Prologue
The Korg Pa5X has been one of the most anticipated arranger keyboards for many years. While the Korg Pa4X is/was a great keyboard, it was released in 2015. The hope is that the Pa5X will improve on many of the core functionalities of the Pa4X while bringing in many new and exciting features.
I’ve owned many Korg products over the years stemming from the Korg i5s all of the way to the Pa4X and now the Pa5X. With that said I did trade in my Pa4X and switched to the Yamaha Tyros & Genos line several years ago. I thought the Yamaha Genos was an excellent product and by far one of the best Arrangers to date. With that said, I always used the Yamaha arranger keyboards more like a Korg. I never quite understood how typical Yamaha players used registrations. I much preferred the idea of clicking the sound bank and having my set of sounds ready to go with any style. I always felt it was more convenient while playing live. Truthfully I also really missed the semi-weight feel of the Korg arrangers.
The Pa5X has an 8″ tilt-able display as the main navigation of the unit. The screen will show lyrics, chords or a score. The Pa5x uses the EDS-XP (Enhanced Definition Synthesis Expanded) engine offering 24 oscillators and 160 notes of polyphony. For the first time ever it also includes round-robin drums and smooth transition between different sounds.
When Korg announced the Pa5X, it was very obvious to me that Korg had upped their game. So, I sold my Yamaha Genos and placed an order for the Korg Pa5X 76 key a week after Korg’s announcement. It took a long time to get here. The overall process, at least in Canada was not fun. 3 of the major music chains – Long and McQuade, Cosmo Music, and Steve’s Music had no real idea when the keyboard would come in. There was always a story/excuse from things like: chip shortages, COVID related problems and etc. Basically it was an inventory issue. So the overall ordering process was not exactly fun and it’s sort of ironic that we track pretty much everything from Amazon, but a new state of the art keyboard and you can’t even figure out if the keyboard is still in Italy, Montreal or Toronto.
But, i digress….it’s here…finally.
Finish
The overall finish is quite spectacular. Korg even added wood trims to the sides of the keyboard. At first i wasn’t too sure if i liked the wood trims, but after a few months, it’s grown on me. I guess it also puts it in line with similar aesthetics of the Korg Kronos and Nautilus. It surely feels very premium.
I also really like the 16 Matrix pads. These can be customized to your liking to play sequences, patterns, sound effects and etc.
Sounds & Styles
The sounds on the Korg Pa5x are top-notch. From the Austrian Grand to the Organs, there are amazing sounds. There are 2200 voices. One of my favourite is the Cinematic Piano. It has an airy sound but also great for creating a specific type of emotion in your playing.
The one thing I will say that is sub-par in comparison with the Yamaha Genos are the choir sounds. The Genos has some amazing choir sounds and I have yet to come across a keyboard (without going into VSTs) that sound as good.
There are about 600 styles on the Pa5X which are also great. They have added several modern styles while also improving on previous ones found on the legacy Korg products. Korg is now using the round-robin drums on many of their factory styles to produce a more authentic like drum sound. This is a game changer. Many factory styles sound like a real drummer is playing out of the box.
One amazing new functionalitiy is the ability to show the chord changes for Style introductions. This is a great new ability and greatly aids in users wanting to play along with the factory intro styles.
Overall
Overall, my initial impressions are that I’m very satisfied with the Korg Pa5X. I have had the occasional lock up here and there but that has only happened while editing styles.
Korg has promised several updates/upgrades coming in the future. It is my hope that with every new update/upgrade they will not only improve functionality but also add new features or even some features that were present on the Pa4X (i.e. midi to style conversion on the keyboard). One has to remember that this is a completely redesigned product from the ground up. The operating system is completely different and even the Style/Sound structure/saving system is new. It sort of reminds me of when Yamaha went from the Tyros to the Genos.
If your plan is to play with the keyboard live, you should not experience any major issues. You can also import your favourite sound fonts which is an excellent way to move over any sounds that you may have had previously.
