Korg Forums

Hi..I'm gettting different numbers on the weight of the PA588. It says 67 lbs one place and 51 somewhere else. Maybe one includes the stand and the pedal.
I was lugging a Korg O1W-Pro X for some years. 77 lbs, plus a 30 lb skb case with no wheels.
anyway thanks for any update.
PA500 sure is nice, but I miss the real keys sometimes.

A while ago I was convinced to trade in my PA500 to a PA588.
In the end I didn't, because it costs a lot of money, and the only extra you get is:
- a grand piano sample which is not that great IMHO
- a full 88 weighted keybed, which is good, but also not the best; not worth the money to me anyway.
- a lot of extra weight, because, yes indeed, PA588 is almost importable for one man alone.

Here's a suggestion for you:
- get yourself a good 88 keys midicontroller-keybed
- use this in combination with your PA500 and/or a good sound module, for instance: Ketron SD2 or SD4, or a soft synth.
You get better sound, more flexibilty and loads of possibilities, with less weight.

And I also think for less or about the same amount of money.

Thanks for the suggestion. That's where I am right now. I have a Roland FantomX which I have in a midi network with the PA500. Its quite handy to grab the PA500 and take it out the door to the little gigs I do. I plug it into a Yamaha Mixer and some Mackie SM450s and I have a nice sound. But I miss having good piano keys. So I can set up live to play with real piano keys as you suggest, but then I have to take two keyboards. The PA arrangers are how I get the best song list though. None of the other keyboards have the styles and variations and fills with the bass guitar following your chords. So Its always kind of a tradeoff. I play the Grieg piano concerto and some other piano music that fits best on 88 keys. Also I'm often wondering where I am on the keyboard. .. shift the octave or play on the high side or the low side to get the right relation to middle C.
I Really like some features of the Roland Fantom X some of the "combis" which are called Performances on Roland. So i was going to go to a sound module to get that.
As it is in my studio, I practise on the Roland, and I'm getting the PA sounds, but when I play live... you know part of your performance on the Korg PA arrangers is how good you are at pushing your buttons. So I don't have as much practise pushing my buttons. Really your songs are much better when you can flip through your styles and add your fills, but you really have to practise that to get it polished. And those "plastic tabs" they call keys ALL of the 61 keyboards just don't really respond right.
I might have a really good deal on a PA500. I don't think they are a hot seller for KORG. Just pianists want them. I tried one in the store and it is much better speakers than the PA500, but I still use external amplification.
thanks a lot for the input. I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

This is a channel of about 160 vids of my music... some needs a full piano keyboard (often they have a real piano there) and some was done on a PA80 before I upgraded to PA500.

http://www.youtube.com/user/paulmpianist1?feature=mhum

You can get a weighted keys. And take only one keyboard with you instead of carrying two KBs plus sound module. PA588 is little over 51 lbs. You might consider a SKB case or bag. Other hard (wood) case will add more weight.