Hello forum,

I haven’t posted in like forever here but i do check in from time to time. I hope all peoples are ok,

Unfortunately I am really tired so I’m not going to say a lot now.

But in my opinion, I think Korg is currently the best in the world and leading in arranger keyboards and I can’t see that changing at the moment. It's purely midi, 💯 editable, no audio, just pure raw sounds that a user has ownership of in its entirety.

I hate where the arranger industry is heading if it's just going to rely on the audio route.

Chord playing does not sound right using styles with audio elements & there’s nothing you can do about it.

Would like to hear more opinions of this.

All the best & take care,
Danny

Hello.
Why do you say that?
Do you have some experience with this type of arranger?
I have Yamaha Genos, Ketron Audya, SD9, Korg Pa3x as well I also had for a month the Pa5x which was provided to me by a well-known music store in order to test it in order to give an exposure to the store's salespeople.
In fact, I had also made a video (with Pa5x) which I am attaching to you but it is in the Greek language because it was addressed there and that is the reason I did not have it public but as (unregistered).
Take a look at it if you want.
https://youtu.be/oke6zdkrbZE?t=41

So I think I know very well the pros and cons of all of them.
Therefore my question to you is if you have ever had experience with these types of instruments to have this opinion (about a fake) which of course I absolutely respect although I don't agree.
Also I would like you to tell me what exactly you mean by (cheating).
I would like your answer to this and then I will give you my opinion if you want.

I think the PA5X is still in beta. There’s a lot to like about the feature set, but it seems that the OS is very much a work in progress, quite a bit of the functionality has yet to be added (SMF to style MIA, no multi footswitch yet, all kinds of issues with the two styles at a time, legacy data migration is iffy etc. etc.). How long it takes Korg to squash all the bugs is anyone’s guess, there’s a big OS update promised for later this year, but how many missing features get added back and how many existing features get fixed is unknown atm…

But yes, there’s pretty much universal agreement the new effects and whatever Korg did with the D/A converters has resulted in a big improvement in the openness of the sound. I am still undecided on the loop sync stuff until I’ve heard some real world comparisons to computer loop software. While tempo and pitch manipulation of audio has been a thing on arrangers for a decade or so, my experience on Roland at least exposes that live tempo and pitch manipulation is quite noticeably inferior to computer tools doing the same thing. If I need an audio track transposed or sped up/slowed down, I tend to do it in the computer in advance. We really need a shootout to compare these tools that exposes the artifacts to see who’s got the best algorithms or the best CPU overhead to handle this demanding task.

You have to understand that Sokratis seems quite heavily emotionally invested in the audio loop arranger concept, and if you like EXACTLY what it does and play ONLY what it does well, it’s very effective. No argument there. The problem as always is, if you ALMOST like what it does, you have zero ability to fix it. You can’t change the snare sound in a loop. You can’t change an acoustic guitar loop into an electric one. You can’t edit the rhythm to better fit a particular song, you can’t have the percussionist stop playing the cowbell.

The style is what the style is, and always will be. You will have to adjust to it, not the other way round. Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s how an awful lot of players approach the arranger. Turn it on, play some basic chords, happily accept whatever it does. If that’s fine for you, you’re good to go. But, as I have said on other threads, it’s a dead end. Be honest… how many of us have the skills to record our own loops? Played flawlessly, recorded impeccably, matched carefully to all the others? Virtually nobody…

But all of us are capable of going into a style editor and muting the cowbell (if we want to!) or changing a sticks kit to a brushes kit, an electric guitar part to an acoustic one, or change the amp type on a rock guitar part. Easy peazy.

There’s already enough criticism of arrangers that they make us all sound alike, well, audio loop arrangers take that to a whole new level. And the worst aspect of that is, traditional MIDI arrangers are getting closer and closer to audio loops with features like round Robin drums, Guitar modes, and high quality amp simulators for rock guitar parts (put a clean guitar into an amp sim, you have a very convincing rock guitar that breaks up variably depending on the chord, just like real ones do) and all of those things remain completely adjustable, unlike a loop.

I guess it all boils down to what kind of player you are. If you like to switch on the keyboard and play along with whatever the arranger does, loops give you a shortcut to a very impressive sound. But just the one. If you like to get under the hood and tweak something to fit YOU, they have issues.

But to go back to the OP, sorry. The PA5x in its current form is no more the ‘best’ arranger than any other. They are all good at some things, bad at others. There’s a laundry list of Genos features the PA5x doesn’t have (far more effects that can be stacked, Ensemble Mode, that awesome chord sequencer to name a few) and doubtless the new Ketron has stuff apart from the audio loops that the PA5x is missing.

This whole ‘my arranger is the best’ has always boiled down to ‘my arranger is best for ME’ and always will. We get this same BS every release cycle, maybe we’re better served accepting that each of them has flaws, and try to point them out and the possible fix for them.

Dear Diki.
I'm not trying to prove anything and I'm not the one who started this discussion.
But yes, I never hid my love for Audio Styles.
But fortunately or unfortunately, I have too much experience in both worlds to judge according to my own tastes.
In this case I'm just asking politely how is our friend here to this conclusion about (cheating and fake).

Is the Ketrons audio drum loops propriety, or are they industry standard REX files, which would make it easy to mix & match, as there are a boatload of third party ones available.

Bill

DannyUK if I had these arrangers that are out today back in the 80's I would be number one keyboard player and in the biggest demand ever, the one thing that should be banned is the pianos that come out every year, how many times can the big company's re-invent the wheel? and we still buy them, I don't understand why?

The day they come out with a digital piano that seriously fools me, that will be the day they can stop making them!

They aren’t reinventing the wheel. They haven’t succeeded in making one that’s actually round yet!

And my major gripe with digital pianos is how ‘perfect’ they tune them. Sure, you sit down at a CIIIF or a nice SteinwayD just after the tuner’s finished tuning it, it MIGHT sound as in tune as even a cheap stage piano. For maybe ten minutes. After that, it’s going to drift a bit, and start to develop some character. The more you play on it, the more ‘character’ it will get!

I miss that… 🎹😢

Danny.

I am not sure if there is any arranger out there that is purely "AUDIO BASED" which would have the limitations of AUDIO you are alluding to. However for KETRON, realizing that AUDIO still does have it's limitations, we gave you the best of both worlds - AUDIO - with it's pros and cons, and MIDI - with it's pros and cons. It is up to you the end user to maximize on both technologies in 1 product. You would however have to personally experience playing an Arranger Workstation with these Audio capabilities first before you can draw such a conclusion, and if you have, I would like to echo Sokratis 1974's questions too. You already have experience working with a great Midibased Arranger (KORG). Have you had equal hours on an AUDIO & Midi based arranger? What were your thoughts then (if yes)?

Hello all, thank you for your replies.

OK, I may have been a bit harsh in my initial post, so I have edited a couple of things out, I was really tired at the time of writing and probably should have waited to post it.

I think what I trying to elude to was a concern I have where some manufactures feel they may really improve on the sounds by way of audio because maybe they feel they've reached the limit with midi? This is where I think editing becomes less flexible and you're stuck with a certain sound. Where I said cheating/fake (which I have since edited out because I think I was a little harsh), my reasoning here was that using anything audio seems to take away the skill of being a bit more creative. I always like to give an example of when playing along with an MP3 or a Midi File, I hate using MP3's because for the same reason I don't believe there's much creativity using an MP3 whereas at least with a Midi file you can edit it until your hearts content, putting your own stamp on it to make a certain song sound almost completely different. The counter argument here then is that it doesn't sound like the original anymore and MP3's/Audio are the real thing, but that's exactly why I don't like using them. Not many have agreed or even understood my reasoning on this so that's why I don't tend bring it up anymore in any face to face discussion I have with friends/family about it.

I really like Ketron and I still own my SD60 (it's never going anywhere) and I really enjoy how the drums sound, but sometimes not so much the guitars, especially the audio guitars because sometimes they don't sound correct to my ears and can a little sound off especially if you want change key. When I edit a style to change the guitar to another live guitar it can make it worse so sometimes I either take them off completely or replace with a midi guitar sound if it's able to play it. Maybe I am doing something wrong but I seem to get better results when not using audio sounds. I am not talking about the drums though because I have no problem in audio drums and they do sound amazing on the SD60.

I had a similar issue on my old GEM WK8 as well when using RASS I was getting very mixed results whenever audio parts were used, I know it's a much older keyboard but I could sense that using audio could have it's drawbacks even from back then.

I didn't want to sound negative and it's great we are still getting new arrangers but I'm just not sure about the audio route.

Hi DannyUK
You spoke honestly and honestly and I admire that.
So I will give my opinion on this matter at some point.
Thanks for your reply.

Previous attempts to extend the chord choices of audio loop guitars have involved adding MIDI guitar notes to the loop. Or substituting a MIDI guitar pattern completely. Neither of which are really acceptable solutions.

If you add a 6th and a 9th for a 6/9 chord to a maj chord, you now have an eight string guitar, and intervals and voicings that are utterly wrong. If you substitute a MIDI guitar pattern for something like a diminished chord (because you can’t get the required notes to start with from the normal maj/min/7th choices) you then have the issue of a considerable change in the sound of the guitar and the accuracy of its strumming or picking pattern. Same with augmented chords, suspended 4ths etc..

Let’s face it, if you COULD go seamlessly from an audio loop to a MIDI guitar pattern and there be no audible difference, why bother with the audio loop in the first place?

So, to avoid these audible problems, I think the way forward is that which Korg and Yamaha are pursuing. Specialized guitar modes that always voice chords with at most six strings, and shapes that a guitarist can play. If anyone listened to the VSTi guitar demos, you can hear they haven’t far to go compared to the distance audio loops are going to have to travel to achieve a fully playable chord selection.

BTW, we haven’t really discussed voicing yet, something the better VSTi’s are addressing. Guitarists don’t jump around on the neck usually when going from one chord to another, they will pick the inversion that is closest to the position their hand is on the neck. Now so far, I have not heard anything about the audio guitar loops being recorded in three or so inversions to facilitate this. And I don’t expect to, given they haven’t got the time or money for even a root position of many commonly used chords.

But things like this are fairly simple for a MIDI guitar pattern generator. In fact, before they discontinued it (and left the field altogether a couple of models later!), Roland had a guitar mode that would change guitar inversions as you moved up and down in the chord recognition area! And it would voice chords to whatever inversion was closest to the previous chord if your hand didn’t move much…

It is subtleties like this that often keyboard players don’t understand if they don’t play guitar, but can instantly recognize audibly if done well or done badly. We have had a lifetime listening to real guitar players, so even without knowing WHY something sounds wrong, we can recognize it.

With a dual core CPU, it looks like the new Ketron has the horsepower to enable a VSTi quality guitar mode, and I hope that they seriously consider pursuing this in future rather than taking the initially easy path of a limited selection of audio loops. I will happily compare any decent VSTi guitar mode against Ketron’s audio loops and defy listeners to tell which is a real guitarist and which is the loop. But the minute you ask for anything more than a basic chord, or get a jump around in inversion or picking pattern because of a change in chord or key, it becomes easy to tell the difference.

Please, Ketron, consider the better solution to guitar parts. Audio loops are a dead end and your competition is improving better solutions while you sleep. I have nothing against Ketron, I have always offered criticism of features in the hope that they will be improved, and we all benefit from the advance in musicality of the arranger.