Casio WK-3800 Keyboard Review

Written by: Travis Farris

I may be a writer, but my muse is music. I have loved it since I first discovered it at the horrendously late age of 10, and I believe I am subconsciously packing as much of it as possible into my life to make up for nearly a decade of ignoring this wonderful facet of art. I listen more than I play, but I do have some experience with musical keyboards, and the one I have been using for over 5 years is the Casio WK-3800.

Professional musicians, I’m going to do you a favor and tell you this now: I am not one of you. I probably never will be, so you may want to find another place to get super-technical insight. I am, however, a schmuck who loves messing around with musical instruments, and if you are as well, I say, welcome! Take a seat! And play some music, because this keyboard is wonderful.

Boasting 76 keys, over 800 tones, the ability to record your own songs, the ability to create your own tones, and several dozen other frighteningly specific features, the possibilities are well-near endless if you want to mess around with some musical tech. You’ll find no end of it in this thing. More accessibly, the sound quality of its tones is very, very nice. An effect called DSP ( Digital Signal Processing ) allows for some great echo and various other sound quality effects that lesser keyboards lack, making the tones sound much more authentic.

With some interest in musical composition myself, I find the recording options to be fantastic. I can record on 6 different tracks, then play them all back at once, and I can record them in real time or enter each note manually. I had hours of fun with this when I first bought it, and if you want to work a little on some introductory composition, there are worse ways to start.

I don’t even know enough features of the WK-3800 to praise them all, but there is one thing I can mention as a downside: this thing costs six hundred dollars. $599.99 to be exact, but at that point you’re REALLY splitting hairs. I was fortunate enough to receive this as a gift, and I am eternally thankful for it. But if you’re just looking to have some musical fun, like me, you probably would want to look for a cheaper device – Casio has an entire line of WK keyboards, and this is one of the higher-end models. If you have the money laying around, the WK-3800 will keep you entertained for many hours, but I believe only a professional, or a budding one, would be able to use it to its full cost-potential.