Korg PX-1 Pandora

This thing can make just a ton of different sounds, and if you spend a few minutes with the manual you'll be able to get 'em all. It comes with 20 presets including some good distortions. It's simple to tweak any program, or change it completely, and give it a new name. You have control of lots of parameters including drive, distortion, reverb/ delay, chorusing/flanging, etc. Extremely versatile and a blast to mess around with. I found that some Pandoras had weaker output than others and none of them are particularly loud. Since this is mainly a headphone practice amp, be careful that you don't get a quiet one. By the way, the PX-1 has now been replaced by the PX-2 (see below).

As a headphone/practice device, the Pandora sounds great (I used it with a Jazzmaster, Tele Custom, and standard Strat). With an amp (Fender Super Reverb or Carvin AG-100), it didn't really cut through the band too well. The cabinet emulator (several types) makes it pretty good for direct-to-tape recording. Can be noisy, especially with single- coils at high gain, but you can compensate somewhat with the noise gate function. Finally, the Pandora has lots of great distortions... check out the "Zombie" preset if you like metal thrash.

This is not a gigging box---too fragile. The little power slide switch on the side is also used to enter edit mode and doesn't feel like it would last too long. The output jack on my Pandora quit at about 11 months. See below.

My Pandora PX-1 crapped out one month before the warranty was up. I sent it to Korg and they replaced it with a brand new PX-2 (the new model), no questions asked. Pretty good, huh? 'Course, I don't know what they would have done a month later, but my experience with them was great.

I play surf, 60's, 70's new wave, other mixed-up weird stuff. Played since about 1964 and have some pedals, band equipment, the usual. I would buy another Pandora because it's really fun for practicing and you get a ton of sounds for not a lot of money. It expands my range of playing and gives me cool ideas for new songs to work up. Just don't expect the Pandora to substitute for some real effect units in a live band situation---it's a little weak in that environment.

Tere's nothing easier to operate. Few buttons, relatively big LCD, fixed sequence in effect chain.

For the price -- really good. A bit noisy if lots of highs on EQ. Distortions are ALL GOOD!!! It seems 12 types of distortions in the walkman-sized box. And all of they is really cool. Reverbs is good for practice, but not for recording (this unit isn't designed for that). Effect chain isn't flexible but you can turn on and off some devices (such as Amplitude or Delay effects). There's nothing better to practice and jam with CD's. WARNING: You better buy AC adapter, this unit eats a lot of alkaline batteries. Overall: nobody can beat this for the price, size and quality!

Dropped it few times. No problems. There's nothing to break in this device. Two or three chips, few transistors and LCD...

Haven't contected with

I would definitely buy it again. Good box. But if you want to record somewhat buy Lexicon MPX-1 and BOSS DS-1 distortion. And forget about any effects -- it's all you need...

For a Mfx unit, the pandi box is about as easy as it gets. The manual is a big help towards patch editing.

I use the PX-1 daily and have learned pretty much all there is to know about it. I use it the following ways:
1) with headphones (small Sony) 2) thru a mixer and bigger headphones (AKG240) 3) thru a mixer and out hi-fi speakers 4) in the effects loop of an amp
1 & 4 sound best. Unfortunately with 4, you don't get stereo fx. 2 & 3 require to much gain and get hissy. The flangers, phasers and two reverbs(room and hall) are very good. The chorus and pitch shifter are on the weak side. Everything else is in between, except the wah, which sounds horrible.
I've gotten some pretty good sounds direct to tape, but I believe micing an amp is really the way to go.

So long as you don't drop it or step on it (both of which are very easy to do, seeing that it's smaller than a Walkman) it's perfectly reliable.

Never had to deal with them.

For portability the pandi-box can't be beat. I love flanger. It'd be nice if it was louder. Thankfully they fixed that in the PX-2.

Tremendously easy, although it's not always easy to remember what button to push to write patches, etc, since they're very black and non-descript.

Since I'm just goofing around I use this as my only effect going into a Roland keyboard amp (pretty crazy huh?) The sound is generally good, but quite noisy. The noise gate works well but at high levels of gain there is an unmistakable hiss. All effects are well done, there are several types of distortion with adjustable gain, and enough chorus, flange, phaser, etc. I do wish you could have reverb and modulation at the same time though. You can get many different sounds but nothing too far-out. I like the auto-wah, the slow phaser, and the overdrives aren't too bad -- you can set 'em on low gain without getting too much grit. Also wish you could have compression w/ overdrive, and maybe parametric EQ.

Not very, the first one I got had a wanky AC jack and I had to take it back. The AC jack still feels crappy in my current one, and I worry about knocking the plug around and damaging the thing. But if that doesn't break the thing should last forever (it uses so little power!)

They're Korg, I guess they're cool!

I don't go portable much, I just use it for practicing at home. For this it is sufficient and it's cool that I can name the patches. I would upgrade to a more powerful pedal board if I had the impetus. Definitely the bomb for travelling, just make sure you get some efficient headphones or it'll be too quiet.

I found the Pandora very easy to get the hang of. The manual was not worth reading, but the description chart for the effects can come in handy. The naming of the effects could have been made clearer: the numbers 1 to 4 define which particular setting is active for the selected type of effect instead of names or 'real' values. And more scope for editing delays and mods would have been nice, but hey, you can make a decent sounding patch in under a minute so no big deal. The Pandora gives a wide variety of effects that are very easy to use and program, and if you wanted to be able to adjust the delays down to the nearest micro second you'd buy a rack unit, and most of those don't fit in your guitar case.

It is great to be able to hear a very clear guitar tone in stereo wherever you are, and without anoying others (unless you hum while you play!). Hearing two or three of the presets is what sold me on this unit (the majority of them are there to show off the features and so tend to be a bit exagerated) you can hear the quality and what is possible in the few decent ones (and replace/redesign the crap ones later). For 5-10 mins spent programming you can get a _very_ nice sound considering the size and cost of the Pandora. There's a wide range of useful distortions, the mods, delays,& echos are pretty good, and the Room and Hall reverbs are fantastic. I really miss a three band EQ though, and I find it hard to get as many varied blues tones as I would like because of this. I can not seem to get a nice clean tone without adding a chourus and layers of echo or reverb, but then again it sounds so nice with those that it's really no problem.

With it's minimal appetite for batteries and the option of using a DC adapter the PX-1 really does let you concentrate on your playing. It feels sturdy enough, though I like to keep it in it's box when not in use... just in case.

I found the PX-1 gives a larger range and better quality of overdrives than anything I've tried at remotely the same (new)price, including the new ZOOM 500 Series. I will be moving into a hostel next year and my amp will have to stay at home (500km away) so the PX-1 is the perfect substitute. It is versatile, has great sound quality, is extreamly easy to customize to your needs, and it's size and power rationing make it very hard to beat if it's these features that you want. If mine gets pinched I won't be able to afford another one for a while, and assuming the gods don't bestow another box upon me, I'll have to move back home. Needless to say I'll be protecting my Pandora with my life. As for the problem with headphone volume, try experimenting with different headphones. The loudest I've heard it so far was through some huge 20 year old cans, and they didn't sound to bad either. The ability to give your patches 6 character names is a really thoughtful feature. The Pandora is definitely worth a look and listen if it even comes close to your criteria for an effects-unit/headphone-amp.

This unit is very easy to use and to program. Once you've programmed it a couple of times, you will not need the manual.

Oveall, the sound quality is excellent, especially for a multi EFX unit. It takes some time to dial it in just right, but it can be done with very good results in most modes.

The first one I got had a loose wire on the input jack, but it was my fault as I was plugging in at an angle. My dealer replaced it, and since then I've velcroed it to my amp and had no problems whatsoever.

Haven't dealt with Korg directly, but Guitar Center replaced my first one no questions asked and I assume that reflects on Korg's return policies as well.

I really like this unit alot. It is a perfect "first time" effect, you can experiment with it and learn what everything is supposed to do. In a perfect world it would be foot-switchable, but that's not what it is desined to be. One slight bitch is you must view the readout at the proper angle or you can't read it but that's the worst thing I Can come up with on this excellent little processor.

Sounds are excellent. This litter palmed-size multieffects processor is a really killer. Distortions are good and even better if mixing with flanger... Some users complaint about the sounds are weak. They are right if they listen via the head phone. However, they are wrong if they play it thru the amp. This mfx sounds can drive and blow up your ears. The only effect that I think PX-1 needs to add-in is the DEPTH for the delay. The delays are good but can not be adjusted to get more sound hally deeper. I played some ZOOM mfxs before but this little KORG mfx is better. BOSS might be the only KORG killer.

Really easy to use. There is a manual but you don't really need it.

I was really impressed with the quality of sound. Some of the distorsions are a little weak but there are twelve so you'll find definitly find something you like. I really like the tone adjustment. You can get the sound that you want without having to change to high, low, and mid on your amp. There are so many different effects you can get from this thing and you can control them all pretty well. My only complaint is that you can't control the delay or echo times but there are six of each so you can get it pretty close to whatever you need.

To use it live could be a little awkward. Depends really what you would use it for. I try to be carefull with mine because it does look kind of fragile.

nothing yet.

Would definetly buy it again. Like I said individual pedals are better if you have money to burn. But pound for pound this thing can't be beat. It has allowed me to experiment with my tone and come up with some really funky sounds. It's really good for practice and it fits in your guitar case.

very easy to use, as usual the presets need heavy tweaking Originaly received manual in foreign language version only and it was still easy to figure out the presets available on the web are vastly superior to the originals

effects sound great for the purpose they were designed for headphone practice definetly sounded better with certain headphones, a pair of 10$ koss headphones so far have sounded the best. Distortion has a great variety of usefull types plenty to play around with

dropped it a few times, got it wet a few times, so far so good

N/A

sure and if this one breaks I will. makes it real easy to practice , the tuner is a lifesaver and a metronome included is almost too much to ask for. For the price you cant beat it!!

HERES A SMALL NOTE ON PX-1 BEING NOISY SOME SUGIKEGESTED IT WAS THE ECHO, ITS NOT ITS THE CONPRESSOR IT CAN BE KIND OF ANNOYING USING THE PHONES OR RECORDING, BUT IS NOT NOTICEABLE ENOUGH THROUGH A GUITAR AMP. MY QUICK FIX FOR THIS PROBLEM WAS PICKING TUBE SETTING THE VALUE FOR GOOD CLEAN TUBE SOUND, ALSO PICKING A CABINET RESONATOR THIS WORKS GREAT.ONE THING I HAVE DONE WITH THIS UNIT IS TO HAVE ONE SET OF EFFECTS FOR MY AMP, AND THE OTHER FOR PHONES AND RECORDING