PA800 replacement arranger advise ! Some thoughts?

mauroantunes · Post by **mauroantunes** » Mon Jan 16, 2017 8:51 pm

Hi guys,

It's been a long time since I came to the forum but since I need some advise, no better place to turn to

My Pa800 is struggling for it's life (buttons, memory, and so on) and I need to choose a replacement, being the choice PA3x or P4x. I've been playing live with a friends PA3x for quite some time but my overall programming is done on pa800.

well, first off all I make 90% of my styles, and use some sonor samples for drums and musicman bass samples as well. These 2 are 95% of the times present on my styles since I want to sound as much as a live band as I can.
All other sounds for style accompaniment tracks and solo play are the ones from factory except 2 or 3 multisamples and organs which I play from my beloved NORD Electro 3.
With that in mind I would say that there is IMHO not much a difference (sound wise) when playing with PA3X or PA800. I do not use (yet) maxx audio on the pa3x because I have a FOH technician and output DRUMS+PERC (OUT1) BASS (OUT2) and UPPER+LOWER+ACCOMP (L+R), all pushed by 4 BSS DIs and didn't test it out extensively.

Here is the question, do you PA4x users think I will notice a upper improvement on sound output?? Apart from all the other major improvements my main point of choice will be sound output thru external speakers and ease of style programming plus added functionality for style programming as well.

Sorry for the long boring text and I thank in advance everyone who could share their thoughts on the matter.

Best Regards,
Mauro

AntonySharmman · Post by **AntonySharmman** » Tue Jan 17, 2017 11:12 am

- Concerning custom sounds improvement , Pa4X uses 24 bit DAC , so though PCM are treated as 16 bit as in all Korg models ,
the overall remix is more clean and punchy than Pa800/Pa3X since bit analysis is higher.
- Concerning factory sound resources , Pa4X is the clear winner in any perspective since it has more than 10 times greater
and better factory library and up to 800Mb PCM capacity where you can create decent custom Drums samples than 64 Mb of
poor Pa800 Ram , if you're not covered by already fine on board Pa4X DKs.
But even you need more ... WavesArt is always here ... http://wavesart.eu/Pa3XSoundLibraries

siebenhirter · Post by **siebenhirter** » Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:54 pm

AntonySharmman wrote: .. Pa4X uses 24 bit DAC ..

Hello,
as there are no publications about built-in DACs: can you tell me what kind of DACs are used in Pa3x and Pa900?

Thank you in advance.

AntonySharmman · Post by **AntonySharmman** » Tue Jan 17, 2017 5:48 pm

Not close to my notes at present time but It's Not the type of DAC but the topology , external analog components
design and OS management here !

tombikadam · Post by **tombikadam** » Wed Jan 18, 2017 7:33 pm

try to find Pa3x, 4x is not a big upgrade, if I were you, I would wait for a better model than 4x, pa800 is old as 2x BUT you can upgrade it to 256 ram and when you make music believe me you don't need hundreds of sounds.. 3x is still the best choice.. 4x is new technology but you can do almost everything with 3x too..

AntonySharmman · Post by **AntonySharmman** » Thu Jan 19, 2017 2:49 am

tombikadam wrote:try to find Pa3x, 4x is not a big upgrade

Well , I can agree only under certain circumstances :
- If a user uses only custom sound resources , including DKs , (usually Ethnic users) and the overall custom PCM resources are less than 512Mb.
In that case maybe Pa3X is a better option with legacy features that are discontinued in Pa4X.
But for an international performer that uses only factory resources , the upgrade in Pa4X factory sound library is just huge ...