Pa800 History
The Korg Pa80 is the most successful
Professional Arranger keyboard ever produced. Used by
tens of thousands of musical professionals in every
country of the world, the Pa80 is the industry standard.
So, developing the next generation of Arranger from
Korg - the Pa800 - required we understand the needs
of the modern musical professional whilst respecting
the technology chosen by so many musicians worldwide.
After countless interviews from musicians in dozens
of countries, we knew what we needed to do to develop
the complete professional Arranger keyboard - the new
Pa800!
RX Technology
First
used on the Pa1X, the most powerful Arranger around,
RX Technology is the guiding philosophy behind the Pa800.
RX - Real eXperience - guided all our design and sound
decisions. When the Pa800 performs, we want the audience
to listen - and believe.
TC Helicon inside
To
be sure that the vocal processing and harmonies of the
Pa800 were the best possible, we worked with a recognised
world leader in audio technology, TC Electronic.
The Pa800 includes as standard
the world acclaimed TC Helicon Voice Processor. This
features EQ and professional quality effects (Compressor,
Reverb, Delay), designed and shaped specifically for
vocals. These effects, combined with the built in 3
voice harmonizer and dedicated high quality mic preamp,
ensure your vocals have the highest possible sound quality.
The most important controls
to keep your voice under control are available in the
panel and in the display's main page. Simply
connect your microphone and start performing!
Easy to use
With
all the technological power packed inside, it was vital
that we also made the Pa800 easy to understand and easy
to use. But even more, we wanted the whole way you use
the Pa800 to be an intuitive, musical, fast, foolproof
experience. Our graphical user interface uses an amazing
Graphical Colour Touch Screen so you simply think, point
and click for easy and intuitive use - RX Technology
at work for you!
With
one of the 7 different background colors in the Graphical
User Interface, you can be sure the display can be read
in all lighting and performing conditions, a truly professional
feature
So that musicians of all levels
can make great music quickly, there are two interface
modes: Easy and Expert.
The Easy mode shows only the most important controls
while keeping a clean and straightforward interface,
useful for beginners or playing live, while in Expert
mode you have full editing control. Nothing stands between
you and your professional performance.
Switches and sliders are assignable
so your live performances work the way you want.
And when you need more information?
Check out the multilingual contextual Help System that
is standard on board!
Quality Sound
Of course, having power and ease of use means nothing
without great sound and the stunning high quality sound
performance of the Pa800 will impress any audience.
The Pa800 delivers sound that makes it seem like you
have the coolest band available on stage - all working
under your control.
Korg
sound quality is universally recognized as superior,
and relied on by musicians everywhere. For the Pa800,
we redesigned what was already the most powerful synth
sound engine available to give you an even richer, more
detailed, sophisticated natural sound than ever before
with musical instruments from almost every genre exploding
with depth, nuance, subtlety, accuracy and richness.
We even used several sounds from OASYS (the most powerful
synthesizer ever made) helping the Pa800 set a new standard
for arranger keyboards. And the DNC (Defined Nuance Control) system introduced with OS2 adds finer control to all that.
The sound memory of the Pa800
has been largely increased to achieve the best sound
quality possible boasting all new multi level samples
of the instruments you know and love. Many of these
also include also various levels of articulation so
the polyphony has been also expanded to 120 notes to
cover even busy passages.
There are more than 950 ROM
sounds, including a new amazing multilayer stereo acoustic
piano accurately sampled from a Concert Grand (and including
String and Damper pedal Resonance!), plus an extra 64
drum kits. In addition, the User area contains up to
256 user sounds and 64 drum kits and of course, there
is full on board sound editing.
Sound Expansion
Still not enough sounds? Many
professional musicians choose to add their own sounds
and because the Pa800 is dedicated to professional musicians,
you can load Wave, AIFF, Korg format files and of course
the incredible Akai sample library - about the largest
sample library available - into the standard 64MB of
added memory.
The Pa800 also features professional
editing facilities such as loop, cut, normalize and
cropping of samples. A special "Time Slice"
feature allows you to slice audio grooves and import
the audio data into a Style so you can create some of
the coolest rhythms imaginable.
Effects
But great sound is more than
instruments. For many years, Korg has produced outstanding
studio quality effects that are simply breathtaking.
The Pa800 has 4 Stereo Master Effects processors with
125 of these effects from the standards such as Reverb,
Delay and Chorus through to specialised effects such
as a fantastic Vocoder and some of the universally acclaimed
REMS guitar based effects for authentic guitar tones.
The TC Helicon vocal effects are separate and completely
independently controlled.
Each Track features EQ with Low, Mid and High controls.
A custom track EQ can be memorized in the general preferences
for the Song Play mode. This will help adapting the
sound to personal taste for any MIDIfile you play. Need
a lighter Bass track? Save the right equalization, and
the Bass will stay light with all the subsequent Songs.
A final semi-parametric EQ, with Low, Mid (with adjustable
frequency) and High controls, is added to the sound
output of the Pa800. Everything can be processed by
this powerful and musically refined EQ, easily adapting
the sound to your musical taste or correcting a problematic
live context.
Styles
Matching
this high sound quality the Pa800 delivers a new set
of deluxe styles, programmed by some of the leading
arrangers in the world each of whom worked according
to their musical strengths. The result is hundreds of
preloaded Styles that provide unparalleled realism and
detail. Covering an expanded range of musical genres,
the Pa800 gives you styles for almost every important
occasion.
If you require a special Style
Collection simply record and edit your own styles on
board. We add further realism to your performance with
Fill 3/Break, Intro 3/Count In and Ending 3 Style Elements.
More flexibility is added by the choice of different
transposition tables, and the new Guitar Mode adds a
totally new perspective to how you play Guitar tracks.
And if you are looking for more
pre-written styles, you will be pleased at the exciting
future for the Pa800 with many new styles to be produced
by both Korg and also independent 3rd party companies.
Keep checking www.korgpa.com for more details!
Guitar Track and Fixed NTT for Styles
Guitar
Mode allows any musician to easily create realistic
guitar parts using real guitar neck positions. Guitar
tracks are usually a challenge for every Style and Song
writer (possibly even more than the Drums track!). Mostly,
the results of guitar tracks entered into Styles and
MIDI songs are artificial, unmusical playing, often
in need of deep editing. The Pa800, however, offers
a unique and powerful approach to program and play realistic
guitar performances! The Pa800 arranger include also
the Fixed NTT, a feature that moves as few notes as
possible while creating the style backing tracks, making
legato lines and chord changes far more natural for
instruments like strings, piano, mute guitar, etc. RX
Technology at work: Listen - and Believe.
View your Songs as traditonal music notation
The
Score Viewer displays the lead track (or any other track)
as clear and plain traditional musical notations with
notes or chords, together with lyrics and chord abbreviations.
Chord names can also be seen in different languages
(English and Italian). For music learners, we also added
a function to show note names next to each note. The
Score Viewer automatically adapts the score display
to the track's key and clef, with automatic beaming,
spacing and bar placement. Triplets and accidentals
are automatically recognized. A sophisticated interpretation
algorithm cleans up the score display, to allow for
easy reading even with rubato (non-quantized) playing.
Powerful Technology
Korg Pa80 introduced the world's
first Arranger keyboard with two separate MIDIfile players
in the legendary Pa80 and our Pa800 showcases these
double sequencer features working at an all new power
level. In addition, the Pa800 supports the main musical
formats such as SMF (Standard Midi File), Karaoke files,
GM (General MIDI) and MP3 (with "Dual
MP3 Expansion Board" option installed) and
of course is able to display lyrics in most popular
karaoke formats.
There is also a practical Marker
function to allow you to jump directly to a given position
in the song: you can fix the markers using the internal
sequencer (or using a computer based one - the marker
format is standard) and then remix your favourite songs
during a live performance for added spontaneity.
Sequencer & Backing Sequence
Along with a powerful and fully
programmable multi track sequencer, you can use Backing
Sequences to create songs based over styles - quickly
and easily. You don't need to be a master programmer
- you can write your own song in minutes: even beginners
can easily create songs using the step edit feature.
This approach to quick programming is also useful for
studio use when you want to create great sounding professional
backing music for films, video, multimedia or internet
applications very quickly.
SongBook
This
exciting feature was developed to make your life easier
while playing live. The SongBook is a Musical Database,
completely user programmable, containing all the settings
needed to play a particular song. You have only to search
the title of the song you would like to play, select
it and hit "Play". The SongBook can use styles,
mid files or MP3 (with "Dual MP3 Expansion Board"
option installed) and immediately recall settings
such as Song Title, Genre, Artist, Tempo, Volumes, Sounds,
Muted Tracks, FX settings, Easy Edit, 4 STS*, Master
Transpose and more. Everything you need to play your
song back perfectly is in the SongBook, a useful musical
feature that is unique to Korg - the only Arranger keyboards
available with all these sophisticated controls.
(*STS - Single Touch Settings
is a memory that recalls sounds for all the real time
tracks (upper1, 2, 3 & lower).)
Configurable
You can configure and edit almost
anything in the Pa800. You can modify and save Styles,
Performances, Sounds, Settings for Sliders, Switches,
Pads, Global (Midi channels, output routings, etc.)
and more for both internal and external control. Scales
are fully programmable and include quarter tone settings
(4 memories for instant recall) and a programmable Arabic
Scale.
With all of this control, the
Pa800 also functions as a superb MIDI controller (Master
Keyboard).
Connectivity
Naturally,
the Pa800 has all the connectivity you need including
4 separate audio outputs, 2 mic/line inputs with separate
gain, 2 USB Host connections and 1 USB (Device) connection.
The optional VIF4 graphic video interface (available
in PAL or NTSC standard formats) can display on an external
TV monitor either just the lyrics (useful for Karaoke)
or if you want it to clone the on board display.
USB
The Pa800 has two USB Host connections
available to connect standard pen drives, external hard
drives, CD-ROM or even a floppy disk. One Host is to
connect other USB devices from the front panel for quick
access in real time, while the second Host is on the
back panel. A further USB Device connection is available
for the Pa800 to connect with a PC for fast exchange
of large amounts of data or as a MIDI connection without
the need for extra MIDI computer interfaces.
Amplification
The
custom designed amplification system is exceptionally
high quality. The 2 x 22 Watt amplifiers drive the 2
tweeters and the 2 x 10" woofers in a bass-reflex
box to generate a powerful listening experience. Loudness
and Fixed EQ boost the overall volume to deliver a big
sound!
Keyboard
The keybed is unique to Korg, feels great and naturally
has aftertouch as well as being velocity sensitive.
Compatibility
And if you have been one of the many longstanding Korg
Arranger users you will be happy to know that even though
the Pa800 is all new, it is also compatible with the
Korg i-series style format and with all Pa50, Pa60,
Pa80, Pa1X files. This means your Pa50, Pa60, Pa80 and
Pa1X Sounds and Styles work in the Pa800 as well so
you can keep your favourite sounds and styles while
benefiting from a cutting edge keyboard.
Expandable & Updatable
Even though it comes with almost every features you
could want, the Pa800 has many useful expansion options:
- EXBP-Dual MP3 - Dual MP3 Expansion Board: Dual
MP3 Player - Mp3 Recorder. Reads MP3 audio files in
any format, including MP3 with Lyrics. Records (with
optional Hard Disk or Pen Drive installed) entire
performances, including sounds and vocals, in MP3
format.
- VIF4 Graphic Video Interface: to display lyrics
or the on board TouchView display on an external monitor
or TV (PAL or NTSC formats).
- Hard disk installing kit for standard 2.5"
ATA hard disk drive (not included) with a capacity
of up to 2 terabytes.
Not only you can expand your Pa800, you can also easily
keep it new with operating system updates. These updates
are available as free downloads from www.korgpa.com
and will ensure your investment is protected!
Please note: Cosmetic and Technical specifications are
subject to change without notice.
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