of randomly adding helicopter noises to such a small keyboard? Whoever you are, I love you, because this little keyboard is so cute and convenient while also having an arsenal of unconventional sounds at your disposal. This little keyboard has more capabilities than my huge $150 keyboard I bought from a music store. The synths sound great, the noises are strange, just so much fun packed into one little keyboard. Great gift for someone learning to play keys. Also great if you're a live musician who only uses keyboards to play little synthy riffs. I bought this after hearing Kero Kero Bonito compose most of their music on this keyboard. And after hearing all this keyboard has to offer, it makes sense. I love it.

It is a great keyboard for the price. Many sounds, and has a 1/8 output jack for headphones or a cable for an amplifier.

I want to be happier with this than I am. My 5 year old does enjoy playing with it and in many ways it's been a great value. It has a feature that, with the push of one button, launches into a medley of prerecorded tunes. They're always the same and always play in the same order. This is a terrible feature and should be replaced with anything else or taken away completely. There is a level of parental annoyance that comes with having a feature like this, but the real problem is it runs hard against the reason for getting a product like this for a child: an approachable, fun creative toy. There is a learning curve for them with the controls and the different sounds and then discovering the rudiments of harmony and rhythm, but the overall design and the quality of the sounds is good enough for them to get there and enjoy it. However, having that button there instantly turns the experience passive and uncreative. She gets uninterested in what she was doing. It's like giving them some painting to do, then ripping it out of their hands midway and turning the TV on. This product is ultimately an unfortunate miss for me.

It had a short circuit in the battery compartment that took a multimeter to find then rectify. Very poor quality control.

Muito bom, faz jus ao propagado. Recomendo.

I previously bought this keyboard for my son but he left it out in the rain and it no longer worked. We are learning music theory at home right now and I couldn't find a small, reasonably priced keyboard to use. We didn't need anything fancy and most things that I looked at that were good quality were too expensive for what we need it for. This is very durable (not waterproof!), kid friendly, and decently priced. Definitely a good bang for your buck.

Adquirí este teclado para mi hijo de 6 años y me parece una magnífica compra. Es pequeño, pero de un tamaño justo para un niño, es muy ligero. Lo único malo es que no tiene cable para conectarlo a la corriente eléctrica, pero encontré uno muy bueno y a buen precio. Sin duda lo recomiendo para niños principiantes.

En la escuela le habían solicitado un teclado a mi hija, le regalaron un genérico que no le duro ni un mes, yo para el reemplazo decidí buscarle uno de marca reconocida, así que me decidí por este teclado y estoy muy satisfecho, las pilas le duran muchísimo tiempo, basta con decir que le puse unas recargables desde que lo compre hasta hoy no he tenido que cambiárselas, el teclado al ser para niños tiene un diseño muy resistente, seguido se cae y no se ha dañado ni roto, tiene buen volumen, me preocupaba que fuera muy frágil o que tuviera que estarle cambiando las pilas a diario, pero no hubo nada de que preocuparse, un excelente teclado, altamente recomendado.