The Casio Privia PX-S7000: Enabling Users to Enjoy Playing Freely

The Culmination of Over 40 Years of Development in the Spirit of Kashio Toshio

 

Casio Inventor; Kashio Toshio

“Acquiring the skill of playing a musical instrument is an achievement of immense value. The difficulty of this challenge makes it worthwhile and provides the joy in it. However, for those who cannot manage to pick up that skill, it’s worth having an instrument able to bridge that divide. In my view, making the enjoyment of music available to more people in that way will go a long way toward increasing the overall number of musically involved people.”

- Kashio Toshio

PXS7000 in Harmonious mustard

 

The Privia PX-S7000, launched in 2022, is a Casio digital piano designed for skilled players who hope to enjoy playing popular music. It combines a striking 360° design that looks beautiful from any angle to suit modern lifestyles with fully fledged performance capabilities as an instrument. Here, we reflect on the Casio legacy of pursuing freely creative concepts to deliver innovative new products one after another. Let’s get reacquainted with the Casio spirit of development, which the Privia PX-S7000 embodies so well.

The story of the Casio Electronic Musical Instrument Business began with the launch of the Casiotone 201 electronic keyboard in 1980. Since its establishment in 1957, Casio Computer Co., Ltd. had produced calculators, then timepieces, and this became the company’s third core product category.
The inventor responsible for this development was Kashio Toshio, the second eldest of the four Kashio brothers and a founding member of the company. Having resolved to become an inventor himself after reading a biography of Thomas Edison at the age of 12, Toshio indeed went on to conceive of hit product after hit product, carrying a pencil and paper with him his whole life. Invention is the mother of necessity, he insisted; not vice versa as commonly known. He was a developer motivated by a pure desire to create inventions that would make users aware of needs they had not yet recognised themselves.
It was his dream of creating a musical instrument that would enable anyone to enjoy making music with ease that inspired Toshio to develop his first electronic musical instrument at the age of 55. A passionate music lover from an early age, he picked up one instrument after another and attempted to play them: the harmonica, accordion, guitar, violin, shakuhachi… However, try as he might, perhaps due to his self-directed learning style, he had a hard time producing the pleasant tones from them that he had in mind. Immersing himself in research, beginning with fundamental questions — What makes a sound pleasant? What makes a musical instrument enjoyable to play? — he developed a system of vowel-consonant synthesis, creating single sounds by modifying and combining the “vowel” and “consonant” elements he thought comprised sound. Finally, his efforts culminated in the advent of the Casiotone 201, an electronic instrument able to recreate the sounds of 29 different instruments while making them playable on a familiar keyboard.
1980: First Casio Digital Keyboard Casiotone 201
 
Ever since, Casio has leveraged digital technologies to bring the world electronic musical instruments that overturn preconceived ideas that instruments have to be bulky, heavy, expensive, difficult to operate and challenging to learn. Casio truly has done much to fulfil Kashio Toshio’s vision of bringing the joy of making music to everyone.
Bringing the joy of making music to skilled players who enjoy popular music: The Privia PX-S7000 created a new need for playing freely

Casio has dedicated the Privia brand — taking its name from a combination of the words “Private Piano” — to creating digital pianos in compact sizes but with performance capabilities of a grand piano, since the first Privia was released in 2003. Most recently, the focus with Privia has been delivering uncompromising design and functionality to complement the modern lifestyles of users who want to enjoy playing the piano in unique ways all their own, as embodied by the Privia brand statement, “In Harmony with Life.”

The Privia PX-S7000 redefines the way pianos can be incorporated into people’s lives, taking inspiration from the new idea of “Style, Reimagined” to look beyond traditional expectations for the instrument. The new keyboard is designed to facilitate free ways of playing and enjoying the piano, anywhere users might wish to place it, overturning impressions of the piano as a fixture to be placed near a wall and played by oneself in a serious manner. It offers a freeing new alternative to the common view among users who diligently applied themselves to piano practice from an early age.
Main features of the Privia PX-S7000

Modern 360° design featuring attractive views from every angle to harmonise with room interiors

While expressing the stylistic beauty of an acoustic piano incorporating a built-in stand and pedals, the PX-S7000 employs linear, straight lines informing its design and the light feel of its form. In consideration of the fact that users may wish to place the keyboard in the centre of a room, colours selected to harmonise beautifully with living spaces with reference to European furniture trends have been chosen for the stand, pedal unit, and speaker fabric on the back, in addition to making the music stand out of transparent acrylic to avoid obstructing views. The thoroughly modern design looks beautiful when seen from any angle, 360° around.

 

Original Spatial Sound System to create a natural sound spread tailored to the placement of the piano

The PX-S7000 is equipped with an acoustic system composed of four independently driven full-range speakers. Each speaker emits sound elements that are separately adjusted  to make them combine and create a natural sound spread in the space. This technology allows users to choose a preferred acoustic setting specifically tailored to the placement of the piano — near a wall, at the centre of a room, or on a tabletop.

 

Touch and pedals that delivers the playability and expressiveness of a grand piano

The PX-S7000 features a newly developed keyboard mechanism with white keys made from a mix of resin and the high-quality spruce wood that is also used in grand pianos. Special surface treatments are applied to both black and white keys to achieve a look and feel that closely resembles that of grand pianos’ ebony and ivory. The keyboard enables users to enjoy richly expressive playing, from light to strong touches, through a combination of elements: its hammer action, which has been adapted to match the new mechanism; counterweights that serve to balance playing comfort; and unique digital control technology fine-tuned to bring them into harmony with each other.

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