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We all have to wait and see....

But to be honest, I don't expect exciting news under the hood from the Pa5X. And what really is new doesn't have the wow-factor to me to trade in my Pa4X for the Pa5X...

And of course, I like new stuff and keyboards and electronics and gadgets, too! And of course my expectations are almost always higher than what you get in reality. But still I try to keep realistic: wait and see...

duby2 wrote:how big was the upgrade from the pa3 to the pa4 was there ....
not much .. and we lost some function ,,,,
it will be the same...with the pa 5 . don't expect a huge improvement ...
lipstick on a pig..
but
I do i love bacon...

I am happy to see better screen

duby2 wrote:how big was the upgrade from the pa3 to the pa4 was there ....
not much .. and we lost some function ,,,,
it will be the same...with the pa 5 . don't expect a huge improvement ...
lipstick on a pig..
but
I do i love bacon...

Actually the pa3x amd pa4x have the same processor….
The new Pa5x will have a totally new processor, and OS…

This will mean two things..
The base will be miles ahead of the pa4x

But not all software functions will have made it over
The rest will be added in upgrades..

Bachus wrote:

duby2 wrote:how big was the upgrade from the pa3 to the pa4 was there ....
not much .. and we lost some function ,,,,
it will be the same...with the pa 5 . don't expect a huge improvement ...
lipstick on a pig..
but
I do i love bacon...

Actually the pa3x amd pa4x have the same processor….
The new Pa5x will have a totally new processor, and OS…

This will mean two things..
The base will be miles ahead of the pa4x

But not all software functions will have made it over
The rest will be added in upgrades..

That is not true at all..
PA3x has the EXACT same processor and DSP as the pa800 and pa2x!
(Freescale MX1 DragonBall processor and TG01 DSP)
Pa300,600,900,3xle, 700(RCA),1000(RCA) and 4X share the same processor family (almost identical processors which are OMAP3 series).
Pa1000(HDMI) ,PA700(HDMI) and PA5X share the same processor family (OMAP5) and most probably even the exact same part (AM5718).
Just to clear it up though, on pa700 and pa1000 there is absolutely no gain from the better processor as they only use 1 core of the dsp and i believe 1 core of the cpu too as the boot speed and everything is same as the original pa700/1000 (AM5718 is dual core and dual dsp).

musiccankill wrote: Pa1000(HDMI) ,PA700(HDMI) and PA5X share the same processor family (OMAP5) and most probably even the exact same part (AM5718).

Interesting. And how much ram that architecture can recognize/handle may i ask?

archil wrote:

musiccankill wrote: Pa1000(HDMI) ,PA700(HDMI) and PA5X share the same processor family (OMAP5) and most probably even the exact same part (AM5718).

Interesting. And how much ram that architecture can recognize/handle may i ask?

Physical ram can be up to 4Gb as it is a 32bit processor.
That has nothing to do with max sample space available though as we already know from pa4x and kronos where streaming is enabled and the physical ram is only being used as a preload buffer (<=16KBytes per sample on pa4x) .
So with lets say 500MB allocated for the user in theory it could handle anywhere from 500MB (all samples have to be 16KBytes for this to happen which is never going to happen as there are no real world applications for 32000 16KByte samples) up to 32GB of samples (all of them have to be the size of 1MB which is again not a real world scenario).
If rumors are true , the expected 8GB sample ram (compressed) on the 5x is a realistic scenario and the 30000 sample limit also a technical limit of the preload buffer as they can't allocate all the ram to user sampling (they have to allocate ram for the OS , the effects and the factory/rom sample library too).
Sorry if i gone too technical , just wanted to explain what i have found about how it all works.

musiccankill wrote: Sorry if i gone too technical , just wanted to explain what i have found about how it all works.

Don't be sorry at all, very useful information. thanks!

There were rumors for 64bit architecture on pa5x though, lets wait and see.

archil wrote:

musiccankill wrote: Sorry if i gone too technical , just wanted to explain what i have found about how it all works.

Don't be sorry at all, very useful information. thanks!

There were rumors for 64bit architecture on pa5x though, lets wait and see.

From a quick search, I can't seem to be able to find any OMAP 5 64bit processor so I'll be extremely surprised if it'll be 64bit...
It doesn't matter if it is 64bit or 32bit though for the intended purpose as we have already seen from kronos...
There are libraries over 30GB on kronos and kronos can allocate up to 4GB physical ram too...
The only restriction on PA5X (as is in 4X too) will be that it uses EMMC to stream the data from and not SATA (EMMC is faster as it is 8Bit bus compared to S(erial)ATA ) and offers much better security and response time.

musiccankill wrote:

archil wrote:

musiccankill wrote: Pa1000(HDMI) ,PA700(HDMI) and PA5X share the same processor family (OMAP5) and most probably even the exact same part (AM5718).

Interesting. And how much ram that architecture can recognize/handle may i ask?

Physical ram can be up to 4Gb as it is a 32bit processor.
That has nothing to do with max sample space available though as we already know from pa4x and kronos where streaming is enabled and the physical ram is only being used as a preload buffer (<=16KBytes per sample on pa4x) .
So with lets say 500MB allocated for the user in theory it could handle anywhere from 500MB (all samples have to be 16KBytes for this to happen which is never going to happen as there are no real world applications for 32000 16KByte samples) up to 32GB of samples (all of them have to be the size of 1MB which is again not a real world scenario).
If rumors are true , the expected 8GB sample ram (compressed) on the 5x is a realistic scenario and the 30000 sample limit also a technical limit of the preload buffer as they can't allocate all the ram to user sampling (they have to allocate ram for the OS , the effects and the factory/rom sample library too).
Sorry if i gone too technical , just wanted to explain what i have found about how it all works.

According to rumors, there will not be an HD or SSD inside the pa4x, there will be sd card storage… probably to slow for sample streaming as seen in the kronos.

Bachus wrote: According to rumors, there will not be an HD or SSD inside the pa4x, there will be sd card storage… probably to slow for sample streaming as seen in the kronos.

Pa4x has an expansion slot as pa800 and it was basically usb to sata adapter.
Pa4x has an EMMC on the cpu board where everything is in (OS, factory samples , ram samples, and everything).Same for 300/600/900/3xle/havian30/700/1000)..
700,1000 and 4x use the EMMC to stream the ROM samples and 4x uses that streaming technique for RAM too (from version 3.00 (os next) and up)
Kronos has native SATA disk for all these!
Krome is the only one using SD card for streaming purposes and we have all seen the results from that (too many issues with broken playback on long samples and cards needs to get replaced)...
I am sure pa5x will have an EMMC as it is the only protocol with an 8bit bus.
EMMC and native SDCard (not SPI sd card) is (almost) the same protocol but they have a huge difference in connection as SDCard bus is only 4bits while ,as i already mentioned, EMMC is 8bit bus ,effectively doubling the read/write speed which is what is needed for streaming huge amounts of data...
As for the rumors, yes pa5x will have no expansion slot according to them..
The sd card slot will be used for storage and as a dongle for encrypted sets like it already does on current models.

musiccankill wrote:

Bachus wrote: According to rumors, there will not be an HD or SSD inside the pa4x, there will be sd card storage… probably to slow for sample streaming as seen in the kronos.

Pa4x has an expansion slot as pa800 and it was basically usb to sata adapter.
Pa4x has an EMMC on the cpu board where everything is in (OS, factory samples , ram samples, and everything).Same for 300/600/900/3xle/havian30/700/1000)..
700,1000 and 4x use the EMMC to stream the ROM samples and 4x uses that streaming technique for RAM too (from version 3.00 (os next) and up)
Kronos has native SATA disk for all these!
Krome is the only one using SD card for streaming purposes and we have all seen the results from that (too many issues with broken playback on long samples and cards needs to get replaced)...
I am sure pa5x will have an EMMC as it is the only protocol with an 8bit bus.
EMMC and native SDCard (not SPI sd card) is (almost) the same protocol but they have a huge difference in connection as SDCard bus is only 4bits while ,as i already mentioned, EMMC is 8bit bus ,effectively doubling the read/write speed which is what is needed for streaming huge amounts of data...
As for the rumors, yes pa5x will have no expansion slot according to them..
The sd card slot will be used for storage and as a dongle for encrypted sets like it already does on current models.

You obviously know a lot more of this stuff then me..

But care to explain why they are using a 2013 designed processor in a 2022 created keyboard..

9 years sounds like ancient to my ears concerning modern day processors?



If the signals i receive are correct with an entirely new operating system build from the ground up, they might have left the obsolete ancient omap architecture behind and switched to something more 21st century


All your story seems to be based on a lot of assumptions

musiccankill wrote: Krome is the only one using SD card for streaming purposes and we have all seen the results from that (too many issues with broken playback on long samples and cards needs to get replaced)...

Strangely juzisound 2 doesn't seem to have issues with streaming huge libraries from sd card (256GB of samples!!!, one sample for each note and very long samples, 20 zones for each sound).

I don't believe this will be the case but if Korg have seriously stuck with old hardware technology, then support/maintenance and repairs will be a joke!!! (Plus I will not be interested unless the price reflects "old technology"!!)
USB3, SSD, HDMI, WiFi, RJ45 - my refrigerator already has all of that...

P

P.S. PA4x-76 price dropped locally from $7,333 to $4,890

karmathanever wrote:I don't believe this will be the case but if Korg have seriously stuck with old hardware technology, then support/maintenance and repairs will be a joke!!! (Plus I will not be interested unless the price reflects "old technology"!!)
USB3, SSD, HDMI, WiFi, RJ45 - my refrigerator already has all of that...

P

P.S. PA4x-76 price dropped locally from $7,333 to $4,890

Prices here in europe are different, i bought my brand new pa4x 76 key about 4 1/2 years ago €2600 sold it 2 1/2 years ago for €2300.

Its obvious that The Australian market is kinda sick….

Bachus wrote: You obviously know a lot more of this stuff then me..

But care to explain why they are using a 2013 designed processor in a 2022 created keyboard..

9 years sounds like ancient to my ears concerning modern day processors?

If the signals i receive are correct with an entirely new operating system build from the ground up, they might have left the obsolete ancient omap architecture behind and switched to something more 21st century

All your story seems to be based on a lot of assumptions

Well! Porting CPU and even more DSP code from one to the next is not an easy task and requires a lot of time!
Also they surely have started designing the next model (pa5x) after pa700 and pa1000 got finished (maybe even earlier) so at worst case 2017.
In 2017 the processor was the current top model for that type of work given that it is compatible with older code (no need to reinvent the wheel and possibly introduce more bugs while learning a new architecture).
If there was no COVID we would have seen the 5X at least 1 year earlier i believe.

Also OMAP is NOT obsolete and is a very powerful chip as it contains 2 dsps inside and several other critical components.
You can't take just any mobile processor that has no dsp that can be used for that type of application.
Also omap is tested to not fail will high usage unlike phones where usually their lifespan is about 2 years. I guess nobody wants to buy a new keyboard every 2-3 years while not even the next gen has come or have way too many accidental failures and hardware issues...
So 9 years is not ancient at all.
You ll be surprised if you find out how many facilities that produce tech still use windows XP and/or very old systems because it does the job and there is no need for something else and all the other reasons i already mentioned in this reply (porting etc).
Apart from all of the technical aspects, why should it matter what it has inside if it gets the job done as it should?!

And yes i have made some assumptions based on all the data mining on the released (and not only the released) OS versions of arranger models that i have done during the last 6 years.
If i had the hardware here i wouldn't be able to talk about anything as i would have signed an NDA

karmathanever wrote: I don't believe this will be the case but if Korg have seriously stuck with old hardware technology, then support/maintenance and repairs will be a joke!!! (Plus I will not be interested unless the price reflects "old technology"!!)
USB3, SSD, HDMI, WiFi, RJ45 - my refrigerator already has all of that... Wink

P Very Happy

P.S. PA4x-76 price dropped locally from $7,333 to $4,890

Well as i already wrote, why should it matter what the inside is if it gets the job done? And from what i have seen, it gets the job done.
We can't compare keyboards to PC or mobile phone processors, they are for different applications and so have different priorities in specs...
Keep in mind that even kronos had an ancient ATOM D525 which does not even have a DSP and still got the job done for so many years!
Also the new OPSIX, MODWAVE and WAVESTATE run on a raspberry pi compute module which still has no dsp afaik....
Don't they do what they should without issues? Isn't their sound good?!!!
There were never a keyboard with hardware specs compared to computers as there is no need to as the hardware is selected for this specific model and the code is optimized for this specific hardware! That is the key to everything, optimization...

archil wrote:Strangely juzisound 2 doesn't seem to have issues with streaming huge libraries from sd card (256GB of samples!!!, one sample for each note and very long samples, 20 zones for each sound).

Does juzisound play an entire band (so many different instruments with so many notes at once) like an arranger?
As far as i know , no (don't have it so not 100% sure, correct me if i m wrong).
If i m right, there is our answer about why sd is not enough..

Even if no though, krome plays good too , till the card starts getting slower from usage so we don't know the fate of juzisound 2 after a few years of heavy usage!



Note to everybody, hope i haven't got too deep explaining and you enjoy what i m trying to explain!
I m not here to defend any company. I just design stuff myself and i know from first hand that in embedded systems, latest hardware is not the best fit most of the times ,unlike computers and mobile phones.
Everything that i m writing and the explanations i give are just for entertainment and for tech freaks like me that like or find it interesting to learn the "what's under the hood" and "how it works" things!

I am waiting too to get 5x home and confirm everything i m saying in practice , as in theory everything checks out fine and hardware wise it is more than capable enough but if the software is crap even the best hardware would be exactly the same!
Having said that, i m not expecting pa5x to be an 100% finished instrument on release ( i don't play live, i just like to learn and explore hardware and software things so i don't care about that and so i ll get it most probably day 1 ) , so i don't advice anybody to buy it before tests have been done if they are going to sell their previous instrument and want to go to work with the new one the day they buy it.It may be the best instrument ever but (chances are here in my opinion) it could also be a unstable start...