Powered up Pa5X and None of the Styles Play

[sjmarano]

This changes the game ... your motherboard has to be repaired !
If was badly treated by any means (refurbished you called it) then anything might had happened from moved strip cable up to chips' pins detachment ...
Visit official service center ... nothing more to speculate , good luck !

As the owner of a new PA5X (purchased last week), I must admit that I am a little bit nervous reading about these reliability issues. I sympathize with Basspig and realize that his unfortunate issue might be somewhat unusual. And I hope it can get resolved quickly. But then there are also the instances cited here of problems with LED lights on the PA5X buttons.

Anyhow, my question is not really about the reliability of the PA5X, but rather what the experience was like when someone DID have to take their PA5X to a Korg service center for repairs under the manufacturer's warranty? And of course there is the consideration that the PA5X is manufactured in Italy, so I was curious if that might have resulted in complications or delays. An additional reason for me asking about this is that the local dealer I purchased my PA5X from suggested I purchase their extended warranty, not so much because of the additional warranty length, but rather because it would save the hassle of having to find a reputable repair center and possibly have to ship the keyboard to a remote facility. Frankly, I have never purchased an extended warranty before on any electronics product and am very skeptical that this would be a sensible option.

The most sensible thing to do, and the main reason for posting this, is simply to get a recommendation on who/where I should turn to if I ever do run into a repair issue. I live in the New York / New Jersey area so - simply for peace of mind - I would appreciate any recommendations on an authorized repair center in this metro area, just as a precaution.

Any advice/feedback would be greatly appreciated!

[AntonySharmman]

This Pa5X was purchased as used & refurbished and nobody knows the state and how it was stressed , nothing to do with
a brand new arranger under guarantee , no reason to worry at all.
Concerning Leds view , it's not a hardware problem , it must be a failure of internal film strips that have been moved for
unknown reason , only a matter of appearance !
If I ever seen in mine , I will explain the reason of this !

[Basspig]

The Styles function was working perfectly all morning and so I tried my experiment now:

Turn off the Pa5X and then turn it back on again. And... Styles is playing only the drum part now. Keyboard isn't cold, so we can rule out temperature.

So something about rebooting causes Styles not to work for several hours.

Oh this is so weird! I set the clock in the Pa5X to 7:00PM and hit a few random keys on the keyboard then hit play on the Styles and it's playing all parts now!

So my hunch about it working only after 7pm seems to have some creedance.

[rod74]

When that happened to mine, playing the Demo triggered something that fixed the problem temporarily. Factory restore fixed it for me.

[Basspig]

Factory restore and even reloading the OS didn't fix it. But setting the clock and hitting a few random keys and it's working. I'm puzzled. Maybe it's coincidence. One thing's for sure, something's funky about this keyboard's operating system.

[F-Minor]

I have my PA5X since August last year. I play almost every day. I did not experience any trouble with the machine so far. Totally stable. I don't do serious (style) programming and/or sampling with it, just playing and some simple editing of styles and sounds / Keyboard Sets. And I use the (awesome!) SongBook a lot!

It seems you are the owner of a faulty machine and I think the only solution is to get your money back and buy a brand new PA5X with guarantee. Otherwise I fear that you will continue to muddle through, which is a shame, because your time would be much better spent enjoying the keyboard!

[Basspig]

I'm thinking that this was sold as B-stock for a reason, but when it arrived, cosmetically, it looked new from the factory. The advert from a Korg dealer about an hour from me said it was "factory refurb" and discounted to a price I, a senior citizen on a fixed income, could afford (with a generous donation from my wife because it's my birthday this month). I could not have done it at full retail. I would still be using just my KRONOS, which I'd also bought years ago for a very low price as B-stock, but never had any issues with it.

This Pa5X is not made in Japan, so I guess the quality isn't up to the normal standards for Korg that I am used to.

At any rate, I've disabled the auto off feature and just leave it on 24/7 so I can use it without fiddling around to get the Styles to work properly.

The dealer is aware of the problem and he has contacted Korg. I have not heard anything back from either the dealer or the Korg tech rep beyond the initial acknowledgement of the problem.

[JagiChan]

This Pa5X is not made in Japan, so I guess the quality isn't up to the normal standards for Korg that I am used to.

I have had the PA5X-88 for the past 10 months and bought it as used equipment from a local musician (who brought it at retail). He also sold it to me because of the lack of updates and support. I don't have any problems with it, and it seems to work as described in the manual. FYI: My PA5X is made in Italy.

I guess there is something not quite right with your board, maybe some loose FFC connectors or some dust on the inside, which is causing the lock up and irregular behavior. You may need to take the unit back to the dealer and get it fixed. Good luck

[Basspig]

That's what I'm afraid of. I really don't feel comfortable with the idea of packing this thing up and getting a ride all the way down to the bottom of the state to bring this thing in for service which may take how many weeks or months?

My experiment this evening:

Turn off Pa5X.
Turn it back on.
Note that the Style isn't playing full ensemble.
Change the time on the clock settings.
Styles still not working right.
Randomly play a few keys.
Styles working again full ensemble.

Go figure. This sounds more like a software issue at the moment.

[Basspig]

I made a short video depicting the problem. Bear in mind that if I leave the keyboard off over night, it takes a lot more time and fiddling around to get Styles working again. This is short and sweet. Play a style. Power cycle the keyboard, play style again (missing all but drums), then randomly hit a few keys and play style again (works).


https://youtu.be/0a1ffm-eQ14?si=IJx1WS8IkULFgbBI

[AntonySharmman]

What I see in your video after rebooting , is that you expect orchestra to play without any played chord ...
Nope Style will never play anything except non melodic tracks like Drums & percussion !
The rule in all arrangers is that chord recognition will enable melodic tracks to play of chord that is recognized by your pressed keys !
If KBD SET you play has disabled chord scan or is split and your upper or lower keybed scan is off , the same will happen ...
If you play ensemble without chord scan or without pressing a chord by left hand , no ensemble will be heard ...

All our Pa5X work as yours according to this video.

[Basspig]

That's very interesting information. Curiously, I did not run into this matter for the first 3 weeks of ownership.

I suppose it's likely that I played the keyboard all those days BEFORE engaging the style player.

However, I DID play a lot of keys the day it would not play anything but drums. Plus, I thought there was always a DEFAULT key that the Styles would start in if no key was played on the keyboard.

Based on your input, I just did a little test which seems to bear out your statement. I power cycled it, then started a style playing (drums only) and then pressed a key on the left end of the keyboard and yes, the rest of the melodic parts started!

Now my next experiment is to shut the keyboard off over night and see if I can get it to work tomorrow by doing the same thing.

If that turns out to be the case, then I feel MUCH better that nothing is wrong with my Pa5X.

[JagiChan]

What I see in your video after rebooting , is that you expect orchestra to play without any played chord ...
Nope Style will never play anything except non melodic tracks like Drums & percussion !
The rule in all arrangers is that chord recognition will enable melodic tracks to play of chord that is recognized by your pressed keys !
If KBD SET you play has disabled chord scan or is split and your upper or lower keybed scan is off , the same will happen ...
If you play ensemble without chord scan or without pressing a chord by left hand , no ensemble will be heard ...

All our Pa5X work as yours according to this video.

I saw the video, and your explanation is correct. For the BASS, ACC1 to ACC6 tracks to play, it needs a chord. The Percussion/Drums will play without any chords. During style play, remember to keep the memory button turned on, otherwise, releasing the keys will remove the chord from the memory and it will default to playing only the drums.

[AntonySharmman]

Now my next experiment is to shut the keyboard off over night and see if I can get it to work tomorrow by doing the same thing.
If that turns out to be the case, then I feel MUCH better that nothing is wrong with my Pa5X.

I could never imagine to write 2 useless pages for the most fundamental rule of playing chords in a Style , just amassing !
Your arranger is working fine , stop complaining and restarting your keyboard and learn first how it works ... case is closed

[Basspig]

Well now that I know... but can anyone point to a specific page in the manual that says this?

So the randomness of the issue was probably the chance that I was in Lower chord mode when I hit the right part of the keyboard to give it a chord.

I always that there was a default chord like C for this feature. Probably would be a good thing to have a default chord at power up.

This drove me nuts for over a week!

This morning I did a cold start (keyboard powered off over night) and I booted it up, check the player and noted no melodic instruments playing, then hit the Lower button under Chords and hit a key on the left side of the keyboard and the melodic instruments start. So that proves it was all random chance and there is no problem with the keyboard at all. Even cold, it works.

Just wish the manual had something warning that "on startup, you will not hear melodic instruments until you play a chord" so I would know this early on.