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Korg Pa600 Korg Pa600
61-key Arranger Workstation with 360+ Music Styles, 950+ Sounds, Built-in MP3 Player w/Vocal Remover, and 15W Dual-speaker Sound System

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Korg Pa500 (No Longer Available)

61-key Arranger Keyboard with Onboard Dual Sequencer, Effects, Speaker System, Easy/Expert Modes, and USB

Sorry, the Korg Pa500 is no longer available. We've left this page up for reference only. Check out the great alternatives on this page or call toll-free (800) 222-4700 to speak with a Sweetwater Sales Engineer about similar products.

From Our Research Team:

A Powerful Arranger in a Compact Format

The Korg Pa500 arranger keyboard gives you great sound, incredible flexibility, and different modes that make it easy to use for beginners while allowing full functionality for expert. Whether you're a musician, composer, performer or just want to put great sounds together, the Pa500 is a great tool. Like its big brothers the Pa800 and the Pa2XPro, the Pa500 uses Korg's Real eXperience technology to bring you great sound. With great Korg features such as the XDS Dual Sequencer, intuitive TouchView interface, and a 4-way joystick for realistic articulation, the Pa500 is a winner!

KORG Pa500 Arranger Keyboard at a Glance:
  • Incredible sound and effects
  • Styles and guitar parts
  • Switch sounds fast and perform creative sequencing
  • Dual Sequencer
  • Easy and Expert modes, Songbook
  • Save it for later

Incredible sound and effects
It all begins with sound. Based on the EDS (Extended Definition Synthesis) engine found in the Korg M3, Pa800 and Pa2XPro, the Pa500 provides 80 voices of polyphony and a breathtaking quality of sound. Over 880 fully editable sounds are preloaded (including a full GM soundset and 56 drum kits), representing a full range of musical instruments from almost every genre - each exploding with depth, nuance, subtlety, accuracy and richness. The User area has space for up to 128 user sounds and 64 drum kits. The Pa500 offers four stereo processors plus a Final semi-parametric three band EQ containing a treasure trove of effects, from rich reverbs and dazzling delays to guitar-type modeling effects from Korg's renowned REMS series - 124 different effects in all. And you'll appreciate the separate three-band EQ on each track so you can shape the tone for that perfect sound.

Styles and guitar parts
This arranger gives you a deluxe set of styles, programmed by some of the leading arrangers in the world; each of whom worked according to their musical strengths. The result is over 320 preloaded Styles that provide unparalleled realism and detail, adding anything from tasteful guitar picking, a tight bass and drum groove, a powerhouse R & B rhythm section all the way up to a full orchestra! Styles follow your timing, voice leading and chord changes to create an amazingly defined musical performance in real-time. With up to eight parts, four variations, three intros/count-in, three fills/break and three endings, each Style is a complete musical environment. Additional parts or "riffs" can be sequenced and triggered in real time using the assignable Pads. Advanced features such as Syncro Start/Stop, Fade In/Out, Assignable Pads, Tap Tempo and Manual Bass allow you to spontaneously add complex and professional touches to your performances. Creating convincing guitar parts from a keyboard has never been easy - until now! When creating a guitar part for your Style, you can chose a chord, capo position, and literally transform the keyboard into the fretted strings of the chord to allow realistic picking patterns, strums, chokes, slides, hammer-ons and other "guitar-specific" artifacts. The result is stunning. Best of all, the Pa500 can automatically enhance the guitar tracks of existing Standard MIDI Files.

Switch sounds fast and perform creative sequencing
Need to switch sounds fast? Four STS (Single Touch Settings) buttons allow you to have up to four sounds split and layered across the keyboard and switch them all instantly with a single button press. The STS assignments can be saved independently for each Style. Each of the 256 Performance settings can instantly recall the Style, Sounds, effects, tempo, key and scale used to perform a particular song. In addition to traditional "track at a time" workstation sequencing, the Backing Sequencer allows you to create songs quickly and easily by capturing multiple Style driven parts at once. You don't need to be a master programmer - even beginners can write their own song in minutes. In fact, you don't even need to play at all! Using the Step Edit/Entry feature, you can simply type in the chord changes, fills and style changes in step-time - a big boost for arrangers and non-keyboardists. This quick approach to programming is also useful in the studio for creating professional, great-sounding backing music for commercial, film, video, multimedia or internet applications. The sequencer provides massive editing power - you can even edit the tone parameters of each track.

Dual Sequencer
With Korg's XDS Dual Sequencer, one can load as the other plays, and a DJ-style cross fader can blend between them, providing a seamless, continuous musical performance. The Pa500 can playback SMF (Standard Midi File), Karaoke files, and GM (General MIDI) files - and is able to display lyrics in most popular karaoke formats. There is also a practical Marker function to allow you to jump directly to a given position in the song: you can fix the markers using the internal sequencer (or using a computer based one - the marker format is standard) and then remix your favorite songs during a live performance for added spontaneity.

Easy and Expert modes, Songbook
The Pa500 includes two interface modes: Easy and Expert. The Easy mode shows only the essential elements with bright, bold icons - useful for beginners or playing live - while Expert mode provides full editing control. And when you need more information, check out the on-board contextual Help System - in any of seven languages! In addition to 61-velocity sensing keys, the Pa500 provides a four-way joystick, assignable switch, assignable slider, assignable pedal jack and four pads provide the tools to spice up your performance by changing effect settings, adding or muting parts, slowing the tempo, or even adding "mini-sequenced" solo, arpeggio, or backing riffs. Nothing stands between you and your professional performance. The exciting SongBook feature was developed to make your life easier while playing live. The SongBook is a musical database, completely user programmable, containing all the settings needed to play a particular song. You have only to search for the song you would like to play by Song Title, Genre, Artist, Tempo, etc. and press "play". Each SongBook entry will instantly recall every setting you've saved in order to play that song perfectly - Sounds, Style, Performance, Volumes, Muted Tracks, FX settings, Easy Edit, STS settings, Master Transpose and more. This indispensable musical feature is unique to Korg.

Save it for later
In addition to providing a USB/MIDI computer connection for moving and saving data, the Pa500 can also save and read data from SD / MMC memory cards for instant access to your custom data, MIDI files and songs. The back panel also features MIDI (In, Out), Audio Ins (1, 2) and Outs (L, R), headphone jack, plus a damper pedal and an assignable pedal connection.

Korg Pa500 Arranger Keyboard Features:
  • Keyboard: 61 keys with Velocity
  • System: OPOS (Objective Portable Operating System) and RX (Real eXperience) Technology - Multitasking, Load while play feature - Upgradable Operative System - SSD Solid State Disk
  • Tone Generator: EDS (Extended Definition Synthesis) 80 Voices, 80 Oscillators - Filters with Resonance - Three band EQ for each track
  • Effects: Four stereo digital multi-effect systems - 124 effects types
  • Sounds/Drum Kits: 880 Sounds, including a Stereo Piano and GM Level 2 compatible Sounds, 56 Drum Kits - User area: 128 Sounds, 64 Drum Kits - Realtime control: Assignable Slider, Switch - Full editing of Sounds and Drum Kits
  • Styles: More than 320 preloaded Styles, SSD-resident, freely reconfigurable - Up to 448 available Style locations- 64 User Styles - Eight Style tracks, 4 Single Touch Settings and one Style Performance per Style - Guitar Track, Parallel and Fixed NTT - Compatible with old "i-Series" and Pa series Style format - Style Record with Step Record, Track and Event Edit functions - Style controls: 4 Variations, 3 Fills, 3 Intros, 3 Endings, Synchro Start/Stop, Tap Tempo/Reset, Fade In/Out, Bass Inversion, Manual Bass, Tempo Lock, Memory, Accompaniment/Real Time Track Balance Volume, Accompaniment Mute, Drum Mapping, Snare & Kick Designation, Single Touch
  • Performance/STS: 256 Realtime Performance locations - STS: Memorize Realtime tracks settings, up to 4 x 512 Styles, up to 4 x SongBook entries - All programmable
  • Realtime Tracks:Four Keyboard tracks (Upper 1, 2, 3, Lower) - 4 Pad tracks
  • Song Play: Patented XDS Crossfade Dual Sequencer player - 2 Sequencers with separate Select, Start/Stop, Home, Rewind and Fast Forward controls - Balance control - Lyrics data can be displayed on-screen - Markers - Jukebox function - Compatible with SMF (formats 0 and 1)
  • Sequencer: Quick Record (Backing Sequence), Multitrack and Step Record functions - Full-featured sequencer - 16 tracks - Up to 200,000 events - SMF native format
  • SongBook: Fully programmable music database, based on Styles, SMF, Karaoke, with automatic selection of Style Play and Song Play modes - User-definable custom lists - Filtering options
  • Compatibility: "i-Series" models: Styles - Pa series: Style, Performance, Program/Sound, Song, SongBook, Pad
  • Multi Pad: Four Assignable Pads + Stop Button. Pad Record function
  • Help System: Hypertextual, Contextual, Multilingual
  • General Controls: Master Volume, Real Time-Acc/Seq Balance Volume, Ensemble, Octave Transpose, Master Transpose, Style Change, Split, Quarter Tone Arabic Scale , User Scale memorized inside Performance/STS - Realtime controllers:
  • Joystick (pitch + modulation), 1 Assignable Slider, 1 Assignable Switch, Dial, Up/+, Down/-
  • Control Inputs: Damper Pedal, Assignable Pedal/Footswitch
  • Analog Output: Unbalanced Jack Left/Mono, Right, Headphones
  • Analog Input: Two Unbalanced Line In Jacks
  • MIDI: I/O standard MIDI connectors- USB to MIDI using the USB Device port
  • USB: One USB Device connection (1.1 Full Speed)
  • Card Slot: SD (Secure Digital) Card and MultiMedia Card (MMC) Memory Devices
  • Display: 320 x 240 pixels, Monochrome TouchView Graphic Touch Screen
  • Amplification: 2 x 15-watt - Fixed EQ
  • Speakers: Two Dual Cone Speakers in Bass Reflex Box
  • Power Supply: DC 12V external power supply (supplied)
  • Dimensions: (W x D x H) 42.2 x 15.9 x 7.5 Inches ( 1074 x 404 x 183 mm) - without music rest
  • Weight: 21.8 lbs.
  • Accessories: Manual, AC adapter, Music Stand, CD-ROM

The Korg Pa500 provides incredible sound and arranger functions that are friendly to beginners and pros alike!
Specification Detail
Manufacturer Part Number Pa500

Pa500 Image Gallery

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Be the first to review this product

Its amazing!!! :)

by Nikhil Mathews from India
February 11, 2012
Music Background: Music composer,Singer,Keyboard Programmer
Am using Korg pa500 last 2 years.Still am so happy with the performance......

No Faults

by John from Puerto Rico
September 12, 2011
Music Background: Pro musician
You have to get into the keyboard main tunning and adjust the
tunning and save it to the memory
I did and it solved the problem
never say no my friend
the only keyboard you... read more [+] cant program are digital pianos,that have only 9 sounds onboard,like yamaha p90,70 . close [-]

A Fantastic Keyboard

by Edward from Buenos Aires, Argentina
September 6, 2011
Music Background: Musician
I bought it on July 2010.- Since that time i experiment all of its feautures.- The manual is very well writen and everytime you need some help, its there right away.- Sound are fantastic, its a really... read more [+] syntezizer, you can no effort edit your on sound or modify the existing one.-
The only one bugg y notice is its 61 keys.- I supply that using an m-audio 88 es as keyboard controller, via midi patchbay (Roland Edirol).-
The sequencer section is extraordinary.- I use it to sequence rythm section only and control it remote by programable footswitch (instead of using expression pedal).- I use this keyboard in studio & live, and sounds trully great.- Both output (line & headphones) sounds powerfull; by the way you must have a decent mixer.-
Somebody said PA500 pianos does not sound great as strings, brass, or layers.- That's not true.- The original piano sounds are standard, but, if you keep some time and effort, you can modify it and get a trully acoustic piano sound.- It's too usefull to experiment with the sound editor.- On the cd you cand get a *.pdf file that contains the Advance User Manual, which explains how you can modify any parameter of any sound.-
Touch Screen is simply excelente.- It's easy to use and very legible in any condition.- Buttons are rubber style like tv remote controllers, and functions are precise.-
Korg allways makes great machines (i've been using it since last 10 years, i've several Korg Sound Modules - Triton & N1R), and PA500 is one of that fantastic machines.- Good price for a good keyboard.-
Another bugg was the power supply.- When i bought the keyboard the seller give me a generic power supply that insert some noise.- After i contact Korg service and they give me the original one and no noise for ever.-
If you are looking for a good keyboard withouht expending much money, don't doub it, Korg PA500 is the right choice.-
Finally, sorry to everibody about my really bad english, i live in south america.- Good luck.- close [-]

The Korg PA 500 - More Keyboard - Less price

by Dan James from Woodruff, SC USA
August 24, 2011
Music Background: Pro Musician, Recording Enthusiast, Composer
Great Keyboard! Great Deal!!
Quality:
It weighs 21 pounds so it's not exactly built like a tank. I would be afraid of dropping it, but that is true today of a lot of keyboards in this pr... read more [+]ice range. Definately a LOT of features for what you pay..
Features:
Tons of features for this price range. If you havent already read Sweetwater's description all the way through, you should.. Being able to edit sounds on an arranger keyboard, to the extent that KORG allows you to is awesome. Other features that I love are the over 320 different styles in it.. The best part is that you can download more styles at korgpa.com They're FREE too. Also being able to play 4 voices at the same time is fantastic. Everything else too. TOUCHSCREEN, EFFECTS, QUALITY OF SOUNDS, (thanks to the EDS engine) FADE IN & OUT!! You get the idea.
Ease of Use:
I've had my PA 500 for about 11 months now and like other reviews I had read said, You really need to read the manuals. I know it can be a pain sometimes, but they, in almost all cases can help you out. I only had to contact Korg themselves for a question that I had about the Songbook. They were very helpful. I'm still learning what this baby can do..
Sound:
The sounds in the PA 500 are amazing! The acoustic pianos are rich and the organs are awesome! Great synth sounds! The only drawback I have is the Fender Rhodes type sounds. I think I'll have to play around with them some more to get that Classic 70's sound. In addition, I also love the layered Brass & Sax sounds. Very Full. The speaker system is great on the keyboard. I had read, that in a live situation, that the output on the PA 500 does not have very much gain to it. I personally use the Headphone output and that helps immensely!! This cuts off the keyboard speakers, but if you play with a drummer or amplifier, you really can't hear them very well anyway.
Action:
The action on this keyboard is a little light in my opinion. I know they had to cut corners on it considering the next step up, the PA 800 is $2800.00 (Way out of my price range). I play a little heavier due to playing piano as well but I just play the PA 500 a little more gingerly and it does fine. I like it for the organs. The action could be a little heavier though.
Value:
I paid 975.00 for mine, which is a great deal hands down for what you get! I love the touchscreen. Very helpful.. You do have to read the manuals, or in my case, refer to sections a lot. The 4 effects that you can have at the same time as well as the RX technology, which is really great for guitars. When I first looked at this keyboard in May of 2010, it was still selling for $1499.99. I'm sure glad they lowered it. Again i have to say this is a great deal for the money. close [-]

Purchase of a Korg Pa 500

by from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada
June 22, 2011
Music Background: Hobbyist
Music being one of my hobbies and not a profession, I was looking for a keyboard that had a bit of everything, an arranger, good sound, lots of versatility and well written manual. The Korg Pa 500 wa... read more [+]s for me an excellent choice. It was worth traveling to Sweetwater Music for this this purchase, and it was the best price I find. close [-]
Read more reviews

The best customer service I've ever received. Never has there been a better buying experience. Sweetwater is always my number one choice for all my needs. The customer service and general reliability is relaxing and just amazing.


Johlene, Richmond, KY
See Also: Arranger Workstations , Korg , Korg Professional Arranger Keyboards

Korg Pa500

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