More ram for pa800?

milo · Post by **milo** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 9:43 am

sehasafade12 wrote:
milo wrote:People as you know it is all about the money.

KOrg will make probably after a couple of year a new pa and then you get a bit more ram. Everyone will sell his pa and buy the new one..and that will go on..................korg makes more money............ It is the user that let korg do this in my opinion.

look at pa800 and pa2xpro

Hello Milo:

I do not agree with you at all. I know at least 55 musicians whom I deal with all the time and guess what they all own Korg Pa800. These days the economy of the world is bad and people no longer can afford to buy new keyboards. Most of good musicians and Korg Pa users here in US are really suffering and specially in wedding these days all you see are the DJ's. They are cheaper and can be found all the time. No body is buying used keyboards specially Korg's. Korg's reputation is not good among most of the musicians that I know. If Korg really wanted(but I do not thinks so) to keep their customers then they must provide us with an upgrade RAM chip. The can of worm has been opened and now it is too late for Korg to hide the truth. I will guarantee that someone in the next month or so could upgrade the Pa800 memory to 128,256 or even 512. Just remember this date and my words and I will remind you again in the future.

Best regards,

Fahim,

Hi Fahim,

I was more talking about the situation untill now...if you now look at the party´s, every player got a pa800 or a pa2xpro, so they changed there pa. And the different is for the most people just the ram issue. OK the new pa got more functions but mostly of the musicians don´t use it...they just upgraded or the extra ram.

You have right about the problem you descrived, and i hope that KOrg will do something with it, and not only for pa800 and pa2x, but also for pa1xpro. Because there is still a market for it.

mrkorg · Post by **mrkorg** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 5:33 am

No matter how hard Korg Turkey try or whowver else wants to have an attempt at increasing RAM or getting the keyboard to recognise it, it will never happen. Korg specificaly designed it that way. The only option you have is to buy a PA2X.

macboy · Post by **macboy** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:21 am

Like Milo and mrkorg said: Korg CANNOT make a perfect Keyboard, because then they would not sell any in the future.

It is as simple as that. Otherwise also no difference between PA800/PA2x. So it is logical that they take some business decisions, even though people do not like it.

amiri · Post by **amiri** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:08 pm

I agree with Fahim Korg have to do something about it. It is very simple for Korg to offer memory upgrade for PA800 or PA2x its just matter of software upgrade to recognize the RAM. Also no one would buy a keyboard every Two to five years not for sure an average income people accept few rich musicians which are probably about 20%. Personally my self I would pay $300.00 for an upgrade but not $3000.00 to buy another keyboard just because of the extra RAM.

Best regards,

Amiri

Rob Sherratt · Post by **Rob Sherratt** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:16 pm

amiri wrote:I agree with Fahim Korg have to do something about it. It is very simple for Korg to offer memory upgrade for PA800 or PA2x its just matter of software upgrade to recognize the RAM. Also no one would buy a keyboard every Two to five years not for sure an average income people accept few rich musicians which are probably about 20%. Personally my self I would pay $300.00 for an upgrade but not $3000.00 to buy another keyboard just because of the extra RAM.

Hi Amiri, Fahim et al,

Of course, the Pa2x was designed to be upgradeable from 128 Mb to 256 Mb. And I will be buying the EXB-M256 module soon. But 256 Mb is the limit.

On the Pa800, although the 64 Mb module looks similar in shape to the 128 Mb or 256 Mb modules for the Pa2x, please note that in order to address 256 Mb RAM, it is necessary for additional circuitry to be present as well as software capability.

Suppose that the address lines are not physically present, or maybe the single chip ARM (Acorn Risc Machines) processor used on the Pa800 just doesn't have as many address line I/O pins as the later ARM chip used on the Pa2x?

What I'm trying to say is that no matter how much we users may wish for a RAM upgrade to the Paxxx, it is probably impossible to do it. Also it may not be Korg's "fault" that it is not upgradeable. For example, at the time of designing the Pa800, the single chip ARM processor available at that time probably only had the capability to address 64 Mbytes RAM.

We had the same debates for a year about the Pa1x with its paltry 32 Mb RAM. But the processor chip on the Pa1x cannot address any more. End of story. So I sold mine and bought a Pa2x. If anyone with a Pa800 really must have more sample RAM, then the solution is already available - sell the Pa800 and buy a Pa2x.

And all this discussion about EMO Music or Korg Turkey or Korg Neptune, Korg Betelgeuse or whoever having "succesfully" provided a 128 Mb RAM upgrade for the Pa800 is just stargazing. It's a myth.

Best regards,
Rob

hitman · Post by **hitman** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:02 pm

Well, I will have to disagree with you Rob. Yes, it is Korg's fault along with their marketing politics. But, the only people to blame are the users who support Korg's marketing decisions through the purchasing of their products. The sad truth is that all 3 big arranger manufacturters follow the same tactics with giving features to the user in very small incremental amounts. That is the beauty of the global market, "There is a buyer for everything".

I am confident that in the next year or two, Korg will release a new arranger (pa800 class) with a staggering 96MB of sampling ram. WOW.
Why not compete with Yamaha and go with a GB ?

It is always the same story in a different package!

Rob Sherratt · Post by **Rob Sherratt** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 8:51 pm

hitman wrote:Well, I will have to disagree with you Rob.

Hello hitman,

Well, I kept my discussion centred around the basic question "why can we not add extra RAM memory to a Pa800?" So are you disagreeing with me on that point? If so, why do you think extra RAM can be added to a Pa800 and on what engineering basis do you believe that it can be done? Can you help me by checking the data sheet for the ARM core processor used in the Pa800, and can you then answer the question whether the chip can address more than 64 Mb RAM? I've not been able to do this because I don't have a Pa800 to dismantle.

I have checked the specification for the ARM processor used in the Pa1x and unfortunately it did have a 32 Mbyte RAM limit that I could not design around even though I was willing to hack my Pa1x and publish details how to do it. I've also checked the data sheet for the ARM processor used in my Pa2x, and it does have an upper limit of 256 Mb addressable RAM.

Of course the next arrangers and workstations can be designed to accommodate massive sample libraries, of the order of several terabytes. The Open Labs Neko does it by using a PC inside, complete with its bloated processor with heating problems.

Like I said elsewhere I agree with Sharp how the future workstations and sampler keyboards will evolve. We think the best design for sampling keyboards will not need much RAM. nor will they need PC architectures or noisy fans. They will instead use low energy processors like the ARM and the new generation of streaming technology that allows samples to be streamed on demand to and from striped hard disk arrays, just like multitrack HD audio recorders.

Best regards,
Rob

Lee · Post by **Lee** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 1:53 pm

Rob,
Yes, I think you and Sharp ae right. Last week end I saw, played Ketron Audya and got to see how the disk streaming works. They use it for some style loading and for some of the high end solo voices. Audya has only 64MB.

Lee

mrkorg · Post by **mrkorg** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:26 am

Audya has only 64MB.

When Nedim first mentioned this, he said the Audya has 4 GB of RAM. He later said it was reduced to 64 MB. If Ketron could do that 2 years ago, we know technology does allow more than 4 GB. The thing is Ketron was to busy trying to impress musicians and buyers, however they later realised it is not a great marketing strategy since all the other rival competitors only provide 64MB to 1 GB max, so they eventually cut it down to 64 MB to be on the same lines as all the big companies.

Sam CA · Post by **Sam CA** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 2:41 pm

mrkorg wrote:
Audya has only 64MB.
When Nedim first mentioned this, he said the Audya has 4 GB of RAM. He later said it was reduced to 64 MB. If Ketron could do that 2 years ago, we know technology does allow more than 4 GB. The thing is Ketron was to busy trying to impress musicians and buyers, however they later realised it is not a great marketing strategy since all the other rival competitors only provide 64MB to 1 GB max, so they eventually cut it down to 64 MB to be on the same lines as all the big companies.

To go from 4 gig to 64 Mb? That's a massive change of plan! lol

Lee · Post by **Lee** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 6:01 pm

Steaming or no streaming..I still think 64MB is pretty poor in 2009!

It gives me a negative feeling about the Audya.
Lee

Rob Sherratt · Post by **Rob Sherratt** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:48 pm

Hi Lee,

I just wanted to check with you - are you sure the Audya is using disk streaming technology for samples? There is no indication about this on the Ketron web site. It refers to 64 Mb sample RAM for user samples, that's all. That is not how streaming technology will work. With steaming direct from striped disk arrays, there is virtually no limit to the number or size of samples.

Best regards,
Rob

mrdave68 · Post by **mrdave68** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:00 am

Rob Sherratt wrote:I've also checked the data sheet for the ARM processor used in my Pa2x, and it does have an upper limit of 256 Mb addressable RAM.

Can you tell me which processor has the Pa2x inside? Just curious...

Lee · Post by **Lee** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 3:17 pm

Rob,
I think so...when AJ loaded a super solo sound...the disk light was flashing and kept flashing ..If I remember correctly. AJ called it streaming from disk. It is only for super solo voices, not the normal ROM sounds. I think he also said styles load from disk to...but not sure about the streaming on that part.

I would have liked a couple more hours with AJ on the Audya...but they had to tear down. Seemd never enough time!

I think Nedim has an Audya or it is comming soon...he can tell us more then.

OH, by the way, I saw nothing that made me wan't to switch from the awesome PA2XPRO!

Lee

Rob Sherratt · Post by **Rob Sherratt** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 12:39 pm

Lee wrote:Rob,
I think so...when AJ loaded a super solo sound...the disk light was flashing and kept flashing ..If I remember correctly. AJ called it streaming from disk. It is only for super solo voices, not the normal ROM sounds. I think he also said styles load from disk to...but not sure about the streaming on that part.

I would have liked a couple more hours with AJ on the Audya...but they had to tear down. Seemd never enough time!
I think Nedim has an Audya or it is comming soon...he can tell us more then.

OH, by the way, I saw nothing that made me wan't to switch from the awesome PA2XPRO!

Lee

Hi Lee,

Assuming that what AJ says is true ...

Sample streaming from HD is a first for an arranger keyboard. This is revolutionary stuff. I'm surprised there is no mention about this in any of the reviews I've read nor on Ketron's web site. They should sack their PR guy and employ me instead

For anyone seriously into sampling, this one feature (if confirmed by Ketron) would make the Audya a "must buy", it would top even the legendary Korg OASYS in this capability.

Best regards,
Rob