Sorry guys, not about the Genos this time. ( incidentally, I am totally flabbergasted how Yamaha is pulling it off once more, ultimately making some of you part with their hard earned cash :/). Anyway there is no accounting for tastes, so if you're happy I am happy.

Those of you who know me or are familiar with my music and programming know that I basically have playes KORG since the beginning of this century. I had all the arranger models but only briefly tried the PA3X and even more briefly the PA4X, ultimately resorting to the old and trusted PA800, be in in combination with ,yet again, an old Ketron SD1plus.

This week I sold both keyboards and have ordered the PA1000 be it with doubt and fear.I will elaborate on that further on ( for those of you who can be torn from the Genos thread, haha) but first let us refresh our memory here on SOUNDS.
In this respect I must point out that I am a home musician, do not gig ( alas due to poor health) and I sing, or at least I try to. Is that important you might wonder. Most definitely.
First of all I try and arrange wellknown pop songs rather profoundly as I have no crowd to 'recognize my covers '.
A couple of years ago there was a long thread here on the subject of "How many sounds do you really need as an arranger player and/or performer ". I am sure Donny, Don and Deane will recall, actually I believe it was Donny who initiated that thread. Although answers inevitably varied the overall consensus was that approx. 50 superb sounds ( let us say 75 tops) would be amply sufficient. For those out gigging like Uncle Dave,Don, Donny , Deane etc. the essence would be "sounding like a real band ". Real bands basically implies superb drums and percussion, ( I will drop the superb as it goes for all of them), guitars, bass, piano, sax, trumpet, organ, and "varied ". I may be forgetting a few catagories but not all that many.Now if you were to have TEN superb sounds in each of the aforesaid category, wouldn't that go a long way to being well contented ? For crying out loud , forget about two or three thousand sounds on whichever Yamaha, Korg or Ketron !!!

Then there is the "programming issue ". I am 66 now and many of you that I know about are in the upper sixties or older. Many of the older ones, at least here in Holland have stuck with Yamaha as most of the programming is/was done for them cause out of the box Roland, Korg and to a lesser degree Ketron sounded awful in the first 10 years of this century. When I purchased my first PA800 as late as 2010 and started programming and offering them to other musicians around the globe I was surprised but also somewhat saddened to see and realize that after having been on the market for four years already my Resources were met with great enthusiasm and many told me that had given a new lease to their keyboard. I am not saying this to pat myself on the shoulders but rather to point out that the majority of (home) arranger keyboard players do not get beyond the basics and thank God on their knees that the present generation of keyboards have amply stocked Songbooks or its equivaent. ( In this respect it is interesting to see where Yamaha will be heading with this new beast of theirs)

Now as to my beef with Korg. I know some of you may remark that I am hammering on the same string again, but after carefully watching the instruction tutorials on SONGBOOK and KEYBOARD SETS I cannot but reiterate how much Korg goofed it and shortchanged its clients with the omission of PERFORMANCES ever since the introduction of the PA4X and subsequently also the new PA1000 etc.
Basically in all former models you could save a full REGISTRATION ( right hand sounds, left hand sounds, style, sounds in styles, etct.) into one single Performance. This Registration could be saved in two ways:
1/ as a Performance
2/ in the Songbook.

In the current models the first option has fully gone overboard. Instead Korg ( I would wager a fair bet saying Korg Italy) came forward with the idea of replacing Performances by Keyboard Sets. The latter basically only save sound combinations for right and left hand and no styles. In view of my remarks on SOUNDS I wonder how many keyboard sets anyone would wish to create. Second, and this will only sound familiar to those who played former Korg models, if you de-activated the
Style Change button in Performance mode, you basically had 256 Soundsets to your disposal with the same style !!!!

Anyway I have now decided to give it a final go ( built in speakers being very very important to me, in this respect I fully concur with Uncle Dave) but still hope and pray that one day they will update the current models by re-introducing the Performance Mode. This would not have to be done at the expense of the keyboard Sets in my view. The Keyboard Sets buttons could easily be awarded a double function thus restoring Performances while still retaining the current Keyboard Sets.
( Paolo, mi senti ????????????????)

kind regards,
John Smies