Korg - nanoKEY Studio MIDI Controller - Black

Product Information

I was a bit disappointed that several buttons were unassigned; it would have been great to use a couple of the buttons to step through Scenes, for example. The Nanokey Studio is the perfect tool for your recording on the go, and not just because of its small form factor.

The combination of the nanoKEY Studio with Korg Gadget is the ultimate combination for mobile performance. The eight pads can be assigned to various functions including a chord mode which selects chords that match a user selected key and scale. From there, I tailored the pad sensitivities to my liking, then saved that customization into one of the eight performance scenes.

With its modern design, the nanoKEY Studio is ideal for use with new devices such as your laptop, tablet, or smartphone. The nanoKONTROL Studio comes with the incredible “KORG Software Bundle” that lets you start enjoying popular music software right away. With its modern design, the Studio is ideal for use with new devices such as someoner laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

But it needs a powerbank to be portable - and how do I connect the iPad if the USB port is used for power?Question: having little use for the pads of the arp/etc buttons below (in theory, we’ll see), can they be programmed in the editor to send MIDI CC? I think the practicality of the unit outweighs it's few shortcomings, I use it quite often and I never regretted purchasing it. That means you can do away with the pesky wires that manage to tangle in your rucsack and connect straight to your device.

For the same money you can get the nanoKeys Studio and an Arturia KeyStep or MiniLab: a truly mobile composing tool and a reasonable master keyboard for home. The XY pad is adapted from KORG's KAOSS line of products and allow for control of instruments or effects with one finger. It is much bigger and heavier than an iPad and for longer off-grid sessions you definitely need a hub with PD and a power bank. The arpegiator and specially the scale modes are hard to figure out without one, without a reference it’s hard to know where you’re at. At home you could still play your samplers with the nanoKeys if your audio device has got Midi ports.Operating from battery power and featuring 25 LED backlit pad the nanoKEYS can be used to create new and exciting melodies wherever inspiration strikes. There’s no Logic plug-in this time, and again no Live remote script, so any knob assignments will need to be manually mapped. You can use a single finger to control a software synthesizer just like you can with a Kaossilator, or control a plug-in effect the same way as a KAOSS PAD. If you can't find a 4Control, the old C-MEXX MIR controller would be another nice option to fit into the Keystep.