Advice on PA4X

[Tblack]

I do mostly singing and songwriting. I am looking to streamline my studio and was wondering if I could leverage the Arranger for writing songs while also using it for a controller keyboard to play software instruments like Konakt and SampleTank? I have a PA600 but it seems somewhat limited in this regard or I just haven't figured it out.

Thanks,

Terry

[AntonySharmman]

Your options in order for that you want are :
1) Korg Kronos primary or Yamaha Montage
2) Pa4X OS v3 or Yamaha Genos , according to your preferences.

[kbrkr]

The Pa4x is an excellent writing tool. You have all the sounds. You can combine the sounds for lush textures. You have 100's of styles, but you can create your own easily. You can created basic styles from MIDI files and then tweak them then record/overdub into a song or style.

Once you get your act together, you can then perform with it!

The Kronos and Montage have VERY different workflows. For example, the Kronos has KARMA which is very difficult to learn; which will follow your chords and doesn't have any breaks/intros/endings.

[Minneapolis Musician]

I use the Pa4x in the studio as my main keyboard, and record the audio into a DAW and add Omnisphere as needed using the Pa4x as a MIDI keyboard.

The Pa4x is designed for songwriting. It's the best tool I have ever had for songwriting.

THIS song was written on the Pa4x and the Ps4x is the main instrument you hear: https://www.reverbnation.com/glenngalen ... rsion-2017

[QuiRobinez]

I do mostly singing and songwriting. I am looking to streamline my studio and was wondering if I could leverage the Arranger for writing songs while also using it for a controller keyboard to play software instruments like Konakt and SampleTank? I have a PA600 but it seems somewhat limited in this regard or I just haven't figured it out.

yes you can do this quite easely, i've posted an example of this on my youtube channel.

You need to connecting the usb of the Korg Pa4x to your computer so that you can use the midi functionality of the Korg Pa4x. Then what you do is start Ableton Live (or any DAW of your choice), add 16 midi tracks over there and route them to the Korg Pa4x for each midi channel by selecting Pa4x 1 Keyboard and the corresponding midi channel below it and set the monitoring for each channel to In.

The next step is to set on global mode - midi out on the pa4x that you route every channel (16 are there) to the corresponding channel and set global Local midi control to off on the pa4x, because you do the routing now through Ableton Live. Then load a midi file in the korg pa4x and press play on the korg pa4x.

The routing above ensures that you hear all the sounds the same way is normally on your pa4x because the routing is done in ableton now to the pa4x. But if you want for instance change the strings in the midi file to Omnisphere VST instrument, then the only thing you have to do is to load the omnisphere synth for that specific channel and select a string sound in omnispere.

Now the string midi information is still set from your pa4x to the daw but you routed that specific midi channel to omnisphere instead of the pa4x. This is what i do in this video for the strings and choir sounds. It sounds more complicated then it actually is. Once you understand the midi routing then it's really easy to do on your computer.

In this example i created a midi file in my daw and loaded that one into the korg pa4x. Then i use the method as described above to merge the sounds of the daw (soft synths) and the korg pa4x while playing in realtime over the midi track. This way your computer DAW soft synths are part of your pa4x.


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[Minneapolis Musician]

QuiRobinez,

Yes, I do this often. And for live I would have Omnisphere on a laptop.

[QuiRobinez]

QuiRobinez,

Yes, I do this often. And for live I would have Omnisphere on a laptop.

yes, once you set it up in a studio environment the possibilities are endless, i'm working now on a mashup remix from the television series Stranger Things versus the main theme of basic instinct.

This is a great method to get that done, i programmed the analog sounds in the VST diva (the arpeggiators and lead sounds) and incorperate by playing the tune live on the pa4x. This works great.