Korg PXR-4 Pandora

This little 4track is fairly easy to use, keep your manual handy though as its not that intuitive.

After an afternoon of fiddling about with it I was reasonably confident that I knew how it worked. It does take a lot of fiddling though as there are a lack of buttons on this thing. I'm using this as a straight 4 track, not mixing down at all. It copes well.

I've got the 32mb card with the 2 demo tracks on it and an extra 128mb card. I'm not sure if this orignally came with a usb cable. I have never plugged it into my computer.

Some of the dials look a bit delicate.

I was pleasently surprised with the effects in this little box. Its got some Pink Floyd type ambience to a couple of the presets. The distortions aren't too bad either. Only thing I want to do is Mic up my amp and get some nice feedback recorded. The onboard mic isn't that great, although its not the worst.

I'm running my Les Paul Special through it and its fairly quiet. My Guitar always generates a bit of fuzz and there is some on here too. Saying that you can't hear it at all if you get creative with the volume.

I'm running it through a pair of speakers with a subwoofer for playing back tracks to others. It sounds very good, a nice warm tone comes out of it. It does need a little bit of help with the low ends hence the subwoofer.

I used to write drum and bass, so I find the onboard rhythms laughable. That said as a practice tool its a usefull feature. There is a healthy array of drum beats.

I bought this second hand. The batteries had leaked in there. Cleaned it up and hey presto good as new. I've not encountered any errors. Looks a little bit fragile, but the leather case should afford a certain amount of protection.

8 for now, will update if it has a catastrophic malfunction.

Never dealt with them.

I play an eclectic mix of music. Mostly R&B, Funk, Folk, Rock, soul, jazz, so a little more bass response would of been nice. I can go without distortion 90% of the time so this 4track is a good match for me.

Electric guitar is the easiest to use with this box, As I have said the onboard mic isn't the best so until I get a decent mic I'm not using it to record steelstrung/spanish/mandolin.

I have been playing fifteen years since I was 12. I own a myriad of stringed instruments and midi equipment, but the only thing that I have used with this 4track is my 97 Gibson Les Paul Special. It has become very useful to me and I often grab it and plug in when I come up with a nice lick. I have a paitent friend who has a home studio so I often get him to record mastertracks for me in cubase. This 4track is invaluable though in prepping songs beforehand.

This was a real bargain. I picked it up in a pawn shop and the guy in there barely knew what it was. I haggled him down to 50 GBP.

I'm going to give this a high overall rating as it is a jack of all trades master of none kind of thing.

The ease of use is alright, there very little buttons with very much functions. I can get a really good sound out of the Korg PXR 4. Not as good as professional recording, but still. The effects build in the recording device are not really good. I read the manual first but it's quite hard to understand all functions.
For live recording this device is real good to used, we used it a couple of times, and the quality is very nice.

I can get a good sound out of the Korg PXR 4. Not by using the standard effects, but just the ones I normally use (7 track equalizer+metaldistortion) used on the build-in mic. As well drums are real good to record with it. It's not to noisy, just don't put the input volume to high!

I can depent on it, sometimes it gives an error. But then nothing seems to be wrong?! Real strange, but evrythin is still on after I restored it. We once used the pitchshifter on a gig, but we won't use it again for a gig. We would use it for recording live.

We play a good mix of goregrind and grindcore. The Korg PXR 4 is a good recording unit for this type of music. If it was stolen, I would buy it again or not, depents on whatelse is on the market.
The Korg PXR 4 is just a very good device to record some rehearsel sessions and live stuff.

COMPARING THE Korg Pandora PXR-4 against the Boss Micro BR


Don't trade or throw away your PXR4 yet--- there are things about the Korg you will definitely miss or would like. The PXR4 has a charm all its own, that I have thus far not been able to duplicate on the Micro BR, although the Boss recorder has its good points too.

Okay, first the Micro BR points:
Oh god--- NOT EASY TO USE AT FIRST-- jeez.
I am usually great at figuring out stuff without the manual, going by
intuition and common sense. Not this thing. Must use the manual to get
around on it, then after a while you get it. But you will scratch your head a lot at the start.

The menu layout is just bizarre, not like anything else I've used. No dials or knobs, except for input level and headphones.

The manual is FAIR, not great. You will read something and then go "what??".
Eventually you'll get it after a couple hours. Micro BR 4 out of 10

The Pandora also presents challenges, but in many ways is more easy to get around, even though it seems quite a bit deeper in terms of what it offers. The Pandora has MANY buttons an knobs-- this is definitely good, and allows more rapid non-menu scrolling to do jobs. 6 out of 10

Micro BR sound is quite good, the guitar effects are quite good, although not like a full fledged multi-effects pedal. Good for generic
modern sounds with Chorus/flange,phaser/tremelo/pan/delay. You can add reverb to anything, but the quality of the reverb is nothing great at all, and not particularly good except at low levels of ambience. It has a higher 44.1 sampling rate, so, very nice recording in general. I've heard people bitch about external mic noise, yeah, I can see this. Cheap mic preamps.

The Pandora has a lower sampling rate of 32K, but we have done some KILLER recordings with it, that sound wonderful. We also did a comparison with a CD recording, and blindfolded tried to tell if we were listening to the CD wav file, or the Pandora card--- we could never tell. Plugging in a guitar and running the effects-- yes, the Micro is more pristine, more high tech--- but the Pandora has a charm all its own, its own personality. I like it, and I would not say the Micro BR is "better". Its different.

The drum kit on the Micro is definitely a much higher quality, no doubt about it. But the drum patters DO NOT inspire me at all. They just leave me flat despite the wonderful quality. Its like great sounding generic drums. Bleech. On the other hand, the Pandora has these really cheap sounding somewhat dated drums, that kick ass. The Korg programers made some wonderfully interesting patterns that work immediately. The Micro BR, I haven't gotten anything to work yet. Perhaps I will.

The Korg has more effects, more tweakabiltiy, more flexibility.
The Micro BR has less effects, harder to navigate, but higher quality sound.
I can't say one is better than the other, sorry.

Both probably good, no problems, except for one glitch on the Micro BR where I couldn't get the guitar effects to kick in-- maybe I just hit a button-- don't know. No problems ever with the Korg.

no need

Well, currently, the Pandora offers MUCH more bang for the buck. You can get them on ebay for roughly 1/2 to 2/3 the price of a Micro BR. It has lots of buttons, knobs, slides, friendlier LCD, more effects, better battery life. It is thicker than the Micro BR, and will not slide into your shirt pocket. It has a real retro 90's early 2000 look to it. Cool. But the Smart media cards are a more money at about $60 for 128MB. Record bunch of songs, then export into your computer.

The Micro BR offers pristine sound quality, but less effects, a confusing operating system at first, a more compact size, short battery life (get some new Nickle Hydride batteries 2700 hour or an 9Vold AC with a NEGATIVE center pole.)and it looks thoroughly cool and modern. It uses the more economical and sturdier SD cards (1GB limit).

There you go. Each has advantages-- neither is a substitute for a real recorder or PC workstation software, no way. The best way to use these things is to lay down basic tracks and use the drum machine for reference or inspiration and FORGET ABOUT EDITING and MIXING ON THESE THINGS. That is just stupid and insane. Come on, get real.

Export into your computer, and process and edit there.


Hope this helps-- have fun
Neil Slade
www.BrainRadar.com
The AMAZING Brain Adventure

Once you spend about an hour figuring out how to get to the effects..etc..it's like setting a wrist watch..most of us can figure it out...eventually. :)

This is where I was surprised. It sounds extremely warm and is a tremendous song writing tool. That's why I got it. I sold My PX3 and Px4 Pandora's box units and my Zoom 4 track digital so I could have 1 unit to both write and record with...no cables..no extras...mainly for vacations etc..This unit does it well.
The distortions are not great, but decent. The delays and chorus are very nice. Flange etc is decent as well. You can ping-pong tracks easy enough. It will use up to a 128meg card so you can get a good amount of recording done without running out of memory...and have an extra card if you need to record more.
I am rating this 10 because it does everything that Korg says it does and does it well. Nice job Korg!!
And..another thing..the delays in this are truly wonderful sounding..imagine that...korg making an awesome delay...U2..the EDGE..Korg SDD series delays...anywayz...that's how I feel about it.

Korg stuff usually lasts for a very long time.

Never had to use them.

I would only drop it to 9 because of the learning curve for the unit.
I figured it out after reading the manual and finding which buttons to hit...mainly just to get to the effects, but no problem once I figured it out.
I've been playing a lot of years and own a lot of great gear and have a pro end studio, so believe me when I say this is a great unit..and it will fit in your coat pocked...Awesome for practicing in your room with headphones.
This would definately be an aid in making music.

Picked it up very quickly.... got recording in no time

Ok- i was very skeptical of how this would sound, but it was amazing! No digitalization to be found anywhere... excelent

Never broke yet

Never used

Really portable little device... take it everywhere with me.. i'd recomend it to anyone

This product is very useful, the manual has a quick start section which is so simple a monkey could probably figure it out. If you know some rudimentary techniques of recording, it pays off with this product, therefore I'm giving it an 8- It seems like this product presupposes some knowledge of the recording process. Ergo, this product is not for the blind novice- I would suggest starting on a tape four-track before you get into digital stuff.

My setup is simple. I'm using a Chet Atkins direct into the PXR4. Sometimes to change it up I'll mic a pignose 7100, and run that direct into the PXR4. I also play harmonica, for that I'm using a Bottle O' Blues Mic (you can get it on ebay, rockin mic by the way) with the pignose, I mic that with a Shure and there you have it.
The effects are not bad. Seriously. I'm stoked that there are even effects on this thing! The point is that effects do not a musician make. Recording is brutal in that it shows weak-points in people's playing and makes them standout like a sore thumb. Just be happy this thing has a click track on it as well.
For Bluesy stuff, I forego the "blues" effect and use "straycat" for both harp and guitar.

Absolutely. Just don't lose that AC Adapter!
I wouldn't gig with this thing, I would take it on the road with me though. Its a great tool.

Haven't needed it.

I play alt-country and the blues. I've been playing for 14 years now, and my gear is minimal.
I would definitely replace this thing if it were stolen or lost.
I love the size, ease of use, and the availabilty of more than four tracks. I'm not an effects guy, so I can live without them, but if I was rockin some Dream Theatre stuff I may want to use outside effects rather than the built in stuff. I'm loving the USB thing as well, that's cool. Just remember to convert your song to an MP2 and there you go.
I did a lot of research into this thing. 150 bucks isn't much, but its enough for me to be wary when I buy something (I'm a miser with cash). I considered other brands but I have owned Korg samplers and some of the electribe series and I'm pleased with the overall worth of the company's products.
Again, if you keep it pretty bare bones this thing will work well for you. It's definitely not on par with a pro-tools setup, but for those low on funds its a definite must.

Easy to get started with this unit. It get's more complicated when you dig in, but that's mainly due to it's compact setup (hidden functions, small knobs and faders etc).
I bought this machine just around the time it came out. The idea was to make some recordings with it of a new band I was starting at the time. It's two years later now, and, since we are in the lucky position of having a record deal (which is a hard-to-get position here in the Netherlands), we are mostly working in well equiped studio's. Still, this 'toybox' is used on a daily (!) basis. It allows us to capture ideas very fast and easy and I still get amazed by the recording-quality of it.

I use the PXR4 in a very straight forward way. Pick up an instrument, create a good sound with it (I'm always using a tube recording station for guitar and some good quality mics for drums, keys and vocals) and plug it in. The PXR4 records it very honest. Low on hiss and hum, and when you use the 'high quality' setting, you can easily create tracks that are usefull for high-end recording.
In fact, a great deal of our PXR4 recordings are re-used in the studio. The build-in mic is amazing. You can have great fun recording all kinds of stuff with it.
I never use the build-in effects or drums. To cheesy. No stretching, looping, bouncing either since a studio is a more friendly environment for fiddling with tracks in my opinion.

It looks like a fragile piece of plastic. Yet, it has never let me down. All the keys, faders and in/outputs still work flawless. Considering the fact that it is used on a daily basis for almost 3 years now, one can say this Pandora is very reliable. As long as you don't drop it, it will work.

Never had to deal with them. I heard Korg is very keen on having a healthy customer relation, but that counts for most German musical brands.

I can recommend this unit highly for those whith serious ambitions. For those with ambitions less serious, I can highly recommend this unit too. It's easy and fun working with it. You can achieve very usefull recordings with it in no time.
I do hope it doesn't get stolen or damaged.
For the next generation of PXR4's some do's: XLR-input is more than welcome. Larger faders would be nice too. Skip the batteries, they are gone in 20 minutes anyway.
Dont's: making this device more compact than it is now (or my fingers larger).

When composing or arranging a new song I use the PXR-4 to record live drums, guitars, bass and vocals. I am not a recording buff and I hate twiddling with parameters. Still it did not take me long to record my first song (and what's more: getting to know and working with it did not get on my nerves...!). It's basic functions are easy to learn, the rest is not to complicated either. Only the lack of space (and thus:knobs) makes for a few important functions hidden in the menu. One reason I bought the PXR-4 is the fact that you can connect it to the computer and easily transfer your files to your harddisk, and then burn them to an audio CD or mail them to your fellow musicians. Here's a drawback though: The PXRs output files are MP2s, and my burning software (Roxios Win on CD) was not able to convert the stereo master-MP2s into an Audio CD format. Neither could wavelab convert them, and CDex failed as well. After some research and a trial and error procedure the lame-codec did the job of converting the MP2s, but this whole MP2 issue is a bitch - which brings the ease of use down considerably - at least for me.

Let's face it: However great your portable home recording studio might be, there is a reason for microphones, compressors or SSL-consoles only a good professional studio can afford. So what I'd expect of a gadget like this is for it not to produce too much hiss and noise, for the internal effects not to be too annoying and for the built in "amp"- or drumsounds to remind me faintly of what they are modelt after. After all I use this thing to capture ideas, not more - and for this purpose the PXR-4 sounds great! The guitar sounds are plasticky of course, but with some tweaking I could get at least some decent sounds that work well in the mix (I got a good all purpose-rock sound by turning up the mids and presence, lowering the bass and even more so the highs, and turning off the "air"- and noise reduction-functions - sounds very midsy by itself but pretty real in the mix). Our bass players old Jazz Bass sounds fine with just a little compression, but the best is the built in microphone: Not only does it work well with vocals, even live drums are no problem - which absolutely amazes me, still. The effects are fine, nothing special but all and more than what's needed for demo purposes. The built in drums are an advanced metronome - if you need more, get an external drum machine or record real drums with the built in microphone.

Nothing much I could say here: I've only had the PXR-4 for a month (and so far it never failed me).

Had some questions concerning the MP2-issue (see above) and got great and immediate support from Korgs german devision (which is where I bought my "Pandora".

This is one of my all time "Best Buys"! It supports my creativity and I absolutely love it. If it was stolen I'd get another one the same day! The greatest feature is the built in microphone - to compose and capture ideas I don't need anything but the PXR-4 and my voice (in the worst case scenario...). It's one of the very few gadgets that truely help making music instead of getting in the way. If there was something I would change it's the output file format (which should be changed to MP3 as opposed to MP2) and the use of outdated smart media cards with a memory limit of 256 MB. But even with these drawbacks my overall rating comes up to a full ten - thanks, Mr. and Mrs. Korg!

Gettting a good sound took a short time to achieve, but for me that came down to getting used to the unit itself... With so many choices for effects, you can really get picky when it comes to getting certain sounds... Some were easier to get than others, but with a little patience, it's worth the effort.

The manual can be pretty intimidating at first, so I just made sure I knew what I wanted to do and then followed the book, whether it was editing a patch, recording a track or transfering files over to my Mac...

My setup consists of just my Fender Strat straight into the unit... It hasn't been a problem working with tweaking patches and laying down tracks, mainly just trial and error, with a little bit of consulting with the manual...

I've found the effects to be quite powerful and I've managed to surprise a few of my musician friends with the demos I've sent to them... The biggest thing is the quality of the sounds for the size of the unit... Just about any and every style is at your fingertips (and imagination)...

Very dependable... Any errors or fudge-ups have been my own... Wouldn't use this for a gig though, way too special...

Haven't had to deal with anyone yet, but the staff where I bought it from were helpful...

I've been recording some Swedish-style metal tracks along with some moodier, clean-type songs, and they all come out sounding great... For what I've paid and for what I'm using it for, it's been a solid investment... It's the perfect thing for someone who can't afford to get a computer loading with Cakewalk or any other program like that, but it doesn't replace them either... The PXR-4 is a great notepad / springboard for any ideas brewing in your head!

When I bought it a year and a half ago, I was new to home recording, but not to digital stuff (I work in software engineering and as a hobby musician I owned a digital bass multi-FX before). I got to basic recording and editing effects pretty fast, but getting acquainted with the whole concept took me longer. So this really depends on your previous experience. If you did some home recording before, it shouldn't take too long to figure out how the modes and menus work. Yes, the buttons and faders are small and have multiple functions, but that's the consequence of the whole design (very portable, low power consumption, low price). Backing up and retrieving songs and effect settings via the USB connector is neat. It has no MIDI interface, but I don't need one.

The track editing capabilities are great, especially the track expand/compress function is extremely useful to create grooves. What also really helps is that you can locate your edit point markers not only in seconds and milliseconds, but also in 4th or 8th notes with a resolution of 1/96 4th note.

Selecting the right effect at the right moment (record, bounce or mix-down) took more readings of the manual. It has basicly 8 effect chains, you can't select a chain right away, but only by selecting an effect type that is in that chain. Editing effects is easy though.

For a practice/composing/demo tool, the sound is great. Period. No problems with MP2 format at 32 kHz recording frequency. I've been through three recording sessions all in different studios, so I know what I can NOT expect of this little box, no full fledged Mackie mixing console and no top Line6 FX processor. The built-in mic is OK for fast demos. Picks up background noise easily though, wish it had an XLR input for an external mic. I think most preset effects are way over the top, but after some tweaking I can get them to sound nice.
When you're recording, you can't add reverb to a guitar, you have to add that later as a FINAL or MASTER effect when you're bouncing tracks or doing your final mix. It's not possible to add guitar effects to a clean recorded guitar part. Equalisation for each of the four tracks when playing back is not always there, you have to add it like an effect when bouncing tracks.

There are three sound quality modes: Economy, Standard and High (bit rates 64, 128 and 192 kbps resp.). I'd recommend to use High all the time, especially when you're bouncing tracks. When you keep your levels to about 80% of the maximum, there should be no distortion in the individual tracks or crackles in the stereo MP2 output file mix.

The drum machine is very oriented to 4/4 patterns: when you select 2/4, all you have is two metronomes to choose from... But it's basicly meant as a metronome, no full drum machine.
The tuner works accurate, but it's fixed to 440 Hz, you can't calibrate it.

So, I have a few gripes, mostly about applying effects, but the fantastic track editing capabilities more than make it up for it.

About mechanical reliability: same as the previous reviewers: treat it like a baby... About functional reliability: No serious problems. I got those CardErr#203 messages too sometimes when recording too loud or with batteries dying, but Card Recovery solved it. Remember that you also depend on the memory card's reliability.

Warranty doesn't apply for me. No troubles so far. There's good support from Korg's site www.korg.com, and there's a user group on Yahoo: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pxr4-users/. Lots to learn from... Here, the "MPeeTwo" program can be downloaded that converts WAV files into MP2 formatted tracks so they can be imported on your PXR4 like they were recorded on it. Neat!

It still fits my recording needs, with my band or on my own with my basses and guitars. But I'm not sure if I would buy it again if it were lost or broken. Korg released it four years ago, and there's no functional update yet. In the meantime, other memory cards have become the standard, like Compact Flash or SD, that go further than 128 Mb, and 8 tracks are no exception anymore. Right now, the Zoom MRS-8 seems interesting too. My wishes may change, equipment changes, we'll see...

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.

I give the ease of use 5 out of 5 stars. The manual is ok, and so is the quick reference card. I am completely new at recording but still managed to get fine recordings right away. I use my Korg pxr-4 not only for home recordings of songs (guitar & vocal), but I write down musical ideas as well. Further on I record my band on this great little box, so we can hear and learn of our own skills and faults.

I use my strat, tele and taylor with this machine, and plug them in directly in this Korg pxr-4, or use the rec.out of my Roland cube 30. I give the effects 5 out of 5 stars.

So far so good. This very little plastic box should be handled with care though. The construction is one thing I recommend Korg to improve.

I have send them one email and got a reply within two weeks. I am still looking for upgrates and need some help with getting the files on my computer.

I play rock, blues and folk for 15 years and think this Korg is quite usefull for homerecordings. I compared it with a Boss and Zoom. Overviewing all the facts I have choosen the Korg due to the price andfeatures. Conclusion:
Features: 5 out of 5, great effects. Construction: 3 out of 5 stars. Sound: 4 out of 5 stars. Price-quality 5 out of 5 stars. Overall: 5 out of 5 stars.

This unit is typically complex due to it's many features and small size. The folks at Korg have packed what used to be a room full of gear into a space the size of three CD cases stacked! Pretty amaizing, but it does required multi-function buttons layered menus to acomplish this trick. Once you play with it a bit, everything is pretty well layed out if you bear what I said here in mind as you go along. The rating in this area is therefore hard to give because it is difficult to learn, but not to bad to operate once you do know it.

I play many Fender guitars (MIA Strat, MIA Tele, MIA Texas Special Fat Strat) through this unit, and I use it mainly as a scratch pad to catch ideas as i come up with them. I have been at this long enough now (32 years) to realize you cannot get a quality high-end tube amp + top-shelf pedal lineup sound out of a box the size of 3 CD cases. I didn't expect it to do that, but rather to give my ideas the general flavor they need to express my music. This it does wonderfuly. This unit was not really designed to lay down a professional grade, CD quality recording session. It was more designed to capture an artistic effort for work up later on. I am rating this unit based on it's intended purpose. If I want to create a CD of original work for sale/distribution, this would not be what I would use for it. Not a knock on the PXR4, just a dose of reality.

I have had mine for about a year now. No problems whatsoever thusfar. Understand that I don't use this everyday, but only when I have an idea hit me that I want to work out. The case is made of a rather brittle looking plastic, which seems contrary to it's stated purpose of being a portable recording studio. To me portable means that it will be subjected to some knocks and dings. I don't use mine in this way and so have no complaints, but if your purposes include taking this to the park or the baech to record, then you may want to get the new PXR4 Backpack unit that is available to prevent a catastrphic event from happening. My rating here reflects my perception of the abuse this unit COULD take without breaking.

I sent an email once to Korg to ask about using a Boss PSA power supply on my PX# Pandora, and after several days they answered it. Typical of a large company these days. As someone else here said, "better than some, worse than others". For an example of quality customer support, check out either Visual Sound or Tonebone products. Both of these companies know what customer service is really all about. I have talked to the president of both these companies -- and I wasn't even trying to get them. I just called their 800 number to ask a quaestion and they answered the phone. You won't get that at Korg (or Marshal or Vox)

Overall, I would say that this unit does it's job very well. This is of course according to what I think it's job is though. If you are looking for a comprehensive, professional grade recording studio solution, then look elsewhere. true, you might be able to produce a CD quality effort on this unit because it does contain all you would need to do that in theory. But the level of effort to do this on a repeatable basis seems to me to be too difficult because you would spend more time fiddling with the machine than actually creating music. Personally, I would want a quality DAW available to do this if I was going to do it myself. A better idea is to get a recording engineer to do the job if you really want a polished product at the end with the minimum headache possible. The PXR4 is a tool that will allow you to quickly record an idea with the basic kind of tone you want it to have before it escapes your head and is lost. This, it does exceptionally well I think.

I think I opened the manual 3 times in the last two months. Very well laid out, editing patches was a breeze. So far, the little bit I used the manual, it was fairly comprehensive.

I run this with a host of different guitars, 2 hamer usa's, a rogue guitar, rogue bass, and a hamer bass. The amp presets are nice, and the condenser mic is awesome in a pinch.

So far I have had no dependability issues, it's worked like a champ every time I fire it up.

I do a variety of different music styles, from jazz to hard rock to commercial jingles. If this thing were lost or stolen, I would buy another one in a heartbeat. It really is a songwriter's wet dream. The only complaint I have is the file format and structure. It would be nice if this recorded in 44k at least, and that you could transfer the individual tracks and vtracks to your computer, without having to mix them down first. But, you really have to keep a couple of things in mind. A) Price - cant beat 300 bux, you cant get a decent 4 track tape deck for that. B) Purpose - I doubt anyone would be cutting thier commercial CD on this, but that's why we have our daw's. Not to say you couldnt cut a CD on this if you really wanted to, I just dont see it as an ideal situation. I think media is so overrated anyways. I'd much rather hear a good song/performance on a bit lower quality, than some garbage tune recorded at 24/96. I'm really looking forward to the flood of songs that might end up in a user group for this pocket studio. Rock On

The PXR4 was pretty easy to use...when i got it, i started messing around and i recorded stuff without even looking at the manual...later i did and learned more. The manual is good...its organized well and it gives step by step instructions for the dummies like me. Getting a good sound out of this machine is a different story...i have a nice clean sound, but the distortion is a bit more challenging...as with every other digital piece of equipment, its to be expected.

I use usually a dimebag darrell culprit with the PXR4, but i also use a fender japanese strat with it. One thing for sure, you have to have different settings for both guitars...the pickups really change alot. Depending on what your recording, the PXR4 i found was a bit on the noisy side. The key to it is getting the program levels high enough without screwing ur sound over. I play alot of old school metal, yet i still haven't found the "perfect" sound with the machine. Clean, though, I have down. The one thing that pisses me off is that the drum tracks are unchangable during a song...call me a dummy, but i haven't figured out how to put drums in the mp2 file, and i dunno...i must be stupid or something. Help me out if at all possible with the distortion settings and/or the drum settings.

Hasn't broken down on me yet...

Didn't have to deal with them

I like it...you just have to tweak it around...good for new guys...i have played guitar for 6-7 years. Recording is easy

This unit is the easiest out of the box gadget I think I have ever purchased. One quick glance at the manual and I was already recording multiple tracks with effects.

Another more in depth look into the manual (15 minutes) I had a very clean rhythm track with 2 harmony tracks on top of it. Another 10 minutes and I learned how to convert the track to a stereo mp2 and transfer it to my computer for listening.

One great thing is the ability to convert all the mp2 tracks into wave for use in programs like Logic Audio with the handy little downloadable tool at the Korg site. One of the selling points for me.

Patches are very easy to edit and I really dig that you can use the faders to change your effect parameters.

The Manual is one of the best I have read ... and I should know - I am still trying to get through the Gibson Echoplex Digital Pro manual:)

My setup is a bit complex for live but for the PXR4, since I am using it as a scratch pad I am pluggin my Mexican Super Strat, and 52' Reissue Tele straight into the unit.

It's a bit noisy right now if you use the gain effects but it could be the fact that I am doing all this on my bed with other things turned on around the room (aquarium, computer blah blah blah ..) .. the clean effects are super quiet so I expect better positioning of ME, the Recorder and turning things off to bring down the gain noise level.

The effects are digital so you get what you paid for. In my opinion they did an excellent job with the quality of the effects. I think they lack a bit of bottom but look at the size of this thing :) You can get a bit more of a bigger sound by tweaking the track level under the mixer mode for each track.

My favorite effect setting would have to be the Tape Simulator for final mix down -- it gives you a bit of a warmer almost analog type sound which works for me since I primarily work with indie rock type stuff and ambient looping.

So far it seems to be holding up.

n/a

I was about to purchase a 16 track digital but recently lost my job so I figured I would get this one to keep me busy while out of work and not kill myself financially.

I've been playing guitar for about 16 years now and my main styles are indie rock / ambient looping.

The unit is perfect for what I want to do which is indie rock / space rock / ambient looping -- Mostly recording things in my little apartment. So the neighbors won't be complaining when I get that 2am inspiration. I also like the fact that you can just connect your guitar into the thing and start recording without having to break out the rack, and make all the connections (mine has to stay disconnected since my cat enjoys chewing on music cords).

If this was stolen or lost I would defenitley go out and buy a new one. I won't even sell it when I get my 16 track.

I love the fact that you can take it anywhere because of it's size but it the sound quality is way better than any cassete 4-track you can get PERIOD.

I don't like the fact that the rhythm tracks included on the unit can not be recorded to a track for final mixdown. At least at this writing this is my understanding since I can't find any way to do this in the manual.

The bounce features are probably my favorite. The sound quality when bouncing isn't as bad as it would be on a cassett 4-track.