Korg Forums

[Eduardo_Arg]

Hi Friends:

The choece between Arrangers and/or Workstations have no logical sense.-
For professional musician both have's it's own utility.-
Arrangers are an excellent hardware tool to 'inmediatelly' perform any musical idea; meanwhile workstations give's the 'power and expresivity' to those ideas.-
The dilema is where to invest our money, just that.-
We can't denied that when a new keyboard appears, we want to buy a feel good with it's new sounds and hardware options.- But money is allways the wall.-
In my case, as in my country new products are too high, i give long live to my hardware and buy new models when my economy allow me; so i've some workstations (M3 and Triton), sound old modules (Roland and Korg), and also an arranger PA600.-
Many times with my guitarrist compose practically all songs using PA600 and a good acoustic guitar.-
When song is 'defined', we show to our partners and go - in my case to M3, Triton and sound modules' and search for the apropiate sounds, and everyone else to it's own instrument.-
PA arrangers are the best hardware tool to compose.-
The comparision between 'styles' and 'karma' IMHO have no sense; with 'Karma' or with PA arrangers, you can perform the most complex arpeggios or musical phrases; most musicians prefers Karma because it has the power of highend sounds engines; but with less efforts you can do the same with Style creator (PA arrangers).-
Finally, for those who disagree with 61 keybed, for composing it's enough also for live playing (please see some good keyboardist like: Derek Sherinian that uses Nord 49 keys; or Tony Banks with a superlative 61 Keys Korg Wavestation); as somebody says (i'm a user one) you can add an 88 keybed controller to your PA arrangers.-
The only important thing is enjoying playin music.-
With regards.
Eduardo
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Korg Kronos 2 88 - Korg PA4x 76 - Roland Fantom 08 - Korg N1R Sound Module - Korg 05RW Sound Module - Roland UM550 Edirol Midi Patchbay Amp pair SWR California Blonde II

[stratquebec]

@Dikikeys
@karmathanever
@everyone!

Thank you so much for joining the discussion.
All your points help me choose the right tool for my needs. It's so much appreciated.

I'll tell you this: I bougth a Triton Le a couple of years ago. I didn't played it that much sice lastly. I always did and still do my stuff with Logic Pro.

But lastly I took the time to explore and learn the rather obscur Triton interface ( menus, sequencer, effects routing etc) with the result that now I enjoy working with this workstation a lot. It's a fast tool to record my ideas quickly. No need to launch my DAW and mess around with the mouse, screensets, templates etc. On the Triton, I choose a combi, put the thing in record mode and let's go! It's all fast and easy.

Now I realise that working with styles can help me a lot. It's the oposite way than with with my DAW. With my DAW, I develop the motif first ( a chord sequence, a melodie) and the style afterward. The motif is the originator.

With the triton I work from a combi+arpegiator ( a kind of style in a way) and find a melodie and or chord sequence afterward. Two different approches. Te style is the originator. Both methods give excellent results but with the Triton, I can get ideas recorded really quickly. No mouse, interface and devices to care about. I can concentrate more on the music right now.

I like working with both DAW and workstation. But now, the Triton is an old piece of gear. It's time to upgrade. Then, I discovered the Kronos and now the arrangers and find that they can be very helpful and inspiring and deserve more attention then I thought at first.

It's a whole new world to explore. I can't afford both the Kronos and an arranger so I'll go for an arranger first. And now: Korg, Yamaha, even Roland BK-9?

I read, I listen, I learn.

[Dikikeys]

@Karma
For drums, give BFD2 or Superior Drums a good listen... amazing stuff!

For modern beats and synth stuff, Omnisphere2 is also a killer package.

If on a budget, even Garritan Personal Orchestra can give you good results if you need classical stuff.

The world of VSTi's has become so powerful, a WS at home just for studio use is becoming something of a dinosaur.

But there's nothing in software to replace the arranger (many have tried, none have succeeded!) yet..!

@Strat
I think that there's much you can do with saving basic 'composing templates' in Logic. Cubase, etc. that can ease the process of using your DAW for songwriting. Set up tracks in advance with samplers loaded, drum VSTi's set up ready to go (with a library of basic beats), plenty of VSTi tracks already enabled so it's all at your fingertips the moment you load the template.

Most of the roadblock to creativity on a DAW comes from not putting the time in first, and setting up a familiar creative environment that loads ready to be used. Do this first, and you can make the creative process far less unintuitive... Make the setup YOURS, make it ready to go with all your familiar tools ready loaded, make the track structure standardized, and you leave yourself much more brain time to apply simply to composition.

A well designed 'composer template' can be as easy to use (and ultimately more powerful) as any WS. And it has the advantage that the same environment can take it from rough draft to finished product.

[stratquebec]

Digikeys, You're rigth about Logic or Cubase but surprisingly, I found some great musical ideas with my Triton that would had never came in my mind with the DAW's.

There's something more organic hapening with my WS. So I think that an arranger is somtehing that I will enjoy working with.

OTOH, a PA3x is way too expensive at least for home work. Something like the PA600 or 900 will be just fine for me.

[Dikikeys]

Strat, take a good close look at Omnisphere2... There's so much inspirational stuff in there, plus it does combis, splits, layers, and has a huge (way greater than any WS) selection of presets already programmed.

It is, IMHO, one of the most groundbreaking software products for years.

[worth]

Just bare in mind the thread title as we tend to go off on our own frolicks and forget what the OP originally asked for ....

[Sam CA]

This thread did go for a ride .... mostly off course, but with great points in there. This could be a good place to start for those who are thinking Arranger vs workstation...

At this point though, it's kind of back again to where it started.

Like I said, think of Arranger keyboards as Preset/Loop based machines. Almost EVERYTHING is built around "Styles". Anything else takes a backseat. You can either use the stock presets or create your own from scratch ...or anything in between . (Worth covered that pretty well).

I signed up in one of the most popular Yamaha keyboard forums and asked some questions about certain features. I was shocked to find out you couldn't even do something so basic as having multiple time signature within the same style! You had to use some kind of unofficial external software developed by a Yamaha user to do that. Although Yamaha keyboards shine in certain areas (such as certain Sound categories, bigger memory, product support for Sounds and styles...etc) but for someone who creates their own material features come first.

Regardless of which brand you go for, ALL arranger keyboards have a weak sequencer. Again, if you want to lay down ideas and build songs real fast, nothing beats an arranger. I write and arrange songs for Choirs all the time. Generally, I use the arranger to record a quick backing track. This way, I can start rehearsing with people right away, as it takes much longer to produce the real track . That's just one of many ways that I use the arranger. I NEVER use the keyboard sounds in the final product, especially if i'm working on a track with orchestral arrangement.

It really depends on your expectations and workflow. If you want to create full songs with full long intro, bridges and such, you'll see yourself using a larger number of bars. Say you have a 24 bars Intro in Style Record Mode and you don't like something in bar 23. You can edit that bar, but you can NOT listen to the changes just for that bar. You would have to keep playing the Intro from the very beginning everytime you wanted to listen to something anywhere within that section. Not sure about the PA4x, but for the rest you can not set a "From-to playback range" . Try editing the velocity values or other midi parameters for a 3 minute song and see how long it will take to do that. The list goes on... In my case, I either use DAW to program midi files/Styles, or just use the arranger to create quick backing tracks for rehearsal purposes. For live gigs, I create my own Styles all the time and never had a problem so far.

I don't think any of these companies will improve their onboard sequencers by much as they know most people have access to their favorite DAW these days. You can go back and forth between the arranger and a DAW to save time , that is if your recordings require heavy editing. If not, then you can record a track in no time.
_________________
Sam

[Xx_Joey_xX]

Its a sick joke from Korg. They wanna milk this cow as long as they can.
Why 4 outputs only? are you joking ? Extreme, Kronos, M3, Audya, and others have 6, pa4x in 2015 almost 2016 4 4outs !

400 mb sampling? why not a gig at least?

I would rather keep my pa3x and use a 24 bit sound module like the Roland Integra which would give me sound drums and sounds that the pa4x can't match cause this would be 24 bit. and give me 8 outs !

Why does the 61 key version of the pa4x have piano shaped keys ?
why aren't they m3 style syth action on the 61?

The problem seems to be that KORG r&d have mostly engineers and maybe studio musicians, not people who gig 3-4 times a week.
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pLaY yOuR wAy tO tHe nExT lEveL

[Bachus]

Using VSTs on top of any arranger is a great way to expand it..

I am using Mainstage as a vst host, which comes with 18 synth engines and just as many legacy engines, and over 100GB of sounds for just €30. Its also where i host VSTs. (Omnisphere 2 and the NI reaktor engine currently being my favourits)

I recently hooked my sisters 4 year old macbook up to my nefews G70 and bought them a copy of mainstage.. Using an ipad as a touchcontroller.. And while the venerable G70 still sounds good, using mainstage (even witouth VSTs) gives them close to the best possible piano and fat synthsounds. )

I can tell you that my two little budies are having fun making music..

[afr]

[stratquebec]

afr, thanks for your inputs!

One thing I wanna ask is : you would pay near 4000 to get a pa3x just to get those accoustic samples? Does it make any sens?

For sure if you can afford both a Kronos and the PA3x that's wonderful but 4000 more for those accoustic sounds, really?

[Bachus]

[Dikikeys]

There's often little crossover between the design teams for arrangers and the same company's WS team. All too often, they are on different continents, share no common language (WS's on the whole tend to be designed in Japan, arrangers in Europe) and generally the arranger team doesn't get much respect from the 'hardcore' synth people...

Take SA1/2... It took Yamaha quite a long time to port the basic technology over to the Motif line, and even then it was a half-hearted port, with few of the best sample sets making it. Ensemble Mode still has no Motif equivalent.

It's the other way around with Roland and SuperNatural sounds. It's a pretty half-hearted port from the Integra and Jupiter line over to the BK-9.

Never the twain shall meet, at least not initially, it seems! Which SORT of makes a bit of twisted sense, at least from a sales POV... Now you gotta buy two keyboards. Win/win for Korg.

Lose/lose for us!

[Bachus]

[stratquebec]