Korg Pa900 Workstation

The Popular Korg Pa Series Professional Arrangers

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Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Mike Bracchi » 28 Jun 2013 10:49

Price: £1999.00 AC Hamilton (instruments2go.co.uk)

Korg prides itself on having delivered some of the most successful arranger keyboards ever. Used by tens of thousands of music professionals in every country around the world, Korg arrangers have thrilled audiences and delighted players with a magic combination of unbeatable sound quality and features. Korg’s RX (Real eXperience) Technology blends this great Korg history with powerful new technology and ideas from musicians around the world to deliver a new standard in arrangers.

The result is a musical jewel that packages technological magic into a cool and user friendly design: The Korg Pa900.

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Korg Pa900
Professional Arranger


Korg debuts the newest high-performance Arranger in the acclaimed PA-Series; the Pa900. Featuring Defined Nuance Control technology for extra realism, Pa900 offers users a new palate of sounds to impress any audience, as well as an enormous range of styles covering music genres from around the world. Combine this with powerful functionality, an intuitive user interface and rich, powerful sound, and you have an Arranger for the most demanding performer.

The Pa900 sound engine uses double the PCM memory of the best-selling Pa600 and extends the amount of User PCM memory to 192MB. The number of user Style locations has also expanded to 1,200, which will cover almost every style imaginable, and the improved built-in speaker system delivers it all with clear, rich sound. Standard features such as the TC Helicon Vocal Harmonizer, an MP3 player & recorder, Dual Crossfade Sequencer and Video output for lyric display enhance your performance options. The Pa900 packs all this in a high‐quality instrument featuring aluminium side-panels and a silver body to provide a prestigious look on any stage!

With more power than ever before, the Pa900 sets a new standard for arranger workstations.

Pa900 Highlights
    Enhanced RX (Real eXperience) sound engine offers improved realism and expressiveness

    Massive internal ROM; can accommodate up to 192 MB of user PCM data; provides a powerful wave memory, delivering incredible sound quality

    Three assignable switches and a four-way joystick ensure total control for the sound articulation levels (DNC – Defined Nuance Control)

    61 key semi–weighted keyboard action with velocity and aftertouch

    Slim and compact lightweight design

    Large TouchView™ 7” TFT display

    Easy layout and intuitive graphical interface with new Search function for quickly locating musical resources

    2-way speaker system provides powerful, clear sound

    Improved Style and Performance selection; over 400 factory Styles, each with 4 variations and 4 Fill Ins + Break, plus 15 user banks for nearly-unlimited storage of your favorite customized or user-created Styles and settings

    Enhanced Guitar Mode 2 for even more realistic guitar parts

    Chord Sequencer function records any chord progression on-the-fly

    4 Stereo Master Effects (125 FX Types) + 2 Global Effects (Limiter, EQ)

    TC Helicon 3-voice Vocal Processor with 4 dedicated effects

    Double MP3/MIDI file players with recording capability, X-Fader and Vocal Remover

    Enhanced compatibility with lyrics in graphical format (+G) for MP3

    Enhanced sound compatibility for GM and GS songs

    Fully-programmable SongBook database based on Styles, SMF, Karaoke, MP3 with instant recall of any song setting. User-definable custom lists. Filtering and ordering options.

    Multi-language extended character set. Lyrics can be showed in their original languages (except the Oriental and the Arabic Languages*).

    New SoundFont import function

    Mass Storage with Micro SD

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Feel the keyboard
The 61-key keyboard offers a semi-weighted action, feels great, features naturally responsive key-on/key-off velocity sensitivity and aftertouch, and is designed for musicians of all levels.

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Slim, powerful and easy to use
The Pa900 has been designed with the concept of combining a slim shape with a professional look. But while its size might appear diminutive, its sound is huge, thanks to the power of the onboard high-quality custom designed amplification system. The 2x20 Watt amplifiers drive the 4 loudspeakers in a bass-reflex enclosure to generate a rich, powerful listening experience. The main panel has been redesigned and optimized to ensure that buttons and knobs are ergonomically and intuitively well positioned to enhance any performance. Our graphical user interface is now even easier to read and has been renewed with more detailed icons and objects thanks to the new large TFT Graphical Color Touch Screen display. So that musicians of all levels can make great music quickly, there are two interface modes: Easy and Expert. The Easy mode shows only the most important controls while keeping a clean and straightforward interface, useful for beginners or playing live. Of course, in Expert mode you have full editing control. When you do not remember where a file, a song, or a style was saved, just use the Search function to let the Pa900 find it for you.

Sound Quality At It's Best
Based on Korg’s sophisticated sound engine, the Pa900 provides truly outstanding new sounds. Our RX (Real eXperience) Technology and the DNC (Defined Nuance Control) system refine an already powerful sound engine, allowing the performer to accurately and expressively introduce the most subtle nuances and sound articulation. Assignable switches have been added to the joystick control, resulting in deeper control and rich expression. Thanks to DNC, you can reproduce subtle articulation sounds that are typical of most acoustic instruments, for example, the growl of a passionately-played saxophone, elements of the breath found in wind-Instruments such as trumpet, clarinet and harmonica, and the added characteristics that give added authenticity to the pizzicato and bowed sounds of a rich string section. Many demanding professional sampling sessions with some of the finest musicians in the music industry have resulted in more detailed natural sounds than ever before. More than 1,100 sounds, including a new stereo grand piano (with string resonance and damper realism) and new electric pianos from the acclaimed KORG SV-1 stage piano; new wind instruments, basses and stunning guitars; plus new digital drawbars with leakage and key on/off noises provide the perfect sound foundation for any harmonic and melodic need. More than 70 drum kits give life to any rhythmic texture and sound truly authentic due to the Drum Family Easy Editing feature, which gives total control over volume, pitch, EQ, and more. Up to 192 MB (PCM User memory) are available, so custom sounds can be added easily. The General MIDI (GM) sound bank has been improved for better compatibility with GM files. The Pa900 can also load/import Korg, WAV, AIFF, SoundFont and export in WAV or AIFF. Sounds can be fully edited, and can now use up to 24 oscillators for each note!

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Do it with Style
The Pa900 delivers over 400 Styles, straight out of the box. Each one is a fully-realized musical environment dedicated to creating a particular musical style. With so many to choose from, the Pa900 can provide instant access to a vast and robust range of musical genres. Each Style features 4 Fill Ins + Break patterns, one for each variation. Using the new Auto Fill function they can be automatically recalled as you move between the four variations. Our international sound team has created many new Styles; and many of our revered and well-known Styles have been improved with new sounds and new mixing. The Pa900 has 1,200 locations for you to save your new Styles and settings. Several new sophisticated parameters which ensure professional and realistic guitar tracks have been added with Guitar Mode 2, making the guitar tracks of every Style rich and authentic. A new function called Chord Sequencer records your chord progressions on-the-fly so you can immediately practice or play along with your own chord sequences.

Studio Quality Effects
The use of premium effects can not only add polish and class to your overall sound; they can also make your music tracks sound more interesting! Korg is famous for its outstanding studio quality effects, and the Pa900 includes the best of the Korg effects library. Up to 4 Stereo Digital Multi Effect processors can be used for each song. 125 effect types are available, running from the standard reverbs and delays through to the more unusual and vintage effects. In addition each track features EQ with Low, Mid and High controls. A custom track EQ can be memorized in the general preferences for the Song Play mode. This will help adapting the sound to personal taste for any MIDI file you play. Need a lighter Bass track? Save the right equalization, and the Bass will stay light with all the subsequent Songs. A limiter and a final 4 band parametric EQ has been added to the sound output of the Pa900. Everything can be processed by this powerful and musically refined EQ, easily adapting the sound to your musical taste or correcting a problematic live scenario.

TC Helicon® Voice Processor
Korg’s long term cooperation with the world leader in vocal harmonies, TC Helicon®, continues in the Pa900. With new features and algorithms the TC Helicon Voice Processor ensures your vocals have the highest possible sound quality. Up to 3 realistic voices are available and can be controlled by the keyboard, or by MIDI events. Other 4 effect blocks are available, including Reverb, Delay, EQ and Dynamics. To ensure professional vocal performance, 2 knobs and 3 buttons controlling the most important vocal functions have been added to the top panel within easy reach.

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Player/Sequencer
The famous Korg XDS Crossfade Dual Sequencer Player now supports the “MP3+G” (also known as MP3+Graphics) format for MP3 files in addition to the most popular lyrics formats. This new feature allows backing sequences to play with enriched lyrics and graphics which can be displayed simultaneously on the on-board TFT display and on an external monitor. There is also a Marker Function, allowing direct jumps to a given position in the song. Two different MP3 or MIDI files can be played simultaneously and both MIDI and MP3 files can be transposed, accelerated or slowed down. The Vocal Remover allows vocals to be removed from MP3 files using a center-channel cancellation tool. The 16 track sequencer allows sophisticated levels of sequencing, but also provides quick and easy song creation using the Backing Sequence function. And because the Pa900 is very clever, it can record your entire performance! You can run a song, play the keyboard, sing along and everything will be recorded in MP3 format and stored on an external USB device or in the internal memory. A sophisticated Score Viewer is also available to display the lead track (or any other track) of a song as clear and plain traditional musical notations with notes or chords, together with lyrics and chord abbreviations. Chord names can also be seen both in English and Italian. For those learning music, we also added a function to show note names next to each note.

The SongBook
Particularly useful for live use, the SongBook is a fully programmable and easily searchable Music Database. Each entry contains all the settings required to play a particular song. The SongBook can use styles, MIDI files or MP3s and immediately recall settings such as song title, genre, artist, tempo, volumes, sounds, muted tracks, FX settings, easy edit, 4 STS*, TC Helicon® presets, master transpose and more. Everything you need to play your song back perfectly is in the SongBook, a useful musical feature that is unique to Korg.

*STS - Single Touch Settings are memories that recall sounds for all the real time tracks (Upper 1, 2, 3 & Lower)


Links to more on the Korg Pa900 including Video Demos & Video User Guide:

viewtopic.php?f=90&t=1583

viewtopic.php?f=90&t=1584
Mike Bracchi
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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Facebook News Feed » 28 Jun 2013 12:40

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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Mike Bracchi » 29 Jun 2013 07:17

Well ..... I'm gob-smacked :cry: :cry: :cry:

I don't think I have ever seen a newly launched keyboard attract so little interest!
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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Fred » 29 Jun 2013 11:48

Mike

I'm not sure if it is just a general lack of Forum activity across all the Forums. The 900 has a PSR S950 beating function which I would have thought wold be of interest to many (Double MP3/MIDI file players with recording capability, X-Fader and Vocal Remover) The ability to play and record is a feature many wished for in the Yamaha. Another reason could be that people are just waiting for the latest release of the Flagship models to replace the T4 and PA3x etc.

Thanks for the post.

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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Mike Bracchi » 03 Jul 2013 14:42

The price of the Pa900 will be £1499.00 and first shipment will be in the store 1st November 2013 :wink:

I placed an order for one with Bonners this morning ... got a very good deal on my 4 month old Pa600 ... well chuffed :D :D

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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Craig » 03 Jul 2013 15:48

Hi Mike, nice to hear you're going for the PA900. All the best when you get your hands on one later this year :)
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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Eddie Smart » 05 Jul 2013 11:56

wow this looks like it may give the S950 a good beating it even has feature that my tyros3 hasn't got,Congratulations on ordering one mike i hope you get it for christmas this time :wink:

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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Facebook News Feed » 05 Jul 2013 12:33

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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby keyboardplayer » 05 Jul 2013 22:29

Mike Bracchi wrote:The price of the Pa900 will be £1499.00 and first shipment will be in the store 1st November 2013 :wink:

I placed an order for one with Bonners this morning ... got a very good deal on my 4 month old Pa600 ... well chuffed :D :D



You must really like the Korgs Mike to upgrade in such a short time.It looks like a very fine piece of kit :D
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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Fred » 03 Aug 2013 09:39

Hi Mike

It looks as though Korg will be shipping early. Guy in the USA expects his next week.

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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Wally Gator » 03 Aug 2013 13:24

Look forward to your reviews Mike.
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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Fred » 03 Aug 2013 19:52

Korg have released an Operating System Update for the PA900

http://www.korgpa.com/en/support/produc ... tware.html

I posted earlier that a guy was expecting his next week, well looking at the Korg Forum several players already have theirs.

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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Craig » 04 Aug 2013 17:36

A couple more videos below.

I've been searching to see if this arranger loads Akai samples into the user PCM ram, but it appears this one does not. I know the PA3X does, so maybe Korg miss this feature out for their middle of the line PA range.

Spec states: Full sampling editing compatibility - Load/Import of Korg, Wav, AIFF and SoundFont™; Export of Wav and AIFF; Edit, Time Slice, Compression Tool.




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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Mike Bracchi » 27 Sep 2013 18:42

Hi Craig,

Very good videos, particularly the first one you posted ... some cool sounds :wink:

All the best.

Mike
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Re: Korg Pa900 Workstation

Postby Craig » 27 Sep 2013 19:55

Are you sticking with the 600 Mike, or is the temptation still there to go up to the 900?
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