AJ,

I am not disputing that this may well have been your experience (and I sure hope that it could be mine). However, I did run out of the polyphony with my Roland G1000, which handles allocation very well, and has 64 notes of poly. Hence, I am a bit apprehensive about going to a Korg.

I will be looking forward to trying it, but Korg would have to convince me that with my playing style it is still going to play all the notes without running out.

And why should they do this? The electronics are so cheap these days they could have easily quadrupled (or at least doubled) the polyphony with only a minor programming change, unless they are staying with the 10-year-old processor technology, in which case they deserve all the bad press they are getting here.

A $3-4000 instrument deserves to have at least an up-to-date processor, rather than the recycled crap inside.

Regards,
Alex

Alex,

A G1000 may handle polyphony well, but it just isn't a PA80 or a Korg. I still have yet to hear of anyone who has run out on a modern korg arranger. I have asked this a number of times on this forum and elsewhere only because I'd like to know for myself what he / she was doing with the board when it happened. So far, noone has indicated that it's happened to them.

I have had mine for a long time now and prior to getting my Motif ES I played it just about every day, and I still play it fairly often. Mind you, I have made many of my own combinations, with as many as 3 patches layered together ( at up to 4 raw samples per patch ). I use sustain and the arranger function often enough, and I still haven't run out. On my original Motif, ( also "62 " notes of poly ), all I had to do was sustain a few notes, and I easily ran out.

I have no reason to mistate this. There are enough things on the PA80 that I do find to be annoying and I have been vocal enough about them ( lack of fills per style and sometimes poor matching fills to boot are among my chief complaints ). These are among the things that I hope Korg has addressed. The 62 notes of polyphony has never affected my playing, so for me it's a non issue.

Specs are good as a measuring bar, but they don't tell the whole story. If you are running out of notes with 62 notes of Poly then that's an issue, but I still think it's only an issue when it actually happens.

This is an example of why I, and I think many others recommend the try before you buy approach. If the polyphony concerns you, then try the board out, and see if you can create a ( realistic ) condition that causes the notes to drop out.

Regards
AJ


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 01-15-2004).]

I agree with Alex - when keybooards like the Yamaha PSR1500 have 96 notes of polyphony and the PSR3000 has 128 notes at less than half of the guesstimated cost of the New Korg arranger or less, well it doesn't look good in print if nothing else when Korg marketing insists that 62 notes of polyphony is "generous". The people who pay as much as Korg wants for the PA1X are the generous ones...

Yep, and if Yamaha has the poly allocated the way it is on the Motif series, I would bet good money that I can make those 128 Yamaha notes of poly run out faster than I can the PA80's 62, given the exact same playing condition.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 01-15-2004).]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bluezplayer:
[B]Yep, and if Yamaha has the poly allocated the way it is on the Motif series, I would bet good money that I can make those 128 Yamaha notes of poly run out faster than I can the PA80's 62, given the exact same playing condition.

AJ

Yes AJ the "Motif" series but not the "Motif ES" series. The original Motif had 64 note Polyphony as we all know and people that owned them were frequently complaining about Polyphony shortcomings, ie., note drop off. But the Motif ES has 128 note Polyphony and it is "True" 128 note Polyphony which means the Polyphony is allocated across the entire Keyboard not, let's say, 64 for Panel and 64 for XG Voices, etc. And for every note played on the Motif "ES" Keys is 1 note of Polyphony. If you layer Voices and or the Voice itself has layers within it (the Sample itself) then of course notes of Polyphony are used up that way too (correct me if I'm wrong on any of this Steve Deming).

Korg does allocate Polyphony well but take for instance the Korg Triton Studio. It has 120 note Polyphony but 60 is allocated to the Pianos and the other 60 is allocated to the other Voices so you can see where Polyphony could still become an issue even though it is routed optimally. The Motif ES has 128 notes of Polyphony but it's allocated across the entire Keyboard as I said.

I suppose we'll never know about others that own the PA80 as to whether they've experienced note drop off. It seems that most here on the Forum have either sold their's or they flew the coop and no longer post here anymore except a few diehard fans of the PA80 that still own it like you. And btw, that's not a put down but only a factoid.

Best regards,
Mike

The PA80 bever dropped out on me, and I LAY on the suatain pedal. I also layer strings under the piano pretty much all the time. Korg allocated polyphony very, very well. Stop looking at the numbers and LISTEN to the sound.
The new case looks pretty cool. If it actually sounds good and isn't too heavy - I'm in.

Ahhh..a voice of reason. Thank You Uncle Dave.

I think there are probably still a few PA80 users out there, and noone I have talked to has ever complained about note drop off Mike. I've asked that question here several times, and that is a fact.

It doesn't matter anyway, because I just prefer to use what works best for ME, even though I can play the hell out of anything that's put in front of me, even one of those flimsy keyed PSR's.

I'll give the PSR3000 a serious look as well, but I'm not settling for flimsy keys, so if there is no improvement there, nothing else matters to me, no matter how good it might sound. I'll just walk away from it without bothering to try it out.
I'm not brand biased, so if someone else comes out with something that I like better, I'm there. I like my Motif ES a lot btw, and probably better than any other hardware I've ever had. So far no poly issues with the it, but I haven't pushed the envelope yet either, meaning I haven't made any user combis with 4 layered voices at 4 samples per voice .. yet.


I personally don't care if anyone buys the PA1x and it isn't even a better than even bet that I'm going to at least in the forseeable future, as I'm focused primarily on softsynths and studio / sound system upgrades. That said, I would like to try one out at some point.

Perhaps it's best to try something out before we dismiss it based on specs / demos alone, and what we think we might know about it. If you don't own it or haven't played it extensively, you can only make speculations at best.


AJ




[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 01-15-2004).]

AJ, Uncle Dave,

I indicated in my post above that I am looking to try the new Korg. I am sure I will like a lot about it (and I better for this price). Nevertheless, I will have to play it much more extensively and try to duplicate the note dropouts than I would a keyboard where I would not anticipate the polyphony to be an issue.

Perhaps I will agree with you in the end that the 62 voice polyphony is not an issue (or perhaps not, depending how hard I have to try to run out of polyphony).

The specs certainly don't tell the whole story, but as AJ indicated, they are a measuring bar. When a 5'5" player comes to try out for the NBA, the scouts will look at him quite skeptically, and even though he may be an excellent player, he will have to work much harder to prove himself, than someone who is 7' tall. The new Korg is in the same predicament with me.

All I am saying is that the Korg company could have easily avoided this situation by simply providing the modern hardware and software (as they should for the money they are charging), so that skeptics like me would have less doubts.

Regards,
Alex