Korg pa700 or roland bk5 and korg kross 2 ?

[Maskalaska]

what do you think is the better choice? I have a Roland bk5 and I would have to buy a korg kross2, but I can also sell a Roland and buy a korg pa700 only. I care about the good sound of synthesizers. I like techno etc.

 

[Biggles]

The Pa 700 will arguably give you better overall sounds and features compared to your BK5 but for synth sounds the Kross 2 or Roland Juno DS will both surpass the 700.

As you can see in my signature I have had both a 700 and a K2 and had them stacked.

The 700 does not have much onboard memory and hence careful management is needed, the Kross 2 is very good but its menu system is a pain, with only cursor control and no touch screen. There are about 20 tabs you have to scroll through to set things up, but once set everything is easily accessed.

One thing that I did not like about either was the 61 key keybed feel, so do try to play them first.

 

[Maskalaska]

The Pa 700 will arguably give you better overall sounds and features compared to your BK5 but for synth sounds the Kross 2 or Roland Juno DS will both surpass the 700.

As you can see in my signature I have had both a 700 and a K2 and had them stacked.

The 700 does not have much onboard memory and hence careful management is needed, the Kross 2 is very good but its menu system is a pain, with only cursor control and no touch screen. There are about 20 tabs you have to scroll through to set things up, but once set everything is easily accessed.

One thing that I did not like about either was the 61 key keybed feel, so do try to play them first.

what if i added korg krome to it? then roland and krome or korg pa 700

 

[Biggles]

Krome is probably a better buy for a 61 key version but if you do up budget to this level then a MODX comes into play.

 

[anotherscott]

The 700 does not have much onboard memory and hence careful management is needed, the Kross 2 is very good but its menu system is a pain,

When you talk about the 700's on-board memory, are you talking about space for custom samples? True, it's not huge at 256 mb (linear), but it beats Kross, so it would seem to be a positive in this 2-board comparison rather than a negative. Or am I misunderstanding?

 

[Biggles]

Scott
it depends upon how the Op would actually be going to use the 700.

The issue is not just the small sample memory it is if additional Style files are loaded then they to fill up the system.

I loaded Reuben’s piano sample which is a Must Do action as it is head and shoulders better that Korg’s prime piano, loaded a couple of others then I ran out of memory.

The Pa700 is also now 4 years old and has not had a significant update to its OS in over two years.

Korg Kross 2 is also a few years old and has had only one minor update, this update allowed many additional sounds to be loaded. These additional sounds were the extra ones installed in the Neon range of the Kross 2, it is these sounds especially the acoustic pianos that are imo superior to the standard Kross 2 piano sounds which in turn are better than those in the 700.

The K2 is more versatile with sound palette creation than a 700 which is limited to three upper layers.

The Op really needs to get hands on with each to narrow down their wish list.

Now for the But.

Maybe what the Op is looking for is not actually within the models that have been quoted!

A Yamaha PSR SX700 should also be included in the consideration mix for a new arranger.

As they have a BK5 arranger all be it they are now pretty old and not really supported by Roland any more then I would suggest keeping the BK5 and buying a synth/workstation would possibly provide a better update pathway.

Maybe an out and out synth plus mixer and powered monitors would enable a far more creative sound library.

 

[anotherscott]

The issue is not just the small sample memory it is if additional Style files are loaded then they to fill up the system.

I loaded Reuben’s piano sample which is a Must Do action as it is head and shoulders better that Korg’s prime piano, loaded a couple of others then I ran out of memory.
...
Korg Kross 2...update allowed many additional sounds to be loaded..these sounds especially the acoustic pianos that are imo superior to the standard Kross 2 piano sounds which in turn are better than those in the 700.

Ah. So on the PA700, it is not just the smallish memory per se, but that it effectively becomes even smaller once you load an acceptable piano into it. From the OP's perspective then, it may be worth knowing how the stock PA700 piano compares to the piano in the BK that he's used to, is it necessarily a step down even from that? Or maybe, being techno oriented, piano just isn't an important sound?

Just out of curiosity, with your ranking of piano in updated Kross 2 being better than stock Kross 2, in turn being better than PA700, I wonder where the Reuben falls in that hierarchy. Obviously better than stock PA700, but how does Reuben compare to the stock or updated Kross pianos?

I still haven't done anything with styles personally, I just see in the specs that the PA700 has room for 1152 user styles... Are you saying they use up some of that sample memory too? I thought they were basically just MIDI-style data files. But like I said, it's nothing I've used.

Getting back to the OP, there have been numerous boards mentioned so far as possibilities (Kross, Juno DS, Krome, MODX, PA700), but I'm just not familiar enough with techno to have a sense for which has the better sounds for that genre, which is why I'm not chiming in with suggestions of my own.

 

[Biggles]

Scott
Yes that is so true.

Reuben made his piano samples in two sizes to cater for the limited memory size, I cannot remember which I loaded.

If memory serves me correct the OS update of the Kross 2 then allowed the expansion pack to be installed, there are about ten piano samples plus quite a few other sounds that are added to the K2.

Subjective yes, but the new K2 pianos were very good and I preferred them to the standard ones and they were very close to Reubens C5.

The Op may be better with a dedicated Synth my knowledge is strained at which one would be best.