Customer Reviews

Korg nanoKONTROL USB Controller, White

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After hearing from others how "flimsy" the NanoKontrol is I was surprised at the build quality for such a small unit. I love that the buttons light up when you push them, and I found the faders to be quite smooth. The only problem I had was setting it up for Acid, but that was due to Sony Acid's poor help menus, not the nano Kontrol. Once I figured that out everything worked perfectly. Playing a song and mixing it on the fly was a thrill and a flashback to my old four-track days. It's so cool to be able to mix multiple tracks at the same time and experiment with different balances between the parts.

I'd say for the price you're more than getting your money's worth.

Korg nanoKONTROL USB MIDI Controller
Some people say it's flimsy, cheap looking, whatever. It does the job, it's easy to set up and configure, looks good and cost almost nothing!
Korg's little jewel gets 5 stars from me.

The nanoKONTROL worked immediately with Reaktor, and should work well with everything else in Komplete. Like any other MIDI controller, you select the learn option on screen, then turn a knob. Setting up the controls was no different than with my Axiom 49.

Where the nano really wins is size and feel. Unlike the very unique Korg nanoKEY, the knobs, buttons and faders on the KONTROL feel like any other non-automated control surface. The action is solid and precise, but the device itself is small enough to sit on top of my MacBook while leaving plenty of room for the nanoKEY.

Connectivity is via a Mini-B USB port. Korg includes a USB cable complete with ferrite bead to keep audio interference down. As advertised, I had no trouble plugging both the nanoKey and nanoKontrol into a small unpowered hub and then plugging that into my MacBook. No external power required!

The only problem I encountered was that I couldn't get the transport controls to work with Garage Band. I'll probably dump GB in favor of Logic soon anyway, so that isn't a big deal for me.

I got this NanoKONTROL for controlling my Modul8 interface, and couldn't be happier. It's small and portable, fits in my laptop bag along with a projector and cables. All the midi mapping for the program is so easy to do that only takes 2 min to set it up (if you haven't saved the config before). Because it has buttons as well as knobs and sliders, it allows you to control virtually everything inside Modul8, it have become my most appreciated piece of hardware when I go to make a live performance. And it's fun, a lot of fun doing visuals with it (changing colors, transforming, scales, speed, all at the same time). The construction is not so solid, but with a little care it would last, also look at the price, you can't ask more for your money.

As a control Surface unit it integrates well with Live 8. Feels well built, and should last a long time with care. Sliders have just enough resistance, as do the knobs. I would like to have seen the knobs be encoders as opposed to having stops, but hey, it's only 59 Frogskins right. I haven't had that top button stick others have had yet. Overall it's a great control surface for the cost.

I really love this controller, it helps a lot in my job. I have two of them working together. The faders are really accurate. It would be perfect with motorized faders, but really is a good deal for this price.

I am usually judging things by pictures, and I guess I was right about this product. It was very easy to set up, had not problems what so ever. Except using it with garage band, you have to install a plugin to make it work. but great product!

I bought one of these on sale from another site at a ridiculously low price and just put it away for future use. I recently purchased a Tascam 800 interface to use with my laptop so can do some live multi track recording of my band without disconnecting my digital workstation from my home studio. The Tascam 800 interface came with Cuebase LE so I decided to give it a try (I am a longtime Cakewalk/Sonor user but mostly record on my stand alone Tascam 2488). I loaded Cubase LE and the Tascam 800 drivers and everything seemed like it was working. I remembered that I had the Korg Kontrol put away. I had trouble getting it set up on my laptop so I asked my computer geek son to help. It all made sense to him and within' minutes he had it working.
Wow, what a great inexpensive product. It works like a small digital mixer that use midi to send signals to the program (in this case Cuebase). You just choose a function assignment for each controller (there are drop down menus that help) by pressing a button, moving a fader or knob which lets the software know which controller you want to assign a function to. Choose a function like volume, pan etc. The controller will then sends midi signals to your program in real time to control the assigned funtions. The Korg Kontrol is very responsive and there is only a very slight delay in the program reading the signal (I'm sure the processing speed of your computer and your computers ram are big factors in this.) After assigning all the parameters you want to cover you can save all the settings as a "scene". (Be sure to also save your completed settings to your software, the Korg has no internal storage). The Korg Kontrol allows you to have 4 different "scenes" that can be used to set up the unit for different assignments by just pressing the scene button and advanceing to one of the four lighted scene numbers. I suppose you can use scene 1 for one program and another scene for another program or do what I am doing by having one scene for use when recording and another scene that is set up better for mixing and effects control. It is so nice have the transport controls right there so you can start, stop, record, rewind or record without having to use a mouse. This alone makes it worth the (very) low cost since you add a USB extender cable to the Korg Kontrol and control these functions from across the room if you need to.
The faders work smoothly and the buttons light when pressed. The size is perfect for home use in tight spaces. There are 9 faders each with two assignable buttons and an assignable rotary knob above each fader (You can use them as a pan control or an effects control it's up to you.) There is a full transport set up that is very much like a normal transport on a reel-to-reel or cassette deck.There are not many items in this price range that offer so much for so little. If you use any recording software- Sonor, Cuebase, Pro tools whatever, this is a real bargain. I'm taking off half a star (A-) because I had trouble setting it up and I am pretty computer savy and have a lot of experience with midi/software. On th other hand, it may have been a combination of me and the Cuebase software. Thankfully I have a computer geek in the house (my son)who works with a midi DJ controller and understood it immediately.

I'm just getting started producing music in Ableton Live, and if you only have a mouse, it's tough to mute two (or more) tracks at once. This handy little device lets you do all of that and more, and now I'm not sure how I ever went without it.

Pros:
*Very nice feeling sliders and knobs, they are fluid, and have enough resistance to let you control them with small movements.
*Four scenes worth of control surfaces is more than enough for my needs

Cons:
*This is minor, and probably only specific to Ableton Live, but when I set the bottom of the two rows of buttons to "toggle" and try to use them to enable/disable record enable, I have to hit it twice to get it to work correctly. If I set it to "momentary", it works fine, but you don't get a light showing that record enable is on. This is minor, but it is a con.

Summary:
This controller gives you a ton of flexibility and control that you don't get with a mouse, and you can't go wrong for the price.

this has given me an inexpensive way to control software instruments. i'm glad i considered it. it isn't flimsy or cheaply made, thank you korg!