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I used to work as a Korg product specialist and brand manager. These kind of situations with released immature products have been a nightmare for Korg distributors/users/retailers before. This led to some serious flops like MP10 pro. One of Korgs big failures yet with huge potential. A lot of stores in Scandinavia for example don't stock expensive Korg keyboards anymore because of high return rates. Available only on request.

10 years ago Korg could afford these kinds of "brainfarts" but that is no longer the case.

Behringer has decimated sales of many manufacturer's synths, digital mixers and similar.

Before you rush and call Behringer a rubbish company make sure you are aware of what Music Tribe and Behringer has become. Behringer owns TC, Midas, Klark Teknik, Tannoy.... Behringer in 2022 is very different animal than 10 years ago.

Like it or not x32 has become an industry standard around the world, and replaced Yamaha, Sony.... Deep Mind is the best synthesizer released in ages. Not my opinion, sales reports are clear, reviews, it can be seen in every serious production facility around the world. In the end it sounds killer!

It is just question of time when they turn towards arrangers, or show interest in acquiring a brand like Korg, Roland, Ketron... before you say it will never happen, i would have said the same 10 years ago for brands they now own!

This post would have been my report to Korg regional managers some 12 years ago, instead i write it today here so everyone gets this reality check. This is not a rant, this is heads up, and the only reason i write this is because i love Korg.

Remember what kind of improvement Pa1x was over the Pa80. Or Kronos over the M3. This is at least what i expected of Pa5x. And the reason i never upgraded to Pa4x from Pa3x. There's nothing Pa4x can offer that i can't get out of my Pa3x.

I was on the way to Germany to buy the Pa5x when i read i couldn't make styles on the Pa5x (YET!). So i turned my car around and canceled the order.

Korg Italy, ask the Japanese for help and get this thing in check as soon as possible!!!

To me, at least, it's more than clear that most of the heavy lifting went into conversion of the old stuff to the new hardware so that Korg arrangers can still have future with coming ARM processors and other hardware. No real improvement is made to the instrument. Again this was supposed to be M3>Kronos improvement!!! Instead Korg made crippled M3 work on Kronos hardware.

Dear Korg, you made insanely good software that worked with 50$ mainboard with integrated CPU and made history with Kronos. And some money and reputation along the way. 50$ retail widely available Intel mainboard and CPU! That's the Korg i know. Pa5x is at this point mediocre.

For me personally this is not an issue. I make my own keyboards and other instruments, i'll get by. Porting Pa5x's OS into my own ARM based keyboard wouldn't be an issue either. I just miss that feeling of thrill when i sit before amazing new Korg product for the first time.

I won't be engaging into passionate discussions regarding what i just said, i just hope they who should, get to read this.

Kind regards to everyone!

Interesting post.
Glad i bought a Behringer FCB1010 instead of an EC5.

If Behringer ever manage to release an arranger with 16 Gb of ram for sampling, multiple synth engines and deep sound editing capabilities, it will surely become a new standard in the arranger market.

I'm just curious to know how it's possible to port the Pa5x OS on an another keyboard?

It's not the question if Behringer could, it's a question if they would be interested. They have done some pretty amazing stuff thanks to TC, Midas, and Klark Teknik staff. 16GB in 2022 is a joke. My keyboard had 64GB of RAM in 2011.

In order to run an os on a device it's not designed for you would need to be proficient in programing, and having access to the source code would be helpful. However my point was not to encourage this, it would be illegal as well.

I frankly am not sure what your Pa5x related point actually is?..

If it is that Behringer is a good company then sure, yes they are... they make affordable stuff and trade quantity for low margins.. but so what?..

The arranger market is small, the arranger market for keyboards with quality sample sets (say arrangers >$800 or so) is very small, and the "professional" arranger market is minute and pretty much covered with just two products, neither of which i suspect sells in huge volumes... This is NOT a market that Behringer would bother to address as the "quantity" part of the equation is not high enough to trade low profits for.

There is zero equivalence between the x32 and an arranger. The library of samples, sounds, functions and synth architectures required in a quality arranger is very significant.. so its no surprise that Yamaha and Korg are the only high end participants.. Roland could if they wish, but they choose not to wish.. In essence the portfolio of competencies and skill sets is far beyond what Behringer can achieve without acquisition.

So...so what?.. say they do, or fake it, say they can put a Tyros 5 into a Beh-arranger and charge $800... they STILL will not make the profit dollars they wish based upon ROI.. as the VOLUME is still not that great.. so even if they could, they won't.

..and who cares?.. The number of Behringer products that were unique, novel and new that I can recall is one single item. one. There is zero reason for Korg to fear that Big Bad B is coming to eat their Arranger lunch.. none at all..

If however this is a gripe about restricted feature set & bugs in the Pa5x then go away and come back in a year.. or go check out what Roland has done to the Fantom workstation.. from a good sounding but ho-hum workstation to OMFG say what?? in 2-3 years is very impressive... This is how products are now delivered.. check out Novation also..

the sky is not falling.. Korg, Like Roland with the Fantom, make a huge time and $$$ commitment to a new platform and clearly are financially pressed to release it as soon as practical.. it is now commonly accepted that there will be updates and improvements over time, and Korg have already earned my respect on that aspect due to the Pa4x so either like it and love the promise that the Pa5x shows, or go away, play the Pa4x until the Pa5x has what you need..

just nothing to see here.

Yeah, no. I wouldn’t use Behringer products. At least, not me. I love the products Korg makes, I’ve also had multiple different brands when new releases came out. They all had issues when it was first released. I stopped buying products, when they’re newly released. I wait until updates are made, changes are made and so on. Keep in mind, the Pa5x uses a totally different OS, yes there may be a lot of os bugs, but it is a newly OS on a PA product. So after some updates, I am sure they will be fixed. Do I like Behringer products? Yes, I do. Would I use the arranger or what not, no I would not. I’ve been using Korg keyboards, and I am happy with them.

Behringer do indeed make some pretty amazing synths. I actually bought their Deepmind 12 which is easily one of the most original sounding synths I’m owned in a long time. That being said, Behringer are focused on Analog synths. To bring out a digital PCM based Arranger would be a complete U-Turn in the direction they are going right now. Not sure I can see them ever doing that.

Regards
Sharp.