Tony, DonM, Bachus, GJ; Ron, Steve, and Impuls Arno, and Donny:
Thanks for your heads up replies. Hard to believe it's been over 20 years since first joining this forum and to have made so many 'life-long' friends here. Though I don't have time to post often now, I continue to enjoy following everyone's posts (both old and newer SZ members) whenever I have a chance.



Still enjoying the Pa1000 more than ever. I think it's exciting that the Pa4X received a major OS enhancement, and FREE too. Kudos to Korg for that. Though it would be great if the Pa1000 received this too, I suspect Korg may not as the Pa1000 needs to remain the much lower budget alternative to the Pa4X. I'm Planning to wait another year or more before considering an upgrade to a Pa5x, but who knows.

Having played TOTL model arrangers for so many years, I even surprised myself to like the Pa4X's baby brother so much. I esp appreciate it's built in speakers for personal onstage monitoring when playing with a live band as well as being able to take the keyboard alone for those quick in/out small intimate gigs. I still got the Tyros 5 (mint condition: fully loaded) but am considering selling it. If anyone here is interested, PM me.



Donny. Thanks for the heads up re that.
Until now, I had no idea that arranger keyboard owners have been doing this, as I've also never seen 3rd party module conversions done to Yamaha, Roland,
Technics, Casio or Ketron arranger keyboards.

What it is about Korg
Korg arr keyboards that make them good candidates for module conversion?

How is the keyboard controller connected to the module?
Strictly via midi, or does it require an additional connection as well?

Scott

Scott. Nice to hear from you again....Best wishes from UK

Hi Scotty,
great to see you posting again - you have been missed.

Seems to me, as a Ketron SD40 user and former SD90 owner, the Korg is a bit large for a module - just saying.

Deane

Hi Scott, so glad to hear from you! Yes, you have been missed! I agree with Diane... much too bulky...

Hi Graham. Got your recent message on Skype.
Looking forward to catching up with you there soon.





Deane and Montunoman: Thanks for the greetings.

Perhaps the Korg microArranger might make a lighter & more compact Korg arranger candidate for module frankenstein-ization: (22" width x 6" deep x 3 high" ) . Anybody know if this has successfully been done on a Korg microArranger?

I see this video is no longer available. Any chance someone has a locally downloaded copy they could share? Or anything else that might show some more detail about converting PA1000 to module?

Be careful what you wish for..! One of the problems with arranger modules is, unless specifically designed to be a module, a lot of front panel commands (buttons) don't have MIDI codes. If you convert the keyboard arranger into a module, your main keyboard may not be able to select (from its buttons) things like Bass Inversion, ritardando/accelerando etc..

This leaves you reaching for the module to hit those, and particularly if you are using another arranger to control the module, it's tough to get the module close enough to reach those buttons without obscuring your main arranger's buttons...

We often take for granted how easy it is to hit important buttons and get back to playing with minimal disruption, but put them a lot further away and it gets trickier...

Yes. My desire is to place the module on a stand tier above the keyboard I'd be controlling it from, so I'd still be using the PA1000's buttons and screen for all operations. But I'd be triggering it from a keyboard action I prefer, which will also provide some additional functionality of its own. I'd even have the option to combine it with different keyboards, depending on the needs of the gig.

I actually have a number of boards I'm thinking I could combine it with (61, 76, 88) any of which would give me something I prefer, and while total weight (keyboard and module) might in some cases be greater than the weight of the PA1000 alone, no single piece would be as heavy as the PA1000.

Anotherscott ?

A simple way to get a feel for the greatly increased distance between keybed and buttons would be to simply put the PA1000 on the top tier of a stand and put whatever controller you want underneath it, MIDI the two together, then try to play the bottom keyboard while having to reach for the top keyboard's buttons, sliders and knobs.

For the sake of experimentation, bring the top keyboard's buttons in close enough that, if the Korg's keybed wasn't there, the controls are where you'd place them while still being able to read the bottom keyboard's display and get to its controllers.

I remember playing big multi-keyboard rigs back in the day when there were no other options, and the distance my hands had to move to get quickly and accurately from one to the others was definitely a factor. It's no coincidence that the keyboard DESIGNED to go quickly from one manual to another is the organ, and there's NOTHING between the two manuals, going from one to the other on say a B3 is virtually instant.

I would still counsel playing the two keyboards MIDI'd together and see if it works for you before you take a hacksaw to your PA1000. That will kill its resale value, and the way Korg is going, the PA1000 may be the last MOTL arranger Korg make. That's going to keep its resale value high if no better successor exists...