Photo courtesy of Akai
November 18th, 2009 – Some of you may have read my irritated Twitter posts about the Korg NanoPad I bought this summer. Granted, most of those were about the terrible seller I got it from and Korg’s inability to help me, but the fact of the matter is that if the NanoPad had not been faulty, I wouldn’t have had to jump through any of those hoops.
The NanoPad only triggers 2 out of the 12 pads, and even those are intermittent. Also, the XY pad isn’t sending any MIDI information. It seems that I got a super faulty one, as usually people have one problem or the other. Fortunately, today I was able to get a hold of someone at Korg that might be able to help me. We’ll see what happens with that.
In the meantime, I’ve been looking at other options for mobile MIDI controllers. After my experiences, and reading other people’s stories, with the NanoPad, I’d rather have solid gear, than something that is as small as possible. Akai’s Laptop Series may just do the trick.
The LPK25 features real keyboard action, although it’s a bit bulkier than the NanoKey. Considering that the NanoKey has been accused of “laptop keyboard” feel, it seems that the Akai’s size is a fair trade off. The LPD8 on the other hand swaps 4 pads for 8 rotary knobs. If you need those extra pads, then you may not want to skip the Akai for the Korg.
On the other hand, if you want rotary knobs for controlling parameters, then the LPD8 is your device. Plus each pad lights up when you hit it! Ooooo…blinky! Head on over to DJ TechTools for a review between Akai’s Laptop Series and Korg’s Nano Series.
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