Korg PXR-4 Pandora

The Good Doctor (Simon) mentioned this product in the Open Discussion area, so I did some research and got pretty interested.

Does anyone have one of these things? They look pretty cool, and the reviews on Harmony Central seem positive. For those who don't know, this is a "pocket-sized" 4-track digital recorder for those of us with 8" x 12" pockets.

On the Korg site, it says that it records at 32 kHz. I'm not sure whether this is good or not, but don't standard mp3's play at around 128 kHz? [Actually, I just looked at my Windows media player, and it says "160 kilobits/second - what's the difference? (I know there is one)].

It says that it has 8 virtual tracks for each of the 4 tracks; records on SmartMedia cards (from 4-128 MB); has a built-in condenser mike; oh, and it's Steve Vai endorsed for all you nuts out there (here's a song he recorded on the PXR-4).

Well, comments, please! Thanks!

32 KHz sampling rate is OK for guitar but will not be good for things with lots of top end like cymbals. And if you are not planning to record cymbals it is probably a really good bit of kit!

The rule of thumb is that good reproduction requires twice the sampling rate of the target frequency you are trying to record. The top end of human hearing is (theoretically) 20 000 cycles per second (20 KHz) and requires a sampling rate of at least 40 KHz for full reproduction. However their may be other rate limiting steps for instance using a cheap microphone that may only be able to record between 300 - 10 000Hz or a crappy pre amp / mixer that may degrade signal.

The best thing about this beast is the virtual tracks which allow non-destructive editing. On an analogue 4 track you had 4 tracks and that was it. If you wanted more tracks you had to bounce 3 tracks to one and then record over the original tracks. Great as long as you like the mix and don’t care about stereo imaging !

I think that this unit will be great fun for recording ideas and working out arrangements etc. I don’t think it will be good for doing a really good full demo even with the right microphones and a reasonably good external desk and some one who knows their way round. Don’t expect to be recording albums on this unit !


[Edited by Dr_simon on 07-09-2003 at 12:41 PM]

Cool, I guess "dynamic range" was the wrong phrase, when I was talking about top end !

Actually the the bit rate of PCM (16-bit) and the bit rate of Mp3 (256kbps) are alittle different but in terms of quality the same. Instead of kbps and Khz. KHz is just what Simon said, it's just the frequency lenght/sample rate of a audio sample. Like the Eq settings, 1khz. Cd's and Mp3's are both 44.1KHz. Now kbps means "kilo bytes per sec", this is just how much audio data is in one second of audio. 16-bit is the quality or resolution of the audio. Cd's are 16-bit audio. Since Mp3's are compressed audio they get the term kbps, they are still 16-bit but they can be compressed alot smaller in size. These three terms are completely different. The minimum spec that you should settle for on a recording hardware is 16bit, 44.1khz or higher. If you see kbps in the recording hardware specs this means the recording audio is compressed, your better off with the uncompressed. Some are 24 bit but since cd's are only 16 bit it's probably not a huge deal until they come up with something better. 32-bit is true-tape.

So what does all this mean with regards to sound quality? Dr Simon said that it's not ideal for recording end-product tracks, but is he just picky? ;) Well, actually, I'm pretty picky myself!

If this is better than tape recording or MiniDisc, it's good enough for demos, I guess, especially with multitracking capabilities.

Yep, good for demos and composing on, not so good for anything else. Mini disk will really limit you even with a desk for lots of reasons.
If you want the full Sp Im happy to meet up in the chat room some time after between 6-10 CST (+6h GMT) any week day, give me a time and Ill do my best to be there. Maybe we can get Noticingthemistake and Trendkillah to join in also!

How about 7 CST tonight ?

[Edited by Dr_simon on 07-14-2003 at 11:58 AM]

Originally posted by iamthe_eggman
So what does all this mean with regards to sound quality? Dr Simon said that it's not ideal for recording end-product tracks, but is he just picky? ;) Well, actually, I'm pretty picky myself!

It's very capable of producing good sound quality. But like the Doc said, it's not good enough for professional end recordings. Good for getting ideas out and some arranging though.

If this is better than tape recording or MiniDisc, it's good enough for demos, I guess, especially with multitracking capabilities.

Quality is an issue at 32khz but also it's the amount of tracks that can be recording. 4 tracks is hardly enough to produce a good demo, especially with drums. For a good recording each drum and cymbal needs to have it's own track. That would be way more than 4 plus you have vocals, vocal dub, backing vocals, and your intruments. To get a good recording nowadays it takes about 12-16 tracks minimum.

Trendkilla-

Maybe I'm reading you wrong but sample rate and bit rate are not the same. Mp3 and cd audio both have a sampling rate of 44.1khz. There is audio that is less or more, but listen to something at 22050khz and the cymbals and high ends sound cheesy. When it comes to recording hardware 44.1khz is just the range of frequency that piece of equipment can record at. Meaning it can't record any frequency above 44.1khz. If you have a EQ you can boost or cut that frequency. Bit-rate is the amount of information in that audio. This is where your perpetual difference is between PCM and MP3's are. Not sampling rate.

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 07-14-2003 at 11:12 AM]

Oops. Missed those last 2 posts. Doc, I've tried to get in the chatroom but for some reason it never loads up, I'll try to be there if you guys are. But if you don't hear from me, you'll know why. ;)

Sorry, Doc, no can do for tonight... But I'm getting a pretty good feel for the answers to my questions here, even though there seems to be some disagreement...

Thanks for all your help, guys! I may check out the PXR, since my local guitar shop lets me do that for 30 days!

OK in brief.....don’t expect it to turn your pad into Abby Road over night; it will be very good for something’s and not so good for others.

I do think it will make a brilliant place to start and you can always upgrade later if you want to.

Do have a look at the Korg D1200 as a next move..... However (top secret) I also hard a roomer that Korg was going to unveil a newer version of the D1600 at NAMM this wkend!!!! This will probably bring down the price of other second hand bits of Korg kit !

I’m so excited I can't wait!!!!!!

Read up on the Nyquist theory, and you'll realize your mistake right here.

Well whatever it works out to be. That's still what that spec refers to. I'm not a rocket scientist in the area of communications, I just know what the (recording hardware)specs are reffering to. And what the effects of having less than 44.1khz sampling, which is usually a cut off from the acoustic environment of the highs. Thats why they sound cheesy.

Don't confuse my use of "bit RATE" with "bit DEPTH". Bit rate = amount of bits per time-frame, bit depth = amount of bits. I'm guessing that might be the reason for your misunderstanding me.

Nah. I got that. I was just stating the difference between Khz specs and bit specs, and why these specs of an mp3 and pcm audio aren't the same. And shouldn't be compared, rather KPbs of an MP3 and bit of a PCM is a more suitable comparison when it comes to quality. You were comparing KHz with bits, they are different.

Originally posted by trendkillah
I wasn't comparing them, I was pointing out that you can not compare them.(as I stated in my previous post already)
And, there is as much relation between sampling frequency and bit rate, as there is between bit depth and bit rate, simply because bit rate in mp3's is the product of both sampling rate and average bit depth.

All audio bitrate is dependant of the sampling frequency. More freq. range = more data. The sampling frequency between and MP3 and PCM is the same, standard 44.1KHz. The thing that seperates a MP3 from PCM audio is the amount of information (Bits/bytes) not sampling frequency. MP3 is just an encoded audio, which the bytes are compressed.

Well the new Korg stuff is PANTS, the upgrade for the D1600 has a USB port and has been painted blue and the upgrade for the D1200 has just been painted blue !

The have also released a big bad 32 track 4 grand recording "flagship" which is not as good (spec wise) as some of there competitors and at 4 grand...well its a whale !

So, I got me a cheep D1200 for 660 USD on ebay. Im going to use this as a front end for my sound card as it has features like "trigger recording" which I find very useful.

Originally posted by Dr_simon
So, I got me a cheep D1200 for 660 USD on ebay. Im going to use this as a front end for my sound card as it has features like "trigger recording" which I find very useful.

Hah. That's what I use it for also, although I only have the D8. Great machine with alot of useful tools. Yeah trigger recording which is a benefit. It's also got up to 4 simultaneous multi-effects at once. Although you are limited to which ones you get to use together. The best combinations are there though. My favorite feature is the built in metronome and drum tracks, which is kool just to find a cool beat and go off on the guitar and record what you did. Awesome for getting song ideas. I don't know what I would do without my little multitracker. :)

Yep I have a bunch of pre amps (Focusrite Platinum Voice master Pro, Bass Pod Pro, Pod pro, GNX2) all going into a 75 ohm s-video switching box (via S/P DIF out) and then into the D1200 via an M-Audio CO2 co-axial to optical converter so I’m bypassing the pres on the D1200. For Midi I’m SONAR all the way using the D-sub midi socket on a Creative Labs SoundBlaster Pro (2nd sound card for MP3s and system sounds). This is then off to a EP97, a JV1010 or a Dr-770 (can't use DTEXPRESS II at the moment ‘cos of the neighbors.....damn them and cruse, boil them and rip them to bits !!!).



From their its USB (.WAV) exports from the D1200 to Mr. PC and Sonar for a little tidy up (and Autotune 3…what a horrible dirty cheat I am…but I don’t care !) and then Wave lab for mastering and Pyro for burning.....Hoorah ! All I need now is some time off work to enjoy all this kit and record some of the songs I have in my head!!!

I was using a D1600, it was a nice bit of kit however as I do most of my mixing in SONAR I figures I really didn’t want all the whistles and bells (and the occasional glitch). How does the D8 perform? The sound card I have is really hot (RME Audio Digi96/9 PAD) and after spending a weekend sorting out the latency issues it is working really well... however I just prefer the Korg interface.

I still think my favorite bit of studio kit is a drinks holder that attaches to a microphone stand, will fit cand of beer, bottles of wine, plastic liter cups of G&T, bottles of Vodka / Glenfidich and even small cups of coffee / red bull !
Awesome (Burp !)!

[Edited by Dr_simon on 07-20-2003 at 11:16 AM]

(2nd sound card for MP3s and system sounds). This is then off to a EP97, a JV1010 or a Dr-770 (can't use DTEXPRESS II at the moment ‘cos of the neighbors.....damn them and cruse, boil them and rip them to bits !!!).

I know where your coming from, I know all the residential cops by name cause they’re called to my house so much for noise. hehe I don’t mind ticking off my neighbors though. I hate them, they hate me, it’s a typical next door relationship.

I still think my favorite bit of studio kit is a drinks holder that attaches to a microphone stand, will fit cand of beer, bottles of wine, plastic liter cups of G&T, bottles of Vodka / Glenfidich and even small cups of coffee / red bull !
Awesome (Burp !)!

Sweet! I want one!

If you don’t mind I think I’m going put on the poor musician front here. You definitely got a nice selection of rack mounts, I got hmm none. :( (envious) My guitar runs through a Pod 2.0 Pro and my bass runs through a Hartke 3500 head. For vocals I use a ksm32 straight in. I really wish I had a vocal effects to play with though. I know that would help so much. So I usually just record my vocals into my Korg dry, then use computer effects.

Once I get everything on the D8, then I record everything from the D8 to the computer via. optical digital cables.. The one bad thing about the D8 is I don’t think you can directly export wav. files to the computer. I have SCSII output but I don’t know if I can do it that way. If you know anything about that, I’d love to hear about it cause that would help a lot. I do get some loss even with the digitals. :(

The one useful recording collection I have is computer effects and software. I pretty much got it all, thank god for file-sharing. hehe. :D So what I don’t have for rack mounts I definitely make up in software, especially for vocals. Which is the first thing I record from the D8. I’m a firm believer if you can get the vocals right everything else will fall into place. Then just tweak individual tracks on Cubase or Cool edit until they right. WavLab for mastering too, using the Gold Mastering edition. Great effects, especially the free-filter.

So I guess for what I use it for, the D8 is just fine. It isn't no roland vstation but I love it. I’ve found ways to work around my limited equipment with reasonable success. I still can’t produce a great quality recording, mostly because no pre-recording processing and conversion loss. But for demos I’m more than happy, or content I should say, with what I have. :)

I was thinking of getting a D8 however the lack of a USB swung my decision to the D1200 (and an extra 350 odd bucks ….damn !)

Korg SCSI is a nightmare if it is anything like the D1600 you can only use it to communicate with other Korg formatted disks (they don’t use Fat16 or Fat32) i.e. for connecting peripherals. In addition to the formatting problems you can’t use the SCSI port to hook it up to a PC because both devices want to act as the SCSI master …baaa poo ! That is one reason I went for the D1200 as it has 2Gb of the HDD allocated to a DOS friendly partition for exporting wave files.

On the D1600 I used to export wav files by burning them to a CDRW, can you do the same thing with the D8? All I used to do was to set “in” and “out” location points at the beginning and end of the song, copy the tracks onto the clip board and then export the clipboard as a set of WAV files which were burnt to the disk. I don’t know if this is any better or worse than sending them down a lightpipe which is fine as long as you are using S/P DIF (and not 8 channels ADAT 24/96 ‘cos of band with limitations - you would think Korg would have thaught of this before building it into the new 4 grand D32DX system.... Doh !).

http://www.korgboards.com would be a good place to find out for definite, there are a few people there (like Billy Edwards, Amgrad and Launchpad) who really know there **** !

Love the KSM mics they are so cool ! And as far as outboard gear is concerned, I have a Midiverb 4 and a Digitech Vocal 300, a middle sized EQ and a headphone amp. The rest of the stuff in the rack are cheep Behringer patch bays and that is it. Im really tring to move away from lots of clunky outboard gear like exciters et al as virtual ones are gowing to be much easier to move back to the UK. Besides Waves Native Gold / Autotune 3 are just the Dogs Bo*ocks !

Yeah that’s exactly how it works. I definitely wouldn’t have gotten the D8, especially now that the stuff out there makes it sort of obsolete. 4-5 years ago it was awesome and really cheap. I think I only paid 600 American for it. Even though it is limiting in some aspects, It fits all the needs I want. I have a professional studio at my disposal for only 15 dollars an hour. So if I spit something out worth putting up for market then I can always step over to that. Most of my stuff stays as demos, and the D8 is absolutely capable of doing that.

A guy I know got the Roland VS, so whenever I get 4 grand it will be mine. The thing makes me cream my pants when I see it and get to play with it. Ohhh!! :D The book for it is like the bible, so there’s a lot of fun things to learn about it. I definitely like Korg boards though, simple and easy-to-use, and yet versatile. Much better than the Boss BR series and smaller brands which were produced years after the D8. To me it’s a classic.

As for burning tracks from the D8 to CD. I thought about that but I don’t know if they’re would be much of a difference then going from D8 str8 to computer. The digital conversion is really good (not as good as transferring a wav. file) on my soundcard. It would be nice to have a USB port, I have 20 on my computer. They’re pretty useless otherwise.

The only rack mounts I’m getting is a nice vocal pre-amp with tube-simulator, tube compressor/pre-amp, and BBE Sonic maximizer. Just something to send a better clearer signal to the D8, that’s definitely where the flaw is in my home recordings. The Native Gold Bundle is a great package, I got that one too. Nice effects, especially the compressors and EQ. Best package for what you get. I have Antares Autotune and something else, not sure what it’s called but it’s sweet. Probably equal to your Digitech.