Hi Guys,
I see that both of you own the PA80, and the Triton Rack (Terry).

Mind telling me your review of the board? (PA 80?)

Plus, Terry-the only thing that keeps me from buying the Triton Studio, was its UN-userfriendliness. Do you have any problems with your Trit-Rack? I'm interested to know particularly about the Cue List and the RRPR function (which is hopefully similar to the Technics "composer" or Yammie's "new style creator"). As long as I can create like a 4-16 bar "short songs" and being able to play it live, I'm cool.

p.s. I've been in this forum a bit too long...I start to call yamaha "yammie"...

Kn
I no longer own the PA. I sold it and am waiting for the Tyros to come in. I reviewed my feelings about the PA on Harmony central, so you could go there if you wish to read my thoughts as well as others opinions as well. http://www.harmony-central.com/Synth/Data/Korg/PA-80-01.html

I do still have the T Rack though. Here are my general feelings. Korg products I think are capable of alot, however I think along with that comes a more complex interface. I have not found any of the Korg products I have owned that intuitve, in comparison to others I have owned. Does not mean it can't be done, I just think more difficult to ME on Korg.

The second observation to me is again in an A/B comparison to any other boards I have heard Korg has a harder more dance/techno sound, including the PA.

Lastly I found the RPPR function very difficult to work with and neither the dealer nor Korg was much help when I contacted either.
Terry

That's too bad....I was relying on the RRPR to be a good feature. The weird thing is, Korg makes the point of saying that the cue list and RRPR are good addition into the Triton's feature (compare to Trinity)...but yet, Korg itself or the dealers can't give you a demo? that's odd. I was in a music industry myself (helping dad selling keyboards as a "demonstrator" ) Now, we usually received the keyboard "preliminary" sheet and we focus on the strong points or new features of the keyboard. I hate it when I talk to a salesperson, and they assumed you'll be impressed when they play you a short 4 measure progression, press a couple demos and expect you to buy a nearly 3 grand keyboard? When you asked them questions, they're like.."I got to take care of other customer.." What?!? Am I NOT a customer either? heh...sorry for my ranting, such a nice keyboard (korg), but I'm frustrated cause I can't build up enough courage to buy it due to being not an easy keyboard to program.

Perhaps, I should stick with my Technics, and buy the rack? just for the sounds??

Kn,
The rppr function works cool in that once programmed, you can hit a key and it will play a sequence for you. The only thing is, I do not see it as that easy to get a good grasp on it. I like my Rack mainly for the dual arps, those are very cool and really pretty easy to program your own patterns.

The combis are fairly straight forward however there are several menus to navigate through on all the functions which I found to be characteristic of the PA as well to get things set up. Same too with the programs. several menus to do anything below the surface even a little bit.

So decent stuff, just not the most user friendly I think and I agree with you that their manuals are almost useless, except as a reference. I'm one of the people that actually reads them too, so I like them to be at least in somewhat understandable language.
Terry

[This message has been edited by trtjazz (edited 11-04-2002).]

If you feel the Triton Studio keyboard is unfriendly then the Triton Rack is definitely not for you. With the keyboard version of the Triton you have the touch screen which makes it much easier to navigate the parameters of the Triton. There are also less menus used on the keyboard version. The Triton rack is a great sounding unit with lots of expansion possibilities but by no means is it what I would classify as easy to use. If you haven't dealt much into serious synthesis or editing then avoid the Triton Rack.

Hi Ensnare,
I just wanted to make sure that Korg's unfriendliness was more of me being spoiled by my KN keyboard (if I want to record a pattern, press "record" select "track", and play..") I know that with workstations nowadays, this level of user-friendliness is nearly impossible. I can live with that. Since the Triton's sound is really good to my ear, I'm almost willing to live with certain programming difficulty. I just want to make sure it's not that difficult to a point it's impossible to program. I have a feeling, my problem may be also caused by useless manual and salesperson who couldn't careless, because I've seen MANY posts from other TS owners saying that the keyboard is EASY once you get the hang of it and once you figured it out. Should I even get one at guitar center, take it home, download some tutorials and see if it's really that hard? Cause I love the sounds....

kn
Take it home for a test flight if you really like the sounds. It is not impossible to program, but just won't be as easy as what you have now is all.

That sounds reasonable to me....because what you find easy I might find hard or visa versa. I know my way around the Rack pretty well, but I've had it a couple of years already.
Terry

Hi Terry,
That's what I'm planning on doing (with hesitation)...wish me luck...heh.he....be prepared (you too ensnare or any other triton owners). I may shoot off some questions soon....

KN_Fan

KN,

Still enjoying the PA80 for live play and for the sounds it has when I play or write at home. I was never happy about the 2 fills per style thing, but when I really look at it for me it doesn't matter that much anyway. I have long given up trying to write my own music with arranger patterns as my backing band. I'll occasionally use a piece of a style here or there, in a sense similar to doing a cut and paste of a groove, but in general, composing piece by piece is the only way I am ever happy with the results, and the 2 fills thing doesn't really affect me during live play.

Since good styles, good sounds ( and the ability to fully edit them ), and the ability to cuastomize the board ( and replace the styles as I se fit ) are high on my priority list , this is still the arranger for me, until I find something better ( short of seeing the Ketron stuff I haven't found it yet ).

AJ

Hi Bluesplayer,
Looks like I do have to consider PA80 as one of my options, too bad the demo didn't blow out my mind as much as the Triton did...but I still have to play it in advance and see if it's worth to try.

Thanks,
KN_Fan

That's the best thing to do KN. I find that side by side the PA80's "acoustic" presets on the whole sound a bit better. The two boards share the same sound engine and likely most of the same samples, so my guess is that the effects and other parameters are zset up differently. It isn;t surprising to me considering how poor I found some of the presets on Korg's granddaddy workstation were ( the M1 ) when I had it, but even back then there was a lot of editing capability and I was able to come up with some good patches from the samples. Sound editing capability is of pro quality on both the Triton and PA80 though.

If you don't need true arranger functions, then there are distinct advantages to the Triton. Expansion capability and arps are among them. The PA80 allows for a mere 8mb of sampling via a rather expensive Korg encoded smart media card ( regular smart media cards don't work ). 8 mb is a paltry amount in today's world. Of course, if arranger functions are required, the PA80 might be your board.

good luck KN,

AJ

Thanks B.P,

Arranger function is important to me, but as I've mentioned before, I think once I figured out (the easier) way to get around the Triton's cue list and RRPR, I think I'll go for the TS instead of the PA80.

Okay.....here's to wise decision!

KN_Fan