at the end of may this year i finally got my korg pa50 arranger, i was waiting for it almost one year until i manage to buy one from england and find some friends to bring it over (in romania).
it was a long wait, but it was worthy.
i'd like to share some of my oppinions about this keyboard, that might be usefull for some of you willing to buy one of these.
first, i have to say the pa50's keys are not the best. of course, i wouldn t have expected that anyway. i use to have a roland xp60 before, and those keys were better. but they are better than exr series from roland for sure. the respond to finger presure is pretty good, but still, sometimes you can get funny unexpected velocity values (it seems the action is not very smooth).
pa50 is well builded, but still plastic. i didn t like too much how it sounds when you touch the rear panel a little bit harder, right where KORG logo is. but i wonder how much the weight would've been, if the case was metallic...!!
the buttons are ribbon, and i have two of them that does not work very nice... the variation 3 button and one of the little buttons next to the screen. they have some particular position when they work. but is a matter of individual characteristic of my instrument, i am convinced of that.
but i believe there is a price (not money) that you have to pay after all, because of "made in china" thing.
and another issue i have, that i also connect to the fact this instrument was made trying to keep the costs low, is that the internal amplifier seems to have a hiss sound that increases when you turn the volume value DOWN. and of course, when the volume slider is all way up, there is another type os background noise that apears...
souns are very nice and clean. i love that. i believe i made the best choice, if only the sounds were involved. i especially like sax sounds, accorden, organ and drums. but the bass sound are also very nice. and pads, and synth. all of them actually
. i won t insist about this too much because it is a matter of taste and that is too personal. i would only say that the sounds are very nice compared with 3x more expensive keyboards and i am happy with them!
the styles, again, are very good. plenty of them for whatever you'd like to try. the fact there are only 2 fill-in is not really a big disadvantage (as i thought before buying it) and the break button can be used in more that one way. also, the plus of pa's style can be it's minus. the styles, generally speaking, are rather unusual, more like a live band, but that can be anoying some times when you need the fills or variation to be more smooth. anyway, i know alot of people love both of this, either one or another, so it depends on you if you like this or not.
editing in pa50 is not that easy, here is where the complicated OS is coming in more. i used the sequencer to record some songs, this one is easy. but when it comes about editing, you have to push alot of buttons to get somewhere. that is also true for surfing trhu sounds and styles. i hate that i can not use the dial too change programs or styles, when i have to select. also, the fact you can apply the changes you make only for each performance, make the process more complicated. for instance i'd like to have a button for effects. but i dont, and all the settings i make are good only for that particular performance i was tweaking. that is something i don t like, to spend hours on modifying everything, when i should've been able to set my settings to everything.
about the editing, maybe the worst thing is after i apply quantize (or whatever event or tracks editing), if is something wrong, there is no UNDO possibility, as i had on roland xp60.
this is the biggest disadvantage of korg pa50 in my oppinion: complicated operating system.
and the best advantage: the sounds (remember, we are talking about HI korg's sound engine, the same found on triton series).
second best advantage is the price. (but now i noticed the price goes down quite fast, if you wait or search a little bit more).
i think i didn't discover all the possibilities of this keyboard yet. so, some other things remain to be told. i would give a 10 for sounds, 9 for styles, 6 for OS, 8 for design.
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