WORLD OF MUSIC ; PORTABLE KEYBOARD - Latest Portable Music Keyboards, Synthesizers and Music News

Korg’s new Pa5X arranger keyboard looks too good for hobbyists. A high-quality sound engine, sampling and a tiltable touchscreen display give it a professional sheen.

Korg’s new Pa5X is a new flagship in the company’s professional arranger lineup. This a high-quality sound engine, a colour-coded interface and a slick workflow that is designed for both the studio and the stage.

Korg Pa5X most eye-catching feature is its eight-inch tiltable display, which serves as the main control panel. The colours used are matched to those in the LED-programmable buttons, aiding navigation.

Additionally, you can use the screen to show lyrics, chords or a score, while a built-in HDMI port enables you to hook up an external display.

Sound-wise, Pa5X includes the EDS-XP (Enhanced Definition Synthesis – Expanded) engine. This offers 24 oscillators and 160 notes of polyphony, along with round-robin drum and percussion performance and smooth transitions between sounds.

The presets run the gamut from acoustic and electric pianos to synths and a new drawbar organ. There is also a built-in sampler.

Beyond the touchscreen, realtime control is taken care of by nine buttons and nine sliders, all of which are assignable. The many other faders, switches, joystick and ribbon controller can also be configured to your liking, ensuring that you can add precise expression control as you play.

As an arranger keyboard, you get numerous chord recognition and playback options, which can be tweaked according to your skill level. There is also automatic harmonisation and a chord sequencer.

As mentioned earlier the smooth sound switching, but you can also move seamlessly between different styles and songs, ensuring an uninterrupted performance. Dual crossfading players make it easy to mix between styles, MIDI files or MP3s.

Additionally, Styles can be edited, and there is a MIDI sequencer for song recording. Songs and styles can be saved in a SongBook, and these can be sequenced into set lists.

Korg Pa5X other features include “professional quality” effects (ten insert FX, three master FX and a finalizer for each of the two players) and the guitar and mic inputs also have their own dedicated effect processors. The vocal effects come courtesy of Shift Audio – you can use them to create instant four-part harmonies or dial in automatic pitching.

Further connectivity options include MIDI, USB, minijack in and balanced outs. There are three pedal inputs, as well.

The Pa5X will be available in 61-, 76- and 88-note configurations priced at $4,700/$3,700, $4,900/£3,999 and $5,300/£4,299 respectively.

Find out more on the Korg website.

Music production technology companies Output Inc. and Reason Studios have partnered together to create the Arcade & Reason+ together in a single subscription Bundle, a complete package of instruments, effects and samples for music creators. This package pairs two plugin collections for music makers.

There’s no doubt that music software subscription services are here to stay, but if you have a few of them, the costs can quickly start to mount up. You can now get Output Arcade and Reason+ – two of the more high-profile services – together in a single bundle.

Offering a sizable and growing collection of instruments, effects and samples – not to mention the Reason 12 DAW – the Arcade & Reason+ Bundle is full of inspiring, accessible content that you can use to spark new track ideas or improve existing ones. “We are thrilled to partner with Reason to create our first-ever bundle of this kind, allowing music makers even easier access to the tools they need to get creative in the studio” says Gregg Lehrman, CEO at Output Inc.

Yana Mahal, Make MORE Beats With These 2 Plugins | Arcade & Reason+

Highlighting the launch, Output and Reason Studios will be hosting a livestream event on the Reason Studios YouTube channel on July 5 at 10 a.m. PDT with artist and producer Yana Mahal. Expect plenty of great stories and music-making tips. Viewers can watch at this link.

“Both Reason+ and Arcade have the same goal: helping music producers to focus on their creativity and ideation,” adds Niklas Agevik, CEO at Reason Studios. “The pairing of Reason’s virtual studio rack of innovative synthesizers, drum machines, players and audio effects with Arcade’s inspiration machine of samples and playable instruments is the complete creative bundle for music producers, and at an unbeatable price too.”

Jordan Atkins-Loria, Speed up your beatmaking workflow | Arcade & Reason+

Both the Reason Rack Plugin and Arcade support all plugin formats (VST/AU/AAX) and can be used in any DAW, whether it be Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Logic Pro, FL Studio or any other major DAW.

The Arcade and Reason+ bundle includes two annual subscriptions — one to Reason+ and one to Arcade. The package costs $249/year (a 17% savings compared to purchasing both annual subscriptions separately). Through July 14, the bundle subscription is available for $149 for the first year

Find out more and sign up on the Reason Studios website.

Roland SP-404 MK2 sampler now has a TR-style step sequencer. Version 2.0 update adds it to the existing realtime recording option.

Roland has upgraded its SP-404 MK2 sampler to version 2.0, equipping it with a classic TR step sequencer in the process.

This is a new recording mode that sits alongside the much-loved realtime pattern recording – they can both be used, if desired, to create and edit the same pattern.

In addition, it is possible to record pitch changes made in chromatic mode into patterns, and there are now three options for chromatic mode playback. Mono gives you standard mono playback; Legato means that changes in pitch during sample playback won’t retrigger the sample; and Poly enables samples to be played back polyphonically.

It’s free for existing users.

Find out more about the SP-404 MKII update on the Roland website.