Casio Lk-135AD Key Lighting Keyboard - Black

Great keyboard. Son loves it. Easy beginners keyboard

If you cant play the piano, then you can use the learning facility, the keys light up to help you.It helps.I wouldn't say this keyboard would be best for the more accomplished player. But at least you can play around with the different sounds, beats etc.

Easy to use

Absolutely rubbish

Complete waste of money. How are you supposed to teach about music with no touch sensitivity on the keys?I didn't notice in the spec that it didn't have that 'feature', I just assumed a keyboard of this price would have it. My sons toy keyboard that this was supposed to replace (£12.99) even has touch sensitive keys.Feeling and emotion are what is important in music or there is no point to it. Without touch sensitivity it is just mechanical learning, no good to anybody. DON'T BUY THIS KEYBOARD.

This keyboard seems to provide pretty well for the beginner, (which my son is). He's not having formal lessons, but is following an online course and, so far, it's performed well for him and his playing is coming along nicely.The key lighting aspect of this keyboard leaves both of us a little cold I'm afraid. He didn't like the keys lighting up as a method for learning how to play as you don't have to think about finger placement at all - just hit the right key - which he didn't think was gaining him anything. Perhaps if you have a younger aspiring keyboard player in the family then this function might allow them to feel as though they're accomplishing something...but I have a feeling that it might also be ingraining bad habits?The keyboard has quite a good choice of different sounds that it can play and also a good selection of beats.I would have given this keyboard 4 stars, as it does seem to be quite good for beginners, but the present cost of over £100 means that I think there are others out there that are better value.

perfect for learning.

Casio's light up keys appeal to kids because a) lights and b) it's a lot easier to play piano the "whack a mole" method. Especially in the "I will play the right note no matter what key you press" mode.However I personally remain unconvinced as to the usefulness of this method in actually learning the piano - it's a bit of fun though.The keys are surprisingly better for playing than you might imagine, and casio have come a long way in the "realism" of the keys. I should add though that these are not weighted or even slightly weighted keys although the springs are fairly strong for a basic keyboard. Nothing at all like real piano keys. However, firmer than average for keyboard keys. That's what I'm saying. Not at all pressure sensitive either which I notice a lot. This is all stuff you expect for this price point although some pressure sensitivity would be nice.Also don't forget that 61 keys won't cut it for many piano pieces. Exactly how many, I don't know. But Pachelbel's canon, moonlight sonata, Handel's sarabande, come to mind. It's the lowest keys you're missing, not so much the high ones. Not to mention how strange it looks when you're used to 88 keys, you can easily get confused, believe me.There are absolutely tonnes of features and songs and tone banks as you come to expect these days from a keyboard. None of the really wacky ones though anymore - like phone sounds. I think there's a couple of "FX" sounds. I always feel these days like these keyboards have too much going on and it's too hard to access. Want to change voice halfway through a tune? Hah. You have to dial in the two digit number and press enter. Presuming you know the two digit number.Now - gripe time. Casio, seriously, what is up with the PEDAL on this keyboard? By that I mean total absence of a pedal socket - when you have tunes like Satie's gymnopedie built in - which uses pedal. A "ped" symbol even shows up on the LCD. So you'd think if you want to learn that piece (and others) on this keyboard, you'd be able to plug a pedal in or something? Nope. I don't get it.No MIDI on this model. Were I buying one, yeah I'd want MIDI functionality in case I ever needed it. However, it's personal preference. MIDI can be used for any PC related stuff, composing, but also don't forget it can be used for learning tools like...off the top of my head, synthesia or flowkey.Other gripes include the lack of any teaching materials - when I was a kid, keyboards used to come with a manual and songbook - the songbook would give you the basics of how to learn piano. Very basics, but with this keyboard you get nothing other than an operation manual which is very sparse. I guess you have to youtube your basic lessons nowadays (which I highly recommend by the way as a place to start!).So I always think when I get a product to review - who is it marketed at? Well this one isn't marketed at actual piano students due to the lack of any sort of weighting or sensitivity to the keys, and it isn't marketed at absolute beginners due to the lack of tutorials, so I'm left scratching my head a bit. I suspect it is the latter, and kids, due to the lighted keys, but there's only so far you can go with "whack a mole" lighted keys - I don't know. I feel like if you have the time and dedication to memorise a piece note by note from the lighted keys, can you not learn it....properly? If you know what I mean?Anyway in summary this was a tough review for me to write because although we have here a very well constructed and quite cool keyboard which I like, I actually find it quite hard to play although I got a bit used to it after a while, but from a weighted model that I'm used to, I found it a bit basic. It is what it is - and I won't mark it down for that, but obviously there's always those who criticise a basic version of anything because "you can't learn properly on it" - well you can start, and see if you're interested or dedicated enough. Or maybe you just want to learn keyboard, or maybe you just want a keyboard for fun. And that's all fine. I still am annoyed about the pedal thing though.