There are different ways to save recorded music on a digital piano. Some pianos have built-in space for you to record songs. This works well if you only use that one digital piano, or if you don't need to take the recorded file to another keyboard.
Of course you could just hook up through a MIDI device and store the information on a computer. You could save as many songs as your computer would hold. You could also email the file to wherever you needed it.
But what if you don't want to go through the process of putting your recorded piece of music onto a PC? What if you just wanted to record a lot of songs and put them into a portable device that could fit in the palm of your hand?
Then you'll want to get a digital piano with a USB outlet or an SD Memory Card Slot.
You are familiar with USB outlets on your computer. Some digital pianos have a USB hook up so you can attach a flash drive to save your recorded songs. The only limit to how much music you can record and save is based on the memory capacity of your USB flash drive. This is a great way to get your recordings from your digital piano into an instantly portable format. You can take it with you wherever you go, hook it up to a different digital piano that has a USB outlet, or transfer it to any computer without the headache of cables and wires that hook the digital piano up to the computer.
Another plus to using a USB outlet on your digital piano is that USB is very common on computers. Every computer has them. So if you save your digital piano recordings on a flash drive you are pretty much guaranteed to be able to put them onto any computer.
Please note that some digital pianos will say they have a USB hook up, but it might not support a flash drive. This is because there are 2 types of USB connections on digital pianos. The first is a USB connection to a host. This connection allows you to plug a cable into your digital piano and hook that cable into a USB outlet on a computer. The second connection is USB to device. This allows you to directly plug a flash drive into your digital piano. If you want instant portability, then choose USB to device.
Some digital pianos use SD memory card slots. SD memory cards are common, and they are used in cameras, video game consoles, cell phones, and other electronic devices. The most popular memory cards are by SanDisk. These disks are little at only 32 millimeters x 24 millimeters, but they can hold a lot of information. Right now the standard SD memory card will hold up to 4GB. So you will have plenty of room to record a lot of music off your digital piano.
Casio has some models that use an SD memory card outlet. A few models that use this are the PX575R, PX200, PX320, PX800, and others.
The pros of using an SD memory card are that it gives you instant portability of your recorded music in a device that is very small. The downside of it is that if you want to save the music from an SD card to a computer, it is less likely for the computer to have an SD memory card outlet. Many computers do have them, it's just not as common as a USB port on a computer.
Another downside is that the SD card is so small it can be easily lost. Some USB flash drives come on key chains, and even the ones that don't are still big enough to not be easily lost. It may not be a problem if you use the SD memory card in your digital camera, since the camera is big enough to not be lost. But if you use the SD memory card to save music on your digital piano, you will pull the card out of the piano and carry it alone.
The best way to handle this is to put the slim SD memory card in your wallet. It might not be the best solution, but it works for me. There is another solution to this portability problem. When you use an SD card adaptor that allows the SD card to be plugged into a USB port, the entire device is the size of a USB flash drive. So it's easier to keep up with. SanDisk makes these adaptors.
So if USB ports are more common on computers than SD memory card outlets, then why would anyone choose the SD memory card outlet as the preferred method for saving data on their digital piano?
It depends on what you want you use your digital piano for. This will affect which one is best for you: Whether you want other people to bring their files to your house to play through your digital piano or you want to take your files to someone else's digital piano. Let me explain.
If you only have a USB outlet on your digital piano and someone brings you an SD card, you can still plug their SD card into your digital piano with an SD adaptor. If you only have an SD outlet and someone brings you a USB flash drive there's no way to play it in your digital piano.
So the USB outlet lets you accept other people's recorded files onto your digital piano the best. But is that the most important thing for you? Most of the time you will use your digital piano to record music so you can take it somewhere else, such as a different computer or keyboard outside your home. In that case if you have an SD card you could play your files on a friend's digital piano that has an SD outlet or a USB outlet (through the SD/USB adaptor).
I think most people would use their digital piano for the purpose of taking the recorded files out of their home to a different place. In these cases SD cards give you the most flexibility. But if your needs are for your digital piano to be as flexible as possible in accepting other people's portable files, then the USB port is the best.
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