"Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay, watchin' the time roll away".
DonM

So who will be the first owner here on SZ ......? we need reviews and demo songs.

George,

Can you compare the PA800 to the PA1x.
Other than the polyphony being more, is there a significant difference in the machines?

I had owned a PA1xpro, and loved the sounds, drums, and only started liking the styles when they released the Latin board, it started to have that wow sound of the SD1 when that was first released.

Thanks

Also how would you compare it to the Tyros 2/ and SD5.

I feel the T2 is a little to polished sounding, so I'm leaning more towards that live band sound of the Ketron/Korg thing, although I do love the SA voices

Thanks
Frank

[This message has been edited by frankieve (edited 12-02-2006).]

I'm getting one asap. They are still not here.
Stay tuned, though, it has to be as good as the G70, and it is really good.
DonM

Don,
Thanks for alerting me to this forum. I want to hear your PA800 when you start working with it. My Bose System is in the mail!

Jay R

Jay,
I'm so glad you found your way here. It was a pleasure to meet you and your wife, Martha.
I know you will enjoy the Bose system.
Sorry you got here when the "family" is fighting as it is pretty embarassing to me to invite someone to join and then expose them to all that.
Oh well, look past it and you will learn a lot here, and I'm sure you will contribute a lot as well.
DonM

Everyone,
I have an advanced release model. Korg has a shipment sitting on the docks in New York. As soon as they arrive I will be receiving my order. This should be, according to Korg around the 10th or so. Not a guaranty but an educated guess from Korg USA.
The new features of this keyboard compared to the PA1X keyboard would be the addition of an "easy Mode" which makes it easier to navigate for the first time Korg user.
There are now 2- 2.0 USB slots for saving, loading and playing songs.
There is a dedicated Mic on/off button. A dedicated Vocal on/off button and a dedicated vocal effect on/off button.
There are hundreds of new sounds plus many of the original PA!X sounds. The engine now allows for 16 oscillators per voice compared to only 5 on the PA1X.
There are so many new styles plus old styles plus new catagories called unplugged and contemporary
There is a new button called favorites where you can save all your favorite styles in an order you want to see them in.
Most every other button is the same as the PA1X. What is missing are the 8 faders, the PA800 has two assignable. There is a new fader which allows you to mix between the accomp. and the right hand voices. This is set to equal mix in the middle and all style at the bottom and all right hand at the top.
There are 4 outputs and 2 inputs, both with gain controls for mics or CD's, etc. The mic input is 1/4" only, no XLR like the PA1X.
The PA800 cannot take expansion boards like the latin card, etc. This is reserved for the higher priced PA1X. Sample memory in the PA800 is 64. It is 16 MB in the PA1X and can only be expanded to 32MB with a chip.
The screen on the PA800 is in several colors, included Yellow, Blue, Green and Red. The PA1X is only blue and white.
That's about it.......




------------------
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

What are the speakers like in terms of sound quality/fidelity and volume compared to the PA1X ? I know that it has lower power according to the specs but what does that mean to your ear ?

Next release the new PA1X operating system will include:

Support for long file names. You are no longer limited to the classic format 8.3, all capitals. Now names can be as long as you like, and mix upper and lower case characters. Names of files trasferred via USB or CD from a personal computer will not be cut into shorter names, and will look exactly as the original.

Easier way to start recording Songs from any measure. Go on recording your Song. If you want to do second-pass recording, starting from a measure different than the first one, you are no longer asked to move to that measure using the Fast Forward command. Just choose the new starting measure with the Start Measure parameter, and go on recording from there.

Up to 16 oscillators per Sound. Create Sounds as sophisticate as you like. In the Pa1X, each oscillator is a different sound at all. You can either create very rich sounds, or add as many dynamic layers as you like, for the highest degree of nuance in a single sound.

Smarter pre-selection of Style Elements. You can now select a different Variation just before jumping to a different Style. The Variation you choose will overtake the one memorized in the Style Performance.

Faster SongBook operations. Huge SongBook files are now loaded and saved much quicker.
Ending 3. A new, shorter ending is included. For those of you who prefer to cut short in the end.

Revised user interface, with bigger buttons, bigger fonts and colored sliders.

Enhanced Lyrics and Select pages, for better readibility.

Revised Musical Resources, with various improvements and the new Ending 3 for Styles.

Smarter Solo Mode, to be activated with Shift + Touch.

Tempo Lock in Song Play mode, to quickly freeze Tempo and keep it the same in subsequent Songs.

Contextual Help now available also in Dutch and Russian languages

Franky


[This message has been edited by silva (edited 12-03-2006).]

Originally posted by Diki:

"George, just to clarify........ what is the maximum sample RAM on the PA800, and how long does it take to load 64MB from the internal memory (is this solid-state or an internal HD?) into the active RAM. Is this true USB 2 speed, or just more efficient USB1 speeds? Theoretically, USB 1 ought to get close to 1MB/sec, and USB 2 is at least 100X faster."

Orginally posted by George Kaye:

"I just realized that the drive I was using was not a 2.0 drive. This must be why the load time was the same as the PA1XPRO."


>>I hate to break the news to everybody but only the front USB ports on the Pa800 are USB 2.0 i.e. (hi-speed/up to 480 Mbits transfer rate) and they are USB to 'Host' only. In other words they can't connect to an external USB Hard Drive, Thumb Drive, etc., only to a USB host like the ones found on a computer. The USB port on the "back" of the Pa800 is a USB to 'Device' but it is only USB 1.1 i.e. (full speed/up to 12 Mbits transfer rate). >> It would have been nice if Korg included a USB "2.0" to 'Device' interface also. As it stands now you will need a Laptop or Desktop computer with USB 2.0 ports to take advantage of the 480 Mbits transfer speed (up to 60 Mega 'Bytes'/s) on the Pa800's USB 2.0 to Host ports on the front of the keyboard. If Korg had included a USB 2.0 to "Device" interface on the Pa800 it would have eliminated the need for hooking it up to a computer to get the 2.0 speeds. A person could have just used a USB 2.0 Thumb Drive or external Hard Drive (which is very compact and portable and not NEAR AS EXPENSIVE! as a bulkier Laptop computer.

Oh well, I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too as they say.

But if you don't mind hauling around a Laptop (one with USB 2.0 ports) to your gigs then you're in fat city I suppose. But guard that puppy with your life! And be extremely careful you don't damage it some how.

PS: It would have been ideal though for Korg to have included a USB 2.0 to "Device" connection on the Pa800 also. >> Are you listening Yamaha??

Best regards,
Mike