New Korg MicroKey Air and 2nd-Gen MicroKey Controllers

Today My Piano Lessons found out that Korg announced the second-generation MicroKey series, which keeps the simple, compact design with easy USB powered connectivity, but adds a damper pedal jack and iOS compatibility, because to be truly mobile, you have to support the #1 mobile platform for making music, don’t you?

Also, the MicroKey now comes in 25-, 37-, 49- and 61-key models, all including Korg’s Natural Touch mini keys, with the goal of retaining playability for chords and rapid phrases in a small size.

How do you make the MicroKey even more mobile friendly? Make it wireless and battery powered! The brand new MicroKey Air series supports Apple’s Bluetooth Smart Low-Energy MIDI technology to connect wirelessly with a Mac, iPad or iPhone. It also has USB connectivity to save battery juice and to connect to a PC. Two AA batteries supposedly keep the boards ready to go for 30 hours of operation.

Both the MicroKey and MicroKey Air series come with Korg Kontrol Editor software for editing its preferences. The 25-key models use a joystick rather than pitchband/mod wheels, and they have a damper button rather than a damper pedal input.

We see announcements like this as further proof that you can no longer really offer a “compact” MIDI controller that doesn’t have iOS compatibility. Soon enough, we think that all relevant audio gear regardless of size will have to give in and support iOS; it’s not going away and is only getting better.