My take on the Korg nanoKey Keyboard

I first looked upon the Korg nanoKey with a frown and a lifted eyebrow. Honestly, what could this toy offer…

Upon second visual inspection I spotted the octave up and down transposition keys, which already raised it a bar above an Evolution eKeys I inspected a few years ago.  I smiled upon noticing the pitch bend and modulation “buttons”, knowing that it will obviously not be as versatile as physical WHEELS.

Plugging it into my MacBook, and integrating it with Logic Pro 8 was painless.  Seamless to be exact – no driver installation and no configuration changes in Logic.

Then came the biggest surprise of all – these little typewriter keys are actually velocity sensitive!  The indicator LEDs when pressing the octave buttons are also very informative, with different colors and flashing indicating with exactly how many octaves the transposition is going to happen.

The “Korg Kontrol Editor” can be download from the Korg website to even further the versatility of the device.  For starters, the control curves for the pitch bend and modulation controls can be altered, finer transposition in semitones can be done, and even individual keys can be reprogrammed to transmit specific MIDI commands.

Something I suspect that is more than just coincidence, is the fact that the width of the keyboard is almost the same as that of my MacBook. Not only does it work seamlessly, it actually LOOKs as if it belongs right in front of it.  Also, due to it’s small size, flatness and light weight, it fits into my small laptop bag without any effort.

On the down side I have to say that the “typewriter keys” don’t have the same tactile sensation as a real music keyboard, but with all things considered, I’m pretty sure that the Korg nanoKey will be my travel music keyboard of choice for some time to come.

 

Keyboards and Phantom Power

Monday evening I was playing my Roland E16 Keyboard in our church hall, and there were some annoying sounds inbetween my proper keyboard playing; almost as if there were someone pressing random notes on the keyboard.  I immediately suspected the power, because I was sharing a plug with the portable amplifier we were using.

On Wedsenday evening I used another wall power socket, but the sounds were still there during practice!  I unplugged the audio cable which carried the kayboard sound to the amp, and everything was fine. We swapped audio cables, but the random notes came back.

Our guitarist then noticed that the Phantom power on the amp was switched on! We switched it off and everything was fine.  Fortunately there is no permanent damage to the keyboard.

The scary part is that we were using the instrument input on the amp for the keyboard, so there shouldn't have been any phantom power on that line anyway.

So if you ever hear "Phantom" Keystrokes on your keyboard, and you are using an amp, check the Phantom Power.