Temporary withdrawal of support for Korg Pa products

[AVI6520]

We should Protest like this, just watch first minute:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/421273/

nice way to say f... you...

[Rob Sherratt]

Please, please, please complain to your Korg dealer about the problem with loading .SET files.

A simple thing to tell the dealer is "Whenever you load sounds to the location you want (instead of the location in the .SET file), the linkage between Styles and these Sounds is broken and all you hear is musical ga-ga." This is very easy to demonstrate to the dealer, take your favourite .SET file containing styles and sounds. Open it, open the STYLES folder, and load all styles. Then open the SOUND folder and open one of the banks and load the sounds to specific user locations. Then play the style and hear the ga-ga.

It is important Korg fix this broken linkage problem somehow.

PLease, please, please publish all replies you receive from your dealer here ....

[Lee]

Rob,
In your well educated opinion.. what is the very best way to fix this?

I am drafting a letter to Sweetwater (very large dealer) to complain about this as you requested.

I have found that if you complain WITH a solution recommendation you get better results.

Thanks,
Lee

[pepin]

Hello friends:
I am also loving the key and want to make a comment about the support keyboards in forums keyboardist in Mexico .... For Yamaha PSR TYROS and easily find users who share styles, sounds, sequencing and software .... at the time that I have to belong to these forums I have seen few users Korg Pa series (3 for 10 from approximately yamaha) and although we recognize the sound quality and styles of Pa series, is also perceived that yamaha TYROS and PSR series are very easy to use, cost less $$$... filled with four variations and integrated support hard work, whereas Pa. require more maintenance in the long run ... I say this from experience, I am now a Pa80 who has visited the technician in electronic times more than a PSR 2100 than before use.
I personally, I agree that the Pa are the best arrangements and keyboards mix Synthe and Workstation; think manufacturer Korg Pa series should support all those who believe in them and thus able to benefit everyone.
Let us hope that someone from a alla us listen.
Greetings
Pepin

PS: I would upgrade my key .... Although I like The PA800 to the best I will ... Yamaha PSR-S900 is cheaper and more easily get support

[Rob Sherratt]

Rob,
In your well educated opinion.. what is the very best way to fix this?

I am drafting a letter to Sweetwater (very large dealer) to complain about this as you requested.

I have found that if you complain WITH a solution recommendation you get better results.

Thanks,
Lee

Hi Lee,

Try this:

PROBLEM: It is imposible to load several Styles and Sounds files on my Pa2x/Pa800. The reason is that the SET files contain contradictory and conflicting information that result in sounds and styles overwriting each other, and if I manually open and load the sounds, then the linkages from the styles get broken and the styles can not be played.

SOLUTION: Korg Italy must fix the problem with software that allows sounds and styles from multiple files and multiplesources to be catalogued, merged together and the linkages from Styles renumbered/ renamed as appropriate to ensure styles play correctly after multiple sounds/ styles have been imported.

[Vangelismusic]

I don't think it was Korg that revolutionised the Arranger workstations with the i3. I personally think that it was GEM/general music with their WX2, that was more then a year ahead of i3.

Next to that i think that those people back in itally that did GEM WX2 are now working for Ketron in itally.

Not only that, but the GEM WK4 and then the WK8 had features over 10 years ago that still are imitated today like a hard drive,samples,harmonizer,3d sound etc; and one of the easiest operating system to work with.

-Vangelis

[Lee]

Rob,
Well spoken... I will get it done tomorrow...
Thanks,
Lee

[A.K.]

Rob,

I have to agree with you as well. This is a nightmare. I am shocked that Korg would release this keyboard, it has the ability to do so much but yet the inability to do it complete.

As soon as I load new sets everything in pa800 changes. In an age where technology is suppose to make things easy its making it complicated. Only reason I bought a PA800 was so I don't have to spend too much time on my DAW. I just don't want to do all this tech stuff and now pa800 is making me spend too much time in loading and setting things up. Even when I do spend the time it does not sound anything like its suppose to.

Korg just does not get this. I just want to play!!!!!! I still have a week left, wonder if I should return this board and go with something thats not so incomplete.

[Rob Sherratt]

Rob,

I have to agree with you as well. This is a nightmare. I am shocked that Korg would release this keyboard, it has the ability to do so much but yet the inability to do it complete.

As soon as I load new sets everything in pa800 changes. In an age where technology is suppose to make things easy its making it complicated. Only reason I bought a PA800 was so I don't have to spend too much time on my DAW. I just don't want to do all this tech stuff and now pa800 is making me spend too much time in loading and setting things up. Even when I do spend the time it does not sound anything like its suppose to.

Korg just does not get this. I just want to play!!!!!! I still have a week left, wonder if I should return this board and go with something thats not so incomplete.

Hi A.K.

I want to find out what support the Ketron Audya and the Yamaha Tyros 3 provide for interchange of user styles and user sounds used by those styles. If Ketron and/or Yamaha have solved the pitfalls we have experienced with interchanging styles and sounds on Korg products then I might be tempted to make the switch.

[rikkisbears]

Hi Rob,
you'd seriously have to think about swapping to a ketron.
This is the ketron user group, I sometimes wonder if they know what a style ( pattern) actually is?? Do some homework before you consider a move like that.

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/so ... d=69517899

Nedim's trying to breathe some life into the Ketron Synthzone forum.
Hopefully he can do it.

User styles don't seem to exist. If one does find some, they're usually poor conversions.

If you happen to find some additional stuff for Ketron's , I'd much appreciate it as I still have my 2 year old SD1+ sitting in the corner.


Yamaha's are different. Heap of user styles, user groups & user software, but they don't have some of the functions that korg's do. Reason the user software exists is, without it, you can't event edit a complete style, doesn't have midi to style functions. You can't create pads without software unless you record them in realtime etc etc. PSR's are very dependant on software for styles editing & creation, they're not a workstation. Also the audio functions aren't the same, they don't have the equivalent of a groove file.

best wishes
Rikki

[

I want to find out what support the Ketron Audya and the Yamaha Tyros 3 provide for interchange of user styles and user sounds used by those styles. If Ketron and/or Yamaha have solved the pitfalls we have experienced with interchanging styles and sounds on Korg products then I might be tempted to make the switch.

[miden]

Rob, fwiw, I have to agree with Rikki.

Whilst I had the sd1+ I found that forum to be frequented by very nice people, lovely folks, but not much tech knowledge at all.

It would sometimes take 4 and 5 days to get a response, if at all..

I have found this forum and the yamaha forums (when I had a tyros) to be the best.

Cheers
Dennis

[Rob Sherratt]

Hi Rikki and Dennis,

Thanks for your helpful replies. Don't worry for me, I won't jump from frying pan into fire. I'll do my homework after the Audya and Tyros 3 are released.

[Rob Sherratt]

Hi Rikki and Dennis (and anyone else with info to share):

I'm slightly apprehensive about the possibility of burning my bridges with Korg - especially if the situation with Yamaha or Ketron is no better. In particular I wish to expand the style and sound libraries beyond the factory supplied sets. I do two to three live performances every week and I need a quick and easy method of selecting and preloading user sounds and styles.

If you have time, I'd be very grateful for any feedback/ comparison you can give me on leading Yamaha and Ketron arrangers. How easy is it ...

a) To create user styles and user sounds?
b) To manage them in a library of say 4,000 entries?
c) To select from this library a set of 30 or 40 user styles and user sounds for use on a particular live performance?
d) To load this subset onto the keyboard ready for the next live performance?
e) Is the style and sound file format published, or supported with an open API?

On the Pa1x and Pa2x my opinion of the above facilities is:

a) Expert technician knowledge required, not feasible for most musicians, capability does not exist to do this on a PC.
b) There is no mechanism for managing large libraries of user sounds and user styles.
c) Capability does not exist.
d) Not feasible, the Pa keyboard destroys linkages between styles and sounds if sounds are relocated during the load operation. Repairing the linkages takes days of work and exspert knowledge is required.
e) No.

I had pinned my hopes and efforts on Korg because at one time I was led to believe they would publish (e). Then the user community led by MickB would produce software to automate (a) to (d). I'm extremely disappointed to learn that there is no plan for any of this.

Thanks in advance for any opinions you can provide.

[Bachus]

All i know is that yamaha T series allready have a whole shtload of samples styles and songs avilable. Also there are many mnay many tools available to help you create them.

And best of all, Yamaha realises exactly this is one of the reasons why the Tyros line is selling so good. So they will take no actions in prventing people from copying and recreating styles.

But then Yamaha also refuses to sell 76 key versions of their TYros specifically aimed at the semi-pro users.

[rikkisbears]

Hi Rob,
the yamaha user style library is imense 1,000's. How good they , can be subjective. A few years back I downloaded 100's for my
yamaha 9000 pro. Almost became an addiction. A lot of them were just bad conversions. I got tired of trying to sort thru them. I haven't bothered downloading user styles since , though they've no doubt improved. Nowadays I just download rom styles from various keyboards & convert my own as needed. There are 3rd party commercial styles available, again, I don't know if they're good or not, I wouldn't bother buying as
nowadays I just us my PSR1500 as a possible style source for my korg.
Not worth much, so might as well keep it as a sound reference for a conversion.

Ketron, doesn't appear to be well supported as far as user styles go. The operating system doesn't encourage a non pro ,to create their own styles. The editing functions are almost non existant, & there's no dedicated software to edit a style in a pc.
Commercial 3rd party styles don't appear to be common either.

The majority of the PSR styles are created by users. I think a fair majority are actually conversions.

If users don't understand a system, ( ketron for instance) they can't put styles together. They may be able to convert ( EMC) , but if a system doesn't allow for editing , they're going to sound bad.

Sounds, is something that doesn't really crop up in the ketron & psr forums I've belonged to. I don't know, maybe users just use the onboard sounds??
The korg forum is the first one that I've come across that has discussed anything much to do with sounds.

I've been amazed at how knowledgeable some of the Korg users are.
The only thing I've tried to date is the "groove" files. I've managed to sort that out to a certain degree. I've never come across the slicing before. All the SD1 does is load the drum wav file it doesn't slice.

Editing the drum kits would be fascinating ie being able to put together drumkits that matched the psr drums as closely as possible. I tried, but my ears aren't good enough to get velocities correct, or to pick the closest sounding sample. Also don't know enough about editing.
That would take care of a lot of the problems involved in converting from Yamaha to Korg ( without using EMC). Megavoices would still cause some hassles, but to my mind the drums are the biggest problem.


Anyway enough prattling, I'll let someone else give their veiws

[quote="Rob Sherratt"]Hi Rikki and Dennis (and anyone else with info to share):

I'm slightly apprehensive about the possibility of burning my bridges with Korg - especially if the situation with Yamaha or Ketron is no better. In particular I wish to expand the style and sound libraries beyond the factory supplied sets. I do two to three live performances every week and I need a quick and easy method of selecting and preloading user sounds and styles.

If you have time, I'd be very grateful for any feedback/ comparison you can give me on leading Yamaha and Ketron arrangers. How easy is it ...

a) To create user styles and user sounds?