KORG nano controllers

so there's the key, pad, and kontrol nano products.

does anyone here use any of them and if so what do you think ?

i'm going to buy the keyboard for my laptop. these are def priced right at around 50 bucks each i think

i guess i should add that i will be using ableton live

thanks

I have the nanokey 1 and if you're looking for a cheap solution for entering notes in your daw then it's okay. It's slightly better than entering notes with a computer keyboard and does not take up much space on your desk.

exactly what i want it for.

didn't like the nano key. weird feeling keys, like laptop buttons. get the akai lpk-25 instead. or the mpk mini, = much better.

the nano kontrol's are good, though.

haven't used the pad.

yea, there are better compact keyboards out there for slightly more money. the keys of the nanokeys are shit because it's a cheap toy. I can only use it with the velocity curve set to constant, but I only paid $30 for it, so i got what i paid for.

i have a large midi keyboard but i like the idea of making music on the coffee table next to the tv. i don't know. i realize that the nanokeys are cheap/

more discussion wanted.

they're pretty shit, don't bother imo

the lpk-25's aren't much more. about the same price on ebay here. same size, too, but with real (although small) keys.

if i was you and wanted a muck about on the coffee table then i'd get the mpk mini. you've got pads and control knobs on that aswell as keys.

maybe i should just use my music room i rarely inhabit which has a nice 4 octave keyboard and not waste my money

I don't even use my nano key much. I have used the kontroller a lot though.

The Akai Mini series (or whatever they're called) is far better. Definitely worth paying a little extra for something that isn't so flimsy - both my NanoKey and NanoKontrol broke in some way within weeks of purchase.

If you're looking for a good inexpensive mini keyboard I suggest the ION Discover Keyboard - you can get one of those for almost £25 brand new!

Alternatively you could go for the Korg Microkey if you looking for more octaves and dedicated pitch and modulation wheels.

  On 8/30/2012 at 4:41 AM, yek said:

maybe i should just use my music room i rarely inhabit which has a nice 4 octave keyboard and not waste my money

I have a nanokontrol, which is pretty nice. Especially the dedicated play/pause/record etc. buttons. The nanokey looks pretty shitty but if it's just for entering notes and quickly trying out melodies it's okay I guess. I have a 3 octave microkey instead which is also quite nice, but a little bigger of course. (micro>nano :P)

(btw, on my old keyboard I put dots on the number keys that represented black keys. If you can type blind it'd be pretty cool to colour your entire keyboard like a piano...)

I had a nanoPad that died on me overnight. I didn't abuse it so I dunno what was up.

  On 8/30/2012 at 4:41 AM, yek said:

maybe i should just use my music room i rarely inhabit which has a nice 4 octave keyboard and not waste my money

/thread

  On 8/30/2012 at 1:15 PM, futureimage said:

The Akai Mini series (or whatever they're called) is far better. Definitely worth paying a little extra for something that isn't so flimsy - both my NanoKey and NanoKontrol broke in some way within weeks of purchase.

yeah. and even though the kontroller is good it's very small and fiddly to use i found - small knobs and sliders crowded in together.

they should have an age guideline thing on it that says something like 'for ages 6-12 years'. or something.

i get a lot of use out of my nanokontrol.

I don't think the nanokontrol is too crowded, when controlling synth parameters or something it is pretty nice to be able to control 3 faders with one hand.

Honestly, I wouldn't bother with the Korg ones.

I've had both the key and pad ones, also borrowed the kontrol a couple times too.

Bought the pad one as soon as it came out, actually faired best out of the bunch. Felt cheap, plasticy and unresponsive, but that's not too much of a surprise considering how inexpensive it was. Did hold out quite well, took it on a tour with me and stayed the distance. XY went crappy after a while, and eventually the tiny shitty USB port got broken, and that was the end of that.

I know a few people who bought the pad a little later, presumably the next gen of it. Can only assume that Korg decided to further cheapen their production methods, as friends ones lasted a fraction of the time, always the same fault, tiny USB port getting separated from the board. Cheap production, shoddy quality solder.

The key is an unmitigated pile of trash. Bought one to use live as I was sick of carrying an oxygen8 around with me all the time. Picked one up at the shop, got it home, connected to my laptop and tested it out. 2 mins later and "ping!" one of the keys popped off. Fussed about getting it back on, have another go. A couple mins later and "ping!" a different key pops off.

Shop was closed by now, got to get going for a gig. Took the nano key with me anyway to see how if does. There's a pic somewhere of me paying a gig with like 8 keys in a little pile next to my laptop, all pinged off while I was playing. managed to collect them all so I could take that POS back to the shop for a refund.

The kontrol was a bit better, but again, prone to shoddy build quality. while it didn't actually fall apart, many of the buttons and faders just stopped responding, and again, the same micro USB port soldered very badly directly to the board. Just waiting to fail.

I can't really say anything for the other, similar controllers from other brands. the Akai ones do look better I think, but ultimately anything so cheap, and small, you really can't expect much in the way of build quality. I'd imagine all of them are fairly prone to one fault or another.

The only thing I can say for the nano series, I did quite like the software side of them, the little program for setting up midi CCs and so on was pretty smart.

Is it that I'm very careful with my stuff, or that everyone else smashes the crap out of their controllers? But yeah, the keys popping off is quite ridiculous. I don't really see the point of a keyboard with that kind of keys anyway.

  On 9/1/2012 at 5:39 PM, th555 said:

Is it that I'm very careful with my stuff, or that everyone else smashes the crap out of their controllers? But yeah, the keys popping off is quite ridiculous. I don't really see the point of a keyboard with that kind of keys anyway.

The keys popped off my nanoKey with really light use :/