Casio PX-S3100 – REVIEW | Digital Piano 2023 – LOWER PRICE HERE

So what makes this newer PX-S3100 so impressive as compared to its competition? In my expert opinion it is because Casio has done things right on this model such as its new clean design, increased portability, new piano key action, new grand piano sound engine, new responsive  portable pedaling ability, intuitive user interface, and the incredible functionality to make your music more realistic and exciting than you thought possible out of a self-contained digital piano for $879. That pretty much sums it up.

You can play these songs back on any digital piano that has the ability to play General MIDI multi-instrument song files and also has a USB flash drive input where the songs would play from. You can buy and download just about any song you can think of and play it on the PX-S3000.

Apart from this new PXS3100 the other digital pianos out these may have enough speaker power to play piano and for practice purposes so there is no problem there. It’s when you really want a more sophisticated, higher audio quality sound where many of these digital pianos fail.

Not just more volume but a higher quality tone that really gives your music the realism that many people look for in a portable digital piano with internal speakers. When you plug into an additional external speaker system then that enhances the playing experience even more, especially in producing a fuller bass response.

In fact, the volume of this PX-S3100 was so big that I had a difficult time believing it was all coming out of a super compact 24lb instrument. I had the PX-S3100 play other MIDI movie themes by John Williams including the ones I mentioned earlier like Raiders, Jurassic, and others and those compositions and orchestrations sound equally impressive.

INTERNAL SPEAKER SYSTEM

Casio has improved their internal stereo speaker system so dramatically over any past models that it makes all the other portable digital pianos out there under $1000 pale in comparison. With notably better speaker and amplifier components coupled with this new 3-D stereo surround sound system within the piano, the resulting musical experience is far better than you would think it could be just looking at the piano and wondering how good can it possibly be given its small size and weight…but somehow the sound designers at Casio were able to figure it out and do it. When I plugged in some external powered monitors to the two audio outputs in the piano, the resulting sound was even more amazing, especially if you want or need an even bigger sound or wanting more bass response. But in terms of filling up a large room with big sound, the PX-S3100 can do it with no problem.

But as I said, I tested the piano to its full capacity using and playing back General MIDI multi-track song files not only with the Star Wars theme, but other big movie music like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, a number of popular Jazz, Latin, Contemporary Christian, Country, and rock songs, and other categories of music, and the PX-S3100 did exceptionally well with all of them. I happen to like lots of musical styles including Jazz. One of my favorite jazz guitarists is the famous Lee Ritenour and you can see his Jazz band videos all over YouTube. Lee and I actually graduated from the same high school in the same grade at the same time and in fact he was also in my choir class…I loved to sing then as well as now. Anyway, Lees hit songs are also available in General MIDI format and they sound really great on the PX-S3100.

But, without access to those higher quality 700 instrument sounds that reside inside the PXS3100 music library, the MIDI song playback ability and quality of those songs would not have happened in the way that it is being heard on this new instrument because previous music instrument libraries in past model digital pianos pretty much sounded like toys. If you want to play any of those 700 instrument sounds individually (including acoustic pianos, etc) just for your own live playing enjoyment with no songs playing in the background, as I mentioned earlier, you can easily do that and select them from the LED digital touch sensor controls and see what you have selected in the easy to read LCD display screen for that user info and then enjoy those high quality tones live in your own playing and recording.

PIANO KEY ACTION, SOUND, AND PEDALING

Some of the digital piano models may play better than other ones, but they definitely don’t come close to being a real piano in these lower price ranges, particularly in a portable version. They are either lacking good dynamic tonal range, volume touch control, lacking a responsive piano-like key action movement, and/or lacking good pedal movement and response. To get all those piano playing aspects in a digital piano to be more like a real acoustic piano in this price range is pretty much impossible…it’s really just how close can you get to the real thing. With this in mind, even though this PX-S3100 is not perfect (what is?), it does check all the boxes in being a very enjoyable instrument to play.

KEY ACTION

I did notice the white keys were fairly firm to press down towards the backs of the keys (pressing down towards the front of the white keys feels fine). I would have preferred the white keys to be a bit easier to press down in that back position, which is the way it normally would be on real acoustic upright & grand pianos. The keys (the part you cannot see that goes under the control panel) are just a bit shorter in length on these PXS slimline portable digital pianos than other digital pianos because of space restrictions in being so compact. However, overall the keys are balanced and move nicely considering the compact nature of the cabinet and in fact is better than I expected.

I will mention that the black keys are lighter and easier to press down than the white keys and for some reason a couple people out there don’t seem to like that. It is true that on real full size acoustic pianos, the black keys are much closer in weight (down-weight and upweight) to the white keys as compared to the PX-S3100. However, in many digital pianos the black keys are the opposite of that and are actually much heavier than the white keys and more difficult to press down. That is definitely not a good thing with black keys being noticeably heavier in that way.

So the Casio PX-S3100 black keys being lighter (requiring less force to push down) than the white keys is not a bad thing, especially if you are playing recreationally and not trying to use this model for playing advanced classical music. If all you want to do is play piano and do it at a more advanced level, then there are other models I would recommend over this one.

When it comes to the “weight” of the keys on digital pianos and how much finger force it takes to press down the keys and the response for the keys to come back up, on these more compact portable digital pianos, you should not be buying it to play serious classical music on at more advanced levels as I already mentioned This PX-S3100 (nor the low priced PX-S1100 at $699) were not built for that purpose. The black & white keys on this model for playing recreational music including pop, jazz, Latin, country, etc is just fine. I like this key action, it’s very playable, and fun to use.

To get a more serious key action in a Casio portable digital piano you need to go up to the new PX-S5000 at $1199 or the PX-S6000 at $1799. The key action in those 2 models are more advanced in construction and key action movement…but you’ll be paying more to get that experience.

So in my expert opinion for its size, price range, and compact footprint, Casio did a very good job designing this new key action, although I would have preferred slightly longer keys, but then the physical size of the cabinet would have had to be larger. As I already mentioned, if you are the type of person who will be primarily playing more serious classical music on it, there may be better options for you, and also in that case you may not need all the various “bells & whistles” on this model. You should then opt to pay another $300 or so to get the new Casio Privia PX-S5000 portable digital piano that focuses primarily on “piano playing.”.

PIANO SOUND, POLYPHONY, & ACOUSTIC PIANO SIMULATOR

“Expression” means that you can produce subtle mellow tones when playing the keys lightly or big bold piano tones when playing harder and more aggressively that I have never heard before in a Casio portable digital piano. As you press the keys harder and harder the sound brightens up and becomes more lively to the point where you can hear the “virtual” strings vibrate more & more offering a range of grand piano tone not available in any other portable digital piano under $1000 right now in my opinion. It really was amazing to play and hear and almost could not believe it the first time I heard it…it was that good. When I connected my small external stereo powered monitor system to the PX-S3100 by plugging into the piano audio outputs, the grand piano sound coming out of those speakers coupled with it also coming out of the piano’s internal surround sound stereo speakers system was very full.

It is important for me to point out that although the piano sound is really impressive in this new model and can fool some people into believing they are hearing a real acoustic grand piano. However, the fact remains that the piano sound here is a “recorded sample” that is produced electronically going through speakers and so there are still these limitations that prevents it from really being an organic acoustic grand piano, especially for those who play real grand pianos. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that this new PX-S3100 sounds and plays more like a real piano in my opinion than any other brand or model under $1000. With regard to the “polyphony power” in this model, 192 notes of power is more than sufficient if you are playing a single instrument sound and also layering 2 sound together for most of the instruments.

However, I did hear a bit of “note dropout” when using some specific instrument sounds layered together. When I test digital pianos for note dropout I do my best to play as many notes as possible together with the most memory intensive instrument tones layered together along with using the sustain pedal to its maximum potential. When doing all that at one time I pretty much expected a bit of “note dropout” because of the strain I was putting a the processor chip, whereas few other people using the PXS3100 would ever do that.

What that all means is that for the vast majority of people, there is plenty of polyphony processing power in there. As I mentioned earlier, Casio has a special app to interface with the many features of the PX-S3100 so that you can more easily access and control certain aspects of the instrument including the organic elements of the acoustic piano sounds in this model which Casio calls “Acoustic Simulator.”

This would include adjusting the sympathetic string vibrations, hammer noise, resonance, and other aspects of the acoustic piano sounds. This allows you to customize the acoustic piano sounds in ways not previously available in past Casio models or in any of the competitive brands in the way they are done in the Casio Music Space app. You can also customize the “key touch sensitivity” levels in the app so that the piano sound responds to the type of touch you have (light, medium, heavy, and in-between). Some people will like using these “customizable” features and other people will not care and want to play the PX-S3100 piano sounds just as it is.

PEDALS & PEDAL SUSTAIN RESPONSE

If you think you’ll want to take the piano with you to places or move it around often in your home, studio, or other building, then only the new Casio portable, lightweight triple pedal unit can easily do that. Another advantage of the portable triple pedal unit is that the sustain pedal can trigger the half-damper pedal effect giving you the ability to control the amount of sustain you want depending on how far down you press the pedal. The single pedal only allows for on or off sustain and not for variable levels of sustain like the triple pedal unit. For just another $99, if you can get the full triple pedal experience with more control over the damper-sustain function.

If you are only a beginner then the small single pedal that comes with the PX-S3100 should be enough for awhile. Otherwise you can get a better, more robust option single sustain pedal made out of metal which can sit more securely on the floor and also allow for more foot space. It just depends what pedal would work better for you depending on your splaying skill level and your pedal experience.

Also, as I have mentioned a few times already, the Casio Music Space app lets you access many cool features in the PX-S3100 including programmable pedal features to let you do things with the pedals that has not been available in the past on these types of portable digital pianos. This would include changing which things the pedals will do when you press them down and which other features they will trigger, and this is useful if you are more of a professional player or just want to trigger functions in the piano from one of your pedals in real-time so that you can do it faster that way rather than from the control panel.

INTERACTIVE ONE MAN BAND ACCOMPANIMENT

You just hold down any chord on your left hand and start up the band with an intro to whatever music style you have selected out of the 200 musical accompaniment styles in the PX-S3100. When you play your chords in the song with your left hand then you get the entire band following along (including the drummer) while you play the melody in the right hand choosing any one (or two in a layer) of the 700 internal instrument sounds for the right hand melody. It’s such a great way to play music and entertain yourself and ultimately it can make you sound much better than you really are….which is always a good thing as far as I am concerned:).

It’s also useful in teaching you how rhythmical music should be played and heard and gives you a better idea of how to musically interact with a real band…a great learning tool. So when you play some contemporary rock, old school jazz, Latin music, blues, big band, 50’s, 60’s, Motown, dance, waltz, march, whatever type of music you like, the PX-S3100 chord accompaniments system will put in a one-man band accompaniment with musically correct backing track patterns to make you sound as if you had been playing with your own band for years.

 

Most of these accompaniment styles sound great for all the “members of the band” including the bass player, guitar player, pianist, drummer, etc, but some of the music accompaniments are just average and sound more like some of those cheaper keyboard auto accompaniments. But that’s OK, they all cannot be good and most people will find there are enough good sounding accompaniments and drum patterns in this model to be useful and satisfying, especially at this $879 price. I do like use this feature because it allows me to play and experience music in a completely different way than traditional piano playing. I believe the more a music student gets to experience music in terms of playing music on a piano, the better musician he or she will become.

3-D SURROUND SOUND & RHYTHM STYLES

Another thing about this interactive “accompaniment” system is just how musically realistic sounding these accompaniments really are as I previously mentioned. They’re certainly better and more natural than any past Casio digital pianos that had those interactive accompaniments and the detail and accuracy of these accompaniments emulating actual musical styles is impressive given this is only a $879 instrument, particularly if you have the 3D multi-position surround sound feature on at the same time…then all those instruments take on a “live” feel and seem like they are coming out of the piano in different directions and also with a lot of power.

In fact when using the 3-D surround sound system in this model which can be seen visually when the 2 sound mode lights are lit up on the control panel, the amount of projection and volume you get out of this small piano is really incredibly good…way more power and clarity than I have ever heard from any other portable digital piano under $1000…it’s like you have external speakers plugged in…but you don’t. It’s hard to believe that Casio can get all that clarity and power out of 2 internal speakers and a total of 16 watts of power (there are new improved speakers and amplifiers in the model as compared with previous models) because it sounds like you easily have double the power and double the speakers than the specs would suggest…no kidding.

Beyond that, the auto-accompaniment instrumentation and the movement of the notes within that musical style is impressive and very expressive in the way it all comes out, and this can be motivating in wanting (and being able) to play musical styles that a person may never have been able to do in the past. I think these musical accompaniment styles are worth the price of admission in getting a PX-S3000 over a non-accompaniment digital piano under $1000…assuming you would use these features. I use them all the time to learn new musical styles and to get better with my rhythm accuracy when playing music with other musicians instead of just playing solo all the time. So these things do have a good use to them and are not toys the way other people might define them probably because they have never used them. But I have used these accompaniments for years in a variety of digital pianos and I find them quite musically inspiring.

If I am only going to play “piano style” and would not need or want these accompaniments because I might be playing classical music or I just don’t want to play along with other “musicians” in a band or orchestra, then that’s fine and there are people out there who just want to play piano...and the PX-S3100 can certainly do that and do it well especially using the surround sound mode, and I use it that way quite often. But…there are other ways to play music on this instrument and for some people (like myself) this is a big bonus and a welcome addition to the functionality of the PX-S3100.

BATTERY POWER & BLUETOOTH WIRELESS

So what else can this new PX-S3100 do that makes it unique among its competition. Well two things I can think of write away is that the PX-S3100 can run on 6 double AA batters for complete portable power supply without an a/c or power adapter. It will give you up to 4 full hours on battery power which then allows you to take it to the park, to the beach, in your backyard, to the mountains, really anywhere you want to go and the piano performs just as good on batteries as it does plugged in.

There is the first self-contained 88-key piano fully weighted key action instrument that I know of that works on battery power. Certainly Casio has had battery powered lightweight keyboards over the years that work on battery power, but never one before that has has a fully weighted piano key action in it. So the battery power gives people the freedom to take this new piano anywhere they want to go…and that’s a big bonus to purchasing this model.

Bluetooth wireless MIDI & Audio connectivity is unique on digital pianos under $1000 and you can even do more than just play your favorite music library songs wirelessley through the piano because Casio also has a proprietary iOS/Android app for this piano called Casio Music Space which I mentioned earlier. This controller app  allows you to manipulate your music library songs in ways that make playing along and learning your favorite songs on this piano even more fun and exciting…but I will get into that just a bit later.

RECORDING FEATURES & TOUCH SENSOR CONTROL PANEL

The larger LCD screen is especially important in a digital piano that offers lots of functions and features like the PX-S3100 does. You can layer or split any two of the 700 instrument sounds in the piano along with having a “duet mode” which allows 2 people to play on the instrument at the same time when practicing the same piece of music with the same notes in the same octaves.

The duet function is great for students who happen to be learning the same music. Along with the split, layer, and duet functions, this piano also offers transpose change, DSP effects changes, “controller knob” effects control, arpeggio control, and other functions that are found using a dedicated row of touch sensor “virtual” buttons located on the control panel to the right of the display screen.

These touch sensor buttons are how everything is controlled in the PX-S3100 and is overall a convenient way to access functions using a control panel that other wise has no buttons at all and is sleek and contemporary in design. It’s like an iPad or a cell phone when you have those devices powered off…the surface of the device is dark and flat with nothing showing except for maybe a power button.

DIGITAL REGISTRATION MEMORY 

This model has so many things you can do and so many ways to make music on it that you won’t run out of cool musical things that you can do. As an example, it is useful to have some virtual memory slots to save settings you have done such as saving your favorite instruments out of the 700 instrument music library, saving sound combinations such as layering & splitting along with saving effects you have setup for those sounds and so much more so you don’t have to recreate and find them every time you use the piano. That’s typically how most other digital pianos are…you can’t save settings…or if you can then it may be only one or two of your favorite settings at most, especially in this price range under $1000. The PX-S3100 can save a whopping 96 of your favorite setting for instant recall whenever you want them and they can be easily edited and adjusted whenever you want to.

You can also quickly transition between the different registration memory settings which is especially useful if you are using this piano for live performance and want different setups for different songs and need to make those changes quickly. As an example of something that I personally saved on the PX-S3100 that had taken me a few minutes to manually set up was finding the perfect classical nylon string flamenco guitar coupled with the perfect stereo string-pad background sound along with just the right amount of brilliance control and reverb effects and then also adding a chorus effect to the guitar.

Then I also added just the right amount of EQ setting to the entire mix and also made sure my relative volume balance in the layered mix between the guitar and string-pad tones were balance just right so the volume of the guitar was not drowned out by the background strings when I played them together. To add to that, I also electronically changed the key touch settings to light instead of normal and also transposed the key of the sound up 3 half-steps so I could still play my song in the key of C but have it be heard coming out in the key of Eb.

When I was done making all those adjustments in the piano menu, I just saved it to 1 of my 96 digital memories so that I would not have to recreate that setting again and would be quickly be able to call it up. I can tell you that this setting example came out beautifully with the guitar sounding awesome with full dynamic range and clarity along with the backing sound of some very beautiful strings & pads to give depth to that overall setting.

SOUND EFFECTS

REVERB EFFECTS

REAL-TIME CONTROLLER KNOBS & WHEEL

Essentially what these features do is allow you to instantly control some of the specific sounds in this model so they sound even more realistic when you play them. As an example, when you want to play a steel guitar, clarinet, or any sound that you would want to bend like a Hawaiian guitar or synth, then the “pitch bend” wheel will allow you in “real time” to instantly bend (aka: slide)  the sound either up or down like you would if playing a real clarinet or playing a real electric or acoustic guitar. You can even set the pitch bend range from 1 whole step to 2 full octaves which means you can bend the instrument tones in a natural way or use the pitch bench feature to bend synthesizer tones in a way that makes those tones sound realistic. You can also program the pitch bend wheel to control a few other features in the PX-S3100.

As for the knobs themselves, there are two of them just above the wheel one above the other. The knobs can be very useful because they allow you to assign 30 digital effects such as filters, volumes, portamentos, vibratos, reverbs, brilliance, resonance, and other useful effects to those 2 knobs so that you can turn

those knobs individually to increase or decrease the effects you have chosen for those knobs. In other words, those knobs can control 1 effect per knob in real time so that you can change the tone or character of that sound as you play it. One practical example of using these small knobs is to assign the brilliance and reverb effects to the knobs and then while you are playing you can

instantly make the overall sound of the piano more mellow or brighter or anywhere in-between as you are playing, regardless of the instrument sound you have chosen (such as piano, guitar, organ, saxophone, synth, etc).

On top of that you can turn a knob and increase or decrease the reverb echo so that instrument sound can have more or less of that effect which can be especially useful to give a fuller pipe organ or grand piano sound, depending on the size of the room you are in or the type of acoustics you have (hard floors, walls, carpet, etc). Yes, a few other digital pianos have effects in them, but not close to the degree the PX-S3100 can and those other digital pianos cannot manipulate those effects in “real time” using knobs.

By the way, knobs on keyboard instruments are commonly found on pro stage synthesizers and have been used by pro musicians for decades and this Casio model can recreate all those vintage synth sounds like those from Moog, Oberheim, Sequential, and other famous retro synths. There’s even 25 different vintage Hammond B3 sounds in the PX-S3100 with Leslie speaker simulations and all of them are fairly impressive.

Then having programmable knobs and a wheel controller on this piano simply gives the player more control over all the sounds in the instrument. If you are a pro player or have a home recording studio then you will be familiar with these type of controls and likely utilize them often to add customizable control to the instrument tones and effects which is very cool and no other self-contained portable digital piano under $1000 has anything like this.

MICROPHONE AUDIO INPUT

MUSIC PRESET AND SONG CLIPS

The Music Presets are actual music “clips” of famous song progressions that are programmed into the PX-S3100. In other words, there are 310 well known “song clips” that play famous chord progressions along with the entire backup band of of those songs that you may have heard before on the radio, and/or audio CD or MP3 recordings. The PX-S3100 selects the most realistic melody instrument for you to play along with so that when you play any of those song clips of familiar chord progressions, the right hand sound is automatically selected so that as you’re playing a right hand melody it will sound as realistic as possible and as close as it can be to the original song.

I like to call it “jamming” along with your favorite song. The song chord progressions keep playing one chord after another using the backup band and the entire progression may be 20-30 seconds long and then continually repeats itself in a loop without stopping until you press the stop button. In this way you can learn to “improvise” and “play by ear” with the looped chord progressions so that you get a better feel for what it is like to play along with a band or orchestra. The 310 song clip loops include pop music, country, Latin, Jazz, waltz, march, Blues, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, etc. along with classical, Christmas, Gospel, and just about any type of music you can think of.

The Music Presets are not complete songs but instead they are just a part of the song (a famous recognizable part of a famous song) and you get to play a melody with that part of the song which is like playing along with the band or orchestra. The band plays this “looped chord progression” over and over so you can “jam” and improvise with it playing whatever you want on the right hand and choosing any of the 700 instrument sounds you want to play that melody. You can even change the rhythm tempo speed and transposed key of that looped “song clip” as well.

It’s super fun and great for aspiring piano/music students to learn what it is like to “play by ear.” As a long time piano teacher I believe it is essential for piano students to get the experience of learning to also “play by ear” instead of just reading music all the time and the Casio Music Presets allow you to do that. Casio is the only digital piano company that has a feature like this and not everyone will use it, but if you do then you’ll likely have a great time with it and might even become a better “ear player” too.

INSTRUMENTAL AUTO HARMONIZE CHORDS

It makes you not only sound many times better than you really are, but it trains your ear to understand what right hand harmony chords can sound like. It’s really a pretty cool feature and there are actually 12 types of harmony variations offered in this model which can be used when playing with this feature and works while playing any left hand chord. So then your single finger right hand melody gets an extra boost from the PX-S3100 by adding in automatic harmony to the right hand melody so that it sounds like you’re playing full multi-finger chords on your right hand when you really are playing just one note. It’s fun, entertaining, adds to your music, and helps train your ear.

The Harmony feature can be used when playing regular piano style or with any of the 700 instrument sounds in the piano, or using the accompaniment styles of music with all the backing tracks for the left hand so that when you play the right hand with harmony feature then it sounds like you’ve been playing with multiple fingers at the same time (chords) even though you are using only 1 finger! Will everyone use or need this feature?…definitely not. But for those like myself who love to play many styles of music and doesn’t mind that “technology” is helping me be able to sound better, then I’m all for it and I think many other people will feel the same way.

AUTO ARGEGGIATOR

You can even select from different kinds of arpeggio patterns depending on what sounds good to you and how it effects your music. There is a huge list of 100 different arpeggio patterns which you can select from that will replicate what pro piano players sound like when there fingers are flying up & down the keyboard playing different note patterns.

Beyond that, you can layer one sound in the PX-S3100 using a moving arpeggio pattern for that sound and then layer it over a 2nd sound and hear the second sound sustaining under the arpeggio pattern from the 1st sound. In other words, 1 arpeggio sound mixed with 1 normal sustained tone that you choose. The possibilities are endless with this feature and no other digital piano in this price range has anything like it. It’s really, really cool to use and once you try it, you’ll be hooked! Basically you just play around with this feature and its variations and have fun.

CASIO MUSIC SPACE APP FOR IPAD & ANDROID

It is so cool and can let you control tempo, select metronome and time signature, record multi-track MIDI recording or audio wav file recording, changing touch sensitivity curve to customize the key touch that you want depending if you are playing piano sounds or other sounds…it basically does it all and then some. The app also has musical games in it that are not part of the internal features of the PX-S3100. These musical games allow you to important songs from the piano so that they will play back showing you when to play the notes using “streaming lights” so you can visually see what it going on with the song and where your at.

It also displays notation and you have control over tempo and can also set up the song to repeat certain measures of your choosing in a controllable loop so that those notes keep playing over and over to give you a chance to learn specific passages in the music you have be having a difficult time doing. There are so many ways to interact with these very cool, useful musical exercises that are also fun games.

IMPORT ITUNES IN CASIO MUSIC SPACE APP 

CONNECTIVITY

As far as connectivity in the PX-S3100, you get it all…Bluetooth audio wireless, two 1/4″ audio outputs, 1 stereo mini audio input which can take in a microphone or anything else you want to amplify and go through the PX-S3100 speaker system, 1 USB output to any device, 1 USB flashdrive input for saving and loading songs into or to store external general MIDI files for playback in the piano. The optional portable triple pedal unit has a proprietary input jack in the piano so that you can connect it.

In portable self-contained digital pianos under $1000, it is fairly unusual to find an expression pedal output. But in the PX-S3100 there is connection for an expression pedal which is a special option pedal that allows for control over a number of functions in the piano. One of the main functions of an expression pedal is to be able to raise and lower the volume of the instrument sound you are playing to give more “expression” to that sound.

One good example of that is for organs sounds. When someone is  playing a real organ like a Hammond B3 jazz/gospel organ, pipe organ, or other organs, there is an variable expression pedal down below the organ (like a gas pedal in a vehicle) that when you press down and forward on the expression pedal you get more volume and when you press down with your heel and backwards on the pedal then you get less volume (in real time) of the sound you are playing.

This is called variable volume expression and that’s one of the main uses for an expression pedal in a digital piano. It is not necessary to have if you are only playing a piano sound but can also be useful with other expressive sounds such as strings, brass, synth tones, etc. The expression pedal can also be assigned to control other functions in the PX-S3100 such as drum rhythm start & stop, drum fill-ins, tempo control, master volume, and other functions.

So the optional expression pedal that you can connect to this model can come in very handy depending on the type of music you play and what you like to do with pedals. Finally, you also get two front loaded mini stereo headphone jacks for two people at a time to play in privacy. There is fairly good stereo headphone amplification coming from those headphone jacks and they are located on the front left side of the piano which is convenient.

When it comes to connectivity in a portable digital piano, this model pretty much leaves no stone unturned, unless for some reason you need traditional MIDI connector ports which the PX-S3100 does not have. It uses the USB port for all MIDI related connectivity along with Bluetooth wireless MIDI streaming..

At the end of the day this new PX-S3100 is for anyone at any playing skill level including for pro keyboard players who play on stage or in a recording studio and want good quality instrument sounds & effects. It’s also for composers and arrangers for music creation, for piano players who want and need a lightweight higher quality portable piano with expressive dynamic piano tonal range and want to take the piano with them from place to place, for students just learning to play piano, for adults who want to have a lot of musical enjoyment and like some “bells & whistles” to make their music more fun and allow them to sound better than they really are with less effort.

It also can be for churches who want a high quality portable digital piano and need it in a low price range, for schools to enhance their music program, for teaching piano labs which require multiple digital pianos that can mix together in creative ways…and really this piano is for anyone who loves music no matter how they play and what their musical goals may be. There’s really only two things that I thought were missing in this model and that was the ability of the operating system to display the chord symbols in the LCD screen of the chords being played by the left hand when using the accompaniment backing tracks along with the Music Preset song clip chords being displayed.

Having the chords displayed would have been helpful to let you know “where you are” in the music, but perhaps Casio can come up with a firmware update one day to resolve this issue for me. However, when it’s all said and done, those are small complaints relative to what the rest of this new digital piano can do.

The bag itself is not heavy but it seems to be constructed very well and the piano sits securely inside without wiggle room, and that is a very good thing. $179 may seem like a lot to pay for a “gig bag,” but I believe you will be hard pressed to find a generic one out there that actually fits this “slim-line” model correctly while being robust.

I think this gig bag is definitely worth the price. In this piano price range there certainly are other available portable digital pianos out there…but not with the capabilities of the PX-S3100.

It just depends on what you want, what your musical goals are, and how you will be using the instrument. The PX-S3100 does even more things than I talked about in this review but that’s something you can discover on your own if you should get one. If this model only had the ability to do half of the things I talked about in this review, it would still be well worth the price of admission in my opinion.

For now I’ve talked about the functions and features I think are really compelling and interesting in terms of what I now consider to be overall the “biggest bang for the buck” in an easy-to-use, intuitive, clean looking portable digital piano under $1000 with lots of features. With a Casio factory warranty of 3 years parts & labor coverage on this instrument, I believe that Casio has a real winner in this price range.

By the way, Casio has a much higher price portable digital piano called the PX-S6000 at $1799. It is similar in a few ways to the PX-S3100 but has upgraded piano sounds, upgraded keyboard action, and many more cool, upgraded things, but it’s $920 more. I mention this new higher priced digital piano simply to let you know that Casio produces portable digital pianos in even higher price ranges. But for under $1000, this Casio PX-S3100 “hits all the right notes.”

The acoustic piano sounds are really impressive on this instrument, but there are so many more things this model can do and that’s what I tried to do with these songs. This was done to let you hear and experience the other types of musical things this piano can do, and you don’t have to be a “rocket scientist” or a great player to do it. You just need to love music. All of this music I did is posted to SoundCloud from the links below.

If you want more info on new digital pianos and LOWER PRICES than internet and Amazon discounts, please email me at tim@azpianowholesale.com or call direct at 602-571-1864.