Korg Pa5X perfect practice tool

[QuiRobinez]

I use the Korg Pa5X a lot as practice tool for my boring Jazz / Neo Soul / improvisation exercises. It's so much more fun to practice on a style then just practicing it on the piano alone.

For instance for Neo Soul I use the factory style Bluey Groove a lot, I always start on 80 BPM and speed up the speed once I mastered the melody licks and chord progressions on that speed in any key.

It's also a perfect way to build up your muscle memory, for instance playing minor 11 chords (in a neo soul / jazz voicing) in any key on a style, builds up your muscle memory and you will notice that whatever you play afterwards you can instantly play that chord in any song you play in any key. It's very rewarding to learn it this way because the styles makes the practice a lot of fun.

My practice routine is most of the time:
- Scale practice (10 minutes)
- one specific chord voicing in any key (20 minutes)
- new chord progression with a melody lick (20 minutes)
- improvising freely over that new chord progression (10 minutes)
- and when there is time left then I play some classical tunes from musescore on my piano (to keep up with scoresheet reading)

I do this almost every day and because I use a style for most of these practices it's so much fun and it doesn't feel as practice.

Do you use your arranger also as a practice tool for these purposes?

[AntonySharmman]

for instance playing minor 11 chords ...

By the way Qui , have you noticed the non recognizing major 11th chord bug in Pa5X ?
Chord recognition omits 11th in major scales and recognized only as 9th , although 11th in minor scale works properly !

[QuiRobinez]

for instance playing minor 11 chords ...

By the way Qui , have you noticed the non recognizing major 11th chord bug in Pa5X ?
Chord recognition omits 11th in major scales and recognized only as 9th , although 11th in minor scale works properly !

Hi Antony,

I didn't notice it yet (I don't watch the chord identification that often, only when I need it for my style recognition, and since 11th chords can't be assigned to CV variations as far as I know, I never noticed it.

But I just tried it and you are right, it recognises the major 11th chord as a 9th chord. The minor 11th chords are recognised in the correct voicing. I've tried it a little bit further and with a different voicing you can get a Major 11th chord. Just try it:

Fmajor 11th voicing: F - A - Bb - C
With this voicing it adds the 11th to the FMajor on the recognition part on top.

But you are right, rootless major 11th voicings are pointed to the F9 chord indeed, but I don't think I will notice it in styles because the 9th and 11ths aren't chord/root/type destinations for the chord variations.

[kbrkr]

I agree Qui. Using the Pa5x is like using the Kronos, but with a style engine built in. I use the Pa5x for the pianos and practice all the time.

[AntonySharmman]

Fmajor 11th voicing: F - A - Bb - C
With this voicing it adds the 11th to the FMajor on the recognition part on top.

It's completely stupid 'cause it just uses sus4 , it says 11th , plays sus4 without 7th and 9th and sounds as Sus4 , definitely acknowledge
bug of non Musician programmers , it's the same stupid as one hand recognition of F7+9 with F , G# , A , C , D#
They did not even followed the over 20 years proper protocol of PaSeries.

[mstodola]

I agree Qui, I've been using my arrangers this way since I first got one. I used to use a drum machine for the same purposes. It's way better than a metrenome.

So you like learning songs in all the keys too. What a great practice tool. I think the styles in the Pa5x are the best so far. I still use my Pa4x and I've really noticed the improvement in the styles for those right out of the box. They seem to be closer to what I desire when I'm playing different songs which means I get to use the styles more often when I'm playing. Normally if I can't find something when I'm doing something on the fly, I just play without a style or just play the drums in the style. So with the Pa5x I seem to be able to find a style and play using both drums, bass, and the style parts. Big improvement.

[mstodola]

And thank you Antony for the style.KST package you put together. I'm able to look for styles in the package for the Pa4x, find the styles that work, then go to the Pa4x at church and find and play the same styles for the songs that I practiced at home on my Pa5x. Very convenient.

[duby2]

QuiRobinez

you do great work ,love the videos and you play excellent But
do you play in a band or are you a solo person .
Just wondering keep up the good work.

[rubenwalters]

Thank you Qui for your helping inputs here and on your youtube channel. very nice that you share this to us.

i use Pa5x in combination with a Nord Stage 4 witch is a very good combination for improvisations.
after last update of my Pa5x i don‘t recognize any errors. i use only standard features and for me it is perfect.
one single thing is that the Nord Keybed fits better for me. but everyone has another feeling …

[chelsea4023]

Hi,

I was interested in this Thread from Qui Robinez and understand most of what he is saying, but for me any keyboard would be a good practice tool ?

I find a weighted 88 note keyboard more preferable to a non-weighted 61 note (especially for practice). I think it's easier to learn on a weighted keyboard and then play a non weighted keyboard rather than the other way around.

I prefer my Nautilus 88 to my PA5X 61 with piano pieces due to the extended range of the keyboard and the fact the keys are weighted.
Both keyboards have a drum section of sorts (as would most Workstations) so creating a beat would be fairly easy.

Piano pieces on an 88 note weighted just sound better to me. I often read players of arrangers (both Pa and Genos) complaining about the quality of the piano samples, but in reality I think it's down to the keyboard range, not the quality of the sample.

My main issue (as I'm just an amateur home player) is that rather than practising and learning pieces, I tend to play stuff I already know because that's more fun !!

Chris

[QuiRobinez]

Hi,

I was interested in this Thread from Qui Robinez and understand most of what he is saying, but for me any keyboard would be a good practice tool ?

I find a weighted 88 note keyboard more preferable to a non-weighted 61 note (especially for practice). I think it's easier to learn on a weighted keyboard and then play a non weighted keyboard rather than the other way around.

...

My main issue (as I'm just an amateur home player) is that rather than practising and learning pieces, I tend to play stuff I already know because that's more fun !!

You are right, almost all the things I show in my tutorials can be applied to any keyboard (Genos, Pa5X or Pa4X or other models).

I prefer an 88 keys keyboard too for piano practicing, actually, this is the way I use it, In my studio I have 2 88 Keys keyboards (the korg kronos and the Native instruments S88 MK3), I prefer the S88 MK3 combined with the Piano Libraries Noire, Grandeur and PianoTeq 8 (depending on what I try to achieve).

But the last months I'm studying the Modes and improvisation lines and their connection to jazz chords. For this I've bought all the Noah Kellman music books in his store and this contains so much study material that it needs a lot of repetition, and there is where the Pa5X or genos comes in. I enter the chord progressions and I can control the Pa5X and Genos from my other 88 keyboards, so a perfect way to practice for me.

I also practice a lot of scoresheets from Musescore, I have added a lot of Sets in my profile there with all kind of interesting solo piano pieces. So in that case I set up my Ipad on my 88 keys and practice those score sheets. So in those cases I play complete songs from score sheets.

Another thing that I do differently then in my video is the creation of room reverbs. Although the room reverb is really good in the pa5X, I use convolution reverbs in my studio on top of the piano sounds to create the room atmosphere. But the theory behind it is the same as shown in my tutorial but this way I have more (and a lot more complicated) possibilities to create my own spaces.

So you can do this all on an arranger keyboard, but if you have better options in your studio then don't hesitate to use it

[QuiRobinez]

QuiRobinez

you do great work ,love the videos and you play excellent But
do you play in a band or are you a solo person .
Just wondering keep up the good work.

thanks,

I've played in funk bands, nowadays I only do producer work, so no more band performances.

I would never use arrangers in a band, I used synths like the nord, korg kronos, yamaha motifs, etc.

The arrangers in my studio are now purely for fun purposes.