Hate to say it, but I don’t see the PA5 ready for pro use (if one is a pro that uses samples, the Songbook, the MIDI to Style converter and all the other missing or bugged stuff) for at least a year. Look how long it took Korg to address some of the PA4’s shortcomings, and that actually DID have all the aforementioned stuff working!

Now naturally, I’m sure that Covid, the economy collapse, the chip supply chain disruptions and a host of other factors played significantly into this debacle, but the fact is, Korg had a highly regarded fully professional arranger already out there, and next to no competition amongst power users (Yamaha wasn’t luring many away from Korg with the Genos), and to be quite frank, a few OS updates and a slew of new factory styles would have kept the faithful in line for a couple more years.

Rushing out a half finished massively buggy new TOTL arranger completely incapable of being used professionally only succeeded in making their competitors more viable for those wanting fresh meat.

I can only imagine how tough for Korg the Covid years became, and how hard the economic downturn hit their bottom line, but their overall corporate health seemed okay, the synth lines etc. we’re still selling well. To torpedo the arranger division before they had a good product ready to go, well, that’s how Roland screwed the pooch and decided to get the hell out of the segment..!

Hopefully not Korg’s intention, but they DO seem to be following the same blundering path… 🎹