NO sense sugar-coating it, but I got a fantastic deal on a "slightly" dented kb from our buddy, DanO. He shipped it overnight, and I had it fitted with a hard drive and loaded with a few hundred midi files in time for a 6pm downbeat that same night. (tonight, in fact!)

The new O/S has some major enhancements to the beta version, and although the sampling does not interest me - the navigation alone was worth the upgrade. They also fixed the manual bass selection that was screwy before.

Now, if they can only fix the harmonizer to respond like a tradition one should, and NOT like a vocoder.

I had a surprising night with it. The speakers are a little sensitive, compared to my Farfisa G7 and the Yamaha psr2k, but the sound is very good. It's easy to overdrive them, especialll with strong vocals and solid bass. (no surprise there)

Now, I'm extra curious about the sound system in the PA60. It's billed as lower in power, but who knows? It might just be better!

Hi Uncle Dave
Nice to hear your playing the pa80 again. I just want to let you know that Korg is supposed to release the next new OS revision on about June 6th. I heard this from the other Korg pa80 players.
Tom

Any news about harmonizer updates???????

Nothing that I've heard for sure, but rumors of improvements to it have surfaced.

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 06-01-2002).]

You know, I do miss the "live" sound of the drums on the PA80. The Ketron drums sounds are comparable too. The PSR2000 drums are excellent for some situations--for example the supper club I'm playing this week. Other situations, particularly those that are accustomed to using live drummers, call for the "other" sound.
I think I will either go back to a PA80 for a while, or try to get an SDl. I would really like to play an SD1, to see if I could be comfortable with the OS and button layout. I just won't buy anything else without personal hands-on testing.
Unless of course the price is right.
How about one of those dent sales, DanO?
DonM

Sit tight Don, if my suspicians are correct - I think I'd be better off with a PA60, and then this one may become liquid again!

i owned the pa80 briefly and I didn't like the chord delay ... I would play a chord and it would sometimes be slightly delayed... I looked on forum and found others that also noticed this! It Bugged me ... it's clean on yamaha ... either you notice it or you don't ... when I wrote about it 9 months ago ... others responded that they noticed it too and pointed to other threads others had started about it ... it is hard to explain in words (like a stumble).
almost like a double tap!
Does anyone know if they fixed this problem?

Hopefully the pa60 will address this problem ... because I wouldn't mind a prs9000 and korg pa60 in my Sound Studio!

rgtaa

Korg has always favored an "early" trigger for the chord recognition. It takes a little getting used to, but after a while it becomes second nature. It WILL tend to hic-cup if you hit it too late for the beat.
I have no problem with it.

I often hit the chord a tad late because I'm pushing fill buttons with the left hand. The Yamahas handle it nicely, the PA80 took a small bit of adjustment. But then I didn't hit the fill button much, because the fills are REALLY BAD.
DonM

I guess it's all in how we play too. We all have slightly different timing nuances. That is often one of the defining qualities when we look at someone who is considered a "great" or a master of their instrument.

As far as the timing between Korg and Yamaha arrangers, for me, it's just the opposite. When I've recorded songs to midi files with an arrangement as the base of the song, I've usually found that the timing is off more when I play around with a sequence that started on a Yamaha arranger as opposed to the PA80.

Some of the fills are bad on the PA80, but I also think it's also that 2 fills don't match all 4 variations very well for some styles. I've replaced a fair amount of the factory styles anyway, so the styles aren't an issue at all for me.

The PA80 is far from perfect, but for live play, out of all the boards I've used, it's the one I can live best with. I like the PSR9k, but don't want to carry it back and forth all of the time. I thought the 2000 might be the answer, but aside from that it seemed so fragile that it might break if I even moved it the wrong way, there were too many bugs in the OS for me to rely on it. I know that mine seemed to have more than its' share of bugs, but I constantly see evidence that other users are perplexed as well at times. At least the OS in my PA80 has been rock solid, with no issues whatsoever after a year plus of use.

What else is left out there ? I have never liked the Roland arranger OS. I haven't even seen a Ketron or a Technics, and I wouldn't even consider plunking down 3 grand or so without an extensive period demoing a board.. so ... I'll live with the PA80, and ya know what ? I'm still pretty happy with it, even after a year + . It has a ton of features that I do like, so I'm not changing arrangers again til ( if ever ) someone can make a board that I like a lot better.

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 06-08-2002).]