Korg Forums

If you use an external controller for your E2, what are you using?

Since we have a thread on what synths we are pairing our E2's to, what about external controllers?

The Korg Padkontrol is my controller of choice.

I have used the Quneo, but I have to say that the Padkontrol still reigns supreme. So I sent back the Quneo and I continue to use Padkontrol.

So how about the rest of you?

So far I haven't been using an external controller, but what I eventually want is a midi keyboard that I can quickly change the channel on, so hopefully I will see some good suggestions here. (Ideally something small like the microkorg or microbrute, but cheaper)

roblabs wrote:...what I eventually want is a midi keyboard that I can quickly change the channel on, so hopefully I will see some good suggestions here.

Thats the big secret, changing midi channels on the fly.

PadKontrol allows that to be possible, it's not a keyboard but it is a way.

I would be interested to know what other keyboard and other pad controllers have this feature. I can tell you all right now that, unfortunately, KMI's Quneo does not. Lets hope the new Novation launchpad has a feature for this in it's independent 5 pin midi mode.

this weekend i rigged up the tribe to ableton and right now i have my Launchpad with the custom nativekontrol script (turning the launchpad into a pseudo push) controlling the tribe.... i got some nice grooves out of it but its far from an ideal setup.

SMK wrote:Lets hope the new Novation launchpad has a feature for this in it's independent 5 pin midi mode.

I have big hopes for that new machine! if they truly make their software open source, this will allow a plethora of hardware controller code to use directly without any PC middlemaning....

Just a question of time at this point im guessing.

I have an Emu Shortboard (but I haven't connected it to the Electribe2 yet) as the Emu is in my studio and my E2 goes everywhere with me!

I searched locally high and low and no padKontrol but I did run across a M-Audio Trigger Finger Pro for $200 at my local big box music store who also has it listed on their web site. It's one button click and then a turn of the dial for MIDI channel. The configuration options for scenes, presets and sequences (yes a built in seq) are daunting to say the least but everything can be done from the device itself. SonicState did a video review of it awhile back. I Love the electribe2 standalone but being able to play on one side while tweaking on the other can be a bonus.

Steinberger wrote:It's one button click and then a turn of the dial for MIDI channel.

FWIW, that's also the case for the E-MU Xboard keyboards line. And they can be USB, DC adapter or battery powered.
http://www.creative.com/emu/products/usbcontrollers/

BCR2000 works good for me. Takes a little setting up but lots of control over each part parameter assigned.

FWIW (hi, I'm new, been lurking for ~2-3 months now) the MIDI Fighter Twister has been a good fit for me. A little bit of mapping of its 4 banks of 16 push-encoders gives me 8 parameters per part with knob-per-channel control (knob 1 always controls part 1, etc). The first bank alone makes for a great little "rotary mixer" for the e2.

* Bank A: turn for Volume/push for MFX Toggle
* Bank B: turn for Cutoff/push to toggle knob to Resonance control
* Bank C: turn for IFX Edit/push for IFX Toggle
* Bank D: turn for OSC Edit/push and turn knob for EG Int

The drawbacks are that it only does MIDI over USB, so a computer host is still needed, and when you change a pattern the pattern's state isn't updated on the Twister LEDs. Also, it won't do the job for someone needing playable keys.

That BCR2000 setup and talk about the Taktile controllers both sound like they would be great for hands-on control too, perhaps less fussy in some ways.

I don't have the Electribe 2 yet, but I use a Korg microSTATION as a master keyboard in my little studio set up, haha. The reason I like using it is because there's a "Sequencer Mode" that allows you use all 16 parts to send MIDI OUT from the keyboard and you can easily juggle between each part using the 16 front panel buttons. The keyboard is decent sized and doesn't take up too much space, which is a bonus. About the size of a standard three-octave set of keys. It also has a pretty decent sound engine, if you like those older Korg M1 type sounds. It has pretty much all those presets plus dozens of others.

Can you map each part's volume, pan...etc.?

Can you connect USB-only MIDI controllers to its USB port?

bog wrote:Can you connect USB-only MIDI controllers to its USB port?

electribe2 is not a USB host, it's a USB device just like most controllers. To route from device to device you'll either need to host it on a PC/Mac or get something like an iConnectMIDI4+ or the new iConnectAudio4+.

you can also use an iPhone or iPad with the MIDI Bridge app (or the Midiflow app) and lightining to USB adaptor (as I do) or one of the other app the can act as a USB Host. I also use a battery powered USB Hub when I need to connect multiple MIDI devices.

I use m-audio venom (keys are not the best but he sound engine is very good) as a keyboard to control e2. Since e2 doesn't have classic arpeggio, Venom could be useful for this purpose as well. When I need to trigger e2 using external pads I prefer akai mpx8 cause it's cheap and pads feel much better than e2 (the device also allows you to upload wav samples). And then I use e2 to sequence both devices in live performances.