Korg PXR-4 Pandora

Editing is not too hard once you get a grip on the concept on how to handle the unit. The manual is ok, I've seen easier to understand ones, and I've seen harder to understand ones.

If this isn't your first endeavour into recording (e.g. if you have some experience with computer based recording in general), then you should get along with it nicely after a few hours of digging into it.

I play bass guitar (custom made Ritter, Germany) into this unit. I like the sounds I can get out of it. I have also tried the built-in microphone for some singing and it sounds good enough for a demo production.

Couldn't detect any noise other than from a few of the effect patches, but that's to add realism, so it's okay for me.

I hook the unit up to my studio mixer or listen through headphones.

Feels reliable. The pouch that comes with it adds protection for transport. Might even use it on a gig, but haven't tried yet.

Didn't have to deal with them yet.

Been playing for 20 years. I'm a recording professional and do computer-based multi-track on-location recording (concert live cuts, etc.)

My favourite feature: it's quickly up when I need it to capture an idea

What I don't like about it: you only can record the virtual drums to tracks by using an external stereo cable (from the output to the line in) - but that's a workaround that isn't too bad actually, just a bit more fiddly than I had hoped it to be.

Due to the small form factor, it can be hard to initially find all the setting that you want. However, things are setup as well as possible given the size. So when you beat the initial learning curve, it works ok.

Not a big fan of the sounds built in to this unit. The presets are all terrible and even tweaking, I couldn't get anything great. On the plus side, in high quality the recording quality is good. So I just take my Valvetronix amp straight out into this recorded.

Not really gig worthy. But that's not really the point with this toy.

No contact with Korg, but they do have a nice website with PDF docs, which I approve of.

A nice little recorder. Don't use it for original sounds, but it works fine for travel and fun little mixes.

once you get used to it its very easy but it takes a while. it would be easier if the middle adjustment had a dial instead of being in the menu but its not a problem

the clean and low-mid distorions are good bt theres not much for a good metal crunch. its not noisy at all only occasionly it will get slightly noisy. the effects are good mostly but some are bad like the wah and some are pointless but for the money and what its intended for its very good. the phrase trainer doesnt record too well you get a swirly sound when you cant realy make a rythem part and solo over it becouse it doesnt mix in well. but its good for learning parts and playing back to your self to see what you sound like you hear things you dont notice when u play it realy has i,proved my playing. i use it with some inferred headphones korg sent me free and it sounds good.

only use it for practice so it seems reliable for that i wouldnt gig with it though as its just a peice of plastic it would brobly get broken eventualy.

never had to deal with them over the pandora but they were very quick sending be the free headphones.

for practicing and learing parts its great its small and easy to use doent annoy everyone, you can take it anywhere and practice without compromising your sound like the mini amps and has made me a better player for the price its brilliant

Pretty easy to use, although you need to use the 'shift' key a lot. Creating/editing user effects is pretty straight-forward--and you can do a lot of tweaking on the various settings (maybe too much!). The manual is decent & explains just about everything you need to work it. I'll give it a 8 out of 10--because you have to use the cursor key to scroll through all the settings.

I'm a guitarist--I play a '52 RI Tele w/Duncan Antiquities--I don't have an amp at the moment so I've been plugging directly into the PXR4. Haven't found it to be all that noisy. I've found I can get a serviceable tone out of it--the distortion/cab models are decent, but it's sometimes difficult to detect any real tonal difference btwn the various sims. The rest of the effects (mod, delay, etc.) are all pretty damn good. The rhythym program is virtually useless--to me, at least. The drum sounds are cheesy, you can only change time signatures when using the 2 metronome settings, & there's no rhythym pattern for blues! You also can't record the rhythym (unless you run a line out-to-line in, from what I understand). My other big beef is--particularly since this thing was designed for guitarists--Reverb isn't one of the selectable 'guitar' effects!--it's an 'insert' effect, which you can add to the track later--yet Delay is in the 'guitar' chain. That seems ass-backwards to me.

As far as this cat. is concerned: 1)I use it around the house 2)I wouldn't even think of using it if I was playing live--which I'm sure wasn't the intent anyways. It's small, plastic, & the knobs, buttons, & fader controls do seem kind of flimsy. But for bedroom/backyard/kitchen use, I'll give it a '9'. I'd be afraid to drop it though.

n.o.

I mostly play 'roots' music (if they still call it that): vintage r-n-r, rockabilly, country/hillbilly, blues, & a little surf/instrumental-type stuff. Been playing for about 17 yrs now--off & on. Right now, I'm in between amps, you might say--I've always owned & played a variety of Fender tube amps--vintage or reissue. This is my first digital recorder (& second multi-track rec.--I have an old Tascam Porta02 as well). The PXR4 is definitely a cool little machine--especially the fact that you can run it on 2 AA's--portability is definitely it's best feature. Price is really fine too. However... the crappy rhythym program & somewhat illogical placement of certain other effects (like the reverb I mentioned above) takes this down a couple of notches. I'm considering selling mine off & maybe even going back to analog!--or most likely, a combo of digital & tape. As a portable sketchpad/headphone amp/practice tool it serves its purpose--as a be-all-end-all mini-studio, it leaves a lot to be desired--maybe someday, someone will perfect the concept (maybe even Korg)--because it is a great one

Easy as PIE! I loved this thing(the theme on my review is "I Lost it" as it has gone and disapeared!)
It is a great machine with tons of great and easy to edit effects.
I Manuals are as good as most they are better than Rolands for sure.

I had been using it with my accoustic and my strat and a micro korg.
I think its preaty clean, any thing that compresses its data is kinda lossy but Its great for song ideas and some little recordings here and there.
The effects are ok about 90% of the time sometimes they are a bit muddy but a tweek here and there makes things better.
I have a Peavey Classic 30 combo that at times I have ran the effects into for fun.
I always dig David Gilmore's sound as well as Billy Gibons and others, the effects can do a good job of emulating there tone(but I dont realy think you can truly get a persons tone unless you are them)....

Its a good quality unit I have not a question about it holding up! korg rocks!

I have met and called the korg folks in the past and think they are top notch!
Having worked in a music shop the reps are the the best and great people and bend over backwords to help! Especaly the MN reps!

Its the best!
As I said earlier in my review I lost it(Pisses me OFF!)....
I sold a acoustic guitar to a music store I always carried it in the compartment under the neck rest, I forgot to look in there when I sold it and now its gone! I feel SO STUPID!!!!!!!!!!
So yes I would buy a new one if it were lost or stolen.
If I ever find out that the people at the store knew it was in there. they are gonna gimme some cash! or something!

Yes it was a great way to make music and keep ideas.
get one without question!

It's pretty easy to get started with this thing,when you get serious you will need the manual occasionaly.

It has nice FX for all kinds of instruments (including vocals and acoustic guitar!),but it needs some finetuning most FX are bit overkill.

It got a guitar tuner and some drumpatterns (dull but usable for practice).

The sound is pretty ok,but I heard it through phones and not through hifi so far,so beware that I judge it for what I heard so far!

It's a Korg,and if they live up to their reputation it will work for 20 years at least.

So far so good.

Yes,this is the crux.

you get PDF's and converters and all that,but.......if you got a question where do you go?

Anybody?

It's a very nice 4-track digital recorder with built in FX!!!!!

It even got a microphone for acoustic or vocals.

Look at your alternatives for around 300 Shekels,not many huh?

The built in FX and the battery operation make it a great machine to me.

If you want soundquality,I'd suggest get a Roland VS XYZ or such but if small is your credo get a PXR4.

It`s pretty easy to use. I`m not using it for recording tho. I haven`t yet explored all its possibilities `cause I have only use it for practicing solos and stuff like that. And for that its like a Gods gift to me. I have a 1 year old daughter, and there is no way I could practise with an amp at night when she sleeps. And it also has a tuner, rhythm (metronome, beats) so this is everything I need for bedroom playing. When I practise a new song, I first choose rhythm, beat and sound for rhythm guitar. Then I play the rhythm guitar on track 1. After that I`m ready to start soloing with some other sound. Finally I record the solo on track 2 and listen to the mistakes. It`s easier hear the hole package from "some other`s" view.
If I ever try use it some other way, I propably have to dig up the manual, cause I think its impossible to use this all the stuff in this box wothout reading it. You can put your songs to computer via USB cable (not included in box). And this is pretty good for song writing too (don`t need a band hear how your new song sounds).

Sounds are ok for bedroom playing, specially clean ones. Overdrives and distortions are...well, cleans are better. After tweaking I got an solo sound which is pretty smooth and nice. But after all this is not a triple rectifier, so try to find your sound from some other equipment. I definitely wouldn`t use it for playing live or even to practise with my band. I use this thing with Ibanez rg550 (Tone Zone in bridge, and Air Norton in neck position).

It hasn`t broked yet. But why would it broke lyin` on my bed. Not a gear for gigging. Some other guy complained about the "cheap feeling plastic", but in my opinion its ok and it doesn`t weight much.

Never needed, but what I`ve heard about Korgs cust.sup. I hope I never need to.

I play rock, blues, hard rock and some progressive stuff also. I have been playing about 3 years. I like to use it the way I explained earlier. Haven`t compared it with similar products. This thing really helps and improves my playing.

Very easy to use. It has a extensive sub menu system, but it's mostly linear, and I got confortable with it the first hour of using it. It can be a tweaker's dream, lots of adjusting. It has all the inputs you could need, and a dedicated output. 4 tracks/2 stereo tracks, you can overdub, or multi track something and bounce 4 tracks down to 2 or 1 track.

I plug my guitar and my Gigasampler sampler into it. It records at 32kHz, and the standard is 44kHz. I converted popular songs 44 to 32kHz and I couldn't hear any difference in sonic quality, and I have pro-level headphones with that. It has very good reverb settings: plate, spring, room and hall settings! The guitar effects are good, but I would recommend having guitar petals, real amps, and a good guitar/it has bass effect too which is really fun. It has compressors and limiters, distortions, chorus, many eq'ing setups, and delay up to 2 sec, ping pong delay and an echo. The effects are professional to me.

It's really small. I got a stained rainbow effect on the LCD because I got it near a magnet. The faders are really good. It's in a plastic box so you need to be careful. But I have no worry about taking it on a hike with me.

I never needed customer support.

It runs on 2 AA batteries! A digital recording studio that runs on 2 AA batteries! It's 5 inches wide and 4 inches tall and about 1 inch thick! It has more than 100 effects and 100 more you can save! I got a little fake leather case included with it, so you can keep it safe. This thing is the most wonderous thing I've ever seen!, I dreamed about things like this when I was very young! You can use 32mb, 64mb or 128mb cards with it: i recommend a 128mb card.

Easy enough even for me - and easier than Boss-Roland :-)

Great - it isn't 24/96 'perfect' but sounds fabulous !
I give it 10 to compensate for low rating of some strange
reviews below ...

No porblem

Dont know

Great if you like and need a portable recorder.

The reviewer below has found a USEFUL trick:
drume line out recorded via line IN : thanks pal !

the first thing that I tried was the internal mic. i was amazed at how well the the built in condenser mic recorded my acoustic guitar. Under the guitar effects I found enough programs that left me feeling inspired to record as well. It also didn't take long to learn how to edit the effect programs either. It's basic stuff . all you have to do is assign the type of effect you want to use ,and then follow the curser in the display to edit it..As far as the manuel goes , I'm one of those people who only opens a manuel if i cant figure out how to work the thing . For most of the basics i didn't need it. I also downloaded the easy start from the websight which helped.

I use a Les Paul and a Strat and currently am using the amp and cabinet simulations in the unit. the effects sound auwsome!! After adding program Bright hall #60 master effects to my acoustics which were doubled, I adjusted the send left and right to about 65 70% and it sounded great. Under the guitar efffects the Peizo setting gives you a great Prince sound on a strat. Country #15 worked nicely for some twang and the 2001 sound with some added delay made for a great lead tone. as far as noise goes i don't use that much gain (distortion) how ever I noticed the noise reduction feature which I gather would combat any excessive noise from single coil pick ups and distortion.

so far it's worked great every time. I've only had it for two months though. As far as gigging with it, that's really not what this is intended for I don't think.. I supose that you could use it plugged in to a PA or amp as a guitar rig etc.. I think that the fact that you can transfer your files is very smart on the part of Korg. I mean let's face it you never know what tracks are going to be the end all keeper take rght?. ... And another thing finally some one has realized that MP2 files sound better than MP3's because they are less compressed!!!

I haven't dealt with the company at all. Haven't had any issues with the unit. My buddie has been contacting product support and mentioned that they have been help ful.

I play mostly pop and rock. which works out great. writing songs is very easy with the internal drum patterns and guitar effects. I've been playing for 20 years and have owned everything from a Mesa Boogie Tri Access to a Marshall 30th anniversery head,Pod Pro,peavey classic 30,Line 6 Axis 2X12 and various stomp box effect pedals as well as currently own the PX4. If the PXR4 were lost I think I'd cry. no really I love this thing. as a song writer people give me tracks that I record to 2 tracks and then use the internal mic to hum melodies on the other tracks,plus you have virtual tracks so the possibilities are endless. l don't hate the fact the drums are pre programmed but I think it would be cool to have tempo map in there. Although
I have found some really cool tricks. the first is that if you plug a stereo mini 8th inch plug from the line out to the line in ,you can record the drum patterns and then you will have the drums in your MP2 file. Since you can do this you can easily punch in differnt patterns at diferent measures to have different drum grooves through out the song. I compared it to the BR532 and for me it was all about portability. No question.