Korg PA700 sound quality compared to Krome EX

yul

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Hello,

I am hesitating between the two.

Which have the most high quality sounds in general?


I checked both sounds list.

My impression is that PA700 has less sounds (some dnc too) but hopefully of better quality than Krome EX.

However the EX also sound very good maybe even better than PA (thus the larger rom) so I am confused.

I don't mind less sounds if they can be great but the Krome seems to have an edge here.

I am completely indifferent tthe arranger/workstation differences.

Any opinions on this please?
 
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You are considering two totally different keyboards.

I have not played a Krome but I did have a Kross 2.

One point to make is than Korg keybeds imo leave a lot to be desired at this end of their range, so do check them out. Both my 700 and the K2 had keybeds with no feel and indifferent, inconsistent response.

As for sounds I loved all the sounds on both keyboards except the pianos, they are way behind Yamaha and Roland in terms of tonal qualities. That said all is not lost as far as the 700 is concerned, Reuben (a member here and on Korg Forums) has his patch freely available and it is vastly superior to Korg’s offering.

Sound creating on the 700, is via using the Setlist function and then going into each track individually and setting individual instruments to suit your needs as far as the system allows. There are also plenty of individual adjustments to attack, release etc but these are deep in the menu system.

On the 700 Sounds have to be on the internal storage and there is limited user and expansion capabilities.

As far as the Krome is concerned I will leave that to a member here who has one to comment.
 

yul

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Thanks! So you were indifferent to similar sounds between the Kross and PA?
 
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No, acoustic pianos on the 700 and Kross 2 were not as good imo as other makes. They are very easily customised to improve them without loading any new samples, its all detailed in the manuals.

I had the Kross 2 tiered above the 700 and its outputs feed into the 700 where tonal qualities were very similar.

I have no idea if the same samples are used with both the PA and Krome.
 
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Some info which may help in overall understanding of the sound sets...

The first Kross had 112 mb of sample data which included 421 non-drum multisamples (6 stereo); current Kross comes with 128 mb of sample data which include 496 non-drum multisamples (7 stereo), and you can load in additional downloadable sounds (already installed in some versions), which are OASYS piano (90 mb), four additional EPs (17 mb), and EDM (16 mb). Engine is EDS-i. Kross oscillators have up to 4 parts. Max polyphony is 80 on the original, 120 on the current version. Note that some individual sounds on Korgs can use up to 4 units of polyphony. So for example, in the original Kross with max 80 instances of polyphony, the main piano sound had 20 note polyphony.

Original Krome had 3.8 GB of sample data which included 583 non-drum multisamples (12 stereo). I am pretty sure it was broken down like this: 2.8 GB for piano (scaled down version of Kronos piano), 600 mb for EPs (sampled versions of some of the modeled EPs in the Kronos), 150 mb drums, and 256 mb for everything else. Krome EX adds another ~200 mb of sample data, with a focus on EDM, ethnic, and "hollywood production" sounds, and additional piano, bringing the total to 728 non-drum multisamples (44 stereo). Engine is EDS-X. Krome oscillators can have up to 8 parts, instead of the 4 of the Kross. Filter and EQ functions are more advanced than the EDS-i of the Kross. Max polyphony is 120. From one user evaluation I read online, the synth sounds between Kross and Krome seem largely identical, but the acoustic instrument emulation is better on Krome.

PA700 uses EDS-X + DNC. It comes from Korg Italy rather than Japan (where the Kross and Krome are from), designed by a different engineering team, and the exact differences in the underlying capabilities and specifications are a bit harder to discern. Polyphony is 128. There are numerous functional differences (besides the arranger functions you don't care about and obvious things like speakers, etc.). For example, Kross and Krome allow you to split/layer 16 sounds, and assign up to 5 insert effects, whereas PA700 only allows you to split/layer 4 sounds, and assign 1 insert effect (there are other insert effects reserved for accompaniment). OTOH, Kross does not provide any facility to switch from one sound to another without cutting off any held/decating notes of your first sound, the PA700 does have that facility (I'm not sure whether the Krome has any facility for that). The PA700 includes a drawbar organ facility which Kross and Krome do not (though honestly, it's not great sounding). You can load up to 256 mb of your own additional sample data to the PA700, vs. none in the Kross/Krome (though there was an unsupported hack to add a small amount of sample data to the original Kross, IIRC.)

My impression is that PA700 has less sounds
It's really hard to compare number of sounds, but in terms of factory Programs, PA700 has the most, at over 1700. If I'm reading the specs correctly, not counting drums, original Krome had 640 factory programs + GM2, Krome EX has 896 programs +GM2. (GM2 = 256) Original Kross had 256 factory programs + GM2, current has 768 + GM2 + 96 in the additional downloadables. But to elaborate on why it can be hard to compare these numbers, the 96 in the additional Kross download are 32 for the OASYS piano, 32 for the new EPs, and 64 for the EDM. So you have to qualify this with, how many sounds are just minor variations or recombinations of the same sounds, and how many of the sounds you'd find usable. I mean, is the OASYS piano download really 32 new sounds, or 1 new sound, or something in between? How useful are all the EDM sounds, if you don't use those kinds of sounds? Which also gets back a bit to what you said about quality vs quantity... it's also a matter of usability of particular kinds of sounds, which can vary from one player/genre to another.
 

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Thanks for your responses.

Interesting that the PA is an Italian design and makes sense that it is of a somewhat different breed.

I am aware of downloadable pianos for the PA but I probably already have them on my computer as VST. The sampling is very nice.

For the sounds, I am talking about actual multisamples (not presets) which seem slightly less than Krome EX I can see some synth samples not available on the PA and possibly the piano on the EX takes much more space.

It is still unclear which has the cleanest sounds (besides piano) and maybe there is no true answer. I will continue to watch the youtube videos.

Thanks!
 
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Check what extras can be loaded into the Krome.

The PA series has a host of free add-ons available. Check out Korg Bonusware website where the old Triton pack is freely available to download and install.
 

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Check what extras can be loaded into the Krome.

The PA series has a host of free add-ons available. Check out Korg Bonusware website where the old Triton pack is freely available to download and install.

Thanks so much. Is the Triton pack also including the factory Triton PCM?

Can I use these PCM's freely in the PA to make new sounds (beyond the original programs) ?
 
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Korg UK have a website specifically for their PA arranger users.

Korgworld.co.uk has links to the crowdcast website where their live webinars are held.

Past webinars are available to view.

Register at the website, follow the links to crowdcast and watch this video on using Bonusware, it is specific to Sounds and Luke loads the Triton pack.


BTW
I am not pushing the arrangers, I just know a lot more about them than I do the Krome which is zero. I do note from the Korg Forum that the Krome EX was not exactly a welcome update, with comments about it being more cosmetic than feature rich. So you may also wish to head over to the Korg forum for more info.
 

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Thanks after some more reading.

It looks like the Krome EX may have more synth samples but less multilayered instruments (DNC on the PA700).
This is the major distinction between the two imo in terms of sounds.

So:

Krome EX has a few XL Pianos , instruments and synth sounds (various filters +FX).
PA has 1 XL piano, DNC instruments, less synth sounds but samples supported (fewer filters + FX).

I do have samples that could turn the PA into an good synth but the Krome seems more like a synth overall.
PA is clearly more for real life instrument emulation but some are saying the synths and sampling is very nice too.

I wonder what are the available sample packs for the PA. I can see there is Salamander piano (I already have) and another Yamaha piano. Anything else in terms of PCM additions?
 
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The PA700 is very limited in its internal memory, to compound this Sounds cannot currently operate from removable media.

It is one of the reasons that I sold my 700, I had filled it up completely and not even touched the Triton samples.

Certain systems can be stored in what is termed a Direct location on a removable drive.

For loading Samples into a PA the model to go for is the PA4X but that is 2.5x the cost of a Krome EX or a 700.

Should you decide on a PA please do not blindly start loading Samples, if it is not done correctly it is very easy to overwrite the whole of the inbuilt Sounds. The crowdcast website has the latest three webinars which include Leigh demonstrating how to selectively load only the sample required.

The first task to do with a Korg PA is to backup the OS. Once you have user data saved another routine Media > Save > All, will save just the user data. Everytime you save data before powering down its a Save > All process.
 

yul

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It is one of the reasons that I sold my 700, I had filled it up completely and not even touched the Triton samples
Thanks so much for your detailed response.

Are you saying that your Triton fully loaded with samples was better?

If so may I ask what you are using now?
 
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Kross does not provide any facility to switch from one sound to another without cutting off any held/decating notes of your first sound, the PA700 does have that facility (I'm not sure whether the Krome has any facility for that).
Hi Scott, as you guessed the Krome has the same limitation as the Kross in this regard. The workaround I use is to split the keyboard, which isn’t practical in all situations.
 

yul

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Yes my question to Biggles is if he was comparing PA700 to a real Triton with sampling. This was not clear. Thanks
 
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Thanks so much for your detailed response.

Are you saying that your Triton fully loaded with samples was better?

If so may I ask what you are using now?
I did state that I did not load the Triton samples onto my 700, the only way for you to hear them is via the webinar that I gave you the link to.

I loaded some other Sound packs and Style packs and completely filled the internal memory.

Hence I am concerned that a 700 may well not have the internal storage capacity you will need.

Whilst I made do with it the keybed is not exactly inspiring to play but there again the Krome keybed gets a lot of adverse comments.

One thing, I cannot understand why you are comparing a 700 and a Krome, they are in very different market sectors.

The natural comparison is a PA 700 v Yamaha PSR SX 700 v Roland BK7.

And for the Krome v Roland FA v Yamaha MODX.
 
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One thing, I cannot understand why you are comparing a 700 and a Krome, they are in very different market sectors.

The natural comparison is a PA 700 v Yamaha PSR SX 700 v Roland BK7.

And for the Krome v Roland FA v Yamaha MODX.
I can understand that, because he doesn't care about arranger or workstation features, he's looking at them primarily from the perspective of their sounds. And my guess is that he'll find that some things sound better on one keyboard, and some things sound better on the other. ;-)

So maybe another way to approach this, yul, is--besides the sounds themselves--are there any features or capabilities you care about? And when it comes to sounds, what kinds of sounds are most important to you? And the other side of that coin... is there a reason that these are the only two boards you're considering? That is, why did you rule out, for example, the Yamaha MODX or a Roland FA Biggles mentioned?
 
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yul

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One thing, I cannot understand why you are comparing a 700 and a Krome, they are in very different market sectors.

The natural comparison is a PA 700 v Yamaha PSR SX 700 v Roland BK7.

And for the Krome v Roland FA v Yamaha MODX.

Good question.

I am looking at an external keyboard for casual playing and jamming outside of my daw.
With many synths on my computer it's not spontaneous and don't have many hifi sampled instruments, which I want.

It looks like the PA700 has got the best quality instrument/acoustics sounds that can complement my PC.
Is MODX, FA etc of better quality in the sense? Not so sure. I though the Krome EX would be but the PA seems better for this.

My previous experience with an arranger was excellent and previously had the CT-X5000 and E-453.
Casio had a few very good sounds but overall not to my expectation. E-453 had great sounds but editing too limited.

The sampling option on the PA700 would be of limited use. I was thinking of uploading the free Fairlight IIX and III libraries (at 44.1K) and a few short synth samples just for the kicks. It sould be fun addition.

Does this make sense? Thanks!
 
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