My honest recommendation: stay away from this keyboard. I would even go as far as to suggest an SX900, possibly even a SX700 will probably be better for you. Need a weighted action? Buy a £500-£1000 Kawai alongside one of the SX Yamaha arrangers or go for Genos if you can get one second hand or don't care about the money.
I bought the PA5X on the release date and was excited about it but now I sincerely hope any Yamaha arranger owner who is attracted by the PA5X in demos etc considers my experience as it might save you a lot of money:
IntroI originally had a Genos until early 2020. I sold it on as I was going to play in a wedding band using some other keyboards I had, and continue my piano lessons so was mostly going to use a weighted action, but then the pandemic happened.
I had been missing my Genos during that time and then also noticed last year a few of my YouTube recordings had gained 10s of thousands of views over the period I didn't own it. I listened to them again and was pretty impressed with the Genos sound again, it still sounded so fresh 3 years on and something I could use again. Combined with the fact I didn't feel I was making much music I really wanted an arranger again.
When the Korg was announced I thought that would be perfect with a weighted action as that was probably my biggest problem with the Genos. However the experience has been pretty bad owning the Korg.
No registrations and other problems on the PA5XThe biggest problem with the PA5X (across all key sizes) is the lack of registrations. If you are used to these you will find the Korg nearly unusable as you have to control the style from only those related buttons, there is no other way. You can only associate 4 keyboard sets with each song. This is very limiting. The 16 button matrix pad is nearly unprogrammable. Really difficult to use.
The display, although more crips than the Genos has bad lightbleed from the left side. It doesn't look good. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.
The 88 key keybedNow comes the deal breaker: The weighted action on my PA5X 88 key is rattling and breaking in two range areas. Even if that wasn't the case, the keybed is EXTREMELY noisy. I noticed this straight away when the rattling hadn't developed just yet. You can only play with headphones, there is no other way. It is Fatar rubbish, utter **** as far as I am concerned. I have no idea how that company can stay in business making keybeds if a 2022 product is this bad. As soon as I started to play it family members asked what the hell the clonking noise was. I've never heard such comments concerning any keyboard I've owned and I have a real piano in the same room! Why did Korg use Fatar and not their own 88 weighted keybed which gets decent reviews? I had an old Yamaha S80 with 88 key weighted action that wasn't as bad new in 1999 as this Fatar nonsense and it was still fresh after 20 years use when I sold it on.
Not just the noise, but there feels a real disconnect between what I play on the Korg and what I hear. I can't quite explain it but it doesn't seem right somehow. You really have to play hard to get some sound out of it. Note, I'm used to weighted actions and have owned many different brands (Nord / Yamaha / Roland / Kawai / Casio) with Kawai clearly being best in the digital department. This Fatar thing is clearly the worst. I would probably put them in order like this (from good to bad): Kawai, Yamaha, Roland, Casio, Nord (also Fatar I think but wasn't as bad/noisy), Fatar that is in the PA5X88.
I've hardly played the PA5X, literally only recorded 3 songs on it with practice (
you can find them on my youtube) and 1 more I didn't record. The rattling is worse than what I had on a Casio Privia PX560 that was fixed under warranty. At least that one was only 1 key but still annoying. With the Korg almost an entire octave range is failing and a second one is starting to go the same way. You can still play it of course but it's just horrible.
Despite the hardware problems which may not develop on all Korg PA5X88 the keybed just sucks, it really does.
Back to GenosI got so frustrated with it, I bought a second hand Genos which I have been playing nearly every day since I got it back in December whilst the Korg is gathering dust. I am not sure if I need to contact Korg for a keybed fix or if I can just swap it with the retailer I bought it from. I will check if they think that rattling is acceptable. Whenever I get it exchanged I will probably get a Kawai keybed to pair up with the Genos. Even if a Genos successor is released I probably will keep this generation Yamaha as I think it is just a very special product that will still sound good in 20 years time. The recording I made of
The Lonely Shepherd on the Genos cannot be recreated on the Korg to that quality in my opinion.
Pianos compared & other soundsAs for the pianos, in my honest opinion, the CFX completely destroys every single piano in the PA5X. It is far brighter and sticks through any mix much better. Also in almost any other department do I think the Genos does better certainly saxophone, woodwind and brass. The type of sounds many of us use for playing melody lines.
The backing guitars on
my Final Countdown recording sound pretty good on the PA5X and the strings are in fact a bit superior to the Genos I would argue. But even so I just don't think the PA5X has the same sound muscle as the Genos.
VolumeI have the Genos at roughly 70-75% volume level with headphones and it is nice and loud. If I put it lower, that's okay, it's just quieter.
The PA5X needs to be 90-95%, frighteningly close to maximum. If I put it lower, I can only hear the keybed clunk over all the music.
That same ratio needs to be in place if I amp the keyboards through a mixer and keep the mixer at the same level to gain equivalent volume.
I had a Korg Kross 1 which I remember even at 100% not being loud enough with headphones. No idea why Korg does this.
No WAV recordingAlso worth noting the keyboard cannot even record in WAV, only MP3. Consider that even a £699 Yamaha SX600 can record WAV. This is truly shocking. You can expand the PA5X with massive mini SD card sizes but I fail to see the point if you cannot even record in uncompressed format. Bizarre.
Some good points about the PA5X (I'm trying to be fair)- It looks excellent and has great build quality despite the bad Fatar keybed -
- Seamless sound switching -
- Some of the styles are superb and very funky basslines that are inspirational to play along to.
- The style pad buttons that add extra instruments on the fly to a style are fantastic. Sort of similar to Multipads but more advanced.
- To be fair to Korg it seems their style control is a bit more forgiving than the Genos, less prone to sudden strange breaks if your timing is off. It has to be because you will need to do much more if you can't use regs!
- Good set of connections including HDMI (crazy how the Genos needs USB 2 adapter and that this wasn't fixed on the SX900 -ugh!) and memory expansion options
- Revoicing midi seems easier somehow and doesn't require that strange "execute" step as on the Genos.
Conclusion on the PA5X and 88 weighted keys in an arranger in general.The plusses don't outweigh the minuses since in the control and sound department things are just not better than the Genos. If you are used to working with registrations you will need to unlearn that and I think this is disappointing as setting up regs for a song is part of the fun part in preparing for performances.
Sound wise the Genos is not beaten, maybe the shine does lie with the PA5X when it comes to solo cello and lush strings but everywhere else the Genos is better for sure.
The PA5X, especially in 88 key format is really an extremely disappointing product, especially for the price, compared to the far superior Genos.
I'm also now of the opinion that a secondary weighted action in combination with an arranger is probably the best way to go rather than having everything in one machine.
If Yamaha released an 88 key weighted Genos II, I'd probably be inclined to pass on that and just go for the 76 or 61 key version and keep whatever Kawai I will get soon.
An 88 Key Genos II might happen I think considering the DGX670 with basic style stuff on board. If that cheaper model didn't exist I would have guessed 88 key weighted arranger stuff would only be reserved for the CVP line.
But who knows. In either case I think I'd rather keep the Yamaha FSX keybed alongside a weighted action as I think that gives you the best of both worlds. Playing melody solos and reaching for the mod wheels I've found pretty difficult on the 88 key PA5X in addition to all the other problems with the keyboard I've found. Also the split point is quite high up by default. Obviously they are trying to keep you near middle C for good reason but it seems somewhat strange to me to have that many keys devoted to chord control.
Last note on Fatar keybedsI will definitely be avoiding Fatar related keybeds for the rest of my life. Can't believe how bad they are. Awful.
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