Korg - nanoKEY Studio MIDI Controller - Black

Although the keys feel a bit loose and rattly, they work surprisingly well in practise and the velocity sensitivity works well enough to be useful.The editor software is a bit crude and shonky (as is standard with Korg), but it does work.Do note that this device is a USB client only. If you wanted to plug it directly into something like an Elektron Model: Cycles, you can't just use a USB cable with the right connectors- as neither end is capable of USB host mode. To achieve that, you'd need something like the Retrokits RK-006 (which is tiny, powerful and highly recommended), then you can use a TRS cable to go between one of the RK-006's MIDI outs into the M:C's MIDI in, and everything magically works.In any case, this is a deceptively useful little controller keyboard, once you have the connection sorted out. It's a lot nicer than using your QWERTY keyboard with DAW, or using the weird button "keyboard" on small instruments. For a portable setup, it's very functional and hits a sweet spot of size vs functionality that the smaller Akai controllers can't.If you absolutely need to pack light, this isn't a bad choice at all. You might end up wanting to find an angled mini-USB cable for it to make the cabling more tidy, but otherwise, I have no real complaints. Just be sure that you understand what you're getting and know that you can't plug it directly into MIDI ins without some extra kit, as above.

Used with Cubase to control mixer and VST and other DAW functions, straightforward to set up using MIDI Remote in Cubase. Very handy device. Seems well enough built, hopefully will last for a few years.

Delivery - Excellent. Build quality - better than expected. Performance ? Read on....I have a Korg nanoKontrol 2. Great product. Slightly short faders but fits on the bottom of a Macbook real sweet. Also works with several KORG apps on iOS - iMS20, iElectribe and Gadget. Best is iMS20 by far. One button switches between mixer and synth. If the app had Link it would be the total business. Only drawback is the USB lead. Not good on an old school 32 pin iPad with a camera adapter, better on a Lightning equipped model.So the wireless version should provide all of the functionality of the USB only model right ? Maybe a bit more ? Wrong. All my KORG iOS apps recognise it and flag it as connected. So let's try some of them....iDS10 ? No. Well I could hope.... iMS20 ? No. iElectribe ? No !Gadget ???? After all, there is a button on the front panel labelled "SCENE" - maybe you could cycle between scenes ??? Very limited mixer control only. Jog wheel, scene buttons and FF/FR buttons are redundant. The track buttons are duplicated by the Select buttons above the faders and don't illuminate.... Leave them alone. And why is there a label with Wireless on it painted out ????I will keep it. In a few years time, secondhand iPAD Pro's will be within my grasp and a Link locked 8 track version of Gadget will run like clockwork.Oh dear KORG it could have been so much more..... How about some downloadable profiles for the editor ???TIP - If you connect this unit to the editor on Mac, the SCENE lights will come on and the unit will no longer talk via Bluetooth. If you can find a factory reset mentioned anywhere on the net, you are well clever. I used the same routine as described for the wired version ? Hold down CYCLE and the two TRACK buttons and power up using USB. Worked for me.UPDATE 20/5/22I HAVE UPGRADED TO IPAD AIR. WITH KORG ELECTRIBE WAVE, THIS UNIT PROVIDES FULL CONTROL. 2 BANKS OF 8 FADERS INSTANTLY. WELL DONE KORG FOR IMPLEMENTING. INCREASED RATING TO 5 STARS

This is a very compact keyboard, it's lightweight and slim.The keys are hard plastic which is good (I thought they might be rubbery).I bought this to use with Mini Piano Pro on my Android phone and it works perfectly with a USB C OTG adaptor cable. It also works with my laptop, I use Musescore Studio 4 and the NanoKey to enter notes into the score and Simplepiano to use the Laptop as an electronic organ.The Nanokey is fully polyphonic.According to the manual it uses less than 100mA so the phone doesn't really notice the current draw.So it's the perfect solution, I can use it with my phone as a small musical keyboard on the go and I can use with my laptop as a musical composition and score capture tool.

Nice unit - feels up to the job for the price range. I can see why people would break the keyboard and pad versions, but the controls on this feel ok.I accept that my review is skewed towards my own experience but I'll explain why I haven't used it much:I bought it to make mixing tracks down in Logic less fiddly, but within seconds of using this tiny device I realised that it made it harder, not easier. Unless you cover the thing in stickers and colour coding you're going to spend most of the time looking back and forth from screen to nanokontrol and trying to link the channels. I tried to lie to myself that I would use this, if only for controlling busses, but it's just WAY easier just to do it on screen.The second usage I considered was setting it up to control resonance filters etc on some of the logic instruments with the sliders and knobs, for live use. This worked ok, but actually getting Logic to UNLEARN these controls so i could go back to mixing mode ( sliders mapped to console ) proved to be anything but straightforward. The KORG plugin seems to provide options to change things but they just flatly didn't work for me. This inability to quickly change or reset control assignments became a real pain, and so i just didn't bother with it anymore.I accept there is no doubt some kind of work around for this but you get to a point in life when fiddling in music programs for hours on end loses its novelty, and it's quicker to change track and do something else.Overall a nice little idea, but not for me. I hope some people made good use of this device.