Korg PA-1000 V/S Yamaha S-975

Nice comparison, .....to me the KORG sounds more live crisp and clear.
Add a TC Helicon VH & Songbook feature, large tilt display etc, & you have my choice out of these two.

all the best

To me, the Yamaha sounded much fuller and richer, the Yamaha drums, IMO, were far more realistic.

Gary

I like Bonners demo videos. Good fair comparison.

Never thought I'd say this - Korg!

Gary, you are the first one to say Yamaha S series drums are better than Korg! You been talkin' to Eileen again?

It’s all subjective my answer is ya gotta own both.

I’m leaning toward the Korg even though both boards are great.

Why hasn’t Korg fixed that bug that sounds like it “trips” when changing patterns? It reminds me of a bad edit when splicing audio tape. It was a problem on my pa600, and it appears to still be an issue.

Yamaha needs to update the acoustic guitars. They sound the same as Tyros 1.
Yamaha has better EP’s. Drums are punchier on Korg (could be volume and eq...but I doubt it). For some reason, the sound quality of the psr series has been dull. It’s improved from the psr-s900 (which was extremely dull), but still seems a bit dull compared to the Korg. Maybe lower quality dac’s on the Yamaha. Just my opinion.

jingleman

They both have their strengths .... and their weaknesses.

At times the Korg sounds boxy.. and at times the Yamaha sounds lifeless..

Surely there is no edge going to Yamaha from me... concerning the drums.. Are they better than they were 20 years ago.. Yes... better than other brands.. No..

They each have some great lead sounds... and clunkers too..

Styles are just styles to me... they each have usable styles and many I would never use..

Neither compare to their Big Brothers... It has always been the case.. some folks can't hear the difference because they don't want to..

The Korg PA1000 and Yamaha psr s975 are not on my wish list..

First I do not prefer the sounds to what I have..
Secondly, They lack of features that are important to me (like reading chords extracted automatically from files). Korg stated it can ..but does not... you need to prepare the file to show chords..

Yamaha still has the worse playable keybed..(close tie with Casio)..


We are now talking about $2,000 keyboards.... sorry I want top models for that price.... and yes you can find them... People love to lose money (cost of doing business)..

WOW ... Gary picked the Yamaha ?!?

I like the color of the Yamaha more..

Very nice comparison.
This is very good keyboards, both of them, and to me it boils down to my personal liking.
Out of this demo, again I think Yamaha is more CD'ish and not as warm and soft EQ'ed as Korg.
Looking forward to the day I have both brands 'big brothers' in the rack......

Anyway, to me Genos is the best sounding arranger made by Yamaha so far.

I say enjoy what you have, it's down to personal taste and what you the player feel comfortable with. And at least we have a choice.

Actually once you have the PA1000 at home the colour combination is quite "chique " to say the least. Better than what you see on the pictures. the only thing not well thought off is the black buttons on the black background even if all buttons have a led light in it. To me as a home musician this is no problem but for gigging artists this may be an issue.

Both the PSR 975 and the PA1000 are superb keyboards each in his own right. If you can afford both I guess I would personally rather do so than being able to buy (only) either the PA4X or the Genos. Of course the only thing to beat these two is owing the PA4X and the Genos

As regards drums: I would say that 99 out of 100 would definitely say the drums on the PA1000 are far superior to those on the yamaha.
As regards the overall sounds and samples I keep on saying that the Korg requires much more in-depth tweaking out-of-the-box.
Hence I keep on programming on my new set of Resources.....

regards,
John

He doesn't mention if this demo is OOTB with NO EQ or not either..

I have an impression that Korg sometimes makes it too obvious that there’re “keyboard” guitars in the backing. Also, when he played “Love Story” the style sounded to me like a third-party one. I know that it’s personal, but, in my opinion, Yamaha managed to engineer a certain quality of their certain voices, like piano, guitar, saxophone, which gives you (me) a feeling “wow, this is beautiful”, which is not the same as “wow, this is realistic”.

As for design, I’m going to seem biased again. I’m concerned that buttons on Korg do not visually appear to be in different groups.

It seems like Korg is more attractive for those who prefer things to be a little bit more geeky, when you can sit at your keyboard with a cup of coffee and work with it as you work with a computer.

Also, positioning of knobs seems to be less practical than on Yamaha. Although I think that if it wasn’t for Korg, Yamaha would never have knobs on PSR, saving them for non-arranger line.

My impression is that while Korg finds its support among professionals and semi-professionals, Yamaha offers a comparable level of quality, but designed in a way which also would be attractive for amateurs, even when it comes to Tyros and Genos.

In the end, if Korg still has a problem with smoothness of the accompaniment, which is much talked about, that’d be a deal breaker.

Again, I’m just trying to look at it as if I’m to invest some money into one of these companies and I have to decide who of them has more chances to win. So far Korg seems to sound and to look more aggressive, while Yamaha tries to appear less light-headedly. Well… I’m not an expert. We just share opinions.

You are right, we share opinions, and together, hopefully, come to a consensus. Your opinions, in particular, are well thought out.

Bernie, do you notice any of the glitches when changing patterns on the 4X that are clearly evident on the 1000? I think it’s sample 3 or 4 on the demo...slow rock ballad.

I just tried on the Roland Ea7 and it's a perfect transition...

It’s the “Rockstar” style on the Korg. Very glitchy...

If one were to run through a ketron sd2/sd4 or sd1000 to take advantage of their sounds, which of the keyboards works without problems? I have difficulty with my sd4 recognizing some sounds from my tyros and producing default sounds..no such problem for AJ's old sd4 demo with a pa800. I seem to Yamaha may have needed a patch?

"Bernie, do you notice any of the glitches when changing patterns on the 4X that are clearly evident on the 1000? I think it’s sample 3 or 4 on the demo...slow rock ballad."

Sorry Jingleman, I missed it. No glitches at all found on the Pa4X since the update and the screen tilt problem was solved by a replacement in short order. The software problem had to do with the Setlist, not style play.

I had 3x, 900 and 4x and never experienced any such glitch. Used the Slow Rock style every night.

Korg seems to require a slightly different "timing" when triggering fills. Once you're used to it - it's very smooth.

I never had a problem triggering fills. Also, the 4x has separate dedicated fill buttons if you want to use them.