Oriental features wishlist

[Joe_PA800]

Hi,

Since I didn't find any contact information on Korg sites, I am writing this, may be someone from Korg's team will read it.

I had a Gem WK3 oriental, played on Roland G series, have a PA80 and a PA800.

The newest PA keyboards have incredible features like 16 oscillators per sound, pads tracks, songbook which gives you the choice to work in many different ways.
Example: you can use performances to mix several sounds, but you can also create one user sound to mix several sounds since you have 16 oscillators per sound.

All these amazing features apart, there is still serious lack in some key features to Oriental music playing.

1-Most of the oriental songs use more than 1 style, hence

a) Changing styles should not block the system (STS change for instance) during the changing phase.

b) If the next style uses the same effects, this audible "effect cutting" in the first beat (when the style changes) should be removed.
It should be as smooth as Variation change.

c) An important style change feature which existed on GEM WK3 oriental could be added as a setting.
It consists in changing the style once you select it, without waiting the end of the measure. The next style should continue from the same beat, it should not start from the beginning.
However pressing a "Fill" key before performing a style change should run the fill till the end without interruption then the system switches to the next style.
That way, the player can choose between a direct change and a delayed change "on the fly".
Why do we need such a function?
We are talking about changing settings fastly.
While playing (oriental music) you have one hand on the Joystick and the chords, the other playing the upper part, you're singing and then you have to change the style, the sound on the next measure.
Good luck being on time!
Having this feature will enable us to catch up if we miss the first beat.
Personally I don't care so much about it, I do my best to make it on time, but I have a lot of friends who tell me that Korg lacks this feature.

*Possible answers I may get to encounter those requests would be:
Put the different styles on the variations of one style. Ok, I'll let you do the combination for all songs, and sometimes the variations are needed for each style.
A good thing in the newest Pa arrangers is that we can use the Pads to add variations.
However, a person who buys a Pa500 Oriental and who needs a direct functional keyboard will never have the time or the capacity to customize his keyboard that way.
And I think Korg is trying to target such people with the Pa500 Oriental, those who can't afford buying a Ketron Vega.


2-Playing different styles and the need for changing sounds independently from styles is a needed feature.
Many talked about an STS lock on this forum. I won't repeat what they said.
I use performances to change sounds; however, as stated in a different topic, selecting a performance cancels the style change!!


3-Most of the oriental songs have arabic scales changes in the middle of the song.
In Style Play mode, necessary features are present.
However in Song Play mode, we have a problem:
In one of my other topics in which Rob Sherratt gave me some good advices, I was able to set an arabic scale in Song mode.
But, I discovered later on that I was not able to change the scale in the middle of the song because all System exclusive messages are read at the beginning.

Hint for Korg developers: Gem WK3 uses Control messages on the master track to set quarter tones instead of system exclusive messages, such feature would resolve and facilitates many things such as changes in the middle of the song.
They used Controller 18 for the note (values: 0 for C note, 1 for C# note, ...), and the Controller 50 to set the pitch degree (in their case values: 32 for quarter tone, 64 for no pitch change, ...).
So whenever this couple of controller is sent in a song on the master track, the note pitch changes for all tracks.


*Additional question:
Why doesn't Korg create the equivalent of the Kelfar AK-2 and sells it in an "oriental package" with some keyboards? Something to think about...