Physical
The Pa2x is smaller (10 cm shorter) and lighter (by 1.5 kg) than the Pa1x Pro. Whereas the Pa1x pro struggled to fit in my Gator 76 key trolley bag, the Pa2x fits very easily. The Pa2x is narrower and only 10 cm longer than the Pa800. It looks fantastic - the white satin finish and wooden end panels are very smart.
Display
The display screen is much more readable from a normal playing position, I like the adjustable angle. The display was not as sharp as the display on my Pa1x, there seems to be a problem with text and graphics causing "smearing" and "shadowing" on adjacent rows of the display. Adjusting the contrast and viewing angle did not help. I do not know if this is a problem with my particular Pa2x or whether they are all like it. The VIF4 board fitted to my Pa2x is able to propagate the small display and magnify it for viewing on an external 19 inch monitor. There was no problem with "smearing" on the external monitor. This is fantastic for 50-yr-old myopics like me.
Keys
The keys on the Pa2x are superior to those on the Pa1x Pro, they have a more solid feel and are more progressive in action. The "feel" of a Pa2x is more like playing a classical piano with weighted keys and damped action, whereas the "feel" of the Pa800 is more like a traditional electronic organ.
Sounds
The new "Grand Piano RX" sound - available only on the Pa2x currently - is from Korg's flagship C720 concert piano. This sound is one of the best I've heard and beats the famous "Reuben Set" of piano sounds and samples which previously were the state of the art on my Pa1x Pro. Notes played with the sustain pedal "on" resonate just like notes played on my Bluthner concert grand. The only thing missing with the Pa2x's grand piano is that you have to press the sustain pedal before playing the notes in order for string resonance to kick in. Whereas on a "real piano" you can play and hold a chord, depress the sustain pedal afterwards and the string resonance will kick in. This doesn't happen on the Pa2x (or on most other electronic pianos).
Also, among the Electric Piano bank there is a new "Tine E.Piano RX" sound which is far superior to any of the electric pianos in the factory set on the Pa1x Pro. It is very expressive, and the sound's pan position appears to be triggered on velocity. Anyway it gives a nice effect that I hadn't heard before on any sounds on the Pa1x.
Equaliser
My home in Corfu has a high 30 ft ceiling - there is even a tree in the middle of the house - and so the accoustics are a bit like a concert hall. I found that in this setting, the Pa2x sounds when played through my studio monitor speakers were over emphasising the bass and the high frequencies were rather dull. So I was grateful for the new 3 band overall equaliser, which I quickly enabled, and dialed in +3 dB of treble boost and -3 dB of bass cut, leaving midrange at 0 dB.
OS and MR Upgrade
I was mindful of the experience of other users of Pa2x OS1.0 where there is known to be a memory leak problem when loading or editing sample sounds, which corrupts the flash eprom memory and can cause the keyboard to lock up. Hence before doing any sampling, I upgraded to Pa2x OS1.1 and Musical Resources 1.1 which fix this problem. The total time to perform the upgrade was less than 4 minutes - a respectable improvement on the Pa1x Pro which used to take 10 to 15 minutes to perform an upgrade.
Vocal Harmoniser
I looked at the Vocal Harmony presets and realized that my favourite harmony preset on the Pa1x called "Staying Put 4 Now" was missing. So I created my own version, setting the gender parameters for the three harmony voices to +5 which is "slightly Male" and the harmony settings to "up 1", "up 2", and "up 3". This means that if I sing say a "G" and the chord is A minor then the harmony will be the A, C and E notes above the G note I am singing. I have a bass voice and have to trasnpose most songs down by three semitones which can make the arrangement a bit growly. So I found these overlaid higher pitched voices to be the best harmony settings for me. I saved the new preset as number 40, "Rob's harmony".
I think the Harmoniser on the Pa2x sounds better than on the Pa1x pro. It is quicker at synthesising the harmony notes and there is imperceptible delay. I recorded a number of MP3 songs with vocal harmonies and styles and fills and variations. The recordings all sounded better to me than ones I had done earlier on the Pa1x pro for the same songs. My vocals are not up to the standard of the choir members at Holy Trinity, and I certainly wont get a recording contract. However the MP3 recording facility and the Harmoniser are very useful tools as I work out arrangements and accompaniments for the choir members.
Configuration
There were a number of Global setup changes I needed to make to suit my style of playing. I am primarily a pianist and so prefer the "full keyboard" chord scanning option, with advanced chord recognition. I locked these settings so style changes will not override them. I also selected the option to auto select the last sound, performance or style from each bank. This means I can just touch a style, sound or performance button while playing and the style or sound will instantly change to the last one selected from that bank. I edited the performances for "Grand Piano RX" and "Tine E Piano RX" to use I3 strings on track 3 and Rock Organ GM transposed +1 octave on track 2. I carefully balanced the volume for each track so I could switch between the two performances while playing without any glitches on volume. I like to alternate between Grand Piano and Electric Piano for different verses. I increased the chorus FXD send level for the pianos slightly because I prefer a thicker piano sound than the default. I set the Fill Mode for Fill1 Fill2 and Fill3 so that they Select Var1, Var2 and Var3 automatically. I never have time to press two buttons when I want a break! I then saved the new performances to their original locations. My new settings for "Grand Piano RX" are now automatically selected when the keyboard powers up. I also saved the Global Style Preferences for the Fill Mode changes I had made.
That just about completed my preparation for using the Pa2x Pro. I am currently starting to load additional user resources such as extra styles. I like the new "favourite style" implementation on the Pa2x a lot. It replaces the old "Direct HD" implementation on the Pa1x. It's better because I can now name each bank exactly as I choose. I'm currently on the trawl for some good traditional "Light Rock" styles to supplement the "Rock" section on the Pa2x which is a bit too heavy for me!
Guitar Mode
I was very keen to try out the new "Guitar Mode" on the Pa2x (which has been available on the Pa800 since OS1.50). I hoped to find several good "Light Rock" and "Bossanova" and "Jazz" styles making use of this. The first problem was that it's not immediately obvious which (if any) of the factory styles use Guitar mode backings. In Style Play mode I couldn't find any track status display to indicate whether a track is operating in "Guitar Mode" or not. You have to go into the murky depths of Style Editing. I tried editing several styles only to find that none of the tracks playing guitar sounds were operating in "guitar mode". I was disappointed. I hope that Korg will issue an update to the factory styles that incorporates "guitar mode" in the future, and that the documentation will make it clear which styles implement "guitar mode". Also we need to have a different colour or something in the track display to indicate when a guitar sound is being triggered in "guitar mode" by the style track. "Guitar Mode" has a lot of unrealized potential in my view, and I do not understand why Korg are not capitalizing on this new feature in the Pa keyboards as they should.
Closing Remarks
There have been mixed reports on this forum concerning the Pa2x. Many of the bad experiences stem from the memory leak bug in OS1.0 when using sampling facilities. The good news is that this major problem appears to be fixed in OS1.1. From my limited experience of just 4 days' ownership, my Pa2x has been 100% reliable despite my probing every area that caused problems in OS1.0. I prefer the look and feel of the Pa2x compared with the Pa1x Pro. The sounds are better. There is sufficient memory for several year's expansion of new facilities, new styles and sounds. The introduction of the Pa2x in my opinion places Korg streets ahead of Yamaha and Roland for people who want the best sounding arranger/sampler keyboard on the market. Is there room for improvement? Yes, the styles and the OS should be enhanced to better promote and make accessible the new "guitar mode" features. And of course we need better facilities on a PC to be able to load and merge and organise styles and sounds and samples being imported from other sources.
