PA900 owner? Advice wanted on storing settings

[midinotes]

I wonder if any lucky PA900 owners can help me with a query?

I would like to know if I can use the music database to store entire setups for songs, a bit like how I use registrations on my Yamaha PSR S900. I want to know what gets stored in each song entry, as I would like to be able to call up a midi file, keyboard voices and transpose settings, octave settings, maybe style and appropriate tempo etc. Is this possible?

Is there anything that doesn't get stored? Also say I have 8 songs I want to perform for a session, can I group these together easily as a list of 8 entries in the database?

At the moment I use the 8 registrations on the PSR and then save the bank of registrations with the date I will be playing. So I then just load up the bank and select the appropriate registration in order to perform the song I'm playing. This reg includes any appropriate midi file backing track, keyboard voices and if necessary transpose settings, levels and maybe a split.

Hope someone can verify if I can achieve this on the Pa900 as I cannot do so on the microarranger.

Many thanks
Simon

[BillyHank]

Sorry to say the Korg Pa900 does not really have anything that truly resembles the Yamaha registrations.

First off, you are limited to 320 period and you can not load 8 at a time as with Yamaha and the performances do not store near the items as the Yamaha. If you use 8 registrations for a song then you can do the math, 320 / 8 = 40 songs and there is no way to save those performances and load a new set as far as I can find.

So where registrations are really the heart of the Yamaha arrangers, performances are lacking in the Korg.

Bill G

[midinotes]

Thanks Bill for the quick reply. What about the music database? Is this limited and doesn't it store settings for songs? I'm thinking I could have a set of performances that work with most songs as far as voices and levels are concerned, would the music database then help me in selecting 'set ups' for each song i.e. midifile, performance, transpose, tempo etc?

[BillyHank]

The consensus has been that the Korg Music Database is superior to Yamaha, but I have not yet used it and am still exploring the keyboard.

The performances was one of the areas I was very interested in using and I still have a lot more exploring there too to satisfy myself how to totally use the Performances.

Bill G

[PraiseTheLord]

Hi midi notes, the database you are talking about is called the Songbook. You can save all your settings for each song here including 4 STS. The you can create custom playlists including however many songs you wish in whatever order you wish to play them. I then just hit the Songbook Next dedicated button to move effortlessly to the next setup.

Yamaha has nothing like this and it is a big omission on their part.

[BillyHank]

Thanks Graham, you said what I was trying to say so much better and accurate too.

Bill G

[Giner]

http://korgpa2xpro.yolasite.com/s-t-u-v.php
Scroll down to 'Songbook'. It's all there for you, midinotes.

[BillyHank]

Holy Cow!!!

Thanks for the link to this great site Giner.

Regards,

Bill G

[Giner]

You're welcome, Bill. I know he basically writes all his stuff based on the Pa2X, but for newcomers it's worth noting that a lot of it relates to any Pa series board. Have fun!

[mercergate]

http://korgpa2xpro.yolasite.com/s-t-u-v.php
Scroll down to 'Songbook'. It's all there for you, midinotes.