The Korg PA900 A Month on

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The Korg PA900 A Month on

Postby Brian007 » 25 Aug 2014 18:23

OK,
Its about a month since I bought the new Korg PA900 and have had a little time to start and form some opinions and here they are.

Its a truly brilliant bit of kit,

The 60 minute instructional video is a real plus for a starter

Thanks to the song book feature every style is so easy to customise and saving is just a 2 finger pokes of the touch screen away and is just as easy to recall at any time.

Navigation via a colour touch screen is really easy and quick.

There is no hard drive built in but you can buy a 32gb SDHC card for a £10 and put it in easily and you have extra storage

Other good things are you can insert markers into a midi file and move to anywhere you want in the midi file instantly.

It supports all of the style from earlier models from Korg but strangely not the PAX3 ?

There are so many things you can customise on the 900 it makes it a very versatile keyboard

There is so much I still have to explore on the 900 that it will take me some time to get through it

Is there anything I don`t like about it ??? well yes just the one at the moment, it take nearly 90 seconds to boot up

Am I still pleased I bought it and not a second hand Yamaha Tyros 4 ???? You bet I am

Anyone have any specific questions about it please feel free to ask

Brian :D :D :D :D
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Re: The Korg PA900 A Month on

Postby siebenhirter » 27 Sep 2014 12:26

Brian007 wrote: Is there anything I don`t like about it

Hello,
when I compare the functionality of style-controls between the styleplay features of PA500/800 and pa900 i decide to furthermore use Pa500/800.

That is because missing easy access to individual Fill-Ins, omitting important essential features for styleplaying like Fill-Mode und Fingered-3-Mode.

So it is not possible to use its own title-specific created styles with a brandnew keyboard like Pa900 in the same manner as before with Pa500/800.

Maybe Pa900 is good for applications for songplayer or standard-styleplay without extensive usage of styleplay, but in contex with title-specific created styles it was no good idea to remove essential functions.

Sure - even Tyros user do not miss Fill-Mode, Cue-Mode or Fill-Buttons or Fingered-3-Mode - maybe never heared about variant wealth possible with Fill-Modes etc and maybe unfortunately also some Korg-Users does not know them and never used that features available since over ten years (Pa80, Pa50...).

Sorry about that missing functions of style-controls, so i am not enthusiastic about the new models.
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siebenhirter
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Re: The Korg PA900 A Month on

Postby Brian007 » 27 Sep 2014 13:18

Hi siebenhirter,

Its very much horses for courses, I know what you mean about the 3 fingered mode, I personally don't find it a miss but I am sure it will be incorporated into future updates as there a a few people passing comments about it.

I personally like my 900 a lot but as you say its not without its short comings as far as some users are concerned


Brian
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Re: The Korg PA900 A Month on

Postby jackoj » 27 Sep 2014 13:48

Hi Brian,
I wouldn't worry about all the technical stuff at the moment, when are you going to play and post so i can hear what the PA900 is like ? :roll: my opinion as i see it at the moment is, you got the keyboard to play so play it, if you wanted more the PA3X was the one to go for, at the end of the day you only get what you pay for and can afford, the PA900 might have its faults but so have all keyboards to different individuals. enjoy it mate and lets hear what you can do with it. Don`t be shy :lol: :lol: ATB. jackoj. :) :)
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Re: The Korg PA900 A Month on

Postby siebenhirter » 27 Sep 2014 18:22

Brian007 wrote: .. I personally don't find it a miss but I am sure it will be incorporated into future updates as there a a few people passing comments about it

Hello Brian,
I can well imagine, because there much time is needed to explore numerous features of Pa900 - the more for advanced applications.

If you are familiar with advanced applications of Korgs Pa-keyboards already present since ten years, immediately you notice missing applications even you have a short look to technical describtions.
*
From a successor (Pa900) I expect that it come up with the advantages of the previous model (Pa500).

Increasing number of styles, sounds and memory capacity, aftertouch and maybe another design maybe ok, but not that restrictions of essential style-control-features.

There ist an amount of missing functions - i could do with Pa500, but not with Pa900, like:

comfortable individual select Fill-ins
comfortable individual select Fill-in-Loops
Autostart with fill-in or Fill-In-Loop
Ten possible variations per style (if using only the endings for Intro and Ending)
Programmable Fill-Mode (per style / performance) for comfortable individual style-routings
Triggering of fill-ins by Velocity-Control
Chord-trigger with 3-notes and additionally one- / two-notes playing in the Lower Manual without retriggering

Pa900 is announced as successor of Pa800, Pa800 was announced as successor of Pa500 - but if Pa900 would be succussor of Pa500 that only would be possible when it will be equipped as at least as Pa500 or retrofitted with Fill-mode, Velocity-Control antd Fingered-3.

As double the price at the end of the day with Pa900 I would not only get what to payed for, but much more less.

On my opinion we do not call about faults, but a step backward in development. Korg at least SHOULD TRY TO HOLD THE LEVEL OF FUNCTIONS THAT ALREADY ARE PRESENT (since more then 10 years).

As step forward a couple suggestions i found in other forums to consider is to introduce two related functions for the assignable pedal IN ADDITION TO all the functions that was already present like in Pa500 (but not in Pa300/600/900):
(1) Momentary Chord Latch: Holding down the footswitch "loacks in" the current chord. The accompaniment continues to play in the current chord while the pedal is held down. Any number of notes played to the left of the split sound the lower voice and are not sent to the style engine. When the pedal is released, chord recognition resumes in the previously selected mode.
(2) Momentary Bass Inversion: The state of the bass inversion function changes while the assigned pedal is held down, and reverts to previous when the pedal is released. For example: Begin with bass inversion "off." Press and hold the pedal to play the odd slash chord, then release to use all inversions for the remainder of the score. (Presently it requires two press-and-release cycles to accomplish this.)

PS: hope my English is good enough not to use faulty vocabulary or do not offend anyone personally
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Re: The Korg PA900 A Month on

Postby Brian007 » 28 Sep 2014 06:52

HI siebenhirter

Your English is fine and your command of the language is very good

I read your last post with interest and I hope Korg make the recommendations you put in your post

an old english saying " two steps forward and one back " which basically means not everything new thing is always as good as it first seems.


Brian
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Re: The Korg PA900 A Month on

Postby siebenhirter » 28 Sep 2014 12:00

Brian007 wrote: .. an old english saying " two steps forward and one back " which basically means not everything new thing is always as good as it first seems


Hello Brian,
PA600/900 has the functions 'CHORD LATCH" and 'BASS INVERSION' per assignable footswitch-function - and PA500/800 also has it and most of all Pa-Keyboards since ten years (shame over me).

Then at least these two points are not to complain - fortunately.

I am sorry about my mistake and will try to avoid this in future by reading manuals thoroughly.
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