TEST OF KORG PA5X 76 - PART 5; SONGBOOK

[♚Chello]

TEST OF KORG PA5X 76 - PART 5; SONGBOOK

After having the Pa5X for 7 months, I thought it was time to test the songbook.

I have had many top models over the years, who have consistently had very extensive songbooks.
Not so Pa5X - the selection is very limited and outdated; especially as far as the Dance genre is concerned.
I think that the selection is generally strangely composed - with a few exceptions.

The mixing is perhaps the most important, because you expect it to be professionally done, which I would argue that it is not, as there are big differences in all styles - it is necessary for me to do extensive edits, especially as far as the different tracks' sound levels are concerned.

It is therefore necessary to have access to make edits, which is not possible, as the songbook is protected, and I have not found any way to remove this.
This gets even worse when I try to work around the problem by copying the songbook to the SD card - no songs can be played.

Maybe one of the manuals explains this, but it should be possible to find out without reading yourself to death in chaotic manuals.

Summa summarum, Pa5X's songbook is the worst I have experienced on any keyboard, due to very few and outdated songs, which are also unusually poorly mixed.

There are several songs that are very good, but it must be expected that they all maintain a high professional standard, which they do not.

[⚖whitecolin1]

My sentiments exactly, as though they created new styles and rehashed others my main issue is the multipads on some stlyes
are extremely loud.

[⚖musicalmemoriesuk]

I know you have spoken before that the Pa5x used a different os and way of doing things. 

But does the Pa5x enable you to have an internal and external songbook / setlist as with previous models?

It seems strange that the internal songbook entries cannot be overwritten maybe there is a setting in the global menu that lets you disable factory protection.

I personally never use the internal songbook anymore everything is stored in direct sets apart from user sounds. 

The songbook is just a bookmarking system, and I doesn’t take a hole hour to make one songbook entry as with the Korg Webinars (excuse the pun).

As mentioned before everything to do with my songbook entries are via direct set any styles associated with that songbook entry are also on the direct set. I could go to the extreme and copy all the keyboard sets as well. 

The reason being everything has to be kept in the same place say you have a user style for a songbook entry and then forget and load new user styles then the songbook won’t work.

[♚Chello]

@Colin

My sentiments exactly, as though they created new styles and rehashed others my main issue is the multipads on some stlyes are extremely loud.


You're absolutely right - I didn't test multipads, but have done this now, and have to say that this is badly made with poor mixing of levels and poor composition.

Some multipads are extremely low, while others are extremely high, and many have a standard composition, while the requirement should be special adaptation for each individual style - this is the very purpose of a songbook.

Korg has been in a hurry; damn shame.

[♚Chello]

@Musical Memories

does the Pa5x enable you to have an internal and external songbook / setlist as with previous models?

Yes; it looks like this, because necessary folders are created but cannot be activated.


As mentioned before everything to do with my songbook entries are via direct set any styles associated with that songbook entry are also on the direct set. I could go to the extreme and copy all the keyboard sets as well.

The reason being everything has to be kept in the same place say you have a user style for a songbook entry and then forget and load new user styles then the songbook won't work.

It seems that this is the reason, as I forgot that everything has to be available in the same place for it to work.

[⚖musicalmemoriesuk]

I have an empty set folder that I can copy and rename and use aa a new direct ser. 

Then the songbook is also empty

[⚖musicalmemoriesuk]

Pretty much all my user banks are filled with keyboard sets I’ve created now as I use them with songbook entries or on the fly I adjust them further to suit a particular style. 

Now having done some thinking Im wondering if keyboard sets linked to a songbook entry also have to be fixed to a certain location.

My thinking is as the userbanks of keyboard sets are full should I copy all the keyboard sets from user to direct thus leaving more space in the user banks for creating new sets, as I do with the styles used for the songbook entries.

It’s an ever changing workflow.

I do think the workflow is better than the registration system in respect of using favourite sound combinations on the fly if needed.

As on the Tyros4 you restricted to the 8 registrations if you want to use another registration from another registration bank on the fly you have to load it before you change to it.

Don’t know if it’s more but the Korg way of doing this seems more intuitive