PA 600 OR YAMAHA PSR S970 or s770

[kevin101]

Hi guys,
I need an arranger for my church
I suggested to buy the PA600 but with the launch of yamahas new models PSR S970 and s770 im a bit confused.

I own a Krome..so im sure PA 600 will be also having the same sound quality, but these yamaha tones are also good it seems and it has vocal harmony effects too...just saw the videos ...didnt got a hands on experience.

Please help me to choose the best.

[Epictetus]

if you need the absolute best sounds and ONLY play karaoke or only do live performance and do NOT record your music, the Yamaha.

If you write a lot of music and you record your music, the Korg, because it has a better specced sequencer. The one in the Yamaha is crap, you cannot post-edit as in the Korg sequencer. The sounds in the Korg are still very good, but just below Yamaha.

If you do BOTH live performance AND record your music, then the Korg.

The 970 is not a fair comparison with the pa600, more like the pa900.
In that case, the pa900 for me wins, because it has stuff that the 970 doesn't have, such as a full featured sampler. And I can't use a keyboard that has a crap sequencer, no matter how good are the sounds. So for me it's Korg anyways.

[Eduardo_Arg]

Hi Kevin101:

In some way i agre with epictetus, specially about comparission models:

Korg PA900 or PA3xle with Yamaha S970.-
Korg PA600 with S770.-

About sound engine, KORG is far away best than Yamaha, as you could check by having and using a Krome.- Korg PA models have's the hability to edit in deep all sounds, so you can tweack all controls to reach the one you want.-

Investing in Korg products you get more for your money, always.-

My best suggestion is test both models and see.-
Good Luck
With regards.
Eduardo

[Snorkum]

While everyone has good comments, however, when it comes to sound
it's more of personal preference. Depending on what your ear hears.
They are correct, if you want to compare the 600 you need to compare with 770.
It depends on what you want to do with it. Make a list and write down the most important items you need in a keyboard. As far as the sound concerns have others do a listening test, your friend, brother, family members, etc.
Here is what I did. I wrote down on a paper what I need the keyboard for.
I listened to countless comparisons between the 950 and 900. It took me 3 months. I had friends, family members listen to the sound without knowing what keyboard they were listening to. I wrote down possible future items, like sound editing, sequencing, etc. Overwhelmingly, and that surprised me, did everyone that listened to it, selected the 900 for sounds. Also, one feature I needed to have was after touch. The Yamaha does not have after touch. Also, there was price difference also.
It is an investment. Take a little bit time, it's well worth it.
I do not regret my decision I made.
Hope this helps somewhat.
Good luck

[Epictetus]

Investing in Korg products you get more for your money, always.-

I agree about a Korg arranger being better value for money than a Yamaha arranger. Before buying my excellent pa300, I have extensively tried and compared the pa300 with the equivalent of Yamaha, the psr-s670.

The pa300 made mincemeat of the psr-s670, EVEN for sounds. Let alone the sequencer and the usual extensive Korg editing.

And the pa900 is certainly better value for money than the equivalent from Yamaha, which is actually the psr-s950, as the 970 came two years after the pa900.

For that matter, the pa600 is certainly better value for money than the equivalent from Yamaha, the psrs770.

Yamaha costs more and puts much less stuff than Korg, that's for sure. So I agree about the value point.

I mean, I tried everything there is in the price of the pa300. Yamaha psrs670, Casio MZ, Roland BK.

The pa300 smashed all of them, for value, features and even sounds, although the Roland is very strong on sounds too. But it doesn't even have a sequencer at all, which deserves derision.

I am going to resell my PSRS750. The sounds are wonderful, but to me it's useless, and I don't like having multiple keyboards.

[Epictetus]

Make a list and write down the most important items you need in a keyboard.

I agree 100 per cent about making a list. I also do these very detailed lists, and assign or detract points from each item. For example, at a certain point I will get a pa600 or even the pa900. But I asked myself if a Yamaha MOXF is a better choice for me, considering the excellent features and sounds and in dept editing. So I did something like this, with points on a scale of 1 to 10:

Korg pa600:

sounds: 7.5

screen (does it makes operations easier or not, because I edit a lot): 10. It's nice, big, and touchscreen. Can't beat that.

huge range of styles (it's an arranger) and I can load in many others: 10

Yamaha MOXF:

sounds: 9

screen: 4 (it's a pain in the butt compared to even the screen of the
pa300. I had a MOX, the previous model.).

works not with styles, but with arpeggios (a kind of surrogate style); although it has about 7000 arpeggios, and that might seem a lot, the quantity of patterns and styles are not at all comparable to a real arranger. Plus, there are many other drawbacks: variety of styles is not as good as the pa600, for example in the MOXF i could find only a couple of calypso styles. That's not good to me. I like a huge range of styles.

so for these things, the Korg wins for me. Easily. The MOXF is a great keyboard, but it does -not- suits my real needs.

As for the sampling playback on the MOXF at 1 gb, sure it's monster compared to the paltry 96 mb of the pa600, but after all, I don't want to waste too much time scavenging always for new sounds just because I can fit them, so it doesn't much matter to me. We don't live for 1000 years.

And with the Korg I can still load in 96 mb of soundfonts or whatever. It's not as good as the monster 1 gb capacity of the MOXF, but still a worthwhile feature.

For me, it's about SPEED and how quickly I get stuff done. Quality is important too, but if I have to bust my butt and take forever, to me it's not good. Even with a Korg, it takes me hours to do my stuff. But with a Yamaha, I just can't get it done -at all-.

So, yeah, I am all for lists. Get whatever fits your needs best. Just make sure you are factoring in your REAL needs.

[Snorkum]

With these item mentioned you might want to look at the PA900 also.
Compared to the 600. Especially if you want to edit and sample sounds. Sample slicing wave file, etc.
Below is a website with PA tutorials about sampling, sequencing, style, guitar mode, etc.
You might find this interesting. Even though it says PA3X the 900 has the same procedure.
Hope this help a little more.

https://www.youtube.com/user/KorgKeyboardTutorial

[Epictetus]

The pa900 would be my first choice, no contest. It has 75 DNC specialist sounds (53 more than the pa600) and a full featured sampler.

I'd like to get one, but money is tight. But the pa600 is really a mini pa900. They are both very good value for money, certainly more bang for the buck compared to Yamaha.

That really solves all the questions: if you can, get the pa900.

And with a sampler on board, there's very little sounds you can't have. Lots of us complain about how time consuming is this or that, but all considered, a sampler is a very powerful option to have. It works. You need a couple of hours to create a top notch violin sound. Well, isn't it worth it? Some people spend hundreds of euros for some sounds. The fact that you can do it yourself with the pa900 is powerful. Once you use it, you'll never look back. Some people also buy a keyboard with a sampler on board and never use the sampler. Terrible mistake.

[Nemik]

The pa900 would be my first choice, no contest. It has 75 DNC specialist sounds (53 more than the pa600) and a full featured sampler.

I'd like to get one, but money is tight. But the pa600 is really a mini pa900. They are both very good value for money, certainly more bang for the buck compared to Yamaha.

That really solves all the questions: if you can, get the pa900.

And with a sampler on board, there's very little sounds you can't have. Lots of us complain about how time consuming is this or that, but all considered, a sampler is a very powerful option to have. It works. You need a couple of hours to create a top notch violin sound. Well, isn't it worth it? Some people spend hundreds of euros for some sounds. The fact that you can do it yourself with the pa900 is powerful. Once you use it, you'll never look back. Some people also buy a keyboard with a sampler on board and never use the sampler. Terrible mistake.

You can have Pa600 or Pa300 and still use external sampler, KORG Pa Manager can create multisamples, which you can import and create your custom sounds.
Only size of RAM for PCM matter, Pa300 - 32MB, Pa600 - 96MB, Pa900 - 192MB

[Epictetus]

I had a look at PA Manager, but I can't see a sampler there. How do you create multisamples etc in the Pa manager? Not much is explained on their website, I also emailed them some time ago and got no replies

[angelitto]

Its very easy. I did it several times. Open Korg Pa Manager, go to "Sample Manager", open an existing set, then delete all samples (or let them there, as you wish) and u can import KMPs (u can make them with Awave Studio and Extreme Sample Converter), import wav's (for kit drums), and assign them in corect positions on the new multisample file, but you need to load all waves individually before. For me its more easy to work with Awave and ESC, and i use Korg Pa Manager only for import KPMs. The previous versions had bugs on imported KMP. Loops were not played corectly. But now its seems every thing its working fine and updatea comes regulary.

[Epictetus]

ok so Pa Manager is not a complete sampler, you still need 2 additional software... so that's 70 euros for Pa manager, and 120 dollars for the other two programs (about 80 euros)....so it costs about 150 euros in total. Not bad, I guess, but I'd still prefer the pa900

[Snorkum]

I don't know how much you are willing to spend, but I bet you can pick one up, new, for about $1,300.00 or less. I bought mine brand new last for $1,400.00. With the possibility maybe to pay for it in 3 monthly payments. Just a thought.
And remember, everything is negotiable, even on the internet. You'll be surprised what you get when you negotiate.

http://www.proaudiostar.com/catalogsear ... Korg+PA900


Hope this helps.

[Roy.hewa]

Does anyone here compared pa600's sounds and drums with pa900's.

Are they the same in quality.

[Nemik]

Does anyone here compared pa600's sounds and drums with pa900's.

Are they the same in quality.

Check this post:
http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... p?t=102186

Pa900 has twice size Factory Library, which can have more sounds.
Pa900 has 834 Multisamples, Pa600 --> 560.
Pa900 has 1047 Drums Samples, Pa600 --> 1012.

For details check manuals in Data Factory.
For sure Pa900 has more DNC Sounds in Factory set.