MTM13.Review Korg
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KORG PA1X PRO
KORG
PA1X Pro Korg’s new flagship arranger keyboard is a heavyweight when it comes to playing and performing. Hollin Jones finds out if it can do the business… PA1X PRO Manufacturer Korg Price £2,599 Contact Korg 01908 857150 www.korgpa.com
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The Pa1X Pro is a well-constructed and versatile keyboard featuring 76 semi-weighted keys.
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n this age where computers and software occupy a large section of the music technology market, it’s easy to forget that not so long ago hardware keyboard workstations were the order of the day, and were the most powerful compositional tools available to the musician. Manufacturers such as Korg, Roland and Yamaha made names for themselves with keyboards that incorporated disk drives, upgrade boards and memory chips. Since computers superceded workstations in terms of power and price, keyboard manufacturers have, for the most part, concentrated on improving the sounds in their machines rather than pushing the limits of how much gadgetry they could shoehorn into one keyboard. In the home keyboard market, however, development of all-in-one products has continued apace. Presumably this is to fulfil the needs of those learning to play or people who want a one-box solution to playing music with accompaniment. Although Korg makes a couple of smaller keyboards – the Pa60 and Pa80, as well as some digital pianos – the Pa1X Pro isn’t
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really what you’d call a home keyboard, though it does share some features with such an instrument. It’s an arranger keyboard, which is a convenient way of saying that it’s designed for the more ambitious home user or a performer. With features such as dual sequencers, microphone inputs and vocal processing, a hard drive, floppy drive and a large touch screen, it would probably be overkill for the casual home user, but at the same time, not that impressive to the studio musician, who probably already has this kind of hardware at his disposal. But that’s not to say it’s not well-equipped…
Heavy stuff The first thing that strikes you about the Pa1X Pro is its size and weight. This isn’t an instrument that’s designed to be carried around a lot. In fact, its dimensions are similar to that of a full-size digital piano. The flipside of this is that it does feel incredibly well-built. The design of the front panel is clean, and the multitude of buttons clearly labelled. In the centre sits the large 240x320 colour touchscreen display, inherited from the Triton and Trinity family. This is set into the casing, which is a little disappointing as it sometmes
requires you to lean over the unit to see it properly. The back panel sports a wealth of connections, confirming that this is a truly multi-functional device. As well as the usual MIDI and audio I/O and sockets for pedals, there’s a digital output, USB connection (for backing up the hard drive to a computer), video output for connection to a TV monitor (with the optional VIF3 card) and a microphone input section with two jack plugs and an XLR. The standard 16MB of RAM can be upgraded to 32MB, and a CD-RW drive and MP3 playback support can be fitted as optional extras. From version 2 of the keyboard’s operating system, direct CD burning will also be supported.
Make the arrangements The Pa1X Pro has four main modes, and the controls change function depending on which is selected. The most straightforward is Sound mode, which turns the unit into a regular digital keyboard with the auto accompaniment features disabled. The 76-note keyboard is big enough for serious playing, and the velocity and aftertouch sensitivity of the keys is accurate and responsive. There are 800 factory sounds onboard including a stereo grand piano and 48 drum kits, as well as 256 user sounds and a set of digital drawbars for the organs. Each sound is fully editable. By hitting the Menu button
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MTM13.Review Korg
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The Pa1X Pro boasts a wealth of connectivity options, including MIDI In/Out, sockets for pedals, digital output, USB port, video out for connecting to a TV (with the optional VIF3 card) as well as microphone jack/XLR inputs.
when in Sound mode, you can edit pitch, filters, amp, LFO polyphony and effects for every sound. The level of control you have over the sounds is impressive, with very detailed settings for every parameter, and the large screen and jog/shuttle wheel makes adjusting them simple. Once edited, sounds can be saved to the user banks on the hard drive or a floppy disk. At the top right corner of the touch screen is an omnipresent dropdown menu that enables you to perform functions such as saving and loading, comparing sounds and copying settings. It’s contextual, and so changes depending on what you’re
keyboard is Style play. This is the auto-accompaniment mode, and you can choose from over 450 preloaded stlyes, each of which can be edited and saved. The styles are sorted into fairly recognisable categories – jazz, Latin, rock, dance and so on – and there are the requisite buttons to control the playback of the accompaniment. Each style has three intros, two endings, four variations and three fills, as well as the usual synchro start and stop buttons. The synchronisation of the fills and variations is very accurate – if you press a fill button halfway through a bar, the Pa1X Pro will play
The control you have over the sounds is impressive, with detailed settings for every parameter.
Do it in style The second mode used by the
out the bar before it plays the fill, making it virtually impossible to mess up the timing. These variations are pretty imaginative, too – not just a quick roll on the congas. Like the backing tracks themselves, they seem well-thought-out and sound realistic and authentic to the style they’re recreating. The keyboard scans the chords as you play them from the upper or lower range of notes or both. It then adjusts the backing chord and key to match what you’re playing. It’s possible to set it to read one-, twoor three-fingered chords depending on how you like to play. The adjustment of the backing to your playing is surprisingly accurate, and elements such as piano chords, bass sequences and picked guitar chords respond in a very realistic way to your chord changes, using sevenths and diminished chords rather than simple arpeggios. An interesting feature of the Pa1X Pro is that the eight sliders on the front panel can be assigned different functions. In Sound mode they are organ drawbars, but in Style mode they control the relative volumes of the different instruments in the backing track. Drums, bass, accompaniment tracks and audio
METHOD SPOT
Digital Drawbars When using the keyboard in Sound or Style mode you can select Digital Drawbars from the instrument panel. This calls up a Hammond organ sound and converts the sliders on the front panel into drawbar simulators – mirrored on the screen – for authentic control over the sound.
Twice the power Sequencer mode is – as you might expect – where you can record your own tunes and arrangements. This is pretty straightforward, and enables you to use Step recording, Quick Record or Multitrack Record modes. You can use predefined styles as the basis for your track or create new ones from scratch,
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trying to do. The sounds themselves are very good indeed, many taken from the Trinity and Triton but now generated by Korg’s new RX technology. As you might expect from an arranger keyboard, the range of presets covers the full gamut from synths and drums to trumpets and choirs, and with its creative application of effects, the Pa1X Pro produces full and rich sounds. There’s also an Ensemble button that doubles or triples the sound you’re playing to make them sound much larger. Pressing the Record button while in Sound mode takes you into the keyboard’s sampling section. The Pa1X Pro can, with a hard disk installed, record and import audio from the mic/line inputs or from CD or floppy disk. It can read .WAV and AIFF files, proprietary Korg samples and Akai files. Normally, samples are assigned to multi-samples for layering across zones of the keyboard. Interestingly, it’s also possible to time-slice samples and extract a groove from them for use in giving a more realistic quantize to MIDI files. Samples can also be exported in Korg format.
input can be altered independently or muted completely. Also unique to this keyboard are the four Single Touch Settings (STS) buttons under the display for taking snapshots of settings. In Style mode, they can store and recall instrument and voice-processing settings, split-points and layered sounds. In practice, this would be useful if playing live, where you could change multiple instruments and vocal sounds at the touch of a button without having to stop playing. Tabs at the base of the controller window enable you to access different controls without too much window swapping, including assigning sounds to the four pads on the front which can be saved with a STS preset. The Mic tab enables you to choose of one of 56 vocal processing presets including harmonisers, sound effects and reverbs from the much-vaunted TC Helicon 1. Pitch correction and voice modelling are available as optional extras. With live performers in mind, there’s also a talkback switch that will solo up the microphone if you need to speak to your audience.
RELATED TECHNOLOGY
A new Breed Korg’s involvement in arranger keyboards started with the i3 – a landmark in electronic instrument design – and then passed through many generations of arrangers until the very successful Pa80. Inheriting features and sounds from many of Korg’s keyboard families, the Pa1X and Pa1X Pro represent the culmination of many years’ experience from the people that brought you the mighty M1 – the first great keyboard workstation. With its own operating system, Korg OPOS (Objective Portable Operating System) and RX (Real eXperience) technology, the Pa1X series features multi-tasking, load-while-you-play features, SSD (Solid State Disk) built in, and the ability to download templates and updates for the operating system and load them without the need for a computer. All of this technology is centred around a large friendly touchscreen – tiny LCD readouts are, thankfully, no more.
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MTM13.Review Korg
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KORG PA1X PRO
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The Pa1X boasts 800 factory sounds including a stereo grand piano and 48 drum kits.
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depending on how involved you want to get. In Sequencer Record mode, the sliders are mirrored by sliders on the display, and after songs have been recorded you can overdub them to add extra elements. After saving to hard or floppy disk, you can view your song in different ways as it plays back, such as in chord view, when you can see all the chords used in the song and where it’s currently up to, which would be useful for teaching. The Pa1X Pro has two sequencers, both of which have the same
would like to play, select it and hit Play. The Songbook can use styles, MIDI files or MP3 files (with the MP3 option installed) and immediately recall settings such as song title, genre, artist, tempo, volumes, sounds, muted tracks, FX settings, master transpose and more. You can filter the list by tempo, artist, name and genre to quickly find the song you’re after. It’s also possible to add your own tracks to Songbook, in MIDI or Karaoke file format so that they’re easily located during live performance. Text input
The Pa1X’s sounds are rich and detailed, but that would only be to scratch its surface. functionality. The reason you might want two is to move between them or play them both at once, and to this end there is a DJ-style crossfader located between the two sets of sequencer controls. With both sequencers playing it’s easy to mix the tracks (if they’re the same tempo) or fade from one into another. This is done using the final of the four modes: Song Play mode. Here you can play back presets or songs you have saved in MIDI format or from MP3 or CD with the optional hardware installed. Again, in this mode, the sliders correspond to track volumes and it’s possible to use the mic input to sing through the vocal-processing unit.
Going for a song For those who seek instant gratification, the Pa1X Pro has a feature called Songbook. This is a musical database containing all of the settings needed to play a particular song. You have only to search the title of the song you 094
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for searching and naming files is done through a mini keypad that appears when you hit the ‘T’ key on the screen. This keypad is used frequently when operating the Pa1X Pro, and is infinitely better than any kind of scroll wheel system for entering text. It’s probably not unfair to suggest that the kind of musicians who would use the Pa1X Pro to its full potential would be those performing solo or with a small band, or keen home users with some cash to spend. It is a very accomplished keyboard, but features such as the video output for displaying karaoke lyrics suggest its intended audience. In fact, the Pa1X Pro has something of a split personality. With many advanced features such as sampling, S/PDIF and vocal processing, it’s not an obvious home keyboard, but the whole auto-accompaniment idea wouldn’t be favoured on pro keyboards either. One the one hand it offers the user
very detailed control over LFOs and effect parameters, and on the other it features lots of pre-programmed Latin jazz backing parts (albeit very well-crafted ones). This leaves it somehow in limbo. Used as a simple keyboard, its sounds are rich and detailed, but that would be to only scratch its surface. The Pa1X Pro is very good at what it does, and for someone who needed the backing, vocal-processing and MIDI file-playing features it would prove a great workhorse. MTM
SUMMARY KEY FEATURES •Colour touchscreen operation •800 factory and 256 user sounds •Sounds, styles and presets editable •Searchable song database •Single Touch settings for instant recall •Sounds from Trinity and Triton •Mic input, TC vocal processing •76 semi-weighted keys •Floppy and hard disk drives •Programmable buttons and sliders WHY BUY •Well-crafted backing styles •Instruments sounds rich and detailed •Easy to use •Vocal processing is powerful •Excellent all-in-one performance keyboard •Can connect to computer over USB WALK ON BY •One-touch backing band concept not for everyone •Touchscreen can be unresponsive •Some styles fairly clichéd •Expensive
VERDICT A powerful and well-featured performance keyboard, although perhaps better suited to semi-pro or serious home users.
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