Korg PA5x Complete Demo - Everything You Need To Know | Bonners Music

foreign [Music] hello I'm Tony from Bonners music and this is my buyer's guide for the brand new Korg pa5x professional arranger keyboard this instrument is very Advanced and it could take me days to demonstrate everything so what I've done is picked out the features I think are most important to most users and Patch them into this short video along with some sound demos to give you an idea of what can be achieved with this keyboard you'll find all the information you need about prices availability and our part exchange deals on the bonus music website and there are links to this in the description to this video I'm sure that many people will be wanting to get their hands on a pa5x to try out for themselves you can arrange to have a demo and some Hands-On time with the pa5x buy appointment in one of Bonner's stores we've got branches in Milton Keynes and Sussex and Surrey pa5x demos are by appointment only because this keyboard is in such short supply and we don't always have one available in every showroom give us a call or email us to arrange your chance to spend some time with the pa5x for yourself also remember to like And subscribe to my channel because I'm always uploading new demos and reviews and buyers guides for the latest keyboards and synths so let's take a closer look at this amazing new keyboard from Korg firstly there are three versions of the pa5x the 61 and 76 key models have a semi-weighted synth action keyboard whilst the pa5x88 has 88 fully weighted piano style Keys the build quality is superb with all models being finished in a beautiful brushed aluminum case and with stylish wooden end panels the main display screen is very large and the operating system has been completely redesigned to make use of the extra space which results in the instrument feeling a bit easier to use than previous Korg PA series models cork has really upped their game with the on-screen graphics and you'll find that Pages such as the mixer and effects routings are visually quite stunning and really intuitive ever since they released the groundbreaking I3 back in 1993 cork has become one of if not the most popular manufacturer of professional arranger keyboards to date there are many reasons why korga ranges are the choice of both professional and home users around the world but I would suggest it comes down to two things firstly the style program is and always has been quite inspirational the sheer musicality of the accompaniments is astounding and Korg offers total flexibility over the voicing and manipulation of the Styles there's also a huge catalog of additional content available from both Korg and third-party developers to keep your instrument sounding fresh the other main reason that I believe korga Ranger keyboards are so good is that they share very similar sound sets to Cork's professional range of synthesizer keyboards so in the case of the pa5x it features over 2 200 really incredible sounds that are created using korg's new enhanced definition synthesis expanded or EDS XP for short these sounds are taken from their latest Chronos and Nautilus synths as well as the sv2 stage piano so basically you get the very highest quality arranger keyboard packed with sounds and voices that professional keyboard players would be very happy to use on stage in the studio or at home and I forgot to mention that the pa5x also has onboard sampling huge sound editing capabilities the ability to play and mix two Style songs or MP3 files together at the same time 16 track sequencer HDMI screen output with chord display and the most powerful multi-effects processor ever featured on a ranger keyboard so let's dive into some of the features and see how this thing sounds [Music] foreign as I've already said the sound generator in pa5x shares technology with corks Chronos Nautilus and sv2 professional synths and Stage pianos so as you'd expect the voices sound amazing here's a few examples of some of the voices and you'll notice when switching between sounds there's no audio cut off and this is because the pa5x Now features seamless sound transition technology that was first introduced into the Chronos workstations foreign [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] the best of everything they've got at this keyboard the sounds are constructed of up to 24 oscillators which is more than many pro synthesizers and there are also more real-time controllers than ever before with faders switches a joystick and ribbon controller available to be assigned to any parameter of your choice the fully programmable control section on the left has nine faders and buttons that are all user assignable to your favorite functions the new auxiliary strip display shows the current function so you always know what each button and slider is assigned to even if you're on a completely different page on the main display at the heart of all the ranger keyboards are the musical style so let's take a look at these in more detail the pa5x has been loaded with over 600 backing Styles and each one has three intros four variations four fills a break and three endings there are plenty of new musical styles plus favorites from previous generation core keyboards that have been updated or reprogrammed to take advantage of the pa5x's new sounds and more importantly the round robin drum sampling so round robin drum sampling means that no two drum hits are the same so it results in a more human-like feel to the Styles just take a listen to the level of detail in this example of the drum programming [Music] I must say that Korg Styles have always sounded great but the pa5x takes the quality of the musical backings to an even higher level and playing along to these is more like playing with real musicians than ever before the bass lines guitar parts and general musicality is stunning so now what I'm going to do now is just play you a short Montage of a few Styles so you can get a feel for how great they sound foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] keyboard players are using a range of type instruments nowadays newer players have generally not been brought up on the kind of split keyboard style of playing where you play chords on your left a melody on the right so Korg has included a very easy to use chord sequencer for quick creation of backing tracks so this feature allows you to program a set of chords that continually repeat or it could be the complete set of chords for a particular song and you can assign these chords to any style which leaves both your hands free to play in piano style or make use of all the Hands-On controllers so you can give an even better performance to your audience there are hundreds of pre-programmed chord progressions to give you inspiration or you can create as many of your own as you like here's an example of the chord sequencer in action so first of all I'm going to select Style and I'll go to the funk and blue section and choose Bluey Groove go back to my home screen and if I press the chords tab at the bottom there up here it's telling me which chord sequence is selected so I can just tap that and then you've got a choice of lots of different chord progressions and if you want to see the chord progression just press exit and switch on the chord sequence button here and it shows you on screen the sequence of chords so I'm actually going to use the default one for the bluey Groove style so let's just recall that style again if I press chords there we go so those are the chords which are preset for that particular style but you're free to program your own so let's just have a listen I was going to play along with a bit of piano with those chords thank you thank you [Music] since the pi-80 was released in the year 2000 corkers included a dual song player in their arranger keyboards this means you can seamlessly Crossfade between two songs and your music doesn't stop if you've got a dance floor full of people pa5x now takes the Dual player to a new level and in a direction that I think will change the way we use and think of a range of keyboards more as creative tools for new music production rather than just play along backing track type machines using the Dual plier the pa5x allows you to load two Styles into the memory at the same time a mix or cross fade between them this enables you to mix two musical styles together to create a completely new sound something that I've never seen before and I think it's going to be a real inspiration for making something completely unique so the first thing we need to do is Select our first style I've already got one pre-loaded into player one and it's called orchestral ballad so just have a listen to this I'm just playing with a nice piano sound called midi Grand pad [Music] so it's just a really nice orchestral style now what I can do is Select player two and then load a style into player two so if I go to the dance section I'm going to choose electro house and let's take a listen to that Rhythm just by moving the crossfader over you'll see it highlights player two I can then press play on there so that's the sound of the electro house beat now if you notice that's showing me the tempo of 134 whereas orchestral ballad is set to 60 so I need to sync the two together so I'm actually going to make electro house 120 beats per minute because of course that's exactly double the 60 beats per minute of the orchestral battle so the two will lock together nicely now if you hold down shift and any one of the play buttons on the players then it will fire off both rhythms at the same time so I'm going to move the Crossfade all the way over to the orchestral ballad and then press shift and play and you'll hear that as I move the cross fader across it will bring in the sound of the electro house as well so let's just play that chord I had before E flat [Music] and when you set the crossfader in the middle of course you'll hear the sound of both Styles playing on top of each other [Music] thank you I think this is one of the best new features on the pa5x and if used creatively you can achieve some really great results let's now take a quick look at the mixer page on the screen of the pa5x as you can see it looks absolutely beautiful and the layout is very intuitive so you may already have noticed that along the bottom of the screen we have these various tabs the third one along is marked control and that brings up the basic mixer and then this little icon here that actually looks like an analog mixer if you tap that this brings up your main mixer page and the sliders are physical sliders on the panel of course alter the sliders on the screen there and as you can see really nice graphical representations of all of the different sounds that are being used at the moment so if I select up a one I can just tap the sound and then you can go in and change the sound to whatever you want it to be let's go exit again back to the mixer you've got your pan control here which you can either slide on the screen left and right or you can use the data wheel here as well then down the side of the screen you see different pages of the mixer so you've got your main page then you have the EQ section and I love the coloring there very similar to a traditional analog mixer and again everything's just very very responsive screen you also have your insert effects which you can select you've got your master effects page there and master effects sends so if you're used to using an analog mixer then actually the screen here is is very well laid out just like you would get with a traditional mixer you can also um change the tuning and the pitch Bend range for each of the individual parts and then you've got your mastering effects here so you've got your compressor and limiter and graphic equalizer digital effects have become an important part of modern keyboard instruments and can make a good keyboard sound really great Korg were one of the pioneers of adding digital studio quality effects to their keyboards and this can be traced right back to the days of the groundbreaking M1 workstation this keyboard was actually capable of producing two effects simultaneously which made it sound much better than most other digital synths that were on the market at that time since then Korg have continually added to the power of their onboard effects units and now the pa5x has been blessed with a truly gigantic effects processor that's capable of producing 10 insert effects three mastering effects and a finalizing stage on both of the two players and this means you can have 28 effects active at the same time plus the keyboard sets can also have three insert effects and three mastering effects so what I'm saying is that the pa5x is a total effects Powerhouse and it results in a really high quality polished sound that sounds like a studio production it's also possible to plug in a microphone and guitar using the audio inputs which both have their own dedicated onboard effects vocal processing is now provided by shift audio and this offers a four-part vocal harmonizer as well as Auto pitch features the guitar input has its own gain control and allows you to stack up to four insert effects including simulations of classic amps and some vintage pedals as well you may have noticed on the right hand side of the keyboard here we have this Matrix of performance pads there are actually 16 pads and these can be used to fire off sounds or Loops whilst you're playing you can also use them to mute the different parts of the Styles as well so along the bottom of the screen you can select Matrix and it will actually show you what is pre-loaded into each of the pads and you'll see as I press the buttons here that the screen changes to indicate which pad Bank I'm on SO they can be used for uh individual drum hits like that or or Loops or like I say they can also be used to mute various parts of the styles finally let's just take a look at the inputs and outputs on the rear of this keyboard so cork have placed the audio input on the far end of the keyboard and they've done this to make it easy so that when you're playing live you can just reach around if you need to adjust the gain control you can do very easily there's also line in on left and right jack inputs and a mini jack stereo input as well there are your main audio outputs you've got right and left outputs but then you've got four individual outs and this means that you can send any of the style or song Parts through their own audio output or even the metronome if you need to to send a click track to a drummer all through individual outputs all for processing in an external mixer or effects unit you've got two assignable pedal inputs and then you've got your damper or sustain pedal input I'm really pleased to see that they've retained midi in out and through on traditional five-pin din sockets and then as we move across you have your USB ports so there are two USB host ports and there's also a USB to device for plugging directly into a laptop or a computer there's a HDMI video output and then on the far right you have your Mains input so that brings me to the end of my pa5x buyers guide I must say it's an absolutely phenomenal keyboard it really sets the bar for quality of an arranger instrument but it's so much more than just an arranger keyboard the sound quality is every bit as good as that you will find on some of the best keyboard workstations synthesizers on the market so it would be equally at home playing in a band or playing on your own or in a Duo situation or perhaps using in the studio to write music as well it really is a great all-round keyboard so you'll find more information on the Bonners website and if you do want to come and try one please get in touch and you can see one in one of our showrooms so thanks very much for watching and I'll see you in my next keyboard presentation video [Applause] thank you

Channel: Bonners Pianos & Keyboards

Views: 397,351

Keywords: korg pa5x, korg pa5x review, korg pa5x demo, korg arranger keyboard

Id: jRS9DzxwBmE

Length: 28min 25sec (1705 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 30 2022