I learned the digital piano when I was younger but have decided to get back into it. I couldn’t afford an expensive piano so I’ve bought one that I can learn on. I’ve spent several hours playing it now and thought I give a review.
Casio CDP-120 Scaled Hammer Action Contemporary Digital Piano Review
The first thing to point out is the description on Amazon states that it does not come with a music holder, I can tell you that the description is wrong and there is a music holder inside the box. I almost ordered one from Casio for £28.50 but they were out of stock, I’m so glad they were or I’d have been out of pocket. It also comes with a power supply, a user manual which is easy to read and a cheap plastic damper pedal which slides all over the place on a hard floor so you have to stick it down. I’m going to upgrade to an M-Audio pedal.
There are the best 5 sounds
Grand piano, Grand piano 2, electric piano, Harpsichord and Strings. Each have their own button and you can layer them (ie. strings over piano) by pressing both buttons at the same time.
The sounds (apart from the Grand Piano and Harpsichord) are pretty rubbish but it’s a piano foremost. There are 3 different settings and Off for the touch sensitivity, you can also add reverb on a 1-10 scale and it has “chorus” settings which supposed to add depth to the sound, though I didn’t like them. You can also transpose the keys up or down in semi-tone increments up to 1 octave (even though it’s a full size keyboard).
My personal opinion
The sound is acceptable through it’s built-in speakers, but it is much improved, in fact very good, through good quality headphones or an amplifier. The highest volume level is just a bit too low for me so connecting it to amplifier will solve that. More importantly to me though is that you can link it to a computer to use as a midi controller via a USB (printer type) cable. If you do that, then the built-in sounds of this piano become irrelevant if routed to good quality sampled piano software. Worth doing for an extra £80 or so. However, I’m happy with the sound of this for the price, if you don’t expect the Grand piano to sound like a real Grand piano and you won’t be disappointed.
The keys are weighted and the touch sensitivity can be altered a little or turned off. I quite like the feel of the keys and pressing the note gently produces a soft note while pressing it progressively harder results in a harder tone. I’ve tried out a few pianos up to £550 and none of them felt as good as this one in my opinion which is why I bought this.
Conclusion
There have been some discussions about “clunky keys”. They do make a noise like many digital pianos. The noise isn’t when you press the key but when you let it go and it gently springs up and a gentle ‘thud’
noise. It is noticeable when playing, particularly as the volume doesn’t go loud enough to drown it out.
We gave it because of the volume limitation and the speakers might have been a bit better.
