KORG KONTROL EDITOR 1.2 for the nanoSeries2 is here!

If you remember my nanoPAD2 review and my nanoKontrol2 review I mentioned that the kontrol editor wasn't available to download from the KORG Website - Well now they finally are! About time!

If you happen to own the new nanoSeries2 , CLICK HERE to go to the download page from the KORG website - now we can at least use the kontrol editor to edit the controller assignments!

This means you can also map the Korg nanoPAD2's 16 Pads to emulate the infamous MIDI FIGHTER by copying the midi fighter's pad assignments to the nanoPAD2 and loading the TSI !

Hmm..... I shall give that a try later

OSX Time Machine - Backing up made easy!!!

I am probably the last person to actually find out how awesome TIME MACHINE on OSX is!

No - not the time machine from Back to the Future!  
For those who dont know Time Machine is the mac osx's uber-awesome backing up system that copies your WHOLE system into an  external drive!


Recently I upgraded my macbook pro hard drive to 750GB (previous blog post), now having a lot of space, means if anything was to happen to my laptop the whole massive chunk 750GB of data would be gone FOREVER! Yes that means my sample collection, reason refills, beatgridded traktor tracks (that took forever to beatgrid!!) , I'd lose the whole lot! SO SCARY!!!

On top of that i have an iMac 21 inch that i use a lot for home usage (1TB hard drive) - if anything was to happen to the 1TerraByte of data I'd probably Kill someone! (As you would too!)

Solution to Everything: 
2TB External Hard Drive + Time Machine!

I just need to setup time machine (the first setup takes the longest, after that its all good!) and periodically (once a month is good enough) do a full system backup on both of my Mac computers : My iMac (1TB) and my Macbook Pro (750GB) on a single western digital 2TB external hard drive, that's killing two birds with one stone - just make sure to keep the external hard drive at home and in a safe place!!

I heard of the time machine features before but never realized how easy it actually is to do these backups!  It is sooo easy!! Basically once you have your external hard drive (the bigger the better - western digital is a good brand) the rest is just 1-2-3!

I really recommend anyone to do a full backup of their system periodically, so you can at least sleep well at night knowing your data is perfectly SAFE at all times! Remember when SKILLREX lost all his data on his laptop and had to cancel his gigs?

Now you wouldnt want that to happen to you right? :)

Macbook pro hard drive upgrade to 750GB!

I just upgraded my stock (hitachi) Macbook Pro 13 inch hard drive to 750GB and so far its been pretty great! I chose the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 750GB (WD7500BPVT) 9.5mm , 2.5inch drive and im very happy with the upgrade, everything runs fast, snappy, and SO MUCH SPACE!

Costed me just SGD$120 (about $90USD) for the upgrade, so yeah its damn awesome!

Once the SSD (solid state drives) price lower a bit i might consider moving this to the dvd drive using the optibay and installing SSD as the boot drive, to boost up the overall speed of the macbook pro

So for those who are thinking of getting the WD Scorpio Blue 750GB for their macbook pro - They are GREAT! Tried and tested!


Any questions about the upgrade? Feel free to ask me!

Korg nanoPAD2 REVIEW (Sort of!)

So today i finally got the Korg nanoPAD2 , a part of the new nanoSeries2

i recently did a review on the Korg nanoKontrol2 (HERE) and the Korg MicroKontrol (HERE) and they were surprisingly good for the price. The nanoPAd2? Here are some quick comments that i have regarding the software...


WHERE IZ MY SOFTWAREZ???

That's right - the Korg nanoPAD2 is supposed to come with some goodies, freebies, including the EZ DRUMMER LITE, they supply you with a serial number that you are suppose to input in the "Korg Kontrol Editor" , okay now...

The problem is... THE KORG KONTROL EDITOR DOES NOT SUPPORT the nanoPAD2 yet!!! (or the nanoKontrol2 in that matter, i mentioned this in my nanoKontrol2 review)

I have spent hours and hours looking for the latest edition of KORG KONTROL EDITOR which supports my nanoPad2 with no luck!! (coz as far as i know as of 16/04/2011 they dont exist!!)

The latest release that i could find was V0110 which support the old nanoseries and the microKEY, but no nanoSeries2, and where the heck are we supposed to put the serial numbers anyway??
Instructions arent clear and kinda blurry


The Pads... not bad  but not too good

I am going to be very honest here, the pads in the nanoPAD2 arent that great at all, in fact i much prefer the feeling of the old nanoPAD or even the AKAI LPD8. But you do get 16 PADS, with 4 program changes, so you pretty much get 64 pads to map! Price wise, yeah it is pretty cheap and good value, but i must stress you that these pads arent really built for extreme performances, slow drumming is fine and pretty responsive but once you try to do ultra-fast rapid fire tricks they start show their weakness

The XY PAD... okay but not very accurate

For less than $60 you really wont get ultra-responsive, multi-touch xy pads so this is understandable. The bonus features such as the gate arp and touch scale are PRETTY COOL i must admit, but not really for professional performance coz  they aren't so accurate

VERDICT?

Hmmm... this one is kinda hard to decide, 16pads with 4 banks and xy pad seems really good on paper, but the nanoPAD2  pads really dont feel so good and arent so responsive, if you are okay with that or if you are planning to do slow sample triggering then that might be fine, but if you are into hardcore cue juggling and rapid fire sample launching the nanoPAD2 will not perform to your expectation, the LPD8 is much more responsive although it gives you HALF of the amount of pads, so...

TRY BEFORE YOU BUY!  Make sure you can live with the pad's performance before you decide to buy one - i am considering returning the item too actually...



Korg nanoPad2 Review by Ivan Zilch
Bought from citymusic singapore ($76SGD, much less than USD$60 i think)


Amazon Links! They are Cheap!


Korg nanoPAD2 Slim-Line USB Pad Controller, Black

Korg nanoPAD2 Slim-Line USB Pad Controller, White

The Pioneer DJM-T1 : 2 Channel Mixer with built-in Traktor!

 

Pioneer just Announced the DJM-T1 (Click for the announcement!) a 2 Channel Traktor mixer, this is pretty much a mixer with built in Traktor Scratch, it even comes with Traktor Scratch Duo 2 software bundled together!

It has built in transport and effects section to control Traktor, (similar to the TTM57SL!) plus a new magnetic crossfader for the turntablists! (Not sure how well the xfader performs though)

Novation Twitch for Serato Itch - Not Novation Slicer!

OMG! This has just been posted on SKRATCHWORX !

Yep, its the new Serato Itch controller from Novation!! And there are some new videos out !







It even works with Traktor!





RRP is $599, available early june 2011!

Hmm... I might just get one of these to use with Traktor 2, looks like a nice and compact little unit that packs a lot of punch!