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Korg Pa4X Professional Arranger
  • PR

    The Pa4X relies on KORG’s advanced EDS-X (Enhanced Definition Synthesis-eXpanded) sound engine, drawing on a massive PCM resource over 10 times larger than those found in previous models, and comes complete with over 1,500 ready-to-play highly detailed sounds. This realistic collection offers a substantial gathering of classic and contemporary keyboards, band and orchestral instruments, plus electronic and acoustic instruments—from techno to folk.

    KORG’s exclusive DNC (Defined Nuance Control) provides highly-articulate solo instruments, and partnerships with Waves Audio and TC Helicon provide state-of-the-art audio processing and studio quality vocal effects. There are a great deal of new instruments and authentic drum kits, along with a considerable infusion of Styles to cover a world of musical genres, and highly-versatile Styles have been created by KORG’s international sound team to provide inspiration.

    “Ideal for composing, recording, and combo use, the Pa4X really comes to life in the hands of the solo keyboard performer and allows the entertainer to work more efficiently,” stated James Sajeva, Brand Manager for Korg Products. “With streamlined construction, intuitive design and fantastic feel the Pa4X is more than a keyboard; it’s your backup band; your accompanist; and your musical director. It’s your soundman; your effects engineer; and your always in-tune background singers. The Pa4X is the ultimate all-in-one performance solution designed to deliver on stage all night.”

    Both the Pa4X 76 and Pa4X 61 feature a naturally-responsive and semi-weighted keybed that provides velocity and aftertouch sensitivity and included is a new multi-layer stereo grand piano (with damper and body resonance), plus electric pianos from the acclaimed KORG SV-1 Stage Piano. In addition, the Pa4X has been equipped with new wind instruments, strings, basses—even acoustic and electric guitars. Sounds have been painstakingly captured using state-of-the-art methods that allow the finest of details to be accurately reproduced.

    The main panel has been optimized to ensure that all controls are ergonomically positioned and intuitively located to make every performance feel smooth and natural. Big, bright, and bold, the new TouchView display hosts a redesigned graphical interface that is easier than ever to read and the entire screen can be tilted forward and back to provide the perfect angle for optimum viewing.

    New Styles have been added, and many cherished Styles have been brought up to date with new sounds, enhanced effects, and re-balanced mixing. In addition to drums, percussion, and bass, each Style can provide up to five additional instrument parts that follow your chord changes and voicings, as well as the tempo. Guitar Mode 2 makes the Style’s guitar tracks more authentic than ever before possible.

    The convenient Chord Sequencer function can quickly record and loop chord progressions on the fly in Style Play mode and Chord Sequences can now be also saved as Style and SongBook entries for easy recall. Thanks to an all new built in SMF (Standard MIDI File to Style converter), users can quickly and easily have on board styles of the latest songs. Particularly helpful for live use, the SongBook is a fully programmable and easily searchable Music Database.

    In addition to the Main Left and Right outputs, the Pa4X includes two additional assignable outputs ideal for isolating a part for additional signal processing or feeding an external mixer. A headphone output is conveniently located on the front panel and the microphone input uses an XLR connector, and phantom power is available.

    The Korg Pa4X will be available November 2015 at $3,799.99 for the Pa4X 61 and $3,999.99 for the Pa4X 76.

    http://www.korg.com/my/products/synthesizers/pa4x/

  • 18 Replies sorted by
  • Looks like keyboard and iPad. I have a technics p30- add an iPad or Android over midi you have this.

    (Personally I would use apple logic- so need some sort of laptop- hopefully iPad pro runs OS X)

  • As far as I know iPad do not have any good arranging software.

    This things are made as work tools, and they pay for themselves.

  • I am sure they pay for themselves. Solid gold keyboard will pay for itself after enough time. ; - )

    Most large productions are run off laptops- many more possibilities.

    But I understand- very large keyboard makes keyboardist play and look much more professional. Like having a large camera. Size = professional.

  • Most large productions are run off laptops- many more possibilities.

    Here it is opposite, but people who play this usually have tablet also, for some notes and text.

    But I understand- very large keyboard makes keyboardist play and look much more professional. Like having a large camera. Size = professional.

    No, it is just more handy. As you have all the knobs and sliders to play in realtime.

  • Large knobs and sliders remember. They need to be large.

  • Large knobs and sliders remember. They need to be large.

    I do not get all your sarcasm. It is same as someone on racing bike started to make fun from downhill one.

  • I don't think I am being sarcastic. As with photo gear - bigger makes more impression for clients. Big knobs are good for marketing people- so are flashy lights, etc.

    Anyway. All keyboards do the same thing. You press and hear a note. Control sliders are similar. Map the value to something that is useful and you have it.

    Considering that this is P-V, and here we discuss alternative approaches to high end problems- (such as using cheep camera for production use- or "b" cam) I think that it very relevant to point out that same outcome can be achieved as korg with a good hammer action keyboard- laptop and motorised sliders (preferably something from behringer as they are cheepest).

    That way you get very good mountain bike and very good speed bike.

  • All keyboards do the same thing. You press and hear a note. Control sliders are similar. Map the value to something that is useful and you have it.

    It is arranger keyboard.

    I think that it very relevant to point out that same outcome can be achieved as korg with a good hammer action keyboard- laptop and motorised sliders (preferably something from behringer as they are cheepest).

    Nope, while software PC based arrangers exist (very few, but still) and can play many styles from hardware ones they usually are no match for hardware (contrary to pure synths).

  • So the same can be achieved- just not as well. ;-)

    For real performances if you are not real die hard software techie and styles tuner (spending big amount of time for finding new voices and editing styles) it will be significantly worse.

    As all styles in arrangers are made for specific hardware with specific voices and many many other specific things.

  • I just know that this will be used for cheep hotel music. Poor keyboardest normally has cigarette in hand, and looks very sad, while singer normally wears lots of makeup and is actually very good, but has never had a break.

    You have not good mood today :-)

    Many people playing such things are extremely talented, just not in your way.

    As for synth importance in pro work (pure synths). Look at modern music, lots of amazing software synths, lots of keyboards, lots of voice processing things. And almost only trash as result.

  • Also I dislike MIDI for playing back sounds like guitar or trumpet.

    Well, all of good arrangers have their own nuance controls (some of them can be auto) and such, not so deep as soft synths, but much more ease for use. And midi is just protocol, you can add control of any number of parameters. People use specialized controllers to play wind instruments, same is true for guitars (via midi oriented guitars or via multi string pickups connected to guitar synth).

  • @alcomposer

    None of good arrangers use general midi voices usually.

    I think you feel so above the people who play this thing :-) Well, many of them can feel same about you.

  • I had the pa3x and sold it ,as I mainly produce music in studio environment now ,I found more software type samples and vst to be much better for studio work ..for live ,it was great especially the mixer slider and multi outputs ...I think if they do get to a level where it could hold multi gb of ram samples and fast set loading time it could be of use for me ,as I still find it much faster to sequence styles or patterns in arrangers rather on cubase and vsts

  • Normally if you are sitting at a keyboard as a glorified karaoke machine I think that the keyboardest isn't being showed off as much as they could.

    Well, may be you only saw some shitty guys?

    As it takes real talent to properly select songs, engage people, make your own arrangements (all good players tweak things, sometimes heavy and try variants) and sing also frequently.

    I also think that copyright reform (greatly reducing income if you use present models) could greatly help in this regard to put many people much closer to their fans :-)

    What would make you think I believe I am better!??? Because I made a joke about smoking!?

    Mostly because of your tone. You kind of look from above at them, poor mere mortals playing with toys :-)

  • I produce in the studio every day, often up to 9 or 10 hours, mainly composing and arranging, have done so since the Atari days and the first C-Lab Creator. I literally use bucketloads of VST...both synths and plugs I had the Korg M3 ...it was a nice machine...and had some great sounds (I also had the RADIAS board in it) , however I found it a nightmare to program anything on mainly because of the screen size...kind of like looking thru a 3 inch window and trying to figure out what a world scene outside looks like...very restricting. iPads are better...but not much better, they are more or less the same. I concluded that these days you need at least a 24' screen to do anything half decent in terms of "finished product" with decent control. It was OK using smaller screens in the old days when basically you put midi notes in and some CC events etc...but these days when there are so many plugins that you need to automate (and it makes a big difference too the end result), its not uncommon these days in a solidly produced track to have as many tracks of automation as there are tracks of notes or even wave files recorded directly in the DAW....its horses for courses tho. For some this machine will be a gem, for me it would not work because of the above reasons.

  • @Astro

    Same thing that I told early here, it is not synth sounds only.

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev Yep I know that, neither was the Korg M3...basically aside of having synths, it had drums, sequencing, mastering effects, track effects.... loads of stuff and also limited loading of your own samples. But this is the problem with these workstations, they could be awesome for live work and some types of studio work, but the problem is as soon as you want to do any serious composing the size limitations of the screen will make something that is not very hard...it will make it a lot more difficult. In other words you will have to constantly switch thru pages of info, sequencing, sound, effects etc...to get where you want...and then back again. The more the workstation can do...the more sounds and versatility it has, the worse this problem becomes...because there is only so much you can put on a small screen, same with the iPad, fine for emails, making notes, watching movies, but no good for serious musical work...not in my books anyway.

  • But this is the problem with these workstations, they could be awesome for live work and some types of studio work, but the problem is as soon as you want to do any serious composing the size limitations of the screen will make something that is not very hard...it will make it a lot more difficult.

    It is not workstation synth also (like M3) :-) And yes, they are for different things, mostly for performances.