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

[Danny1972]

At 1:39 they talk about the DUAL sequencer that can play TWO styles at once
how many people would use this and what for?..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2InFUgORHEo&t=383s

Hello Donny, absolutely great you mentioned this as its a feature I do use occasionally & the results are superb. It's great for mixing a Pop style with Latins, or Ballads with Dance it really works very well. You do have to experiment a bit as you can't just pick any old style and smash them together, it's really more suitable if you find songs that you can play to more than one type of musical style, then it really shines switching between both. Great feature indeed.

[Dnj]

Danny if I never played either the Genos or Pa5x I'd have to lean to the Korg just for the extensive professional features it has onboard which are certainly amazing ....... however, would I really use most of them in my playing?...That said Sound wise & style availability, support etc, I still to my ears enjoy playing a Genos. If Yamaha ever decides to release a Genos 2 & added a TILT Up Display, updated the Setlist features to List all formats openly sty,mid,mp3,wav, to just scroll thru without all the extra button pushes (eg: Korg Songbook) and TC Helicon Vocal harmony for much better tracking (I am a singer/player also) I would personally go with the Genos to satisfy my needs as an arranger player singer.

[Danny1972]

Danny if I never played either the Genos or Pa5x I'd have to lean to the Korg just for the extensive professional features it has onboard which are certainly amazing ....... however, would I really use most of them in my playing?...That said Sound wise & style availability, support etc, I still to my ears enjoy playing a Genos. If Yamaha ever decides to release a Genos 2 & added a TILT Up Display, update the Setlist features to List all formats openly sty,mid,mp3,wav, to just scroll thru without all the extra button pushes and TC Helicon vocal harmony (I am a singer/player also) I would personally go with the Genos to satisfy my needs as an arranger player.

Yes absolutely, first and foremost the keyboard you choose and use should primarily be the one that suits your needs the most in all areas, playing style, like how it sounds, that it covers what you need in the areas that matters to you the most. I think the minute you have a board where it only partially satisfies your needs and then having to compromise for the rest I think eventually start to look elsewhere again. Even if a person owns more than 1 keyboard to think it would cover the best of both worlds may help but it becomes more tedious and complex, perhaps more so for professionals like yourself where you want everything you need in once place, less to carry and set up. Some of my friends who gig take multiple keyboards with them.

Certainly in the example you gave of the dual style feature, it's certainly isn't a necessity but more of a nice to have and adds a bit of colour & dimension to style playing but in by no way is it necessary. Features are great but I think the one that suits you the best is the main thing to look for and the Genos certainly covers all and more.

[valimaties]

At 2;00 in the video they talk about the DUAL sequencer that can play TWO styles at once
how many people would use this and what for ?..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2InFUgORHEo&t=383s

I am one of them Dnj 😁
When you have the possibility to sync the styles with those two players and can make something like DJ's do, by mixing songs, why not? Of course, you must choose the next song carrefully to be possible to do the mix, but I tell you that this can be done, and THAT is the purpose, for mixing songs, to switch between them without stopping the playing and without feel the switch from one style to another.
I make almost all my style using the same drum kit, bass voice, guitar strumms voice, and so on. Why? It is simple: A band uses multiple drum kits when they are in a gig? uses multiple bass guitars when they sings? No! Yes, indeed, for guitars some effects could be changed, but in fact, when I choose the order of the songs in my gig I choose the songs that fit the same sound. Maybe in a playlist I use a set of songs using one drum kit and bass and guitars, and in the next playlist I use another drumkit, bass, guitars, and whatever other instruments... That's the way I play, and I tell you the sound is great, like in a band, and that likes to our audience.

This is my humble opinion, of course music is different in each country and may not fit at all how I work on these keyboards.

As a mention:
Peter Baartmans is one of the greatest demonstrator for Yamaha, there is nothing bad to tell about its performance, nothing!!! But in my country he had two demos, one for Tyros 5 and one for Genos. The feeling was not so great as I saw in other countries, because he played as you all know, with guitars, with pianos, with some movies songs, a lot of organs, but nothing to fit to our music, our styles and needs. For example in my country there is NO use of organs in our songs! We don't play organs! Maybe on catholic churches, but only there. So the demo for the organs was in vain for us. That's it! It is not an instrument that fit for my country, like Indian music does not fit in deutch countries, or japanese instruments in Europe's music!
What I want to tell is that these keyboards are NOT made for a single genre, or for some countries only. They must fit the needs for everyone. So they must implement a lot of things that can help most of the people who use them. Why Yamaha didn't call Genos like "GenosUK", or "Genos DE" or "Genos USA"? The instrument is UNIVERSAL, can be used in multiple countries, and IMHO MUST fit the needs for all the world who use it! The problem is that when we know that they can do it and they don't want to!

Best regards,
Vali

[Dnj]

Vali,.....understood,
...great reply. and different countries music is definitely a concern that has to be addressed.
I can see the use of the Dual player as you mentioned.
Thank you for sharing your needs I learned something today.

[Dnj]

Danny a very good reply and another thing to consider is thing to consider when buying is that your paying for features that you may NEVER use also. However, with only a few choices out there what is a player to do?

[rikkisbears]

Hi Donny, I find it a great way to come up with new styles and fix up some of the styles from earlier models that one may need.
Basically load old style into player 1, load a similar type of factory style into player 2. Turn on sync.
Mute the track you want to replace in old style player 1, ( just say drums) mute all tracks in player 2 except for drum track, press shift play, both styles will start playing , you can hear how drum track sounds with old style, if not suitable, while it's still playing , pick another style and another till I find what I want.
I take note of the style tracks that work,  do a quick copy /paste ( style assembly on psr) .
Old style ,has new life.

Or I can do the same with 2 factory styles to come up with a new style.

It's pretty amazing the endless number of styles one can come up with using the 2 style players at the same time and muting tracks on each.

You should watch   ( if you haven't already done so) Qui's video on song specific styles with midi files. If I'm not mistaken you may have used the occasional midi file when you used to perform and sing ? I remember a couple of the old standards you posted , could not have been a keyboard style  on its own, sounded too lush and full, you must have added additional tracks.

It's got me digging out some of my old midi files.

https://youtu.be/SURtgtsGT68

[Danny1972]

another thing to consider is thing to consider when buying is that your paying for features that you may NEVER use also. However, with only a few choices out there what is a player to do?

If you are buying the latest model you cannot help or control what features are included, it will be part of the keyboard and nothing we can do about it. So for example, say you really like the sound of the Pa5x and wanted to purchase it, but you didn't want half the stuff on it, it won't be possible to just remove the things you don't want and that will go for all the newer arrangers or any instruments now.

The only other answer then is to look to previous models and look for the one that you enjoyed most in the past, there will always be a favourite. For example, the boards I used the longest previously in the past were the PSR8000, Pa80, Pa1x, Tyros3 then Tyros4 in that order, those were what I classed as my main boards and with each change came more and more features that I didn't use, for example, I am not a singer so I never used the VH on any of the boards even now. I do feel like it's a bit of a waste but I can think of it this way, that it's a) something that comes with the board by default, regardless, and b) it's there should I ever decide to use it, 3) more features makes a good selling point if you wanted to get rid if it

Unfortunately it's not like a PC where you hand in the spec you want and they built it for you based around that spec. Would be nice if it could be possible.

[EileenL]

I think Yamaha has gone a long way in trying to make there keyboards usable for most. We all know it would be impossible to bring out a different keyboard for different Countries so the free packs now go a long way into helping with this problem.

[Dnj]

Rikki as always thank you for your very informative reply & link to a detailed instruction using the Pa5x's powerful features. It's amazing and so creative as to what this unit can do in so many ways. That said I try to mix it up using Styles & sometimes Midi files also in a project song to get the desired result. After all your paying for these things why not learn & use them too. Your explanation of using the DUAL Player makes sense I appreciate your ideas.

[Sokratis1974]

I think Yamaha has gone a long way in trying to make there keyboards usable for most. We all know it would be impossible to bring out a different keyboard for different Countries so the free packs now go a long way into helping with this problem.

Respecting your point, allow me to disagree. And I will disagree for three main reasons:

1) The possibilities do not cost but it is a matter of the will of the company, and this was shown by OS Version 2.0 of Genos, where suddenly Yamaha increased the RAM from 1.7 giga to 3 giga. And I wonder: What is easier? Increase Ram or add features like different time signature with each variation, different tempo speed with each different variation, ability to create Major Min in Intro & Ending, onboard sample editing capabilities, User Articulation capabilities, extensive Sound Editing capabilities and more. These cost absolutely nothing (trust me, especially when we are talking about a company like Yamaha) and this is amply proven by Korg being the only one (over time) to offer literally EVERYTHING and much more (in all these features) even on a cheap and old Pa300. This is also the reason why Korg is preferred in countries like mine (Greece) as well as Turkey, and all Arab and Balkan countries.
All this may not be useful at all for many here, but there are musical cultures (like the countries I mentioned above) where they require special capabilities to be realized.
I am giving you an example to understand the complexity of what I am describing. Listen to this demo which is from the professional Greek set I created for the Korg Pa Series and has been out since 2018.
https://soundcloud.com/sokratis-1974/stankena?in=sokratis-1974/sets/paradosiaka&si=99459b65775a4b309094073d55052d06&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
So here we have a style with first time signature 13/8 and the second time signature 11/8, as well as with a different tempo speed in each variation. This could not be achieved except in Korg and recently in the Event. Previously, even Ketron did not offer all these possibilities (in models SD9, or Audya) but the company heard all these problems from users and implemented them in the Event.
Of course, this is impossible to achieve in Genos. This can only be achieved on the PSR A5000.
Will you tell me now why I don't buy the A5000? I have absolutely no reason as well as find it unacceptable to have to pay again for a new instrument for features that should be self-explanatory for a workstation (as Yamaha calls the Genos) Consequently, if you don't need them, it doesn't mean that other people don't need them either.
Also, Ketron, a very small company, managed to a huge extent to reach Korg in many possibilities recently with the Event, but again Korg holds the lead because it continues to release new instruments with particularly extensive capabilities (such as the new Pa5x) regardless of any bugs and omissions that are observed which I believe is only a matter of time to be resolved via update.
And it turns out that if Yamaha wants to it can do whatever it wants (in our case) with the relatively new Oriental Model Yamaha A5000 where the company has given users several of the features I mentioned above, and as we know both the A5000 and the PSR SX series are 100% based on the Genos engine. So, I clearly think that it is the commercial policy of the company to distribute capabilities according to the taste of marketing.

2) Both Yamaha and Korg call these models (Genos, Pa5x) as "Digital Workstations". But the truth is that only Korg has the right to say this because it is the only company that in its models (and especially the Pa5x) represents 100% the real concept of a workstation where the purpose is to carry out a 100% musical production ( or any other musical process - he saw the creation of styles with extended features that I mention above, extended sampler features and many more) without the slightest use of any third-party software which in many cases actually has to be purchased.

3) The packages you mention, let me tell you, are too poor to cover even the most basic needs of my country and many other countries. Personally, I have no problem at all as I am lucky enough to be a producer of packages and professional sets myself (at Korg). But it is completely unimaginable to me when, for example, I took Genos in my hands for the first time (in 2018) and to my great surprise I found that even an octave that someone wants to change to a sound of the style (the simplest thing), has to turn the style into a midi file, take a picture of it in a daw (Cubase, etc.) change the octave he wants through the midi sequence, re-export the midi file, convert it back to a style (.STY) import again to the instrument and alas if there was a separate major and minor version in some Intro or Ending.. We are talking about a real (headache) that requires third-party software in a really, complicated way. And I would like to ask you if you see all this (normally). Anyway, I don't see them as normal or logical either.
You will also ask me why I kept Genos and why I am still working on it? I won't hide from you that I have thought too many times to sell it, but the main reason is that I have not yet prepared the Event for my personal needs because it requires a lot of time. It took Genos two years to complete the work I wanted for my personal package, which of course we must emphasize that the above time was due to the many obstacles from the limited possibilities I mention above, which makes your life difficult and particularly demanding a lot of time and effort. I hope the company will see these at some point because if they want to it is very easy (not to say ridiculously easy) for a company (colossus) like Yamaha.
I should finally clarify that in my personal package that I have created for my needs in Genos, it does not require extensive musical needs like those I mentioned above (because I play in hotels) so I need some much simpler and not complex Greek styles as well as some international styles which I have specially created based on my taste.

[Christophermoment]

Respecting your point, allow me to disagree. And I will disagree for three main reasons:

1) The possibilities do not cost but it is a matter of the will of the company, and this was shown by OS Version 2.0 of Genos, where suddenly Yamaha increased the RAM from 1.7 giga to 3 giga. And I wonder: What is easier? Increase Ram or add features like different time signature with each variation, different tempo speed with each different variation, ability to create Major Min in Intro & Ending, onboard sample editing capabilities, User Articulation capabilities, extensive Sound Editing capabilities and more. These cost absolutely nothing (trust me, especially when we are talking about a company like Yamaha) and this is amply proven by Korg being the only one (over time) to offer literally EVERYTHING and much more (in all these features) even on a cheap and old Pa300. This is also the reason why Korg is preferred in countries like mine (Greece) as well as Turkey, and all Arab and Balkan countries.
All this may not be useful at all for many here, but there are musical cultures (like the countries I mentioned above) where they require special capabilities to be realized.
I am giving you an example to understand the complexity of what I am describing. Listen to this demo which is from the professional Greek set I created for the Korg Pa Series and has been out since 2018.
https://soundcloud.com/sokratis-1974/stankena?in=sokratis-1974/sets/paradosiaka&si=99459b65775a4b309094073d55052d06&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
So here we have a style with first time signature 13/8 and the second time signature 11/8, as well as with a different tempo speed in each variation. This could not be achieved except in Korg and recently in the Event. Previously, even Ketron did not offer all these possibilities (in models SD9, or Audya) but the company heard all these problems from users and implemented them in the Event.
Of course, this is impossible to achieve in Genos. This can only be achieved on the PSR A5000.
Will you tell me now why I don't buy the A5000? I have absolutely no reason as well as find it unacceptable to have to pay again for a new instrument for features that should be self-explanatory for a workstation (as Yamaha calls the Genos) Consequently, if you don't need them, it doesn't mean that other people don't need them either.
Also, Ketron, a very small company, managed to a huge extent to reach Korg in many possibilities recently with the Event, but again Korg holds the lead because it continues to release new instruments with particularly extensive capabilities (such as the new Pa5x) regardless of any bugs and omissions that are observed which I believe is only a matter of time to be resolved via update.
And it turns out that if Yamaha wants to it can do whatever it wants (in our case) with the relatively new Oriental Model Yamaha A5000 where the company has given users several of the features I mentioned above, and as we know both the A5000 and the PSR SX series are 100% based on the Genos engine. So, I clearly think that it is the commercial policy of the company to distribute capabilities according to the taste of marketing.

2) Both Yamaha and Korg call these models (Genos, Pa5x) as "Digital Workstations". But the truth is that only Korg has the right to say this because it is the only company that in its models (and especially the Pa5x) represents 100% the real concept of a workstation where the purpose is to carry out a 100% musical production ( or any other musical process - he saw the creation of styles with extended features that I mention above, extended sampler features and many more) without the slightest use of any third-party software which in many cases actually has to be purchased.

3) The packages you mention, let me tell you, are too poor to cover even the most basic needs of my country and many other countries. Personally, I have no problem at all as I am lucky enough to be a producer of packages and professional sets myself (at Korg). But it is completely unimaginable to me when, for example, I took Genos in my hands for the first time (in 2018) and to my great surprise I found that even an octave that someone wants to change to a sound of the style (the simplest thing), has to turn the style into a midi file, take a picture of it in a daw (Cubase, etc.) change the octave he wants through the midi sequence, re-export the midi file, convert it back to a style (.STY) import again to the instrument and alas if there was a separate major and minor version in some Intro or Ending.. We are talking about a real (headache) that requires third-party software in a really, complicated way. And I would like to ask you if you see all this (normally). Anyway, I don't see them as normal or logical either.
You will also ask me why I kept Genos and why I am still working on it? I won't hide from you that I have thought too many times to sell it, but the main reason is that I have not yet prepared the Event for my personal needs because it requires a lot of time. It took Genos two years to complete the work I wanted for my personal package, which of course we must emphasize that the above time was due to the many obstacles from the limited possibilities I mention above, which makes your life difficult and particularly demanding a lot of time and effort. I hope the company will see these at some point because if they want to it is very easy (not to say ridiculously easy) for a company (colossus) like Yamaha.
I should finally clarify that in my personal package that I have created for my needs in Genos, it does not require extensive musical needs like those I mentioned above (because I play in hotels) so I need some much simpler and not complex Greek styles as well as some international styles which I have specially created based on my taste.

Cool story bro.

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

[ton37]

Cool story bro.

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Despite your well-founded counter arguments, I disagree with you 

[rodrigo.b]

Respecting your point, allow me to disagree. And I will disagree for three main reasons:

1) The possibilities do not cost but it is a matter of the will of the company, and this was shown by OS Version 2.0 of Genos, where suddenly Yamaha increased the RAM from 1.7 giga to 3 giga. And I wonder: What is easier? Increase Ram or add features like different time signature with each variation, different tempo speed with each different variation, ability to create Major Min in Intro & Ending, onboard sample editing capabilities, User Articulation capabilities, extensive Sound Editing capabilities and more. These cost absolutely nothing (trust me, especially when we are talking about a company like Yamaha) and this is amply proven by Korg being the only one (over time) to offer literally EVERYTHING and much more (in all these features) even on a cheap and old Pa300. This is also the reason why Korg is preferred in countries like mine (Greece) as well as Turkey, and all Arab and Balkan countries.
All this may not be useful at all for many here, but there are musical cultures (like the countries I mentioned above) where they require special capabilities to be realized.
I am giving you an example to understand the complexity of what I am describing. Listen to this demo which is from the professional Greek set I created for the Korg Pa Series and has been out since 2018.
https://soundcloud.com/sokratis-1974/stankena?in=sokratis-1974/sets/paradosiaka&si=99459b65775a4b309094073d55052d06&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
So here we have a style with first time signature 13/8 and the second time signature 11/8, as well as with a different tempo speed in each variation. This could not be achieved except in Korg and recently in the Event. Previously, even Ketron did not offer all these possibilities (in models SD9, or Audya) but the company heard all these problems from users and implemented them in the Event.
Of course, this is impossible to achieve in Genos. This can only be achieved on the PSR A5000.
Will you tell me now why I don't buy the A5000? I have absolutely no reason as well as find it unacceptable to have to pay again for a new instrument for features that should be self-explanatory for a workstation (as Yamaha calls the Genos) Consequently, if you don't need them, it doesn't mean that other people don't need them either.
Also, Ketron, a very small company, managed to a huge extent to reach Korg in many possibilities recently with the Event, but again Korg holds the lead because it continues to release new instruments with particularly extensive capabilities (such as the new Pa5x) regardless of any bugs and omissions that are observed which I believe is only a matter of time to be resolved via update.
And it turns out that if Yamaha wants to it can do whatever it wants (in our case) with the relatively new Oriental Model Yamaha A5000 where the company has given users several of the features I mentioned above, and as we know both the A5000 and the PSR SX series are 100% based on the Genos engine. So, I clearly think that it is the commercial policy of the company to distribute capabilities according to the taste of marketing.

2) Both Yamaha and Korg call these models (Genos, Pa5x) as "Digital Workstations". But the truth is that only Korg has the right to say this because it is the only company that in its models (and especially the Pa5x) represents 100% the real concept of a workstation where the purpose is to carry out a 100% musical production ( or any other musical process - he saw the creation of styles with extended features that I mention above, extended sampler features and many more) without the slightest use of any third-party software which in many cases actually has to be purchased.

3) The packages you mention, let me tell you, are too poor to cover even the most basic needs of my country and many other countries. Personally, I have no problem at all as I am lucky enough to be a producer of packages and professional sets myself (at Korg). But it is completely unimaginable to me when, for example, I took Genos in my hands for the first time (in 2018) and to my great surprise I found that even an octave that someone wants to change to a sound of the style (the simplest thing), has to turn the style into a midi file, take a picture of it in a daw (Cubase, etc.) change the octave he wants through the midi sequence, re-export the midi file, convert it back to a style (.STY) import again to the instrument and alas if there was a separate major and minor version in some Intro or Ending.. We are talking about a real (headache) that requires third-party software in a really, complicated way. And I would like to ask you if you see all this (normally). Anyway, I don't see them as normal or logical either.
You will also ask me why I kept Genos and why I am still working on it? I won't hide from you that I have thought too many times to sell it, but the main reason is that I have not yet prepared the Event for my personal needs because it requires a lot of time. It took Genos two years to complete the work I wanted for my personal package, which of course we must emphasize that the above time was due to the many obstacles from the limited possibilities I mention above, which makes your life difficult and particularly demanding a lot of time and effort. I hope the company will see these at some point because if they want to it is very easy (not to say ridiculously easy) for a company (colossus) like Yamaha.
I should finally clarify that in my personal package that I have created for my needs in Genos, it does not require extensive musical needs like those I mentioned above (because I play in hotels) so I need some much simpler and not complex Greek styles as well as some international styles which I have specially created based on my taste.

Yamaha has the best sounds but the Korg has more functions and truly awesome possibilities.

[Amwilburn]

Hello Donny, absolutely great you mentioned this as its a feature I do use occasionally & the results are superb. It's great for mixing a Pop style with Latins, or Ballads with Dance it really works very well. You do have to experiment a bit as you can't just pick any old style and smash them together, it's really more suitable if you find songs that you can play to more than one type of musical style, then it really shines switching between both. Great feature indeed.

Yes, the dual style player *was* worthless at launch because it wasn't tempo synched. But now that you can tempo sync it with the big update, it *is* like crossfading 2 dj tracks. Not a feature I'd use often, but it's actually kinda neat now

Mark

[Danny1972]

Yes, the dual style player *was* worthless at launch because it wasn't tempo synched. But now that you can tempo sync it with the big update, it *is* like crossfading 2 dj tracks. Not a feature I'd use often, but it's actually kinda neat now

Mark

Hi Mark,

That's not quite true, for me it was always fine and worked in synch from day one. I bought the Pa5x from launch with the first OS release as well. The button combination to get the tempo in synch changed in the latest OS release to make it easier but it was always there. If you check Bonners demo of the Pa5x from 10 months ago you can see Tony demonstrating this feature before the OS update.

[Amwilburn]

Hi Mark,

That's not quite true, for me it was always fine and worked in synch from day one. I bought the Pa5x from launch with the first OS release as well. The button combination to get the tempo in synch changed in the latest OS release to make it easier but it was always there. If you check Bonners demo of the Pa5x from 10 months ago you can see Tony demonstrating this feature before the OS update.

I'd already seen the video you were talking about before (I assume this one)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRS9DzxwBmE

That's *not* tempo sync. At around 20:25, he *manually* had to set the tempo of style 2 to correspond to style 1. The number of customers who tried it out and were gobsmacked when I told them they had to "sync" it manually. Imagine if you told a DJ he had to stop 1 song, change the tempo manually to match the other song and then play them together?

I didn't mean the syncro start, I meant the fact that if I then switched again I'd have to stop the 2nd style, manually adjust the tempo to match the first, then play again. That's just silly. Some customers refused to believe me they'd launch the feature so broken, and I showed them videos showing that they had to do it manually, and they just couldn't believe it. However, as soon as Korg announced tempo sync as a new feature, I let people know, and once I updated the OS it was very usable.



Now you can set tempo lock, and on the fly change style 1 or 2 and it will all sync up. Now it's pretty neat!

[robinez]

There is a lot of debat about the korg pa5x pianos, some people are hating the sound and others do really like them. I really like them, i have the same pianos in my korg kronos and i always wished to have them available in a Keyboard so that i can use them with styles. And now I can.

I've created a demo of the factory sounds, my own sounds and the last part is a tutorial about how to create those sounds yourself. So hopefully someone over here can use it.

The video can be found over here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LlXLDaTRNg



Korg Pa5x - Piano demos and tutorial keyboard sets
In this tutorial I will show some of the factory pianos, my own versions of the factory pianos and I will explain how to create your own piano keyboard sets and how to alter the piano sounds.

Topics
00:00 Factory pianos
03:32 Demo: my own piano keyboard sets
16:15 Tutorial: how to create your own piano keyboard sets
31:14 Outro


Timetable:
--------------
Factory Pianos
00:00 - 03:32

00:00 demo: Time
00:53 austrian piano
01:25 resonance demo
02:18 how to solve the resonance

--------------------------------
Demo: my own piano keyboard sets
03:32 - 16:15

03:32 explanation
04:06 demo: Austrian Pianos
06:49 demo: German Pianos
08:34 demo: Italian Pianos
11:51 demo: Japan Pianos
13:38 demo: Neo Soul Electric Pianos
14:42 demo: Time


----------------------------------------------------
Tutorial: how to create your own piano keyboard sets
16:15 - 31:57

16:15 explanation
17:18 mixer, insert and master fx
18:35 EQ basics
21:54 removing hammer noises with filters
24:10 ambient reverb settings
27:18 pad sounds beneath a piano (tips and tricks)
31:16 outro

[robinez]

For the people that are interested in this,
I've created a Korg Pa5x Style demo with 100 songs in 25 minutes (to get an impression how they sound, around 90 of them are factory styles). The song list is in the description of the video.

What I also did is adding 3 yamaha genos styles to the pa5x, it takes about 5 minutes to convert any yamaha genos style to a pa5x style. In this video the following songs are yamaha genos songs wich I converted:
- Chiquitita
- Black Velvet
- Shakatak Mashup
- Higher Grounds (stevie wonder) was created from a midi file on the pa5x.

It's extremely easy to create new styles for the pa5x (i have a tutorial for this on my youtube channel for those who are interested in this procedure).

you can find the style demo here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krORek_EF3g

[richkeys]

....the korg pa5x pianos....the last part is a tutorial about how to create those sounds yourself. So hopefully someone over here can use it....

14:42 demo: Time

Qui,

Coincidentally, I had been watching your PA5X piano sets video several times this weekend, not realizing you were also on this forum. The PA5X pianos sound great, especially the "QR German Piano Magic" you feature in the opening segment playing the Hans Zimmer piece and then again 14 minutes in. I really liked that ambient background stuff on that particular piano.

My question is, most of us here on the Yamaha forum don't have the PA5X, so was wondering (if you use SX900/Genos) can you make a tutorial on how to get a similar piano sound on the Yamahas? Perhaps there is some way to achieve this with a delay effect on one of the voices. I haven't had success yet.

Also, you mentioned its's easy to convert Genos to PA5X styles. Has anyone converted PA5X styles to Genos/SX? I did a separate post on this but no one seemed interested. I would like to see the Styles content on this website updated with some fresh content.

Rich

[BogdanH]

..can you make a tutorial on how to get a similar piano sound on the Yamahas?...

hello Rich,
Although question is addressed to robinez, let me share my thoughts about this...
I'm quite sure that one can get similar (almost equal) sound on any decent Yamaha arranger. The only condition is, we must have a good piano voice built-in, or we need to create custom piano voice (if we have the right samples).
Most agree that Pa5X has excellent piano voices built-in and so obviously we need to start with comparable voice on Yamaha.

Genos already has CFX and C7 pianos which are considered as a premium piano voices -the rest is up to editing/adapting the voice to our liking. The result will depend on our skill/knowledge and especially on our patience. To get what we want can't be done in 15 minutes, because there are too many settings we deal with: it can take days. Let me explain... Even if it happens we get desired result in 30min's, when we will listen to that voice again in next day, we will realize it doesn't sound as we thought it does. The thing is, our ears must rest between sound evaluating sessions.

It's more problematic with PSR keyboards (I have SX700) which have embarrassing piano voices built-in. That is, if we start with poor sounding source, we can only get poor sounding result. Here the only solution is to find good piano samples and make a custom voice -that way piano on PSR can sound as good as on TOTL keyboard.

I'm sure that you already know all that.. I'm writing this for general audience 

Bogdan

[Lee Batchelor]

Good points, Bogdan. I might add that the final sound of any sample depends on what speaker system you use. If you're playing your Genos over its own speakers, the parameters would be totally different than if the player was on stage with larger performance speakers.

[robinez]

Qui,

Coincidentally, I had been watching your PA5X piano sets video several times this weekend, not realizing you were also on this forum. The PA5X pianos sound great, especially the "QR German Piano Magic" you feature in the opening segment playing the Hans Zimmer piece and then again 14 minutes in. I really liked that ambient background stuff on that particular piano.

My question is, most of us here on the Yamaha forum don't have the PA5X, so was wondering (if you use SX900/Genos) can you make a tutorial on how to get a similar piano sound on the Yamahas? Perhaps there is some way to achieve this with a delay effect on one of the voices. I haven't had success yet.

Also, you mentioned its's easy to convert Genos to PA5X styles. Has anyone converted PA5X styles to Genos/SX? I did a separate post on this but no one seemed interested. I would like to see the Styles content on this website updated with some fresh content.

Rich

that piano is really easy to make, it's a blend of a piano and a pad sound. The piano has a specific EQ curve where the low end was removed and some high frequencies through EQ were emphasized. Then the cutoff of the total piano gives it that sound.

This is one of the pianos that absolutely can be created on the Genos, with the CFX or C7 pianos as a base and the cutoff off you can get really close if you blend it with a pad sound in the keyboard set. The genos has less posibilities for sound design but even then, these type of pianos can definitely be done. The genos pianos are high quality so that gives lots of frequencies to play with.

I will think about a tutorial for that, thanks for the suggestion.

your other question is harder. It's hard (not impossible) to create new styles for the yamaha genos. This is because the genos demands some extra blocks with information in them (CASM) and there are some other requirements. The korg is much easier, it only needs a midi file and then basically you are done. It's just a matter of setting the correct labels and import it in the korg pa5x and you are there. The revoicing can entirely be done on the korg pa5x mixer screen, there is no need to do this in event edit mode with program changes or whatsoever.

So converting a yamaha style to a very good sounding pa5x style takes around 5 minutes. 2 minutes for the markers renaming to the korg standard and 3 minutes for the revoicing and then it's converted. So easy to do.

But the other way around, I never tried it because the only CASM tool I found on this forum was based on JRE and I don't want to install that on my pc.

[richkeys]

Thanks for your responses, Qui. Good info to know about the Korg style conversation issue to Yamaha. There are few style folders available on this forum from the older PA3X model, so I was curious about the 5X.

Regarding the 5X ambient piano you featured, I was particularly interested in the rhythmic echo/delay effect used with the high pitched synth sound that was then layered with the piano. I thought it worked well with the Inception piece. I was not able to find an appropriate preset voice that had that type of waveform to apply effects to. It sounds like something from a Korg Wavestate rather than an arranger. The closest I was able to achieve on the SX was using an Echo insert effect plus heavy Reverb on an electric piano shifted to a higher octave for one of the voice parts.  (I know we are in the Genos section here, but I only have an SX900 right now)

Rich

[robinez]

Thanks for your responses, Qui. Good info to know about the Korg style conversation issue to Yamaha. There are few style folders available on this forum from the older PA3X model, so I was curious about the 5X.

Regarding the 5X ambient piano you featured, I was particularly interested in the rhythmic echo/delay effect used with the high pitched synth sound that was then layered with the piano. I thought it worked well with the Inception piece. I was not able to find an appropriate preset voice that had that type of waveform to apply effects to. It sounds like something from a Korg Wavestate rather than an arranger. The closest I was able to achieve on the SX was using an Echo insert effect plus heavy Reverb on an electric piano shifted to a higher octave for one of the voice parts.  (I know we are in the Genos section here, but I only have an SX900 right now)

Rich

ah, yes that is a sine sound in wave sequence mode on the pa5x. The korg pa5x has 24 oscillators per sound and you can use them in the same way as a wave sequencer, so they start in the sustain phase of that sound. It's a programming trick in the pa5x synthesizer. That is not possible on the yamaha genos. Maybe when you add a sine sound to one of the upper sounds and then route the arpeggiator to only that one upper slot (there is a genos tutorial for that on my youtube channel) then you can get that looks like it, but in this case it's programmed in the sound by me.

this functionality goes really for on korg keyboards, for instance in this video I created some wavesequences on my korg wavestate, I sampled a few dry notes of that sound and added those samples to my korg pa5x. Then I used those samples to build something similar in the korg synthesizer. In this case I use a granulair effect technique with shimmering pitch notes to achieve this Brian Eno Pad sound. And you can do this all on the korg Pa5X. But in my opinion most keyboard players aren't interested in these kind of explanations how to do it. But i'm using my keyboards this way (also the genos, which you need a different approach to do this like wet FX sampling techniques).

the Brian Eno - An Ending cover can be found here, it's all done in the korg pa5x synthesizer mode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr6e2XkzcMA

[richkeys]

Qui,

Got it, makes sense. I had heard the PA's had better synthesis and control. That combined with easier ability to convert Yamaha styles to PA5X (not sure how simple that would be for me to do) makes it an intriguing choice perhaps down the road if I want a higher-end arranger with more synthesis control. Also good job on the Brian Eno piece. The movie "28 Days Later" used that piece.

Rich

[richkeys]

hello Rich,
Although question is addressed to robinez, let me share my thoughts about this...

Hi Bogdan.

I appreciate your comments and agree. You can read my further comments with robinez and his responses here. I was clarifying with him that it wasn't only the Korg PA piano sound I was going for. Rather it was the ambient wave sequence using a sine waveform that worked really well layered with the piano. Yamaha arrangers can't do this. You can hear this in his YT video, its at the beginning and also 14 min. in:

https://youtu.be/5LlXLDaTRNg

Rich

[overover]

... But the other way around, I never tried it because the only CASM tool I found on this forum was based on JRE and I don't want to install that on my pc.

Hi robinez,

you can use the free "CasmEdit" (Windows) program by Evgeny Osenenko. The current version is V3.2.6.1. It is compatible to SFF1 and SFF2 (SFF GE) styles. It is a very good program for Style and CASM editing. Also see the attached screenshot.

To download the last version click here:
>>> https://www.mnppsaturn.ru/osenenko/Main_eng.htm

On YouTube:
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1VZffIZRQ&list=PLkuU7i9JjxW5iPA0df1CdYrGmHkIlE62J


Best regards,
Chris

[attachment unavailable]

[Amwilburn]

mo with 100 songs in 25 minutes (to get an impression how they sound, around 90 of them are factory styles). The song list is in the description of the video.

What I also did is adding 3 yamaha genos styles to the pa5x, it takes about 5 minutes to convert any yamaha genos style to a pa5x style. In this video the following songs are yamaha genos songs wich I converted:
- Chiquitita
- Black Velvet
- Shakatak Mashup
- Higher Grounds (stevie wonder) was created from a midi file on the pa5x.

It's extremely easy to create new styles for the pa5x (i have a tutorial for this on my youtube channel for those who are interested in this procedure).

How do you convert Yamaha .sty to PA5x style?? I know you said it's on your channel, but all I found was midi to style (which is built into the PA series since the PA4x) and demos of converted styles, but not actually *how* to convert them?

thanks,

Mark

[robinez]

How do you convert Yamaha .sty to PA5x style?? I know you said it's on your channel, but all I found was midi to style (which is built into the PA series since the PA4x) and demos of converted styles, but not actually *how* to convert them?

It is the same process as i've shown in my how to create styles in Cubase video (see the link at the bottom of this post). The only thing you have to do now is to rename the <yamaha style name>.sty file to <yamaha style name>.mid and then do the remapping and revoicing as described in that tutorial.

there are some things that you need to do to make the conversion perfect, but these are so obvious that i think most people can figure them out on their own.

But there are multiple requests for it, so probably I will create a youtube tutorial for it.

On the pa5x there is no creator bot in the current os, that will come in 2024. But for now you can use the method as described in my tutorial below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9PP4o0cdE0