Before you get excited, think. Do you have any Korg PA series after PA80/60/50? If you do, skip.


Same name as I3 (1993)?

What were they thinking?



Looks like repackaged EK50 without speakers. Slimmer/ added MIDI out socket and 16 track sequencer. Super lightweight ( 8 pounds) Looks like retail around $500.


More to come.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.musicra...and-performance



https://www.korg.com/caen/products/synthesizers/i3/




Same sound engine but less capability ( no user style creation) than PA80/60/50/micro arranger. Additions are audio file ( recording , SMF to Wav,) MP3/Wav playback and battery power capability.


This will strengthen PA80 3rd party style market.



Korg has been milking Triton sound chip since 1999 ( 20 years). PA80/60/50/Microarranger/ EK series and now so called “ new I3”.

RH sounds great. Styles , outdated. Same jumpy fills, you bet. ( remember, more primitive than PA1x). They should have used PA300 engine and improve it.


Also , EK50 L with more “dance” sound/ styles ( 10 more styles)
https://www.korg.com/caen/products/synthesizers/ek_50_l

One more.

XE20- 88 key EK 50 arranger board with additional piano sounds (German piano and Italian piano: total maximum 120 voices) , Arranger polyphony-64. Again , no midi out. Just USB to justify the price.

https://www.korg.com/us/products/digitalpianos/xe20/

Selling for $799 will definitely beat Yamaha DGX which has only 2 variations.
The advantage of Yammy will be it’s GHS keys ( even though they are low end unlike GHE keybeds) , which are better than Korg B2 ( not D1) keys which XE20 supposed to be based upon.



Arranger functionality wise, $799 PA300 ( which Havian was based on)can do much better ( even though it lacks midi out and and only has shared out). Good thing about Havian was it had a joystick.

For sub $800 bang for the buck buyers: Wait for PA300 and PSR 670 replacements or buy used PA 600/ PSR 775 , etc.