DJing and making music – Korg microKONTROL and Ableton Live

For about the last three years I have been determined to get my hands on a keyboard controller and finally the beast is here! After doing lots of research and waiting until I was ready to really make use of it I went over to Long and McQuade and hooked myself up with the Korg microKONTROL. It’s small, powerfully built and comes loaded with sliders/faders, endless rotary encoders, pads, joystick for X-Y control assignments and a phenomenal software package – which I think is what sold me on the unit.

There are two reasons I wanted a keyboard controller. First I wanted to be able to play my music and use effects while performing or DJing.  Second I wanted something to play with while composing music, and I wanted something with some decent bundled software – ideally lots of retro sounds including rhodes electric pianos and various organs / synths.

So far I have to say I’m very impressed! After loading / updating drivers and setting up the VST instruments it was basically plug and play! Connecting the USB cable to my computer I was able to play the AMAZING Lounge Lizard Session which is a ‘light’ version like all the other software and plugins in the bundled Creative Kontrol Pack 3. I also got light versions of Reason, Live, and a wide variety of synth VSTs with a banging variety of instruments. SICK is the only word for it.

So far I have not been able to figure out the ’scene’ parameters and use the controller to DJ in Live but I have to study the manual a bit more. I selected scene 12 and the controller displays ‘Live’ but doesn’t seem ‘ready to go.’  The playing / DJing thing will have to wait for the moment – but I’ll keep you posted!

Overall my first impression is that this is a solid unit with a wealth of incredible features. The case is brushed aluminum which reeks high-end build quality (compared with the plastic used on most other products in this class). The pads are not as responsive as I had hoped but I’ll probably use them to trigger samples rather than play percussion parts. (Using the keyboard might work well for laying down drums). The keys are VERY small – hence the ‘micro’ in the name – but they are responsive and feature three octaves which is decent (Octave ‘up’ and ‘down’ buttons are easy to use). My brother, the piano man blew me away when he got on the Korg and used one of the sweet lead synth presets – rich, warm tones with complexity and movement rang from my speakers. Those with fat fingers or looking for more accuracy will want to go with something full size (check out the Korg Kontrol49). I bought it just to jam and get ideas down. For this it is compact and very useful. I can just squeeze the unit into my backpack with all my cables and my laptop. Now all I need for proper transport is a nice carry case!

In my next installment I will let you know how the unit holds up as a controller using the Session view to play my samples with effects in Ableton Live. The bundle provided a light version of Live 6 and I already own Live 4 so I’ll be trying it with both. Stay tuned!

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