Recording - April 2018 - 52

KORG

nanoKEY
Studio and
nanoKONTROL
Studio
New controllers make mobile
music making more fun than ever
REVIEWS BY MIKE METLAY
org invented an entire subgenre of controllers,
USB-savvy and laptop-bag-friendly, when it first
released the nanoKEY, nanoKONTROL, and
nanoPAD several years ago. Korg's newest controllers for
laptop/iOS use are the nanoKEY Studio and nanoKONTROL Studio. They represent a significant step forward for
mobile songwriters in terms of connectivity and capability,
with some worthwhile extras that make them stand out.

In common

Both the nanoKEY Studio and nanoKONTROL Studio measure about 11 x 6.3 inches, about the same footprint as two of
the original nanos, and weigh about a pound. The only connector on
each unit is a Micro-B USB connector; they can be bus-powered
over USB, or can operate wirelessly with two AAA batteries installed.
Wireless operation is over Bluetooth LE, and works very well once
you get your computer to recognize the device (Korg provides
free apps to do this automatically). Windows users will need to
install a free Bluetooth MIDI driver as well.
Once installed, the units operate as conventional MIDI
controllers, with assignable messages for nearly every button,
key, fader, and pot. The free Korg KONTROL Editor app lets
you assign said messages and save the configuration
of the device as a Scene which can be stored and recalled
easily. The nanoKEY Studio holds eight Scenes and the
nanoKONTROL Studio holds five.
Both units are very lightweight but rigid in construction, nicely
finished in black with keys, pads, and buttons that light up with a
soft white light that's easy on the eyes but quick to spot on stage.
They give the impression of holding up well over long use as
long as the user is careful-although I do wish Korg would use
52

RECORDING April 2018

lower-profile pot shafts and fader caps so they'd go into a laptop
bag without getting hung up on cables quite so easily!

nanoKEY Studio

The nanoKEY Studio features a 25-note keyboard using
Korg's tablet-shaped keys, eight pots, eight trigger pads, and
an XY touch pad, plus an assortment of function keys. All but
the pots are backlit, including the keys themselves.
The keys can be set to five different velocity curves; they're
a bit "clacky" but easy to get used to. Aside from the eye
candy of keys lighting up as you play them, the backlights are
also used in Scale Guide and Easy Scale modes.
The nanoKEY Studio knows 15 different scale types (Major,
minor, blues, modal, etc.) that you can choose from; Scale
Guide then illuminates those notes that are within the chosen
scale. Note that this is always shown in the key of C; if you
change the key, the keyboard transposes rather than different
keys lighting up. If you select Easy Scale, then the natural
keys (can't call them "white" because they're black!) are all of
your in-scale notes and the accidentals (grey keys, not black)
trigger chords and inversions within that key and scale. You
literally can't play an out-of-mode note!
Those same chords are also available on the Trigger Pads
when you're playing the keys normally. The Trigger Pads are
used for setting certain parameters, can play notes or send other
MIDI data, and are used to select Scenes. Backlighting of
differing intensity shows you where you are at any given moment.
The touchpad can be used in three modes: as a standard
pitch bend and modulation controller (values return to 0 when
released), as a MIDI XY controller, or in Touch Scale mode,
where horizontal motions play runs of notes in whatever scale
you've chosen. The arpeggiator has 15 different rhythms to

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - April 2018