Korg PXR4 ToneWorks – Compact 4-Track Digital Recorder w/ Box, Power Supply, Case

We are Eclectic Sounds / aka: eclsounds – a store front in Portland, Or. We are open 7 days a week from 11 – 5 PST (by appointment)

 

Used in Excellent condition with original box and materials.

 

 

 

Korg’s PXR4 is one of the latest generation of compact, entry‑level four‑track recorders which use SmartMedia cards instead of tape or hard disk. In some respects it can be considered as a 21st‑century alternative to the analogue cassette multitracker, but, in common with most digital workstations, it includes a number of digital effects as well as a recorder and mixer. Furthermore, each of the four tracks has eight virtual tracks for storing alternate takes. Before you get too carried away, though, the use of SmartMedia places restrictions on the available recording time.

As supplied, the Korg PXR4 comes with a 16Mb SmartMedia card, which if it were to be used to record uncompressed 16‑bit audio at a sample rate of 44.1kHz would yield a four‑track recording time of roughly 45 seconds. Clearly that is impractically short, so, to make the best use of the media, 16‑bit MPEG1 Layer 2 compression is used (albeit via 24‑bit converters) at a sample rate of 32kHz, which means the upper frequency limit is around 15 to 16kHz.

Three quality modes are available, each of which trades recording time against recording quality. With the supplied 16Mb card, the highest‑quality mode provides approximately 11 track‑minutes or just over two and a half minutes of four‑track recording with all four tracks used (but not the virtual tracks). A Standard mode increases the recording time to 16 track‑minutes, while Economy mode takes this up to 33 track‑minutes, but, for any serious work, I’d suggest using only the best‑quality mode. Realistically, the memory provided will hold only one short song or a couple of jingles, but you can use any SmartMedia card of between 4Mb and 128Mb capacity, the latter of which should leave you with around 20 minutes of four‑track recording time to play with. The card slot is located on the side of the case beneath a protective cover. Given that it’s possible to mix within the Korg PXR4 to produce a final, stereo audio file, I’d suggest 64Mb of memory as being a realistic minimum, especially if you intend to take advantage of the virtual tracks.

With a cassette multitracker, you simply put in a new cassette when the old one is full, but SmartMedia is far too expensive to treat as a tape substitute. Instead, you either wipe the memory whenever you finish a song, with no hope of going back and remixing, or you back up the data somehow. Fortunately, Korg have built a USB port into the PXR4 so you don’t even have to buy a SmartMedia reader to back up the recorded data to your computer — all you need is a standard USB cable (not provided). If you don’t have a PC or Mac computer with USB (the Korg PXR4 works with both platforms), you can fit a USB card to an older computer for under £30 in the UK, or you can use a regular SmartMedia reader that costs about the same. If you don’t have a computer at all, then it may be wiser to consider an alternative recording system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

( Due to people taking advantage of eBay / Reverb return policies; wanting to “try out and/or pilfer parts”  we can no longer take returns on used gear unless it arrives damaged. Sorry for this inconvenience. We test and guarantee all gear to be 100% working unless stated otherwise )