I have a hard time getting used to Korg's operating systems myself, whether the Pa80, Triton, OASYS, TR series, etc. The GUI's seems clunky and non-intuitive for my liking. Even their new M3 is overly challenging and you have to dig deep into the sub-menus in many instances, to get what you need and because of it, it can be especially detrimental when performing live.

OTOH, I really like Yamaha's approach, at least on the Tyros anyway. It is very live performance friendly and the GUI is easy to navigate and also pleasing to look at. Korg?? Puhleezzze!! Are you kidding? . At least that's how I feel about their current crop of keyboards anyway. Although I haven't been able to demo a Pa800 so I can't speak one way or the other about its OS/GUI; at least from a firsthand perspective anyway.

When you said it was missing something, could that be the "sounds" perhap? I've heard many demos of the Pa800 and I thought a lot of the sounds were very good with some bordering on excellent. But the Korg Pa site has basically just a handful of individual instrument sounds to showcase and of course Korg is trying to put its best foot forward with the demos that are on the site and it really doesn't give a broad overview of what's really on the Pa800. So many of the instrument sounds and other synth type sounds, etc., could indeed be just so so or 'okay' to perhaps just 'pretty good' sounding. So maybe that's what you were missing Mikey? The 900 or so other sounds on the Pa800 that just didn't thrill you to pieces possibly??

Another thing I wanted to mention was the VH on the Pa800. I heard from a Pa800 owner that the Vocal Harmony was only on par with the Tyros/2 as far as quality in his estimation. He said that even though it has a TC Helicon processor it is basically a scaled down version of, for instance, the TC Helicon Voice Works standalone unit and therefore does not have a full (retail) version of the TC Helicon processor onboard. The processor is just a scaled down version of the retail TC Helicon units they sell at the stores from what I understand.

Now before anybody flames me to death - I am just repeating what he said so don't shoot the messenger okay??

You said that the VH on the Pa800 blew you away Mikey so that is very interesting when you compare it to the Pa800 owner that thought it was on par with the Tyros/2.

I will nevertheless reserve judgement until I can actually hear it in person or perhaps some of our devoted Pa800 owners on the Zone could provide a demontration? Any takers?? >> It may be quite a while before I can hear one in person.

Best,
Mike


[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 01-14-2008).]