Pa1000 v Pa700 v Yamaha SX900 v Yamaha SX700

[Randelph]

I'm currently looking at the PA700 and the PA1000.
Is it a better choice buying a slightly used PA1000 (as good as new with warranty) or a brand new PA700 ?

PA700 Around 1200 Euros
"used" PA1000 1500 Euros

I agree with John. If you get a warranty with the 1000, this is a no-brainer like he said, just be sure you register with Korg, which extends your 1 year warranty to 2 years. It also means that if and when you ever sell it, you'll get closer to what you paid for it.

OTOH, great deals like this are also possible with the Pa700, if price is a determining factor for you. Looking up the Pa700 on the Thomann website (for US customers), it sells thru them for 900 euros, and you can probably find it cheaper if you look for returns with warranty or refurb with warranty.

You didn't say your familiarity with keyboards, what you want to do with it, etc. If you're a beginner to the world of digital keyboards, I'd recommend the Pa700. IME, I over bought when I was starting out, and in hindsight would have saved myself a lot of money if I'd looked at less expensive options that I could learn on and educate myself on what was important to me.

Keep in mind that with either of these boards there's a steep learning curve, but OTOH, the quality of sounds and styles are totally worth it!

Randy

[ime95mos]

I'm currently looking at the PA700 and the PA1000.
Is it a better choice buying a slightly used PA1000 (as good as new with warranty) or a brand new PA700 ?

PA700 Around 1200 Euros
"used" PA1000 1500 Euros

I agree with John. If you get a warranty with the 1000, this is a no-brainer like he said, just be sure you register with Korg, which extends your 1 year warranty to 2 years. It also means that if and when you ever sell it, you'll get closer to what you paid for it.

OTOH, great deals like this are also possible with the Pa700, if price is a determining factor for you. Looking up the Pa700 on the Thomann website (for US customers), it sells thru them for 900 euros, and you can probably find it cheaper if you look for returns with warranty or refurb with warranty.

You didn't say your familiarity with keyboards, what you want to do with it, etc. If you're a beginner to the world of digital keyboards, I'd recommend the Pa700. IME, I over bought when I was starting out, and in hindsight would have saved myself a lot of money if I'd looked at less expensive options that I could learn on and educate myself on what was important to me.

Keep in mind that with either of these boards there's a steep learning curve, but OTOH, the quality of sounds and styles are totally worth it!

Randy

I've actually never owned a KORG keyboard. Mainly Casios. Currently I don't have a keyboard at all (only a Yamaha Piano). It's been a while, but I think investing in something good and future proof (something to dig into) is a good idea. I'm not sure that I really need all the stuff yet, but once you start digging into something these strange demands pops up, like a chord sequencer. The chord sequencer is a great thing to have backing you when playing solo for a while. The PSX-700 lack this and then you would have to step up to the 900 whish is double the price. Both the PA700 and PA1000 have this. PA1000 have more pianolike keyes from what I understand and that tilting screen is a great feature.

[Randelph]

I've actually never owned a KORG keyboard. Mainly Casios. Currently I don't have a keyboard at all (only a Yamaha Piano). It's been a while, but I think investing in something good and future proof (something to dig into) is a good idea. I'm not sure that I really need all the stuff yet, but once you start digging into something these strange demands pops up, like a chord sequencer. The chord sequencer is a great thing to have backing you when playing solo for a while. The PSX-700 lack this and then you would have to step up to the 900 whish is double the price. Both the PA700 and PA1000 have this. PA1000 have more pianolike keyes from what I understand and that tilting screen is a great feature.

I guess another question is how tech savvy and patient are you? There's fantastic power in the Pa Series, and it's really inspiring with such good speakers built-in and great Sounds and Styles. I've had a half dozen arranger boards mostly 'cause i like built-in speakers, but this is the first one that I've taken seriously as an arranger. It often feels like you've got a personalized backing band of pro musicians to support your playing, and the quality of the drum sounds and patterns is frankly amazing.

However, this ability comes at a price. I suspect that much of the way things are done on these boards is the same way it started out 20 plus years ago. They have a desire for folks to upgrade, and therefore make the boards from one generation to the next as similar as possible. Kind of like DOS being the foundation of Windows for many generations of computers.

I'm reasonably tech savvy / patient, and am motivated 'cause I like this board, but I'd hesitate to recommend it to anyone who isn't ready to roll up their sleeves and dedicate some serious time to it. I have found this board to be daunting in how it operates. I don't find it very intuitive, except for the fact that it has a touchscreen and lots of buttons. You have to know the Korg way of performing a task and just know it, rote memory. It's not something that you could reasonably learn without a lot of study.

That said, there's a few knowledgeable people on this forum who are very willing to help, there are a good number of tutorial videos, etc. Keep in mind that besides learning how to operate the board, there are literally hundreds of Styles to audition and learn which ones are good for which songs.

I briefly used a Korg Kross (the original) and was surprised at how intuitive, fast and fun that board was. You can record your own backing tracks in a number of ways and play along with it. That might be a better beginning board for you. It's no fun to be dragged down and slowed down by an excess of technology that is supposed to grant you magical powers but instead just becomes a hindrance to your fun with music.

I do really like the tilt up screen on the Pa1000 and other numerous step up features over the Pa700. From my understanding, the new Yamaha S900 has a considerably more powerful chord sequencer than the Pa series. Instead of 1 chord sequence you've got 8? The Pa1000 has aftertouch, which is great for keeping your fingers on the keys and getting more expression, all programmable. But personally I give low marks to the key action on the Pa1000 because it's harder to play the notes as you move to the back of the keys.

I'm hoping that Korg will break from tradition with their next generation of arranger boards and come up with a more user-friendly way of using it. I've often thought that if the board was easier to learn that I would become its greatest promoter- because the quality of the Styles are so good, you could literally learn musical Styles from many parts of the world, the bass / drums / accompaniment parts, the quality of musicianship is really good!

[NativeAngels]

I think with Korg Arrangers you can edit so much more

[ime95mos]

With the PSR-SX700 and KORG PA700 being almost identical in terms of price, what are the key differences? What do the PA700 have that the Yamaha don't?

So far I'v noticed that the Yamaha lacks Chord loop Recorder. Anything else?

[Biggles]

With the PSR-SX700 and KORG PA700 being almost identical in terms of price, what are the key differences? What do the PA700 have that the Yamaha don't?

So far I'v noticed that the Yamaha lacks Chord loop Recorder. Anything else?

Before I answer your question, I will ask one if you.

What is the most important aspect of any keyboard?

The answer from my point of view is simple, its the quality of the sounds.

Same thing with the Yamaha and Korgs, compare each side by side and the Korg sounds better in every department except some piano sounds where the Yamaha has the edge.

Add in Reuben’s piano sounds and its equal, tweak the Korg Eq and it surpasses the Yamaha.

If these are on your shortlist play them back to back youself.

[siebenhirter]

Hello,

especially when it comes to the quality of sounds and compare side by side it hardly can be said one would sound better - unless you're biased or habitually fixated on a particular brand. Maybe for criterion "quality of sound" the personal and individually different taste is decisive, but "sounds better in every department" cannot be determined objectively.

This completely is different if you look at the functions and features. If one do not like to play with Chord Loop recording - that would be no feature to prefer a device because of this. The same applies to the extensive editing options - who never intend to deal intensively with the editing of musical resources have no advantage of extensive editing features.

It are the equipments features, the purchase price, the handling etc and whether they fit the personal needs. That I would use as decisive for a comparison rather than the quality of the sounds, because in terms of sound the compared keyboards are equivalent, with slight, barely noticeable differences in a few areas.

[B.Safe]

... in terms of sound the compared keyboards are equivalent, with slight, barely noticeable differences in a few areas.

That's only true if you're talking about the factory sounds and samples provided by Korg.
However, it's forgetting that PAs contain a very powerful synthesizer that allows you to modulate all the parameters of the sound in real time. You can make your own DNC sounds and control the parameter of your choice by a whole bunch of means (joystick, aftertouch, buttons, pedals, velocity, and many others).
From this point of view, PA sounds are far superior to Yamaha's arranger sounds.
That said, for those who don't want to make their own sounds or add third party resources, it's true that the interest is more limited.

[Biggles]

Hello,

especially when it comes to the quality of sounds and compare side by side it hardly can be said one would sound better - unless you're biased or habitually fixated on a particular brand. Maybe for criterion "quality of sound" the personal and individually different taste is decisive, but "sounds better in every department" cannot be determined objectively.

This completely is different if you look at the functions and features. If one do not like to play with Chord Loop recording - that would be no feature to prefer a device because of this. The same applies to the extensive editing options - who never intend to deal intensively with the editing of musical resources have no advantage of extensive editing features.

It are the equipments features, the purchase price, the handling etc and whether they fit the personal needs. That I would use as decisive for a comparison rather than the quality of the sounds, because in terms of sound the compared keyboards are equivalent, with slight, barely noticeable differences in a few areas.

Have you played these keyboards back to back?

[Randelph]

I'd be very curious to know how much the new S700 and S900 inherits from the Genos. We've been lucky, Korg has bestowed most of the sonic goodness of their flagship onto the Pa700/1000, which is part of why these boards kick ass.

I disagree with Siebenhirter. IME, the sounds on Pa series stands head and shoulders above all the boards I've tried (other than the Nord Stage for EPs and organs). When I play most of the woodwinds and brass on this board I'm still blown away how good these sounds are, how expressive and real they feel under my fingers. In the past I rarely used ww and brass because they sounded like a pale imitation of the original, but no longer. Same for the bass sounds, which is something I've got an obsession over, to be able to realistically kick left hand bass is completely awesome. And same for the drum/percussion sounds, top notch, and paired with incredible programming, I often feel like I've got a real drummer with me.

For me, most of the sounds are top of class except the EPs and possibly the organs, haven't played them much, and the piano seems fine, but I always find that pianos are hard for me to evaluate. Overall though there's a sheen and vibrancy to the sounds that I find inspiring! And playing in a classical or orchestral way, I've never come close to having such an expansive sound.

When I first started seriously buying and paying attention to keyboards in 2007 when I bought my Yamaha XS7, I was of the mindset that the quality of the onboard sounds didn't matter much. I was sooooo wrong. They are a starting point for me to evaluate my satisfaction with a board.

But like I said, this is only in my experience. Perhaps the S700/900 also have super realistic and expressive voices that inspire, no idea.

Doing a quick perusal of the SX900, the things that'd sway me over the Pa1000:
- 1 GB user memory vs 600MB
- 4GB of memory for built-in sounds, vs 2 GB. Who knows though if this translates to better quality and more sounds
- 8 part chord looper
- Have heard the keybed is better
- It has an stereo aux in that's separate from the Guitar/Vox in
- Wave format audio record and playback and time stretch from USB
- Bluetooth playback over the speakers?
- I would hope the number of insert fx for the upper voices is more than 1!
- Larger user base, sound libraries and tech support

Not going to take the time to list the obvious advantages of the Pa1000 over the yamaha offering. But for me, the bottom line would be 3 things:
1. The quality of sounds and styles
2. The user-friendliness of learning this board
3. The keybed

Looks like Korg has some healthy competition!

[siebenhirter]

.. it's forgetting that PAs contain a very powerful synthesizer that allows you to modulate all the parameters of the sound in real time . .

When comparing Pa700 vs PSR-SX700 I only rated, that about the quality of the sound it can not be said one would sound better.
Comparing its synthesizers - even if somewhat different technologies are used, there are no serious differences that would cause one would sound better - there are no major differences either.

While you want to create DNC sounds with the Pa700, the PSR-SX700 lets you choose from a variety of Voice Types (S.Art, Live, Cool, Sweet, LifeSFX, MegaVoice). It also control its essential play parameters and favorite functions and shortcuts for personalized operations - maybe with its LIVE CONTROL knobs and assignable buttons, that let you intuitively control your performance in real-time. But that again still are functions that would not cause one would sound better.

About functions:
- the keybed feel of Yamaha’s is very good and easily played close to the rear of the keys.
- Expansion Manager supporting WAV, AIFF, SoundFont and REX format, for handling audio slices, the scope of possibilities for new sounds and styles is interesting for those, who like personal sound variations
- same with editable parameters in voice edit: touch sensitivity (depth, offset), part octave (right, left), mono/poly/type (normal, legato, crossfade), mono portamento time, panel sustain, kbdHarmony/arpeggio, modulation plus/minus (filter, amplitude, lfo pitch, lfo filter, lfo amp), filter (cutoff, resonance), EG (attack, decay, release), vibrato (depht, speed, delay), insertion (on/off, type, depht), rev depht, chorus depth) ....

As I do not want to beaten to death also this topic as usually is done so many times when it comes to arranger keyboards - I will stop her thinking about functions (although there is still something to be said).

Often said here: the best arranger keyboard is the one that suits your personal requirements, which is why subjective comparisons are pretty much pointless - as soon as comparisons are not carried out fairly.

Before I answer a question "Have you played these keyboards back to back" I will ask also if comparable features really are compared here?

But this rarely happens when such comparisons are made in arranger forums of Yamaha or Korg - and mostly by fans who have always preferred one or the other brand, but do not really deal with the competing products in detail.

When comparing Pa700 vs PSR-SX700 I only rated that about the quality of the sound it can be said one would sound better.
Comparing its synthesizers - even if somewhat different technologies are used, there are no serious differences that would cause one would sound better - there are no major differences either.

While you want to create DNC sounds with the Pa700, the PSR-SX700 lets you choose from a variety of Voice Types (S.Art, Live, Cool, Sweet, LifeSFX, MegaVoice) and also control its essential play parameters and favorite functions and shortcuts for personalized operations - maybe with its LIVE CONTROL knobs and assignable buttons, that let you intuitively control your performance in real-time. But that again still are functions that would not cause one would sound better.

About functions:
- the keybed feel of Yamaha’s is very good and easily played close to the rear of the keys.
- an Expansion Manager supporting WAV, AIFF, SoundFont and REX format, for handling audio slices, the scope of possibilities for new sounds and styles is interesting for those, who like personal sound variations
- same with editable parameters with voice edit: touch sensitivity (depth, offset), part octave (right, left), mono/poly/type (normal, legato, crossfade), mono portamento time, panel sustain, kbdHarmony/arpeggio, modulation plus/minus (filter, amplitude, lfo pitch, lfo filter, lfo amp), filter (cutoff, resonance), EG (attack, decay, release), vibrato (depht, speed, delay), insertion (on/off, type, depht), rev depht, chorus depth) ....

As I do not want to beaten to death also this topic as usually is done so many times when it comes to arranger keyboards - I will stop her thinking about functions (although there is still something to be said).

Often said here: the best arranger keyboard is the one that suits your personal requirements, which is why subjective comparisons are pretty much pointless - as soon as comparisons are not carried out fairly.

Before I answer a question "Have you played these keyboards back to back" I will ask also if comparable features really are compared here?

But this rarely happens when such comparisons are made in arranger forums of Yamaha or Korg - and mostly by fans who have always preferred one or the other brand, but do not really deal with the competing products in detail.

Although it is annoying that the formerly extensive functions of the style player are decimated rather than expanded, best arrangers for my suits still are Pa-keyboards.
Main reasons: the keyboard of PSR-SX900 is not featured with aftertouch and is 20% more expensive than Pa1000.

[Randelph]

Siebenhirter,
Do you have the SX700? Which of the Pa boards do you have? I'm not in the market, very happy with my Pa1000, this is more about curiosity.

Also, wondering how user-friendly the SX700/900 are compared to the Pa series, though I suspect that's a hard question for you to answer, being that you already seem to be so familiar with the Pa series OS, it's not the challenge for you that it is for many of us.

I heard Yamaha did a revision of their OS to make the SX700/900 more user friendly than previous generations. If the sounds were on the same outstanding level as the Pa series, the keybed improved over the Pa series, then it'd be a question of the styles being up to the high standard of the Pa series.

It sounds like with 50 watt bi-amped speakers that they would be very close to the power and richness we hear with the Pa series.

[B.Safe]

When comparing Pa700 vs PSR-SX700 I only rated, that about the quality of the sound it can not be said one would sound better.
Comparing its synthesizers - even if somewhat different technologies are used, there are no serious differences that would cause one would sound better - there are no major differences either.

While you want to create DNC sounds with the Pa700, the PSR-SX700 lets you choose from a variety of Voice Types (S.Art, Live, Cool, Sweet, LifeSFX, MegaVoice). It also control its essential play parameters and favorite functions and shortcuts for personalized operations - maybe with its LIVE CONTROL knobs and assignable buttons, that let you intuitively control your performance in real-time. But that again still are functions that would not cause one would sound better.

Yamaha gives many different names to the sounds for marketing reasons.
All these mechanisms are integrated into the DNC operation at Korg.

Just two examples :

• Yamaha's Live sounds use stereo samples, which is what DNC can do in a basic way. You can even use up to 2 x 24 multisamples.
  Megavoice uses very large samples while DNC allows any sample length for any sound.

Actually, in PA's, all sounds can be at the same time superarticulation, megavoice, live, cool etc... and you can make them yourself.
You can even add any "DNC" effect to any existing sound in a PA.

Without these functions, a saxophone wouldn't sound like a saxophone.
Same for a harmonica, trumpet, flute...
So these functions definitely improve the sound quality.

I had a Yamaha arranger many years ago.
I switched to the Korg PA800 precisely because I found this way of generalizing the articulation for all the sounds much more powerful and the result gave much more realistic sounds if necessary, or on the contrary much more diversified if it was the desired effect.

[Biggles]

Hello,

especially when it comes to the quality of sounds and compare side by side it hardly can be said one would sound better - unless you're biased or habitually fixated on a particular brand. Maybe for criterion "quality of sound" the personal and individually different taste is decisive, but "sounds better in every department" cannot be determined objectively.

This completely is different if you look at the functions and features. If one do not like to play with Chord Loop recording - that would be no feature to prefer a device because of this. The same applies to the extensive editing options - who never intend to deal intensively with the editing of musical resources have no advantage of extensive editing features.

It are the equipments features, the purchase price, the handling etc and whether they fit the personal needs. That I would use as decisive for a comparison rather than the quality of the sounds, because in terms of sound the compared keyboards are equivalent, with slight, barely noticeable differences in a few areas.

Have you played these keyboards back to back?

So I take it the answer is No.

Hence the content of your post is totally irrelevant and is best ignored.

[siebenhirter]

... You can even add any "DNC" effect to any existing sound in a PA. Without these functions, a saxophone wouldn't sound like a saxophone. Same for a harmonica, trumpet, flute...
So these functions definitely improve the sound quality..

No matter what technology and functions different synthesizers use - its synthetic saxophone wouldn't sound like a saxophone - at most similar - because only a saxophone would sound like a saxophone.

What kind of generalizing the articulation one found more powerful for realistic sounds is subjective. Comparing Pa700 / SX700 it hardly can be said what kind of technology used would be better for quality of sounds.

If using added DNC-effects for sounds with 24 oscillators or using SA-Voices with commands and messages sent to the sound itself as Switches, Velocity, Portamento or Staccato playing and many other things that can be implemented - at the end they all trigger just another amount of layers or oscillators of samples - nothing else.

... wondering how user-friendly the SX700/900 are compared to the Pa series....

Both keyboards are similarly user-friendly when playing with them. The learning phase is longer for Pa keyboards, but that's because of the more extensive editing options and the large number of changeable parameters.

Yamaha strives to design user-friendly functionality. At Korg simplifications unfortunately do not improve functionality, but rather reduce it - specially with Styleplayer. To simplify functions and losing functionality at the same time is not a good way.