When I first received Kore I played with it and read the manual, and within a couple of days I think I got the gist of it. However, there were a couple of things that eluded me. I’ll share them just in case someone else is scratching their heads about the same things.

First thing I wanted to do was create top-level user pages that had only the parameters I wanted to manipulate live. For VSTs and the native effects, this is easy - but what about page-to-page learn for Koresounds in cases where I don’t have the full NI plugin installed? There didn’t seem to be anything in the manual about that.

Kore’s hardware controller is great, but sometimes you want control from another device.

I’m working on a Kore performance and setup that allows the use of a Nintendo Wii Balance Board (as included in Wii Fit) for live performance. I’m having a great fun and can share the results in a few days. But I realized the basic procedure applies to other tasks, as well, and may not be obvious to beginners.

Last week, I covered the way different control pages can be used:

Demystifying Kore Control Pages for Automation and Performance, Pt. I: Different Page Types

MIDI Assignment

In this case, I want to create a user page that covers “macro”-style assignments for my whole performance, so I want a performance-level user page. I can map those eight parameters to whatever I like. (For the Balance Board, I’ll just use the top four, because the hardware has four sensors. If you had an X/Y pad like a Korg KAOSS Pad, you might use just two.)

Then I want to give these MIDI controller assignments, in addition to the usual Kore Control assignments.  From the user page, click “Control.” In the bottom right, you’ll see a “Controller #” assignment. You can type in a controller number directly. (Once it’s typed in, you can drag up or down to change it with the mouse or type a new number.)

There are now plenty of ways to assign controllers to software, via old-fashioned MIDI learn and new automatic mapping features. But one major strength of Kore is that you get a number of benefits these methods don’t generally have (or don’t have all in one place):

• Hardware control with the Kore controller, not only for individual encoders but even navigating between pages and parts of the interface. (You really don’t have to touch your mouse for many features.)
• Visual feedback and navigation using the hardware, so you can always see what you’re controlling.
• Eight things: Because the layout is always eight encoders (4×2), you never have more than eight things to keep track of at a time – much easier on your brain. And you can choose those eight things:
• Custom pages: Rather than paging through the dozens of parameters in many plug-ins, you can make custom pages. This lets you choose which parameters are important and organize those parameters however you like.
• Host automation support: In addition to using control pages for physical control with the Kore controller, you can use these pages to better organize which parameters are accessed by your host. That makes it much easier and more fun, for instance, to draw in control curves in Logic or SONAR or use envelopes in Ableton Live.

Initially, though, you may find the various levels of pages Kore lets you use confusing. Before you can be productive with Kore, it helps to fully comprehend what’s going on with the different pages.

There are three basic kinds of control pages:

1. Channel pages (automatic)

2. Plug-in pages (automatic)

3. User pages (editable)

The only pages you can custom edit are actually the user pages. Both channel and plug-in pages are automatically populated by Kore’s software. It’s easier to see what this means by walking through each. I’m duplicating the manual a little bit here, but I think seeing this stuff in action is a little more manageable.