The Quest for a Keyboard That Invites Everyone to Play
First of all, could you tell us how the CT-S1 project came about?
Hiroshi Sato: We had two main reasons for taking this project on. First, we hoped to create a definitive keyboard that anyone could just pick up and play. We didn’t feel there were many good options for getting started with a keyboard, and we wanted to design something that we could see ourselves playing. Not wanting to create something too unconventional, we started by looking at a new standard keyboard that would fit naturally into people’s lifestyles. Something that everyone would just want to start playing.
Second, we wanted to rethink the keyboard as a musical instrument in its own right, not just as a substitute for the piano, which is what it sometimes felt like. Our aim was to create an easy-to-use Casiotone that was designed for playability, while also putting lots of different instruments in the same unit. When the first Casiotone 201 was released in 1980, the concept was “an enjoyable world of beautiful and diverse tones,” and we embraced that same idea this time around. Looking back at the first Casiotone, we realized this concept was just what we had in mind—more than 40 years later, the original Casiotone should still inform how Casiotone exists today. That was how this project really took off.
Hiroshi Sato
Product Planning Department
EMI Business Unit
Hamura R&D Center
How did you begin the process of turning that initial concept into a product?
Hiroshi: Well, it’s not easy to communicate your idea at first. We began by getting the product design team to create concept images of the Casiotone in harmony with different living spaces. We agreed on a target image for the product and then started thinking about how we could realistically mass-produce it. Communicating this in a tangible form helped the people around us to understand it, too.
Shunsuke Oka
Advanced Design Department
Design Unit
2nd Design Headquarters
Shunsuke Oka: In terms of timing, it felt like we were dealing with a request from the Product Planning Department, but actually the momentum was coming from the product design team.
Hiroshi: The product design team’s vision was pretty close to ours, so we spoke to them on a daily basis. Sometimes it was hard to know where the ideas came from first.
Was there a reason why the planning team and the product design team were working on the same idea at the same time?
Hiroshi: As I said before, we hadn't been able to create the kind of keyboard that we really wanted. We’d made a wide range of products for kids, older players and other groups of people, but wanted to develop something that would appeal to music lovers of all ages, including people of our own generation. We talked a lot about going back to the basics while we homed in on what we were looking for.
Shunsuke: Originally, we were pretty focused on a keyboard for performers, but we kept thinking we didn’t yet really have something that captured the initial concept of the Casiotone—that anyone could enjoy playing it. The product design team made some proposals with this in mind, and after a few other departments took a look, we started to move towards a consensus.
Hiroshi: It's easy enough to come up with a concept. But we weren't initially able to turn it into something concrete in terms of cost and other practical considerations. People were ready to walk out of meetings, exasperated because there was just no way that the designs could be realistically built. Despite these challenges, our structural engineer Kouji stayed on board as a key player.
Where does the structural design process usually begin?
Kouji Oshima: In the structural design process, we need to communicate not only with the design team, but also with the team that develops the acoustics. In order to produce sound, a certain amount of space is needed inside the body of the instrument, but if that’s too large, the product will end up looking unbalanced. The product design team came up with a really slim-bodied product at first, right?
Shunsuke: Yeah, they did.
Kouji: It was like they steamrolled it! I wondered where the speakers would actually fit. It looked cool, but I was pulling my hair out trying to make it happen.
Hiroshi: The biggest challenge was to balance the sound and the design. The design might be great, but it also needs to sound good.
Kouji: When Shunsuke saw our drafts he was like, “Oh, couldn’t you just get rid of this part?” You’ve got to be joking! (laughs)
Shunsuke: I’d keep coming back, saying “I found another part we don’t need!” (laughs)
Kouji Oshima
Section-22
Department-2
Mechanism Development Unit
Development Headquarters
How did you balance a slim design with a proper internal structure?
Kouji: With the bass reflex system, you need the biggest enclosure you can get. The speaker box in this keyboard is shaped like a boot, which was a new design. Also, the main speaker and the bass reflex port face different directions. With tweaks like these, we managed to get enough space for the speakers while keeping the keyboard really slim. Of course, in reality it was way more involved. I had the data that showed the reduced speaker space, and I remember just handing it to the acoustics team without saying anything. After about a week, they came back to me saying “You made it smaller, didn’t you!” They found me out. (laughs)
Hiroshi: Normally, bass reflex speakers are mounted vertically, but this design puts them in a new horizontal structure. Also, the product design team wouldn’t budge on the speaker nets because they really wanted them to look a certain way. (laughs)
Kouji: They just wouldn’t let up on those, would they? (laughs)
Hiroshi: We also had to deal with issues like sound loss and cost. Kouji was looking for new suppliers, something that’s usually not possible in such a tight time frame. In the end, thanks to him going the extra mile, we were able to get the project done just under the wire. We made it because we shared this vision of perfection from the beginning. Everyone knew it would all be for nothing unless we achieved what we’d set out to do.
Realizing Minimal Design through Experiment and Commitment
Were there any other products that you referred to when creating the new design?
Shunsuke: We wanted the sound to work well in the living spaces where the keyboard was played, and again, that it would be an instrument everyone wanted to play. I had the idea of using fabric like you find on cushions or sofa seats, so the keyboard would totally blend in with the room. When we thought about this, the long speakers—called “sound bars”—in home theaters and similar systems came to mind. I spoke to a few people about using this type of long speaker net, but they told me it was impossible—it was just too long. And the idea of using the fabric I mentioned was just too new and outside the box, so to speak···
Kouji: The fabric was too thick, and it didn’t let the sound through. That was the problem.
Shunsuke: We started wondering where we could find different fabric that was more acoustically transparent.
Hiroshi: We had quite a few candidates, but couldn’t find one that met all three criteria: acoustic transparency, cost and design.
Shunsuke: At first, we were looking for regular speaker net material that was guaranteed to be acoustically transparent, but we couldn’t find anything that would work well with the living environments we had in mind. So, I went to a fabric store, bought some fabric and showed everyone what we wanted to do—even though that particular fabric wasn’t acoustically transparent. I asked if we could find a suitable fabric with a similar design. That’s how we finally arrived at the cotton pique we have today. It’s a unique type of fabric, from the dyeing stage onwards. We eventually managed to give it this speckled texture. We had to make a lot of modifications to get to the final product, didn’t we?
Hiroshi: Yeah, at one point there were so many patterns, I couldn’t keep track of them all. (laughs) We started talking about not just the fabric but also how to dye it. You had your gripes at the time, Kouji, but you never gave up.
Kouji: It was a special kind of fabric that the supplier didn’t normally handle, but I explained that the designer wanted a speckled pattern, and asked them to make something original with it. I thought they could create the speckled pattern by interweaving dark and light yarns, but that didn’t work. We ended up needing a pretty specific dyeing method, and we had to think about what yarn was best, or what temperature to use, and ended up doing lots of research and back and forth. In the end, our suppliers went through a long process of trial and error, with some totally new methods, and we got exactly the pattern we were looking for.
Shunsuke: Kouji helped up out with anything we asked, no matter how detailed. Our success was very much thanks to efforts of the structural design team.
Hiroshi: Now when I see my polo shirts at home, I think about the fabric they’re made from. “Now that’s cotton pique,” I’m thinking. (laughs)
Why did you decide to offer the product in three different colors?
Hiroshi: At the start, we were only going to do a black version. But the design team came back and said pretty forcefully that one color selection wasn’t an option, given the theme of fitting into lifestyles and harmonizing with living spaces.
Kouji: They were pretty adamant about that, weren’t they? On the day we were going to check the design mock-ups together, they suddenly presented us with color variations.
Shunsuke: Along with the mock-ups, I made a poster showing the color variations and took it along. I gave a guerilla-style presentation showing that if the theme of the project was all about harmony with living spaces, using more colors would definitely add impact, and it would be easier for people to visualize the keyboard actually being played. We decided right then to create versions in additional colors. However, when we told Kouji and the structural design team to use all these new colors at the 11th hour···
Kouji: We couldn’t believe our ears! (laughs).
Hiroshi: We were inspired by the colors of electric guitars and vintage instruments. This led to a nice ripple effect of matching certain sounds with certain looks. For example, I added vintage electric piano and organ sounds because of the red color.
Shunsuke: Yeah, it was a red with a hint of yellow.
Hiroshi: They gave us just the kind of shade we were looking for.
Where does the structural design process usually begin?
Kouji: I haven’t been designing musical instruments for all that long, but my other work has been based on the concept of creating designs that are “light, thin, short and small.” That’s why we tried to make the keyboard body as small as possible from the outset, working with the acoustic team to come up with a structure that wouldn’t compromise the sound. I’m talking about the enclosure (speaker box) that I mentioned earlier. The main speakers face upward, and the bass reflex ports usually face the same direction. However, in this case, that wouldn’t have left any room for the circuit board. I really had to push the circuit team to get the board to the size it is now. They were like, “There’s no room for it!” There were just a few complaints about having to make it so small. (laughs) We consulted with the acoustic team, turned the port downward, reduced the size of the box and placed the circuit board in there—getting us to the compact size we were after.
Shunsuke: We also put a lot of work into the underside of the case. We made the keyboard easy to handle, but sometimes when you lift it up, you can see the underside of the case. That’s why we made a wavy pattern on the back, and made holes to match the waves, so that they would look like part of the design.
There are also pins for a strap on the back, right?
Hiroshi: When it comes to musical instruments, you need a place to put them. By trying to make this keyboard as compact as possible, we were trying to make it as versatile as guitars and wind instruments, in terms of how easy it is to pick them up and start playing. By attaching a standard guitar strap to the keyboard, you can play it without a table or a stand. You can even play it sitting on the sofa or in bed—the strap will keep the keyboard stable. The strap gives you the freedom to use the keyboard in many different positions and situations without being stuck in a fixed location.
Shunsuke: Actually, only the white model has silver strap pins. The black and red models have black pins.
Hiroshi: We did our best to make each model unique with these small details, even though we were pretty strict about uniformity across the board.
Shunsuke: For example, the felt at the base of the keys is a different color in each model. The white model has brown felt, the black model has red felt and the red model has dark brown felt.
Kouji: At first, I wondered why we didn’t just use the same color on all the models. (laughs) The team worked hard to find the right color for each model.
What did you do to balance design and usability?
Hiroshi: We focused on simplicity in the user interface, just as we did with the design concept. The buttons are arranged in a row, and you select sounds in order from the left. That’s really all there is to it. The minimalist design, including the small number of buttons, takes away that sense that the keyboard is a piece of equipment, and instead turns it into something that blends in with your living space.
Shunsuke: On the design side, we also wanted to keep things minimalist and reduce visual noise as much as possible, to let whoever’s playing focus on the music. For example, the text above the buttons is not in a bold font, but rather a light, narrow one. But we didn’t think it would be enough just to cut down and simplify the design. The engraving of the Casiotone letters on the right side is three times deeper than usual, the base of the keys has a wavy pattern and the buttons are set higher than other instruments. While keeping it simple, we tried to emphasize the emotional value of the instrument through these small details.
Kouji: You were pretty particular about the details, weren’t you?
Shunsuke: I actually can’t even play keyboard. But I think the reason I was put in charge of the CT-S1 was to design it so that people like me, who can’t even play, would really want to. I was really conscious of how minimalist the design was and how easy it was to use. I didn’t want it to look too difficult to play, even from my perspective.
Hiroshi: The buttons have a satisfying feel when you press them, and the volume knob is a little heavier than other models. It feels a little like a high-end audio system.
Kouji: We were very particular about the volume knob. As Hiroshi mentioned, high-end audio products have a frictionless but weighted feel. Our previous products were designed to have a lightweight feel, but when we thought about the target audience for this model, we thought it would be good to have a heavier, more deliberate feel. So, we worked with our vendors to customize the keyboard.
Shunsuke: On the black model, even the circular outline of the LED on the button disappears when the light is off. We were trying to make it as minimalist as possible. Actually, we wanted to reduce visual noise.
Kouji: You asked me to make the outline of the illuminated part invisible when the power was off—which was something else that didn’t make sense to me. (laughs) You wanted plastic instead of rubber for the buttons, and asked for the more expensive option.
Shunsuke: The buttons stuck out too much, so the LEDs weren’t bright enough.
Kouji: Yeah, they weren’t bright enough, especially on the white model. When we make color variations, we use the same parts from the same mold, but this time we had to change them. We made separate molds for the buttons on each of the white, red and black models.
Hiroshi: There are lots of things we did specially for the CT-S1. We made adjustments based on how we thought users would feel during each operation on the instrument. It’s actually amazing how much thought went into it. I said it was a simple instrument, but it wasn’t all that simple to create. (laughs)
Packed with Technology and Ingenuity, A New Keyboard Crosses the Finish Line
How did you transition from the visual aspects of the design to creating high quality sound founded in AiX Sound Source?
Hiroshi: AiX stands for “Acoustic Intelligent multi-eXpression,” which translates into a realistic sound that captures the richness of the respective instruments’ expression. For example, for the piano, we took advantage of the processing power of the AiX Sound Source to handle a large number of waveforms, which let us create a rich, luxurious sound. On the other hand, for the organ and electric piano, we used that power to model amps and effects in extreme detail to craft a truly authentic sound.
The CT-S1 includes a special set of tones called ADVANCED TONES.
Hiroshi: ADVANCED TONES are a set of tones we put the most effort into, and we define them as “sounds that enable fresh, new forms of expression” using the AiX Sound Source. Our goal was to create unique and original sounds that would modulate depending on how you played them, through varied playing dynamics, or whether you were playing single notes or chords.
For example, one of the ADVANCED TONES is called MAGNI SYNTH-PAD. When you play a single note, the piano and synth sound in unison, but when you play a forceful chord, the synth pad comes in suddenly, creating a magnificent other-worldly soundscape. Even a single tone can have many different expressions, and the result is really captivating. I think it really shows the developers’ attention to detail.
We also took great care in creating the electric piano tone in the ADVANCED TONES. At first, we wanted to create a sound that would stand out with a lot of phaser effect. When we had some professionals try it, they said that in practice they’d use something a bit more refined, so we toned it down for a softer, more subtle sound. I heard so many different opinions from musicians that I thought the sound designer might just give up by the end of the project. But in the end, the professional feedback exceeded our expectations. I was almost in tears when I heard musicians play the finished product.
The CT-S1 also includes sounds from vintage Casio instruments called CASIO CLASSIC TONES.
Hiroshi: We’ve been making electronic instruments for over 40 years. A lot these instruments are still loved by musicians, so we included these tones as a way of returning to our roots. Along with tones from well-loved CZ and VZ digital synthesizers, we chose sounds that can be used in today’s music scene, like those from the eccentrically unique VL-1, and the electric piano tones of the very first Casiotone, the 201. Some of the developers from those days are still working at the company. We asked these legends to pass on their knowledge to us when making this latest keyboard. For example, the person who created the “SeeGod” tone for the VZ-1 was on our team. When I played it on the original keyboard the sound was just magnificent, as if it really embodied its name. It had a cold metallic feel to it, but it sounded really cool. It was like I really saw God! (laughs) Anyway, I thought it was a great sound, so we included it.
This latest keyboard is an instrument that’s easy for beginners to pick up, but it also has sounds that avid gear geeks will also enjoy.
Hiroshi: We never put many sounds into each keyboard—until now. We wanted people with a certain level of experience to also enjoy using the keyboard, and we thought adding more sounds would make it more appealing to these types of people. The VL-1 sounds are interesting, and it’s fun to play sequences with your left hand and melodies with your right—a kind of “hidden feature” thanks to the 61 keys on the CT-S1 compared to the mini keyboard of the original VL-1.
It’s clear that a lot of ingenuity has gone into making this product.
Hiroshi: That's right. At times, we had to almost start over. Even though we were pressed for time, we asked the engineers to try different ideas again and again. We really did our best to raise the quality to this level. The three of us were the leads on this project, but I really feel we owe our success to the passion of so many other people not here with us today.
What do you think of the finished instrument?
Shunsuke: I’m thinking of buying one and learning to play! I’ve been wanting to play the keyboard for a long time, and now I’ve finally found a keyboard that I want to own. I believe everyone’s combined efforts have led to a really fantastic product.
Kouji: Almost two years ago, we released the Privia PX-S series of digital pianos, which were also pretty slim, and we thought they would be breakthrough products. I’m really happy that we were able to bring together compact size, simplicity and great design in the CT-S1, a keyboard that truly breaks the mold.
Hiroshi: By pursuing a compact size and limiting the number of elements to a minimum, we were able to create an impressive level of sound in a compact package. I think this is the best possible option for people who want to start playing keyboard. As I mentioned earlier, I’d like to create a world where portable keyboards can be used as easily as guitars or wind instruments.
What do you think of the finished instrument?
Kouji: Although this keyboard is simple, I think we’ve created a new keyboard that’s never existed before. I hope users will enjoy using this product in their living room or anywhere in their homes.
Hiroshi: We want to continue to be a gateway for people who love music and want to try it for themselves. Whether it’s practicing a favorite song or just playing your heart out, I think there’s always something new to discover when you play music. This experience is a true luxury, and I think that this instrument can be the gateway to that, and quickly lead you down a unique musical journey. Even if you just play it occasionally in your free time, it has the ability to move you. I think this instrument delivers a unique experience. You should really try it out and play it for yourself!
Shunsuke: Even though I can’t play the keyboard, this is something that I’d really like to have. I hope people who have never played a keyboard stop and try it when they see it in the store. I want them to imagine it in their home, or to imagine themselves playing it. The design and features of the keyboard are excellent—I urge everyone to give it a shot and see for themselves.
