Sonic LAB: Korg nanoKONTROL Controller

nanoKONTROL is the last of the three nano MIDI controllers from Korg I got to take a look at. The nanoKONTROL is for sequencer or DAW control with transport buttons, 9 faders and pan pots and two additional buttons/switches per channel.

Nine faders is good as often you need eight for dedicated control and and another for a master fader, so nice.

Once again, it's mini USB and draws a miniscule 100mA and can be powered from a passive hub with the other two, no problems.

Where I did have difficulties was with the MIDI drivers, plugging the nanoKONTROL into the hub after the other two nano's fried my MIDI settings. I had to download the latest Korg MIDI driver, no hassle, and remove a bunch of old midi drivers from my system to to get rid of the conflict - so one to watch out for there.

In use the resolution, feel and resistance of the knobs and faders were okay, didn't feel cheap and reacted well to high speed switching. The transport and channel buttons all have red LED status indicators which got me quite excited, sadly the nano is only capable of one way traffic, so changing the status on any of the assigned controls in your software will not result in the unit updating its lights - shame. On a simillar note, I was hoping for Mackie emulation so it could be set up as a kind of HUI controller, allowing band and fader switching, but alas, this was not to be - perhaps I was hoping for too much.

All in all I found the nanoKONTROL to be another good unit in the range, and would be a perfect companion for the others.

I imagine Korg are selling these like hot cakes, and deservedly so.

Available now. Nick Batt

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6 Comments...  Post a comment    original story

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Ian    Said...

Another great review. The piece in the middle's terrific. In your opinion, is it more practical to have multiple faders at hand or a single motorized one like the Presonus Faderport/Frontier Alphatrack?

22-Dec-08 03:16 PM

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Nick Bq    Said...

Thanks Ian, thats a good question. I've not used the Alphatrack, but the Faderport I have and I liked it, apart from the fact that you needed the PSU to move the fader, it's not USB powered.

I think the Faderport probably steals it as it has mechanical and status feedback for whichever channel you have selected. However, it can only do a single channel, so if you want more hands on then this is going to give you, as long as you dont need moving faders and bi-directional communication

23-Dec-08 03:58 AM

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Steveo    Said...

Yeh spot on agree with Nick on this - a total no-brainer , immediately went out and nabbed one myself for 40notes...just uber handy to have lying about.

29-Dec-08 11:30 AM

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mapmap    Said...

i am really enjoying my nanoKontrol except for the fact that the values jump if you move the knobs and faders after returning to a past scene. does anyone else have that issue?

10-Jan-09 08:43 PM

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DBM    Said...

Nick that was a sick beat !

12-Jan-09 09:06 PM

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Tekmatic    Said...

mapmap - in Ableton, you can change the Takeover mode (in midi settings). Try that to prevent knob jump. (unfortunately, that's kind of nature of the beast with absolute knobs.)

13-Apr-09 01:43 AM

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