Hey folks cool to see a dedicated Korg forum now Anywho, I wanted to ask some questions about the Korg PA-50--not sure if anyone here has one or spent time with the unit.

I'm going to be buying an arranger again (soon), but I'm looking at all corners of the market. I was looking into an arranger that will work with traditional styles, but also possibility of creating some more moden music with.

I know the PA's have Triton based sound sets-or so I have been told How would the PA-50's synth sounds compare to say the PSR-1500 (which is in the same category). Also what about the acoustic instruments as well... Are the drum kits decent? How is the voice editing--meaning how many elements can you have have per user voice, and are the editing tools more indepth than say the PSR-1500/3000? Is the overall construction good, and what do the keys feel like--are they anything like the PSR's? Any info users can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Squeak

Hi! It's been a long time since I last time visited synthzone and it's great to see a Korg forum here.

I have had a PA-50 for about nine months now. The sounds in it are good. Especially I love Korg strings, they are best i've ever heard. As a sound source PA-50 performs very well. Synth sounds and some of the wind instruments are good. (these are very good, there are much other good sounds in the keyboard too)

As an arranger keyboard I don't like PA-50 that much. The styles sound good but they don't seem to work as well as yamahas when just playing them out. Some fills sound like taken from way other style etc. Also it's much more difficult to smoothly chance chords than it is in the Yamahas. (Or maybe my timing is just bad, but anyway according to my experiences Yamaha is much better ) The Korg PA1X Pro had way better arranger functions, but I only had a chance to quickly test it for about fifteen minutes.

Build quality is not very good. Keybed is not very solid and smooth-actioning like my Roland XP-80, even though it is not the best keybed i've tried. The most i've liked Korg Triton keybed.

For the money the PA-50 offers very good synth sounds (apparently taken from Triton, at least they have the same HI synthesis engine) And at least reasonable acoustic sounds. (There are some very good ones also, but I definately don't like the piano sounds.) In my opinion the arranger functions are not in the same level than sounds. If it only had better keybed I could include it in my gig set, but I hate to be afraid of keys breaking when playing hard, so that's why I try to se ll my PA-50 and buy a real pro-synth, preferably Triton, to replace it even though I lose arranger functions. I haven't tried ( ) its sound or style editing functions so I can't say anything about them.

Good luck for searching a new keyboard!

Hi:

I had a PA60 (until a week ago, I sold it to either get the PA1X or the Ketron SD5)but the PA60 in functions is the same as the PA50, only for been made in Italy and couple diferences like the power chord instead of power adaptor and the HD option....and been darker grey, well, I know that board fairly well, I used for over 2 years and I fill up all the user memory banks and I replaced some styles from the factory, is a neat feature.....so, if you have questions, I maybe able to help you.

Think of it this way:

In terms of sounds, the Pa50 has the same sounds as the Pa60, which in turn is the same sounds as the Pa80 (Except for the drawbar organ simulator), and all of these are based on the TRITON engine.

So you are really getting sounds that are in a higher class than the other instruments you are looking at.

I have both PSR3000 & KorgPA50. Overall the PA50 is excellent value with a better feel keyboard than the 3K or 15K. To my surprise I find I like playing the PA50 as much as the 3000. The 3K is possibly the better board, but so it should be at twice the price of the Pa50 UK Pounds. The PA Amp & speakers give good output greater than the 3K. The PA sounds have a warmer solid sound to them against a thinner sound samples of the 3K. They are both good keyboards and I am lucky to have both. It's all personal choice. My local friend has a PSR1500 and prefers my PA50.