If you're considering buying a Korg Pa5X...

[keynote]

Updated List of New Bugs Found on PA5X

▫️ For musicians that use lower such as strings, almost 100% of us do, you cannot turn of the pitch bender for the lower. It will bend with your sound on uppers. This function does not work.

▫️ Songbook entry will not start on intro if your intro is selected to begin with. It will play the selected variation for a measure THEN go to intro as you saved it. Also, you cannot select the songbook entry to the other player. Meaning if you're on player 1, you may not select your songbook entry for player 2 and have it ready.

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🔻 Estimated converting time from .SET to .KST: 2 hours (500Mb set)

🔻 Loading same set on keyboard: 20-25 min

🔻 Pads of screen should not act as a play button. When clicking on a pad on the screen, it should open the menu for you to select another pad like on every previous model.

🔻 Fill-in button after half of measure with your style on will play only your drums from the fill-in while the variation drums and accompaniments play altogether.

🔻 Home Screen needs mixer at all times. For live performers, we need levels of our drums, bass, accompaniments, lower and uppers on the screen the whole time. We don't have the time to look and switch pages for this.

🔻 If your style is on and you turn on a pad, if the pad is more than two measures long, it will only start on the second measure. Regardless of when you click the pad.

🔻 When selecting a different pad, after clicking 4 buttons and pages to get there, it takes you to factory pads and not where the original pad is on your user. When you do select another pad, the volume automatically goes to 100 and the FX send automatically goes to 40.

🔻 Selecting a style is not fast enough. After you click on a new style while playing, it will blink a few times before it selects it. Most of the time, this is way over a measure and a half of the current style playing. This is not ideal for live performers.

🔻 There is no way for you to select the second style and have it in sync with the first one even with tempo lock on. It's humanly impossible. Your tempo will match but you cannot physically hit the second style perfectly on beat with your first one.

🔻 If your pads are on while your style is playing, as soon as you select a new style, your pads turn off instantly. Way before the new style even comes on.

🔻 Intro 1 is not supposed to play your lowers when selected. Your lowers should work for intro 2 but not for intro 1. There's a reason for that. Some people's intro 1 plays a melody or plays different chords.

🔻 We should have a preference of not having the lists of styles, sounds and pads be in alphabetical order. People had these organized on the 4x into separate folders and pages.

🔻 If you are used to having a certain sound or drum kit you like on (user 1, page 3), you know it's there 100% and you learn it that way. Not anymore, because everything is in alphabetical order, things will move every time you add a new sound, pad, style, song, drumkit, etc. complete disaster if you know where your things are.

🔻 Acc. 3 freezes on the first chord you hit instead of chords you are playing. Same goes with some bass on styles. I'm playing a different chord progression, acc. 3 is stuck on the first chord without changing.

🔻 Some styles I made have drums or percussion that is detuned using my pitch bender. It will not play the correct detune until the second measure of the style.

🔻 If you are using quarter scale, this is not the keyboard for you. It will switch on and off at random. It's almost like every few seconds it will play your quarter tone and then go back to equal scale. Non-stop.

🔻 When making a new style, the menus for quantize, delete, velocity, cut and others are missing.

🔻 The bass should not be the first in order. Every keyboard since day 1 has it as follows....drums-percs-bass-acc1-acc2-acc3-acc4-acc5.

🔻 We need an option to customize your own keyboard. There are photos for every sound and drumkit next to it. You cannot select the photo you want when saving a new sound or style.

🔻 Website says we have 4GB and 8GB compressed but the keyboard shows we have 2.5GB. Not even close to what Korg is advertising on their website. If you think you're going to have 4GB of space when buying this keyboard, you're going to be extremely upset to find out you have only 2.5GB of space.

🔻 There should be an option on the main Home Screen from the drop menu to show only one style instead of two. Not everyone will be using two styles since they can't even sync them perfectly anyways. It would be nice if you hold shift and play on the style for it to sync with tempo and for it to start perfectly with the current style playing.

🔻 When playing a pad that is a loop, a slice from the loops starts when you press the button. It doesn't start where the loop should resume naturally.

🔻 If you start with a pad that is a  loop (without the style being on) and then turn on the style after, the pad will be off from the style by milliseconds. Your ear will catch it and you know it's not perfectly on.

🔻 When you hit your fill button, the variation will not go to the first measure, regardless if you have it set to start on the first measure.

🔻 If you have a pad that is an accompaniment or guitar, it turns off when you turn off the memory for your chords.

🔻 There is no Kaoss.

🔻 There is no option for midi to style converter.

🔻 Locked sets will not work nor convert.

🔻 If you have a folder with only styles, you will not be able to open it and view any of them. It must be a set folder for it to convert to the the KST format.

🔻 No support for EC-5.

🔻 For existing style, cv length cannot be changed.

🔻 There are factory styles that are still on here from the pa80. The house, dance, techno are not from this century. They are indeed what they say they are but not anywhere near the year 2022. So when you select dance, it is dance, just not this year. More like 1998 dance.

🔻 The screen, when all the way down, is not flush with the rest of the keyboard. It is slightly off and sits a little higher.

🔻 On the 4x, we were given a limit of approx. 15000 samples for 1.5GB of space. You are now given approx. 30000 for 2.5GB of space. Even though Korg advertises it as it giving you 4GB.

🔻 Korg needs to stop changing the format of extensions for styles, sets, sounds, etc. The person buying the pa5x is 99.9% coming from a 4x. And that person also came from a 3x and so on. It was already annoying enough that you couldn't load 3x sets on the 4x without loading the folders separately. Now it's just a jumble mess for people trying to switch over to a keyboard they thought they were familiar with.

🔻 Let's be honest, wood sidings with a metal body do not go. Ever. With anything.

🔻 If you are from the Balkans or the middle eastern region and have a locked USB set, it will not work on here.

Seems Korg released the Pa5x half-baked. But Korg is really astute in releasing OS updates so these issues should be resolved eventually. Famous last words, right?   

All the best,
Mike

[PierreSW]

Seems to be the new standard for both KORG and YAMAHA
It was the same with Genos when it came out,
and Yamaha hasn't fixed all the problems yet,
I don't think they intend to do that either..
Otherwise if you just sit down and play with styles
Genos works well and sounds good..
Hope Genos II is ready from scratch with all features.

// Pierre

[EileenL]

Well I would never buy a Korg anyway but Wow what a load of faults it has already.
  Genos had no where near as many faults and they were sorted very quickly. I will not be changing my dear old Genos for what seems like a real hash up. Thanks for the review. By the way a friend of mine did try one in his local shop and said although the ends look like wood they are plastic. Don't know how true this is.

[usaraiya]

Comments from people who have bought both the Genos & the 5X would be more valuable, fair & balanced rather than the "Never Korg" hate rhetoric which is being spewed here.

[DerekA]

To be fair, how many of these "faults" would affect the average arranger player from day to day. I suspect everyone could go through that list and have a different opinion of whether each one matters or not.

[casiokid]

Comments from people who have bought both the Genos & the 5X would be more valuable, fair & balanced rather than the "Never Korg" hate rhetoric which is being spewed here.

Hear, hear, Just listen to Alios Muller on Youtube...a gifted player on both Genos and particularly the Pa5x

[Dnj]

We all use an arranger kb in different ways, & Bugs will always be addressed as they arise.....we all have different skill levels....most do not even use half of the features inside or ever read the manual....NEW does not mean better..... what YOU can make a instrument sound like in the end result is what matters....these days there is not much left to choose from in an arranger kb but what is out there is very good..... be happy in your choice and make great music with it....after all YOU play the instrument, it doesn't play YOU.

All the best

[mikf]

As I said on another thread most of these issues would only be noticed by the 'deep' user. It doesn't excuse it, but it is becoming normal in the world of very wide and deep functionality we increasingly see with electronic equipment. I have no doubt they will eventually correct most of the real bugs while some issues listed are more matter of opinion, eg wood vs simulated wood on the ends  - you either like the look of don't. It seems a good keyboard on most of the online demos, and no-one is forced to buy it if the bugs matter to you.
Mike

[Lee Batchelor]

To be fair, how many of these "faults" would affect the average arranger player from day to day. I suspect everyone could go through that list and have a different opinion of whether each one matters or not.

True, however as one evolves as a player, more of these advanced features become necessary. If they don't work right, then you got ripped off by purchasing a 5X. Everything needs to work perfectly for ALL players regardless of skill level. The less skilled payed just as much for their 5X as those who use all these advanced features, many of which are broken and should have been flagged before the release. These are not exceptional functions that couldn't be anticipated by the development team. They are primary functions that were obviously not tested properly. Yamaha has never had that length of a list in a first release.

I'll wait for G2 👍.

[usaraiya]

All these issues are software issues, and all are fixable; it is a question of time. For all those who want to deep dive on day one, I suggest that they wait for a software update before purchasing, and others may buy it as is; trying to get familiar with the new system while waiting for an OS update, which will be released faster than one learns all the features of this KB.

[mikf]

Don't think it has to do much with playing skill level, many outstanding players use little of the width of functions available, while some people whose playing seems quite basic are very deep into the functionality. Some are both.
I'm afraid 'everything has to work perfectly ' might be what we want, but its just not going to happen with most electronic/smart equipment. New I phones, iPads, new OS for computers - they all come out nowadays with tons of bugs. It's just the way it is. I don't think I have ever been in the line to be among the early users of anything for that very reason - I wait till they mature a bit.
Mike

[ton37]

Comments from people who have bought both the Genos & the 5X would be more valuable, fair & balanced rather than the "Never Korg" hate rhetoric which is being spewed here.

Right, only a few reacts like that. We all know when the Genos 2/3 will arrive someday, the list will as long as it is for the Pa5x. Yammies are sometimes like people and even so predictable ... 😏

[anotherscott]

Well I would never buy a Korg anyway but Wow what a load of faults it has already.

though really, I would say most of those things are not "faults" (i.e. bugs that need to be fixed), but rather things that don't work the way a particular user wants them to. A given user might well be able to come up with a similar list for Genos. Lack of seamless sound switching? Inability to re-order Favorites, or include User/Expansion sounds? Inability to have rotary effect and overdrive effect on a drawbar organ at the same time? Lack of tilt screen? etc.

[Jeff Hollande]

Hi,

The PA5X is 5 years younger than the Genos ( 2022 vs 2017 ).
A comparison of apples and oranges ?

IMHO, to give Yamaha a fair chance, I would prefer to compare the Genos' successor to Korg's newest high end arranger keyboard.
I am fully aware it might take another 9 -12 months ( or perhaps later, who knows ? ) before the Genos' successor will be available.

Best regards, JH

[Christophermoment]

Comments from people who have bought both the Genos & the 5X would be more valuable, fair & balanced rather than the "Never Korg" hate rhetoric which is being spewed here.

Seriously??? The 'Never Korg hate rhetoric' , has someone's feelings been hurt? I can't see any mention of 'hate' here. Let's try to have adult discussions.

[musicman01]

Dear Mike, you started this thread.
Just an important question, do you have a Korg pa5x and have you discovered errors yourself?

[marcodg]

Already bought and i love it with my genos 
Kind regards

[keynote]

Dear Mike, you started this thread.
Just an important question, do you have a Korg pa5x and have you discovered errors yourself?

Nah, I think I'll wait until the G2 is released and compare the Pa5X to the Genos 2 and go from there.  The Korg has a lot going for it in my opinion, especially the Seamless Sound Transition which is a game changer if you ask me. OTOH, Yamaha has had almost FIVE years to design, implement new features, and produce a Genos successor but not a peep so far from Yammie about any future release date. Korg did the same thing basically. It was pretty much kept under lock and key except the one that was stolen off a shipping lowery in Romania and then popped up online in a few mysterious videos several months ago, although I was unaware of those videos until just prior to Korg's official announcement, which stunned almost everyone I think.

Competition is ALWAYS a good thing. It keeps prices competitive especially in a flourishing economy. It keeps companies on their toes so as to provide even better products to consumers. Roland is missing the boat in my opinion. They finally got back in the Workstation keyboard game with the newest Fantom but I am dumbfounded they decided to quit the flagship arranger race. I guess they felt they couldn't produce top-notch arrangers that would compete against the heavyweights from Yamaha, Korg, and Ketron? Maybe they have a lot of brain-drain going on at Roland? Or perhaps they're just trying to cut back to save a buck. Roland at one point bought Cakewalk (Sonar) and then sold it shortly thereafter possibly because they needed the cash. Although maybe they'll also surprise us with a new flagship arranger somewhere down the road.  If they do it would have to be some kind of zinger to blow everything else out of the water. Time will tell.

All the best,
Mike     

[Amwilburn]

Well, yes, that's a lot of bugs. But I also trust they'll rectify most quickly.

As for the wood paneling, yes, it's an odd aesthetic choice, but side by side the PA5x is *much* prettier than the Genos (I'll take a brushed aluminum/aluminium casing over matt textured plastic anyday looks wise... but then it costs you in weight).

For me, as much as I enjoyed the 15 minutes I spent with the PA5x, I *need* Registrations. And easy to program styles (I've programmed on both operating systems, Yamaha's is quicker; *however* I haven't tried writing styles on the Pa5x yet as our display models still haven't arrived). And the 2 weakest spots on the PA5x are the strings and brass (but those electric guitars were just *impressive*!) and anyone who's followed me on youtube knows, strings and brass are my bread and butter.

The most interesting point Mike made was the 2.5 gb of sample ram. For some people, that might be the only real reason to get a PA5x, but if it's actually *less* user area than the Genos, it puts Yamaha in a very relaxed position.  And like I've also said before; there are literally hundreds of sample pack libraries available for the Genos. Korg has *very* few, because previously, it didn't matter how much sample space you had, there were only so many sample voice slots (and the way the operating system works, it's very easy to install 1 pack. But an absolute nightmare to install 2)

Mark

[usaraiya]

Seriously??? The 'Never Korg hate rhetoric,' has someone's feelings been hurt? I can't see any mention of 'hate' here. Let's try to have adult discussions.

People who own both the Genos & Pa5X (like myself) are feeling great (who wouldn't?) and don't have any feelings hurt
People who invoke "hurt feelings" and "have an adult conversation" have usually run out of any credible arguments to offer in a debate, so I understand if you support the "Genos Good, Korg Bad" mantra!



Uday

[pjd]

Yamaha have adopted a "platform plus updates" approach to both Montage and Genos. Many Yamaha customers complained about the need to buy an entirely new hardware keyboard in order to get new functionality. Yamaha stole a page from Korg by going to the platform plus updates approach.

The initial Genos release was five years ago (August 2017). Yamaha did provide a major 2.0 update in November 2019. Thus, they haven't been exactly idle!  There have been a few minor updates since then.

Lest anyone forget what hit the world markets in 2020!!! 2020 and 2021 were not exactly ideal conditions for a new product launch. Ahem.    The AKM factory fire hit many customers hard, including Yamaha. (I don't know what Korg use for DACs...)

Looking forward, I'm hopeful.

Peace to everyone -- pj

[Gunnar Jonny]

Hi.
I'm pretty sure that Korg is going to adress the bugs and also some of the missing features users asking for in a couple of OS updates relatively quick.
But, as I've said before, if everyone want it to be like a copy of the PA4X, just keep the 4 and forget about the 5.  It's as simple as that. 
The more I look and listen at demos and videos, the more I want to add the PA5. The big problem is that so far it's no such items to grab at the stores.
But I have a active request, so maybe when snow falls and St.Claus have started up Rudolf, he'll bring a big packet for me as well, and Genos will get a new partner   

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Thumbs down to Korg
Cheap saxes that sound like a clarinet!! Bah!!
Even the harmonica sounds tinny

[Gunnar Jonny]

Thumbs down to Korg
Cheap saxes that sound like a clarinet!! Bah!!
Even the harmonica sounds tinny

I guess you know that age does something with humans hearing?
We don't always hear what we think we do........   

[EileenL]

I have had Korg instruments in the past and found them very fiddley to set up and store things as I wanted them. For me Yamaha gives me all I need to be creative and is so easy to use. Would not go back to Korg if you paid me. Do bare in mind this is a Yamaha forum as well before you say I am Korg bashing.

[jwyvern]

Thumbs down to Korg
Cheap saxes that sound like a clarinet!! Bah!!
Even the harmonica sounds tinny

Being of a similar family (called "woodwind" by Yamaha) there will be some saxes that have a clarinet character anyway. But that doesn't mean the more mature richer sax sounds are missing from all the other selections on the KB. All it means is that the demoers so far have failed to play them in a way that demonstrates their finer qualities, and so frustratingly we can't judge what some of the sounds are really like, neither out of the box nor after editing.
The  Genos SA2 alto and tenor saxes need editing to bring out some of the best in them  and if you want to use them as a harmony group the editing needs to be more extensive and this is only likely to be achieved (IMO) after some time closely working with the keyboard at home. It's probably the same for Korg with the added advantage of deeper editing being available.
I don't like the list of bugs, but nevertheless being someone who enjoys creating sound setups on the keyboard and not just playing default sounds forever, I remain tempted 

John

[musicman01]

Dear Mike,
As I thought you don't even own a Pa5x, you just got the bug list from a korg forum and added it to your topic.
What is said on forums is barely 50% true, owners don't even read the manual and the Pa5x manual is 920 pages long!!
Our Genos' bug list in the beginning was at least as long, and it's still not 70% resolved! What many do not know is that Yamaha owes its success from Tyros to the programmers who came over from Technics, which at that time was much further than Yamaha!!
There are many here who comment on the Pa5x and who haven't even seen and especially heard the keyboard in real life! Competition is always in the consumer's favour, so be happy that Korg has put a tough competitor for our Genos with the Pa5x. And hopefully one day Yamaha will wake up and they will finally stop selling plastic boxes "made in China" for more than €4000 where the name itself is not even properly applied to the buttons without the names fading!
I was able to play the Pa5x and left me a very good impression!

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

The Genos Tenor Sax and Alto are as near as you can get with the real thing.
The Articulations are fantastic.
Yes there are poor clarinet type ones but the Genos has the best.
Even the Technics KN 2000 had really good warm sax sounds. Second to none pre 2000.
My hearing is good  for  71 year old and can easliy tell the difference in quality of sounds
It is only VST instruments that can out class Genos sound.
THe PAX5 is nowhere near the class of the Genos.
It's like comparing the Genos to a  Rolf Harris Styleophone
Why have a mini when you can have a Rolls Royce.
Why have a beefburger when you can have steak
I suppose some would prefer "Sausages" !!!

[usaraiya]

This is what I mean by "Hate speech rhetoric"! Especially by someone who has not yet laid hands on a 5X.
By repeating the misinformation over & over again, hoping that one day it will be perceived as the truth if you repeat it often enough!

[mikf]

John - some have equally said that Genos piano sounds are not as good as Korg. It's all nip and tuck.
You may love the sax sound on the Genos, and sax may be an important voice to you, just as piano is important to some people, but hardly anyone buys an arranger just based on a couple of the voices. There are many other considerations. Your Rolls Royce mini comparison is well OTT because it seems clear to most of us that the PaX5 is a very fine arranger, as is Genos. Neither is perfect, and it becomes a matter of individual opinion which is best. We pay our money, we make our choice.
Mike