Korg has done it again. A truly remarkable new product was unveiled this past week at the LIMS Show in London (the equivalent of the NAMM Show here is the US). The Nano Series from Korg is a collection of three highly portable USB Controllers that I truly believe will make an important impact on mobile music making. The first controller is the nanoKEY: a two-octave keyboard (with mini keys of course) that is a perfect companion to a laptop. Exactly the same width and height of my MacBook Pro. The other controllers include nanoPAD: an pad controller with twelve pads and an X/Y touch pad - perfect for creating expressive drum patterns, and the nanoKONTROL: a mappable control surface with a transport controls, sliders and knobs that are a perfect compliment to all DAW software packages.

I have had the pleasure of beta testing all three of the controllers and they are AWESOME! I am not sure at all (scout’s honor) what the pricing is and when Korg plans on releasing them here in the US. I strongly recommend Googling Korg Nano Series and reading some of the many blog postings from the UK. It is quite evident that they received a very enthusiastic welcome at LIMS and I am sure that they will be a hit here in the US. Imagine having three great controllers that can easily be carried in your standard laptop bag. I am thrilled that Korg is bringing these to the market - and that they are the first company to do so.

Like many other people I know, I have been staring through the window at the iPhone since it first hit the shelves last year. Although almost every one of my friends and both of my siblings have one, and sadly I do not. First it was because I had a two-year contract with Verizon, then it was because my job required that I have a Windows compatible smart phone. This made it even more difficult for me to read about the new iPhone on the Wired Magazine website, and perhaps more importantly, the fact that Moo Cow Music is releasing an application for the iPhone called simply “Band“. This is the from the Wired story:

All instruments will be usable in the same song, while a multi-touch interface will allow up to five notes or samples to be played at the same time. Animated keys and strings will appear to move when activated, and any part can be edited, erased or overdubbed. An included metronome keeps the beat to keep each part on time.

The application looks really cool, and very user friendly. I can just imagine what this will do for home music making and the students that we teach. Check out their video on YouTube.

What do you think? Will there come a day when we will ask our students to pull out their iPhones in our music classes to make music?

ProTools is the industry standard digital audio workstation software - every major recording studio in the country runs it. Every ProTools users know that when Apple upgraded their operating system to Leopard, their favorite software was left out in the cold. For the past few months, many Mac-based ProTools users I know have asked me when the Leopard update would be coming. It’s been frustrating to not have an answer for them. Frustrating, until now. Digidesign announced on Friday that their ProTools fix for the Leopard Mac OS is now available for download on their site. While not the final version, it will get you up and running. I am sure that you heard thousands of audio engineers cheer last week when the announcement was made. Log on to the Digidesign support site today and download the update. Special thanks to Marc Schonbrun for bringing this to my attention!

Korg recently launched a new microsite for the Kaossilator - my favorite piece of gear for 2008. Check it out. There is a great demo video that shows all of the functions of the device, as well as a very cool rollover diagram of the device where you can learn all about what each of the buttons does. There is also a place for you to submit your own videos of yourself playing the Kaossilator. I will finish editing a video that I made of my former students playing Kaossilators (the Kaossilator Orkestra) by the end of next week.

If you’ve been interested in checking out this great new device from Korg, I highly recommend checking out the site. Let me know what you think!

Have you ever wanted to have a virtual keyboard to try out some sounds using one of your VSTs or DAWs while you are waiting around? Sure, GarageBand has one that can be controlled with your QWERTY keyboard, but what if you are a PC user, or want to use Reason or one of your virtual synths? Sure, a hardware based USB MIDI keyboard controller should always be your first choice, but what if you’re on a plane or just forgot it? Meet Chirp, a new virtual MIDI keyboard controller for Windows XP/Vista or your Mac OSX from Tanager Audioworks. At a great price of $39.95, Chirp offers users a two octave keyboard with “full size” keys that correlate to letters on the QWERTY keyboard. There are also 10 assignable pad controllers, a pitch bend, and a modulation wheel. Chirp works with any DAW or VST - which makes it very different from the built in keyboard that comes with GarageBand. For a cool little video that demonstrates who Chirp works, click HERE.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

A few years ago I was interviewed for an article written by Scott Watson in Music Education Technology Magazine that asked music educators what three pieces of technology would they choose to have if they were stranded on a desert island. My answers at the time were: the Korg GEC3 Group Education Controller, GarageBand, and Sibelius. There were two other teachers interviewed, and I find reading the article very interesting. Different teachers gravitate to different technologies - none of us had the same response. I recommend reading the article to see how educators use technology in their music programs.

Now that I am officially out of the classroom, my choices have changed a bit. My top three technology choices now are: the MicroTrack II from M-Audio, my Korg microKONTROL, and my Korg Kaossilator (surprise, surprise). The MicroTrack II is the most convenient hand-held MP3 recorder, and I literally have it with me at all times. Whenever I am presenting a session, or want to record audio, I pull the MicroTrack II out of my bag and press record. It is literally that easy. My other two choices may seem skewed (as Korg is my employer) but I have had my micrKONTROL for five years and many who know me usually see me with it slung over my shoulder. It is the perfect USB controller - 16 pads, a great control surface, and 37 mini keys. Portable and powerful, it is always on my desk or in my bag. Finally, it should come as no surprise that the Kaossilator rounds out my top three. I have never had so much fun with a piece of gear before. Everyone that I show it to does not want to give it back. Sibelius and GarageBand still are at the top of my list, but since leaving th classroom, I have been using them a little bit less. Reason 4.0, the Blue Snowball USB microphone, and ProTools would round out my top 8 picks.

So now it is your turn. What would you take with you to a desert island? You have to choose only 3 things (I know it is difficult). I’d love to get a big response on this so please pass it on to your friends and colleagues.

Working for Korg has been a dream come true so far. I have always been a huge fan of the full line of Korg products - everything from the M1 to the Kaossilator and their full line of amazing tuners! As an employee, I get a bit of a discount on gear, and I have made quite a few purchases in the last four months. One of my recent purchases was the Korg padKontrol. While I already own the microKontrol (which has 16 pads on it) I love the feel of the larger pads on the padKontrol. They are completely touch sensitive, and unlike other MIDI pad controllers on the market, every square millimeter of the square pad is active.

I have been using my padKontrol with some of my favorite sequencers, including GarageBand, Reason & Logic. What is great about the padKontrol is that when you use it with the software synthesizers (particularly the drums) you can play the instrument with a much more humanized feel. There is something very different about playing the pads instead of playing keys on a MIDI keyboard controller. Each pad on the padKontrol is assignable - you can select any pitch or sound for each pad. When I played one of the Whirly’s in Logic, I assigned the pads to a dorian scale and had a ball making music in a non-keyboard environment. The sensitivity of the pads is amazing. I especially like the flam and roll feature that really makes your drumming sound human. Finally, the X-Y pad gives the padKontrol a Koassilator feel and the combination of the pads and X-Y pad is a terrific way to perform with this great instrument.

From a pedagogical standpoint, I believe that the padKontrol opens up some wonderful opportunities for those “non-music makers” in your school. I personally feel that there is no such thing - every child is musical - they just might have some obstacles that get in their way, like knowing how to play a traditional instrument. I used the padKontrol with some middle school students this week and they had a blast with it!

Check out this great video demonstration from YouTube to see what the padKontrol can do.

I welcome your comments and questions.

I justed posted a podcast containing two compositions that we recorded yesterday with the Kaossilator Orkestra at the Franklin Avenue Middle School in Franklin Lakes, NJ.

The structure of the first piece is based on Morse Code. After giving the students a drum loop, they spelled words using the Kaossilator from Korg. This is the third time we have rehearsed together as a group and I am finding that having a system like Morse Code (giving the students a tactile direction) is more successful than some of the other pieces that I have written out for them.

The second piece is based on Braille. We chose the word “Rainbow” because there were 7 students yesterday. Each student was assigned a letter from the word and then given direction on how to create each letter using Braille.

I was very pleased with the results as the pieces are more controlled than some of the ones we tried in earlier rehearsals. The concept of the Kaossilator Orkestra is becoming clearer as we move forward. Personally, I am thrilled by the possibilities for this type of group in the school setting. What do you think? Could you see an ensemble like this in your school?

For those of you who have spent any time with me in the past three months, you know that I am a HUGE fan of the new Kaossilator from Korg. You can listen to some of the compositions that I have made with it as well as a recording of ten middle school students in what I call the Kaossilator Orkestra on my podcasting site.

Recently a friend of mine sent me a link to a fantastic album created by Gary Kibler from London called “The Yellow Album”. It is perhaps the best illustration of the music making capability of the KO1. What Gary has done is nothing short of miraculous. The KO1 is a dynamic phrase synthesizer that uses a touch pad to create music. There are no keys at all and it is not that easy to create a melody without any mistakes. Here is the description of the Yellow Album from Gary’s site:

“The Yellow Album” is the first full-length album produced and performed entirely on the Korg Kaossilator device. No other effects, EQ or sounds were added. The audio was digitally recorded directly off the unit and the only external editing performed involved simple volume balancing. The musical challenge was to attempt to make the two-bar loop limitation of the on-board phrase recorder sound less repetitious by playing the touchpad live, solo-style, over the loops during the recording.

I strongly recommend visiting his site and downloading the album today. It’s completely free, and it is really good!

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

I read an interesting article today on Red Orbit that details a brand new technology developed by researchers at the University of Rochester. They announced recently at a conference that they have developed a new compression that makes music files up to 1,000 times smaller than MP3s. While the researchers note that the technology isn’t quite up to speed yet, they believe that it will be soon.

Audiophiles will certainly notice the degradation in sound quality, but Professor Mark Bocko believes that the compression format they have created closely resembles what actually is being recorded and that the incredible human brain can make sense out of what he calls “the absolute least amount of data needed to reproduce a piece of music”. I am interested to see the implications for online music retailers as well as owners of iPods and other MP3 players. Can you imagine being able to fit every song ever recorded on a 16GB iPhone?

I welcome your comments and suggestions.