Ill Give you my 2 cents as to WHY I believe Korg arrangers are not used commonly for EDM (in comparison to Yamaha Arrangers)... and really - the demographic of youtube videos also show this...

Firstly - I am 36 years old - probably one of the youngest on this forum and have been for a while. I grew up in the 90s, partied in the 2000s all the way up to the last 5 years... I went to many Trance / techno concerts, raves, head banging night clubs etc. I grew up listening to music from different Trance artists such as Tiesto, Armin Van Buuren, Paul Van Dyk, etc.. For some reason now this style of music along with a lot of other dance / house music has been labelled as "EDM"...

I was trained in classical piano and my interest in playing arranger keyboards has always been around jamming and reproducing the above styles of music for my own leisure as well as a few partys etc.

In the last 15 years I have owned approx 20+ keyboards (mid to top arrangers and synths)

I have always been drawn to Yamaha keyboards the most and probably because, like many others I am a sucker for their marketing...

With a Yamaha Tyros / PSR / Genos in front of you - you are presented with almost an unlimited amount of styles which match those modern genres of music. Not to mention the amount of third party ones that are out there...

There are stacks of built in multi pads that also suit the genre which include synth arpeggios, pumping pads / synths, 4/4 house drum loops etc...

You now also get dedicated filter and cut off knobs which are very handy...

The required synth leads, synth basses, pads samples needed are all there.. so many sounds that are required for those styles of music are re produced so accurately on current Yamaha keyboards...
so really - everything is covered... right??.... wrong...

In my opinion where Yamaha arrangers fall short is that the overall sound lacks "guts" and "punch"... its a "soft" sound that just cant be "fixed" in anyway. It may work for other genres such as acoustic, easy listening unplugged type music, but for EDM its not good enough no matter how you look at it - all I can assume is that the samples them selves are compressed and stripped of their quality to shave off the amount of data and computing power required in PSR and Tyros/Genos keyboards... and all this becomes very much more evident when you turn off the insert effect and also route the sound through a decent PA system or monitoring speakers/headphones (not the speakers that come with the keyboards).

Where Yamaha falls short as above - Korg shines. overall it has that punch, that clarity, that overall "oomf" that is required in the sound, BUT... sadly it does lack the overall variety of content that you get in the yamaha for EDM... The PA4X doesn't have enough of the modernly used samples such as Hooks, stabs, plucks, leads, pumping pads etc- where yamaha have nailed it.

So unfortunately in my eyes and ears - there still isn't that perfect balance FOR EDM music in today's arranger keyboards YET but I do feel they are getting closer and closer as new models come out. They currently both offer something that the other brand doesn't...

In the voice of sarah conner terminator 2. 2 SEPTEMBER 2020 CAME OUT WENT. KORG DIDNT RELEASE A NEW MACHINE.. THE PA4X STILL REIGNED. THE PA1000 WAS STILL MADE BY THE MACHINES.

Still don’t get the desire to proclaim who ‘reigns’...

Over what?!

There’s basically ONE thing that each and every arranger brand does better than all the rest. Always has been, always will be. Nobody ‘reigns’...

Just a bunch of tribes occupying largely the same ground, with small areas exclusive to them.

When push comes to shove, I’ve heard horrible music from all of them! Apparently, ‘reigning’ doesn’t help if you can’t play well. And if you play well, what you play isn’t much of an impediment! 🤔🥃🤩

it so true... Diki you say there's basically "ONE" thing each brand does better but I would say more - its very diverse.

The saving grace for arrangers now is they can finally load in samples so you are not confined to the existing sounds they come with... huge bonus for me!

They are only 35 or so years late to the party then. (You could add more voices (Sampled) to Yamaha Organs (And plenty of other organ manufactures) in the mid-80s)

Bill

Which Yamaha organs are you referring to? The Electones I know from those times didn‘t have any sampled voices except maybe some drum sounds at all.

I believe it was the HS series where you could purchase plug-in cartridges that contained the sampled voices. (And could also be used on later instruments) NOTE: from memory the voices remained on the cartridge and the voices disappeared if the cartridge was removed. (It was the start of the AWM era for Yamaha that is still used in all their latest instruments, pro instruments used AWM2, both of which have been updated over time)
The 80s was when sampling started to be used by virtually all manufactures, with the early versions being mainly 8 bit samples. (Multi layered samples also came in to being in the late 80s)

Bill

Yes, I just looked it up and the HS series started using AWM samples in 1987 I hadn't realized they were before the SY77 which used AWM along with AFM in 1989


1987 — HS/HX series
Electones became more digital here. It used more integrated circuit technology to make components smaller, and hence allowed for a sleeker design. The HX/HS series was the first to use AWM (Advance Wave Memory) "sampling" technology for both voices and rhythms, and also featured 16-operator FM voices. AWM Voice expansion is also possible via sound packs.


I still have an SY77 with that same sound engine.

Yeah, maybe I should have said ‘at LEAST one thing’ LOL. But who’s counting?!

My point basically was that ALL of them got something the others don’t do well or not at all. Until there’s one that gets it ALL right (will never happen!) there’s not much point in getting worked up about ‘better’ or ‘best’... that only works if we all want exactly the same thing. And that’s not a world I want to live in! 😂

Hi Diki, long time. I had a Pa4x and a Sx900, I sold the Pa4x because I did not want to get caught up in the what’s better. I even made a wood stand, trying to keep this mind busy.

My thoughts: If I marry the keyboard that I have and look no further, I am OK. (for a while)(smile) All the rest is just stuff. September 11th I will be 89, now that’s keeping me busy.

Nice to see you back Diki, John C.