Alright, like many of us Serato users, you don’t just have $2,000 to drop on a new Rane Sixty Two mixer. Why do you want one anyways – you can read up on that below and many other areas on the internet. I want to get to the point of this post.

So, where does this Korg Nano Kontrol2 come in? Well, even Serato Scratch allows for MIDI assignments and customization. So, if you have a mixer that does not have any cue point , loop, SP6, FX controls, you can still use another device to manage those features remotely.

I had a Rane TTM56 and a Serato SL1 interface. Pretty barebones, but solid software DJ set-up. But I had limited control to the features like the SP6, cue points, loops, FX, etc. that DJ software like Serato Scratch offered. Of course I can use the computer keyboard, but who wants that? You can get Dicers too, which I did, but those are limited to cue points and loop rolls mostly and another cost. I wanted to control SP6 sampler, effects and even track loading remotely. This would mean I needed a MIDI device that had knobs, buttons, possibly faders and it needs to be compact and not break the bank. The answer… The Korg Nano Kontrol 2 – which retail for about $60.

The Korg Nano Kontrol2

NanoKONTROL2_black_MAIN

It wasn’t the exact layout that I wanted, but hey, for $60 it will do. I was able to go into Serato Scratch’s MIDI set up and assign all the controls that I wanted to manage not the Kontrol2. I have management over:

  • View FX
  • View SP6 Sampler
  • FX: independent control for each of the 3 per deck – turn on/off, depth level w/ the knob
  • SP6 Sampler: independent control for each of the 6 per bank – turn on/off, volume level w/ the fader
  • SP6 Bank: paginate between A, B, C, D banks
  • SP6 output: Left, Middle, Right
  • loop rolls: including loop cut (w knob), loop, loop roll and stop (turn completely off)
  • track scrolling
  • track loading
  • *and a few controls to spare that were unused

Here is the layout and a skin I made for my controller to help convey the features easily:

Korg-Nano-Kontrol2_template2014

If you would like to use it, here is the MIDI map I created.Download it and then install it into the MIDI folder of your Serato Library.

Download MIDI Map file here:
https://www.patrickhansen.com/resources/dj/midi-maps/artitsIQNanoKONTROL2.xml.zip

For Mac users:

  • Make sure to quit Serato first.
  • Download the zip file and unzip it (you should see an xml file now: artitsIQNanoKONTROL2.xml)
  • Go into the Serato Library on your system, likely in your user/music folder. Open it up and then drop this xml MIDI map file in the MIDI folder.
  • Plug in the Korg Nano Kontrol 2
  • Open Serato > go to Settings >MIDI > and load the MIDI map file “artitsIQNanoKONTROL2”

Skin
I’ve made the source skin file available. It’s an Adobe Illustrator File (ai) that I used for a skin and it has all the control mappings laid out. Feel free to download it and use it and/or use it as a reference to customize your own skin – it has the Korg Nano Kontrol2 outline template in it as well.

You can get custom skins from a variety of online manufacturers and they also have dies to cut the shapes out so it’s an exact fit. I don’t want to refer the source I used, since they didn’t do a great job on the color matching and were a bit difficult to deal with.

Download the Source file for the skin here:
https://www.patrickhansen.com/resources/dj/skins/KorgNanoKontrol2_template2014.ai.zip

 

Back to the Rane Sixty Two (and 57SL) info…

Why the Sixty Two?

The Sixty Two has a lot of integrated control for Serato Scratch and coming in February 2014, it will be supported by Serato DJ which will offer some more features such as new FX packs and other options. Serato DJ will only support devices that are USB 2.0+, which unfortunately means that the coveted Rane 57SL has had its day… as far as support.

The 57SL is still an amazing mixer with Serato integration built right in, but it will not be able to support any new technology coming from Rane/Serato like Serato DJ. But hey, many DJ’s will not need or utilize all of these new features anyways, so the 57SL is still a solid mixer.

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