Korg Pa4X sound

[nitecrawler]

Oh, there is so much MaxxBass and MaxxEQ, it sounds very bad.

As for DA converters, well Korg has other problems, DA was never that problematic.
Their biggest problem is with their ROM, there is so much limiting applied to all samples that ROM has almost 6db higher RMS than those on other keyboards, that is why it sounds squashed, thin and hollow.

Every time I want to make my own samples and multisamples I need to use limiter to squash them just to make them loud as ROM ones.
Fortunately I have some other tricks now to make them loud without killing all sound quality with limiting, but that is just me.

Mixing is SO personal taste oriented, don't you think. The guitar emulations exhibit the relative mixing choices of that particular style of music, 80's to 90's rock bands. Is it what you would hear from current Era guitar players? No not really. But for that "style" compressed sound was the way to go. As far as your issues balancing your "products" that you sell; that is just part of the territory of making your stuff blend. Its (effects and compression), are elements of personal expression don't you think?
The good part is that Korg allows the individual performer and programmer the ability to develop their personal voice. YMMV

[nitecrawler]

I agree with Diki on his point. Bottom line is the music. Everything else is presentation, window dressing and "smoke and mirrors". A song should be able to stand on its own and, concurrently; a sound should as well "dry". It is really to best way to judge a sound ' s authenticity.|

[Bachus]

Did they upgrade to 24 bit sound quality or still 16?

That you are asking means you can't tell... So why does it matter?

Every single CD you have listened to for the last 30+ years is 16 bit... So is the gear they used (or 8-12bit in the 80's!) until the last decade or so. Music certainly has got no 'better' since the move to 24bit, has it?

Who cares about 16 or 24 bits.... As long as these instruments are based on midi you will never archieve more depth then 7 bits with your sampled instruments..

[AntonySharmman]

Kronos and obviously Pa4X , can record at 24 bits , they have no problem in that , the real issue is the PCM 16 bit format and
compatibility with this legacy format that all Korg keyboards support !
With a well designed DAC (as in Pa3X) that provides the required sound clarity it's almost impossible to feel the difference
between 16 and 24 bit with bared ears !
So in order Korg to support more than 16 bit depth , should create an extra PCM v2 format as a secondary Hi-End sound
format option for future models that will also preserve the legacy Korg PCM compatibility.

[alfaholic]

Oh, there is so much MaxxBass and MaxxEQ, it sounds very bad.

As for DA converters, well Korg has other problems, DA was never that problematic.
Their biggest problem is with their ROM, there is so much limiting applied to all samples that ROM has almost 6db higher RMS than those on other keyboards, that is why it sounds squashed, thin and hollow.

Every time I want to make my own samples and multisamples I need to use limiter to squash them just to make them loud as ROM ones.
Fortunately I have some other tricks now to make them loud without killing all sound quality with limiting, but that is just me.

Mixing is SO personal taste oriented, don't you think. The guitar emulations exhibit the relative mixing choices of that particular style of music, 80's to 90's rock bands. Is it what you would hear from current Era guitar players? No not really. But for that "style" compressed sound was the way to go. As far as your issues balancing your "products" that you sell; that is just part of the territory of making your stuff blend. Its (effects and compression), are elements of personal expression don't you think?
The good part is that Korg allows the individual performer and programmer the ability to develop their personal voice. YMMV

No. Mixing is a procedure of making everything sound technically correct, it is about building psycho-acoustic effect for the listener by adjusting all 3 dimensions of the sound, depth from front to rear, frequency range up and down, and panorama left to right, so listener can perceive the music in a way his ears are naturally used to. Only then you can have your own personal taste, and even then you can not have 18db at 40hz just because you think it sounds good, or that is your personal taste.

Obviously you do not understand the difference between compressor and limiter. When I talked about too much limiting, it was about Korg's way of making their samples, not about compressor DSP effect inside your keyboard and mixer.
It is one thing to use compressor to manipulate transients and sustain of the sound, and totally different thing to crush your audio material with limiter to get more RMS.

I agree, it is good Korg is so operative and powerful when it comes to DSP effects and mixing, but still that does not mean everything everyone do is automatically good just because they say it is exactly what they wanted.

[nitecrawler]

Oh, there is so much MaxxBass and MaxxEQ, it sounds very bad.

As for DA converters, well Korg has other problems, DA was never that problematic.
Their biggest problem is with their ROM, there is so much limiting applied to all samples that ROM has almost 6db higher RMS than those on other keyboards, that is why it sounds squashed, thin and hollow.

Every time I want to make my own samples and multisamples I need to use limiter to squash them just to make them loud as ROM ones.
Fortunately I have some other tricks now to make them loud without killing all sound quality with limiting, but that is just me.

Mixing is SO personal taste oriented, don't you think. The guitar emulations exhibit the relative mixing choices of that particular style of music, 80's to 90's rock bands. Is it what you would hear from current Era guitar players? No not really. But for that "style" compressed sound was the way to go. As far as your issues balancing your "products" that you sell; that is just part of the territory of making your stuff blend. Its (effects and compression), are elements of personal expression don't you think?
The good part is that Korg allows the individual performer and programmer the ability to develop their personal voice. YMMV

No. Mixing is a procedure of making everything sound technically correct, it is about building psycho-acoustic effect for the listener by adjusting all 3 dimensions of the sound, depth from front to rear, frequency range up and down, and panorama left to right, so listener can perceive the music in a way his ears are naturally used to. Only then you can have your own personal taste, and even then you can not have 18db at 40hz just because you think it sounds good, or that is your personal taste.

Obviously you do not understand the difference between compressor and limiter. When I talked about too much limiting, it was about Korg's way of making their samples, not about compressor DSP effect inside your keyboard and mixer.
It is one thing to use compressor to manipulate transients and sustain of the sound, and totally different thing to crush your audio material with limiter to get more RMS.

I agree, it is good Korg is so operative and powerful when it comes to DSP effects and mixing, but still that does not mean everything everyone do is automatically good just because they say it is exactly what they wanted.[/quote

I understand your position. I do understand the difference between limiting and compression. From your last words, I get the fact that Korg, you believe, is compressing it's samples. For some sounds this may even be preferred. Electric guitars being "mids" oriented comes to mind. What I was suggesting was the thought that Korg was using what is commonly referred to as "radio friendly" compression mix. Having the samples themselves compressed, however, could be problematic. Especially when trying to match new sample levels and sounds to those pre existing in the keyboard. By the way, I am not personally a fan of massive compression, but it is used in a lot of popular recordings these days unfortunately.

[alfaholic]

Mixing is SO personal taste oriented, don't you think. The guitar emulations exhibit the relative mixing choices of that particular style of music, 80's to 90's rock bands. Is it what you would hear from current Era guitar players? No not really. But for that "style" compressed sound was the way to go. As far as your issues balancing your "products" that you sell; that is just part of the territory of making your stuff blend. Its (effects and compression), are elements of personal expression don't you think?
The good part is that Korg allows the individual performer and programmer the ability to develop their personal voice. YMMV

No. Mixing is a procedure of making everything sound technically correct, it is about building psycho-acoustic effect for the listener by adjusting all 3 dimensions of the sound, depth from front to rear, frequency range up and down, and panorama left to right, so listener can perceive the music in a way his ears are naturally used to. Only then you can have your own personal taste, and even then you can not have 18db at 40hz just because you think it sounds good, or that is your personal taste.

Obviously you do not understand the difference between compressor and limiter. When I talked about too much limiting, it was about Korg's way of making their samples, not about compressor DSP effect inside your keyboard and mixer.
It is one thing to use compressor to manipulate transients and sustain of the sound, and totally different thing to crush your audio material with limiter to get more RMS.

I agree, it is good Korg is so operative and powerful when it comes to DSP effects and mixing, but still that does not mean everything everyone do is automatically good just because they say it is exactly what they wanted.[/quote

I understand your position. I do understand the difference between limiting and compression. From your last words, I get the fact that Korg, you believe, is compressing it's samples. For some sounds this may even be preferred. Electric guitars being "mids" oriented comes to mind. What I was suggesting was the thought that Korg was using what is commonly referred to as "radio friendly" compression mix. Having the samples themselves compressed, however, could be problematic. Especially when trying to match new sample levels and sounds to those pre existing in the keyboard. By the way, I am not personally a fan of massive compression, but it is used in a lot of popular recordings these days unfortunately.

Again, it is limiter that makes all this trouble, not compressor.

Compression is more about sound character, most of the time it is used to make the sound punchier, to emphasise the transients and make sustain louder or longer. I personally like compression because it ads some character to the sound and brings it more "in the face".
But, it is limiter is used to make everything sound louder, which is ok if you use it moderately, but if you go over some line everything will sound thin and flat, without dynamics, just like Korg. All samples lacks natural low end because of too much RMS. Although we have great Waves MaxxBass, it just ads some low harmonics which is not the same.

I agree that 1khz is somehow magical, and if we listen carefully everything we hear is most of the time at 1khz. Most people would say that 1khz sound like telephone, but so much information is located there.
It is true that Korg sounds like it has more mids than other keyboards, but that is mostly because they killed low end with too much limiting than what they wanted to do initially.

I like Korg because they are great brand, but it is almost 2016 and some things they still use are so out of date...

[fResH_]

alfaholic.. 10++ i completly agree with you.