In my experience, students who opt for these instruments tend to replace them pretty quickly.Īnother point I’d like to make is to ensure you buy a model that allows you to turn the light-up functionality off - it can get super annoying after a while, and especially so when you progress to the point where you don’t need the light-up keys. So, you should bear this in mind when thinking about purchasing any instrument with light-up keys - you need to be sure that you won’t outgrow it in a few years.
These instruments may have full size or touch sensitive keys, but they don’t have weighted keys, they don’t have the full 88 key range of a real piano, and the quality of the voices varies dramatically. However, I could find no model of digital piano with these features in my research for this article. I’m talking digital pianos here, with full size keys, weighted keys, etc. I had always thought light up digital pianos had existed. Now I’ve used this term, but actually it’s not precisely what I mean. However, there are some drawbacks, which I’ll cover later in the article. Students can learn new pieces pretty much right from the start, without having to rely on becoming proficient to actually read the notes required to play that piece, or without having to rely on a teacher who may prefer the student works on sight-reading or scales first. If you want the full keyboard playing experience, the Yamaha YPT-260 is the one to go for.Īnd I have to admit, this can be a really useful method of learning for students who are either not confident with reading music, or have difficulty accessing a teacher. Just as with the Casio LK-S250, you get a stand and a pair of good quality headphones. I’ve experimented with this and it’s a very useful resource if you’re learning the piano without a teacher.
You also get the famed Yamaha Education Suite which will teach you how to play the piano. You get 100 built-in songs to learn this is about as much as I’ve ever seen on a keyboard, and they’re all well-known and popular songs. The light-up keys functionality on this keyboard is one of the best I’ve seen. This allows you to very easily change the key of what you’re playing to match another instrument. You also get a transposition function, which allows you to change the pitch of the keyboard up and down. This is a little less than some other models, but I can forgive this because the voices are excellent in quality. You also get a full complement of voices and tones 392 to be exact, alongside 100 accompaniment styles. This keyboard lives up to those expectations.Īs you’d expect, you have 61 full size lighted keys. I think Yamaha pips them to the post in most cases, with more realistic piano sounds, better build quality and just a better quality product overall. Yamaha makes excellent products, as does Casio. If you’re looking to get started with a light-up keyboard, you can do no wrong with the Casio LK-265.Īs ever, I have recommended a Yamaha. This one does.Īnother major bonus is that the LK-265 contains pretty much everything you need to get started, including a pair of closed cup headphones and a keyboard stand. This is exceptionally useful as it solves one of my main issues with light-up keyboards that they don’t teach you which fingers to put where. It even comes in with a built-in lesson function, as well as a fingering guide. Of course, we mustn't forget about light-up functionality this keyboard includes 60 built-in, well known pieces that you can play along with and learn. Casio are known for including lots and lots of voices or tones into their keyboards, and the LK-265 certainly delivers in this regard, with 400 high-quality tones and 150 rhythms, including a Dance Music mode, which allows you to record your own tracks. This keyboard is compact and lightweight, but feels exceptionally well built and solid. While the brand is synonymous with the calculator you used in school, or your digital watch, they’ve been making keyboards since the 1980s and they do it exceptionally well. This is true for every musical instrument they make. If there’s one thing you can depend on Casio for, it’s a high quality product.