John, you said "You can accomplish #1 by using the Performance on your Pa3x. I shut off the Blinking STS light and select from the 4 STS settings -- or from the performance."

That is obviously what I am doing with the STS buttons although I do it with a foot switch and I am working with the Song Book rather than performances.

You said "Did the Technics STS settings change instruments immediately when you went to the next variation or did that wait for the next measure?"

As I said in my first post, the voicing changes immediately with the next note played, and the next variation occurs at the first beat of the following measure. This is with Panel Memories functioning in the expanded mode, of course.

Bob, I find that song book does a good job for selecting a song with all its frills; it covers a great deal. Performance does a different job it deals with instrumentation; I used it as an extension of the 4 STS settings. The STS and performance do a similar job; many times I will write one of the performance settings into a STS setting.

Panel memory in extended mode is equal to Performance plus Style. If I remember correctly some used up to 8 extended panel memories for one song because it was so easy to load a song from the card. You can do most of that with Performance.

Bob, when I first starting working with the Pa800 I would ask myself this question: How can I make this new keyboard do what I did with my Kn7? Well that was not a fair or complete question; each keyboard was designed differently. When I made some compromises I found that I not only got the job done but I was offered things I did not get from the Kn7. I had to tell myself to work with Korg’s design; the results have been great.

Keep going Bob, knowing you it won’t be long until you have your Pa3x doing one great job.

John C.