Editing options in Yamaha and Korg

[Akhil]

Yamaha PSR S770 vs. Korg PA 600, which one has
1. Good quality on-board sounds for live playing (Guitar, Strings, Violin, Brass, Trumpet, Sax, Flute)
2. Sound editing options.

Though these are a bit dated models, I've got to choose one among the two. Please share your real experiences on those points.

Thank you.

 

[Biggles]

Korg Arrangers come as standard with a fairly neutral setup. Good strings, brass, organs, wind and others, weak acoustic pianos. They do benefit from a good Eq setup and can be very easily have individual sounds customised. A strength is that the layering can produce great combinations and if one knows what to do by way of customising the oscillators to max out on combined voices the resultant sound of say strings and piano can be saved as a single sound for later use as needed.

Yamaha, well there is not much I can say about the 770 other than I played one back to back with a 700 and it was no contest the 700 beat the 770 in every way except certain piano sounds but even then the sound was too over bright and shrill for my own preferences.

The only experience I have of the 600 is playing one a while ago that one of the guys I jam with brings to the group but I have not been there for many months.

So it really depends on where you are coming from and your own preferences.

I cannot comment on the editing capabilities of either all I can say is the editing capabilities on my 700 is excellent.

My advice would be to physically check out all models in your price range by playing them, then save up more cash and buy a PA700.

The link below is the first from Korg’s video manual series (there are 7 in total) which will give you a grounding on each function

 

[Akhil]

Korg Arrangers come as standard with a fairly neutral setup. Good strings, brass, organs, wind and others, weak acoustic pianos. They do benefit from a good Eq setup and can be very easily have individual sounds customised. A strength is that the layering can produce great combinations and if one knows what to do by way of customising the oscillators to max out on combined voices the resultant sound of say strings and piano can be saved as a single sound for later use as needed.

Yamaha, well there is not much I can say about the 770 other than I played one back to back with a 700 and it was no contest the 700 beat the 770 in every way except certain piano sounds but even then the sound was too over bright and shrill for my own preferences.

The only experience I have of the 600 is playing one a while ago that one of the guys I jam with brings to the group but I have not been there for many months.

So it really depends on where you are coming from and your own preferences.

I cannot comment on the editing capabilities of either all I can say is the editing capabilities on my 700 is excellent.

My advice would be to physically check out all models in your price range by playing them, then save up more cash and buy a PA700.

The link below is the first from Korg’s video manual series (there are 7 in total) which will give you a grounding on each function

Thank you.

 

[Akhil]

customising the oscillators to max out on combined voices the resultant sound of say strings and piano can be saved as a single sound for later use as needed

Hi, would you please explain, "customising the oscillators to max out on combined voices" ?
Forgot to ask you the other day.

 

[Biggles]

OK, let me start by going through Keyboard Sets which are a group of instrument sounds placed in Up1, Up2, Up3 and Low. Where a Split is applied only the Low sound is played to the left of the split. Where there is no split all sounds are applied across the whole keyboard.

Now each sound can be a single instrument or a combination of instruments with the easiest to get your head round being the Movie Strings which as the name suggests is considerably more than one instrument.

It is just this that I mean maxing out the oscillators. Having as many complimentary instruments grouped into a single sound to give the desired overall sound and it is also maxing the polophony.

Arrangers are not like Workstations where you can build typically 12 layers of instrument sounds into as Korg calls them a Combi an Arranger typically has the four layers I quoted in the first paragraph hence they can be a bit limited and hence why they are grouped into a single sound.

It is possible in a Korg Arranger to combine Sounds into one new sound by assigning each instrument sound to specific areas within the available oscillators. Not tried this myself but did read an article in Korg World magazine on doing just this action.

Hope this makes some sort of sense to you.

 

[Akhil]

each sound can be a single instrument or a combination of instruments

Thank you Col.,

Please explain this as well.

"each sound can be a single instrument or a combination of instruments"

Does it mean, together all the Up.1,2&3 could be assigned with individual sounds allowing this setup to be saved to any single button, to be recalled for playing?, (something like a registration memory in Yamaha?)
OR
even Up.1 alone (or any one part individually) could be beefed-up with many sounds, so that a single sound may sound punchy?

 

[Biggles]

Akhil
With any keyboard of any quality you can create a single entry which in Yamaha speak is called a Registration, other makers call it something different but Registration is regarded as a standard way of describing a customised single entry of a specific or series of layered sounds.

If I explain about my Korg Kross it will make more sense, onboard there are Programs and Combi’s with a Program being a single instrument and a Combi being a series of layered instruments (Programs) now a Combi is a single entry in the menu system that is available for selection. I have a single Combi for Glenn Miller sounds where I have layered trombones, sax, trumpet, clarinet, drums, strings etc in an entry I call Glenn Miller.

This is the same in Arrangers where multiple instruments are layered together into a single entry so for a specific song you you can have say Movie Strings in Low, Glenn Miller in Up1, Scat Voices in Up2, and Marimba in Up3. Each of those in Up2 & Up3 can also be muted and you can unmute them during playing to add extra dynamics to the song.

With Korg their Keyboard Sets are just that, a set of instrument sounds where initially these are all set by Korg to various mixtures that work together, these then can be changed as saved to a User Bank location, so if you want to to change one of the four Keyboard Sets that are included within a Style you can this will apply the newly selected Keyboard Set to Up 1, 2 & 3 and Low.

With any Korg PA the Songbook and Setlist features are the key to effective use.

Save your chosen Style to Songbook and rename what is to be the Songbook entry for your song you can then change all the Keyboard Sets, Pads, Fills, add Fx etc and save after each change then calling up the Song from within Songbook and it is ready to play exactly as you want it.

Additionally you can create Setlists for easier locating the Songs you want to play.

I cannot give you chapter and verse on the equivalent Yamaha models all i can suggest is watch as many videos of each keyboard on your shortlisted keyboards then if you can visit a Music Store to try each keyboard.

I am very critical of Yamaha keyboards in particular the build materials of the S models and to me the shrill sounds they produce just do not suit me, but that said the new Genos and SX models are vastly superior in the materials used, the layouts and in their content, the reviews also seem to be pretty good in the sound quality.

 

[Akhil]

Akhil
With any keyboard of any quality you can create a single entry which in Yamaha speak is called a Registration, other makers call it something different but Registration is regarded as a standard way of describing a customised single entry of a specific or series of layered sounds.

If I explain about my Korg Kross it will make more sense, onboard there are Programs and Combi’s with a Program being a single instrument and a Combi being a series of layered instruments (Programs) now a Combi is a single entry in the menu system that is available for selection. I have a single Combi for Glenn Miller sounds where I have layered trombones, sax, trumpet, clarinet, drums, strings etc in an entry I call Glenn Miller.

This is the same in Arrangers where multiple instruments are layered together into a single entry so for a specific song you you can have say Movie Strings in Low, Glenn Miller in Up1, Scat Voices in Up2, and Marimba in Up3. Each of those in Up2 & Up3 can also be muted and you can unmute them during playing to add extra dynamics to the song.

With Korg their Keyboard Sets are just that, a set of instrument sounds where initially these are all set by Korg to various mixtures that work together, these then can be changed as saved to a User Bank location, so if you want to to change one of the four Keyboard Sets that are included within a Style you can this will apply the newly selected Keyboard Set to Up 1, 2 & 3 and Low.

With any Korg PA the Songbook and Setlist features are the key to effective use.

Save your chosen Style to Songbook and rename what is to be the Songbook entry for your song you can then change all the Keyboard Sets, Pads, Fills, add Fx etc and save after each change then calling up the Song from within Songbook and it is ready to play exactly as you want it.

Additionally you can create Setlists for easier locating the Songs you want to play.

I cannot give you chapter and verse on the equivalent Yamaha models all i can suggest is watch as many videos of each keyboard on your shortlisted keyboards then if you can visit a Music Store to try each keyboard.

I am very critical of Yamaha keyboards in particular the build materials of the S models and to me the shrill sounds they produce just do not suit me, but that said the new Genos and SX models are vastly superior in the materials used, the layouts and in their content, the reviews also seem to be pretty good in the sound quality.

Thank you Col.,

I appreciate your goodness of heart to explain it.