American experimental rock band Battles play Atlas on Later with Jools Holland. Love them or hate them Battles are kind of interesting to watch from a live performance point of view. Check out what they do with the samplers and laptops. I was very surprised to see a band so experimental on Jools Holland. Anyway enjoy & merry christmas & happy new year.
Korg nano controllers
Korg have released a series of nano controllers the nanoPAD, nanoKEY and nanoKONTROL. The controllers are designed to be small and compact for use in live performance.
Korg nanoPAD
The nanopad is a drum pad controller similar to an Akai MPD or korg padkontrol. it has 12 drum pads and an X Y touch pad. I must admit it looks like this could be very useful, especially the X Y pad for Ableton live.
Korg nanoKEY
The nanoKEY is a 25 note, velocity sensitive, 2 octave midi keyboard with mini, button like, keys. Not sure about this one although it could be useful in some situations but i would even attempt to play it.
Korg nanoKONTROL
The nanoKONTROL is a control surface with nine faders, nine knobs, 18 switches and a full transport section. this could be very useful for a lightweight control surface whether it’s for live work or in the studio.
All the nano series come with bundled software, with the nanoKEY you get korgs M1 LE synth, with the nanoPAD you get Toontrack’s EZDrummer Lite and with the nanoKONTROL you get a discount coupon for Ableton live LE software. All the nano series come with a parameter and midi CC editor/libary which would be useful for custom control setups.
Perhaps the most attractive thing about these products is the price, the nanoPAD retails at about £40 ($60), the nanoKEY about £35 ($55) and the nanoKONTROL £40 ($60). In comparison with other midi controllers on the market these are very cheap, which makes me worry about the quality but i’ll find out very soon as at £40 for a lightweight drum pad controller, i couldn’t resist and ordered one.
The nano series looks to be a promising product due to the size and weight of it making it ideal for live performance. The price is also very attractive but i’ll wait and see whether Korg have skipped out on the quality of the product. I’ll be reviewing the nanoPAD very soon and probably the nanoKONTROL too. In the meantime heres a video review of the nanoPAD.
Merry Christmas
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