Confused between PA 600 and Roland E A7

[Vipin P Varghese]

I am based in Saudi Arabia now and planning to purchase a new Keyboard. I am looking for an arranger and after online research I have come to these two conclusions. Request expert advice to take a final decision.

Roland E A7 is available here in stores and costs around $1000. Korg PA 600 is not available here in stores but available online which can be shipped to Saudi Arabia with almost the same price range including shipping which is around $1000.

Sp pricing is almost the same. Please advice me which one to go with.
I am aware that Korg is more user friendly as compared to Roland. I am not a newbie and almost kinda semi professional. I play mostly in the church choir.

Expert advises requested

 

[Biggles]

I have the PA 700 but in all honesty I believe that the Roland will be better than the PA600 which is now basically an obsolete model.

Korgs are very un-user friendly, they are very quirky in the menu systems and operations, they do take quite a while to learn how to do things with them and the operating system changes between the PA series older models and the new 1000 and 700 are very substantial hence I would not expect further upgrades for the 600 to be released.

 

[Vipin P Varghese]

Hi Biggles,

Thanks for replying dear friend. I have heard that Roland is also really complicated in its OS. Also many told me that the MIDI of Yamaha can be used in Korg PA series too with few changes. But the same is not possible in Roland. Do you have any idea about that? Because I was using Yamaha PSR series mainly and have used Korg N364 for some time. Recently I used PA 600 for few functions too.
I have a large collection of my regular songs MIDI which I use in Yamaha. Is there any probability that it can be somehow used in Roland?

 

[Biggles]

MIDI is MIDI, if you can import a MIDI into a keyboard is can be that there will be a few instrument sounds/voices/patches/programs etc whatever you are used to calling a specific instrument sound, that these will need to be changed to one that you have on the new keyboard.

Eg. My 700 does allow MIDI import, some have been fine, some it does not like and others there has been a couple of instrument sounds that I have had to change to one that I do have in my 700.

Cannot help on the Roland as I have only played a few different models in my local music stores.

As you seem to be used to Korg then I will change the advice and say stick with the Korg brand but do look at a 700 rather than a 600.

I regularly play with another guy who has a 600 but my 700 is considerably better in tone, styles and the ability to amend styles and instrument voices.

There are plenty of online reviews, but do look specifically on Youtube for ...... Korg Video Manual PA700...... to see a series of official tutorials on elements of this keyboard. Other similar tutorials are also available for other models.

Roland have similar step by step video tutorials but these again can be found on Youtube but under ....Roland Product Support.

 

[Vipin P Varghese]

Thanks a lot again @Biggles
It was good information you shared. As you said I have gone through all the reviews about Korg PA700. Only issue I face is the cost. PA 700 is around $ 1400 for me to get shipped to Saudi Arabia whereas Roland E A7 is availabe cheap here which is around $ 950.
I did not see such a less price for Roland E A7 in any other websites. If features are almost same in both keyboards, i think i could go with Roland.