PA600 or BK-5?

Hi everyone!

I accutualy own a psr-e423, a nice little keyboard for beginners and a home hobbist like me. Now I am looking to go to something more advance. I have two models in mind, the Korg PA 600 or the Roland BK-5. Since it is a few hundred miles drive for me to find a store that as both models to try and compare, if anyone that have compared these models could give a point of view mainly for keys feel, sounds, ease on use, etc, I would appreciate a lot. The PA 600 seems to offer more, but having to tweak quite a bit to get good sounds on Korg like somes are mentionning on forums, bugs me a little. On the other hand the BK-5 are more pleasing to my ears from what I heard on YouTube.

...On the other hand the BK-5 "styles" are more pleasing to my ears from what I heard on YouTube.

Where are you located?

Sherbrooke, Québec

I just did a very similar thing - had a PSR-E423 and wanted to move up, but my dilemma was bewteen the KORG Pa600 and Yamaha PSR-S750/S950. I listened to the YouTube demos and read any forum comments I could find.

I live in Dartmouth, NS across the harbour from Halifax, a nice sized city but not big enough to have two MOTL demo arrangers on the floor to hear.

One of my thoughts was that personally I probably didn't have an experienced enough ear that a side by side test would really prove much to me unless something sounded really bad and surely somone would have made a comment if that was the case.

So I ordered the Pa600 just based on forum posts. And I am beyond happy with the result. I am not advanced enough as yet to try out everything it can do - being able to learn on a nice arranger with future potential capabilities is a long term retirement goal.

Jp47,
I agree with Notebender. I owned both the Roland BK-7M and the BK-5.
I would consider either the Yamaha S750 or the Korg PA600.

Deane

Could you be more explicit, any negative things about BK-5?

I am sorry, you got it wrong. You DON'T have to tweak anything to get great sounds with Korg right from the box. Just that you have the possibility to get YOUR sounds by tweaking it. I big difference. You can choose to tweak the heck out of it, because you could. With any of the other arrangers in the same category not so much...

i had a bk 5.

to me:
the pros are nice drums , good arrangements(styles), good sounds, nice operating system (easy to figure out). sounds REALLY good thru a pa system. same usb setup as the other keyboards. nice songbook function. everything is saved and accessed on user usb (stick)drive. very light.

the cons were screen to small, monochrome color, kinda hard for me to read. the video out only puts out lyrics on a midi file, does not display what is on the screen. the category of brass and woodwinds are in one category button. couldn't figure how to seperate favorite (trumpet and sax)for immediate recall. not as good support as korg or yamaha as far as styles and stuff.

kepted the bk5 for about 5 days and sent it back. i'm looking at the pa600 because of better sounding drums and more of a live feel on stage. tthe yamaha s750 at the about the same price could also be a good choice but to me it sounds like you're playing along with a cd. the operating system is a little easier . i'm leaning toward the pa600. i really don't need either as i'm retired from the busines, but ya never know when the new keyboard bug will bite.

i have a yamaha psr 1000 with usb drive and a korg i5, i had the pa 80,60,50,roland va 5,7,76 and a tyros. i would recomend watching as many videos of these keyboards as you can.better yet try one out if you can. i did on the bk5 and still sent it back. i wish you luck.

JP47
E mail me.I am in London Ontario.
mmesanovic@hotmail.com

I agree with Hammer. The bk5 has great styles but the RH sounds are mostly mediocre.

I bought the BK-5 because I had previously owned the BK-7M module which was a great piece of gear. I thought the BK-5 would be the same but with a keyboard. NOT AT ALL!! The BK-5 overall sound was much like a toy compared to the BK-7M and the RH lead voices were almost useless for my
40's, and 50's style music. Don't know if you have noticed, but the general interest in the Bk-5 has dropped off a ton.

On the other hand I bought the Korg MicroArranger and actually use it as a stand-a-lone keyboard for gigs. I now have the PA600 on order.

Deane

Hammer...i would agree with you about the microarranger....just bought one last week and already used it with my mox8 on a single gig...my duo i use a yamaha psr s910 with a pa50sd...i find i get along find with the small keys especially playing organ tones on the microarranger...I'm waiting to see when the pa600 comes in i'll probably trade the pa50 in on it since the microarranger offers the same styles and sounds...stevec

Thanks everyone for comments, greately appriciate them.

to NoteBender:

Could you tell me how you compare the keys feel of the PA 600 to the PSR-E423, softer, about the same...? I have tried a PSR-S750 during the week-end and realy dislike the touch, way too soft.

jp47 - LOL I have a real hard time when I sit down at a piano because the feel is so very different than an arranger keyboard.

I found the PSR-E423 to be softer than the Pa600. I hesitate to say it the other way around - that the Pa600 is stiffer; as the difference is not that great.

Somewhere in an earlier post I believe someone indicated that key pressure (not sure if those are the correct words to call it) could be varied on the Pa600, but I'm happy with the current setting and I can't find the spot to change it anyway. The two manuals are very good except for having a reasonable index to find things.

What I have noticed is that when I press the Global key to go into the Global setups a main selection screen appears with 7 touch selections, however, if I select one of the 7 selections pressing the Global key again or Exit then Global will not return me back to the main Global screen. The only way I've found to get back to the main Global screen to to shut the power off and on again. Not a big deal, but not ideal either.

The manual's table of contents is good and I've searched through the text for something that may vary the key pressure but I don't see anything. Maybe this is just a feature of a higher model and not the Pa600.

I will be trying a factory reset to see if my Global screen problem goes away.

When you are returned to the previous screen, just press Menu, and you will returned to the main Global Menu.
DonM

Thanks Don. This perceived "problem" just started so I must have been using the Menu key initially when I first received the keyboard after viewing the video manuals.