Korg Forums

What is the update intended to do/fix ?
I have a big gig coming up next week ... I think I will wait until AFTER that to do the update ...

Brianepaulson wrote:Will the next shipment of Pa 600's, have the most recent OS 1.0 loaded into them?

Good question. I live in Canada and I ordered 600qt last month. At first I was told it'll be a week's time. The they said second week of June. Still waiting. I wonder if the delay is due to the update.

When I try to download the 1.10 Factory Reset ZIP file I get the following error.

Not Found

The requested URL /images/stories/sw/pa600/res/Pa600_Factory_Reset_v110.zip was not found on this server.

Apache Server at www.korgpa.com Port 80

Hopefully this will get fixed.

Sri.

Tony, I think you would be well advised to wait until after your upcoming gig. The operating system update alone will not affect your styles and sounds etc. but Korg are recommending that you also update the musical resources. This will load all the factory styles and sounds etc. (korg say they have optimised the factory styles, etc.) but it will delete any custom styles, sounds etc. that you have loaded yourself. When the time comes to update, make sure you have a copy of all the styles, sounds, global settings, etc. that you have personally added to the keyboard, so that you can reload these after you update the musical resources. Information about the update is given in a PDF file that comes with the update.

TedS wrote:I think it was a grave mistake to omit "Fingered 3" mode on the PA600, as this is the mode that players probably used the most!

Ted, may you try to use the Expert mode? We believe that, since its introduction, it has replaced Fingered 3 for older users. We would like to hear you about your experience with it.

Paolo

Paolo, I'm honored that you addressed my concern personally! It's a great credit to you and Korg that you communicate directly with your customers on this forum.

I don't consider Expert a substitute for Fingered 3 for the following reasons:
-In split mode, Fingered 3 permits the playing of individual notes which sound in the "Lower" voice without changing the chord. Expert mode interprets these notes as a unison [1+8] and changes the style bass accordingly.

-Fingered 3 is the best way to avoid triggering false chords, because it waits until 3 notes are pressed simultaneously before sounding the chord. Although Korgs are already the best at selective chord recognition IMO, the Expert mode can potentially result in an unintended unison or 2-note "on bass" chord, if the player doesn't get all 3 notes down quickly and cleanly enough.

-The Expert mode is by design a hybrid of Fingered 3, "On Bass" and rootless Jazz chords. (Perhaps it was introduced for users of Yamaha's 'AI Fingered' mode, which is very similar?) Unfortunately this hybridization sometimes leads to unexpected compromises. For example, playing B2+C3 gives CM7. To be logically consistent, I would expect a 2-note fingering such as this to yield CM7/B. Adding E3 as the major third yields an equally unexpected rootless Am9.

You see, Korgs have a convenient panel button for Bass Inversion. This control plus your old "Fingered 2" mode already enabled most slash chords to be played with simplified fingering. Adding another panel button for Rootless (or making Rootless an on/off-type menu option) would provide even more flexibility, and allow rootless chords to be recognized in any mode.

Please don't misunderstand: I'm not saying the Expert mode is a bad feature, and I have tried it occasionally. But I miss Fingered 3 and the predictability of Fingered 2 + Bass Inversion. These modes have been present on all Korg arrangers for more than 13 years, including the predecessor Pa500 and inexpensive MicroArranger. Chord recognition is the defining feature of an arranger... More flexibility and customizability to accommodate varied playing styles and skill levels is always a good thing! Why not bring these deleted modes back to the Pa600 in the next OS update?

A couple more suggestions to consider: I would like to see Korg to introduce two related functions for the assignable pedal, IN ADDITION TO all the functions that are already present:
(1) Momentary Chord Latch: Holding down the footswitch "locks in" the current chord. The accompaniment continues to play in the current chord while the pedal is held down. Any number of notes played to the left of the split sound the lower voice and are not sent to the style engine. When the pedal is released, chord recognition resumes in the previously selected mode.
(2) Momentary Bass Inversion: The state of the bass inversion function changes while the assigned pedal is held down, and reverts to previous when the pedal is released. For example: Begin with bass inversion "off." Press and hold the pedal to play the odd slash chord, then release to use all inversions for the remainder of the score. (Presently it requires two press-and-release cycles to accomplish this.)

Thanks again for responding to my concern and the excellent product line-up you have brought to market over the years.
Sincerely,
Ted

TedS wrote:Fingered 3 is the best way to avoid triggering false chords, because it waits until 3 notes are pressed simultaneously before sounding the chord. Although Korgs are already the best at selective chord recognition IMO, the Expert mode can potentially result in an unintended unison or 2-note "on bass" chord, if the player doesn't get all 3 notes down quickly and cleanly enough.

Indeed ... not only IYO !
I can also add , the false release triggering in expert mode , when a controller must be pressed by left hand.
I'm used to play complex jazz chords of 4-5 simultaneous left hands notes with Pa3X & fingered 3 mode
(expert mode is out of question even there) and faced serious problem of performing same songs in Pa600 & expert mode !
My concern for Pa600 is strictly for my commercial resources , and sincerely I can't imagine myself
performing with Pa600 & it's expert chord recognition mode !

As I wrote in the past fingered 3 mode chord recognition mode is by 90% the most wanted mode by all Musicians !

Paolo,
Can you explain what is the difference between a factory reset and reload resource? To me they seem like they both do the same thing but maybe I'm missing something. In older PA models there was no factory reset. You had to to a reload resource to get the keyboard back in it's original condition. Now you've added the factory reset and I would like to know what the difference is.
Thank You,

Antony and Ted, thank you very much for your feedback.

George, there are three ways of reloading data in the Pa-Series:

a) Media > Load All, to be used to reload your custom data. It can load all the content of a .SET archive. This never contains Factory Sounds. If Factory Styles and Pads are not protected, they could be loaded from the .SET archive.

b) Media > Utility > Factory Restore, to be used when wanting to clean all custom edits to the factory data, or update the factory data to a new set supplied by Korg with a system update. It loads every factory settings (including Factory Sounds, Styles and Pads). It does not reload factory Samples.

c) The Factory Reset package is to be used only when there are problems related to Samples (bad sound, digital noise). It resets everything to the original factory settings, including Samples. The Factory Reset file was there before (starting from Pa800), and was the file including the "RES" abbreviation in its name.

Best regards,
Paolo

Paolo...I was hoping for something that didn't come in this software update. When using the fills on some of the styles they sound very abrupt (the bass note retriggers at a full volume for instance at an inopportune time). I was wondering if Korg might fix this in a future update so that all fills are smooth transitions between variations? I seem to remember the i series having a function where you could easily switch on what beat the fill would come in. When making a style on the Pa-600 you can do that for next measure or immediate but you can't choose what beat. The i5 I believe you could simply set a global parameter to handle this and it resulted in smoother fills. A good example to hear what I'm talking about is to go to some of the Country Ballads, Unplugged or Pop beats and try to use a fill with the chords playing...very unmusical. Thoraldus in another post detailed how to make a fill with taking parts out which I will try but can any of this be addressed in an update? It seems that the fills should be smooth right out of the gate in order to be of most use.

Thanks and God bless

Hi Paolo

Thank you for the update but back when the Pa600 was released I purchased one of the first one's in the UK and noticed a problem with the transpose system.

1. The chord setting (Midi out) to activate an external Harmonizer (Voicelive Touch) was not functioning corectly, it function's perfectly in all the other Korg keyboards I have owned including the KMA. The only way to send transposed chords to the VH is to lock the lower keyboard sound and transmit on channel one.

2. When using the songbook with the master transpose locked the key does not change when selecting a transposed song.

3. Using performance select when the keyboard is transposed the key returns to C maj when selecting a new performance. The facility is very good in concept but useless in action.

I reported these problem's by eMail and was assured they would possibly be changed on the release of the upgrad. Sad to say nothing has changed

All these function's work perfectly in the Pa2x I owned previously. The lack of functionality makes the keyboard consideably more difficult to use in a live situation. In the light of previous comments in this topic regarding chord recognition perhaps the developement team would be as well to take note of an old English saying "If it's not broke don't fix it"

As you can see from my profile I have used Korg equipment for some considerable time and will be considering the Pa900 when it is released. I hope the above problem will be addressed in the new keyboard.

Kind Regards

Colin Davis

Copy of eMail from Saulo Valerio

Dear Colin

Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying.

I have now had a change to spend more time with the Pa600 and there does not seem to be a problem with the way the master transpose and lock functions interact with each other. Rather, the issue may be the way it has been implemented on the Pa600.

When the Master Transpose is globally locked, it can only be changed manually, using the master transpose buttons. SongBook entries or Performances will not be able to change it, as you mentioned.

With the Master Transpose unlocked under Global, both SongBook entries and Performances will be able to change it, as you have also discovered. The fact that selecting another Performance resets the Master Transpose to “00” doesn’t indicate a bug, it is simply due to the fact that all factory Performances are saved with the Master Transpose set to “00”. If you write a Performance with the Master Transpose set to a value other than “00”, it will also be recalled.

There are other master transpose lock options available on some of our other instruments (like the Pa3X and Pa500 for example) to prevent this from happening so I will forward the suggestion for this to be added in a future software update with our development team.



Best regards,



Saulo Valerio