In 1980, Casio released the Casiotone 201, its first electronic keyboard. The keyboard enabled musicians of any age, budget or skill level to explore and play sounds of various instruments and marked the company’s debut in the electronic musical instruments space.
Today, celebrating it’s 40 years of electronic musical instruments globally, Casio continues to be a pioneer in the industry and is celebrating four decades of success in using innovative technology across all its products which are made for musicians – young and old.
“At Casio, we’ve always strived to develop innovative instruments based on the fundamental need of enjoying music.After almost four decades of successfully delivering musical products made with cutting-edge technology and musical artistry, we couldn't be happier to continue to bring music into the lives of enthusiasts of all ages”, said Kulbhushan Seth, Vice President of Casio India. “As Casio enters its 25th year of operations in India, we’ll continue to design and create the next generation of electronic instruments for all kinds of users”.
History of Casio Musical Instruments
The CT-201 has been a well-loved instrument by musicians across the world. It came into being as an unprecedented new form of musical instrument at the time, based on Casio’s co-founder Toshio Kashio’s philosophy of “creating something from nothing”. Soon after Casio release widely popular products like VL-1, CZ-101 and expanded into Digital Guitars with it’s DG Series in 1988
Launch of Privia
In 2003, Casio introduced a new concept in the affordable digital piano category, offering more advanced features with a high-quality sound; all at an affordable price. Since its inception, the Privia series has continued to expand with the recent launch of PX-S1000 & PX-S3000; the world’s slimmest digital piano. With a slim and stylish body, these Pianos came with Bluetooth Audio connectivity and weighed less than 12 kgs.
Introduction of Indian Keyboards
Being a trailblazer since the start of this industry, In2007, Casio introduced a new generation of keyboards termed as “Indian High-Grade Keyboards” by introducing the CTK-810IN which was focused towards providing quality Indian instrument tones & rhythms to be used by local musicians. Made specially for the Indian market, this keyboard series has been a huge success and have had a lot of new additions since then. The CT-X series launched in 2018 have been widely appreciated in the Indian market and over the years a lot of competitors have followed Casio and introduced their own Indian keyboards
The Revival of Casiotone Series
After almost 40 years after the CT-201, Casio introduced the next generation of it’s widely popular Casiotone series. The new Casiotone series aimed at beginners comes with a refreshed design and a smartphone application – Chordana Play which allows one to learn any song, anywhere simply by Loading a MIDI file into the app and connecting it with the keyboard. Weighing under 3.3 Kgs, equipped with USB MIDI & a smartphone app makes this keyboard a treat for musicians of all ages, which further shows Casio’s commitment to expand the musical instruments division in India by encouraging more users to start learning music.