59 thoughts on “Korg Gadget 3.0 Now Available For iOS, Mac OS X”

1. So I can buy Logic X for the same price as this Gadget? Let me see here, A full DAW with instruments,effects,etc. vs. a bunch of Gadgets???

2. And again korg is having a sale

3. wonder if anyone will make the caustic 3 comparison ?
   it is available on 4 platforms unlike korg which is 2

   1. They’re pretty similar. Gadget has substantially better presets, the sequencer in Gadget I have a real hard time getting on with but it’s really a matter of preference. I really don’t see Gadget on Mac replacing anything like Logic or even Garageband to be honest (never even mind stuff like Live, Cubase, FLStudio Reason whatever). We’ll see how the Allihoopa integration shakes out, I tested briefly last night on the phone and the audio tracks have to fit the clip size (non linear/timeline audio tracks which I kind of expected).

      I’ve used both, they’re both good for what they do. There are ways to test both to get a feel for them and that’s probably your best bet

      1. there is one thing i found that caustic an do that gadjet can’t
         Linear record
         other-words make a song without sequence blocks, which means you could make your background sequences, then record you main instrument choice in a straight liners fashion like a multi track daw
         I discover a while back when listening to song made on caustic and found one which someone did that.

         Side note, i miss the song import or earlier gadjet

         1. Yeah that’s my biggest beef with Gadget, I never ever ever ever ever work in clips/blocks whatever. Even if I’m using a clip or block, it’s cut from a longer linear sequence. It’s not right or wrong or whatever, it’s just preference. Even with having all Gadgets as VST/AU I still dunno about the price point. This only runs on a Mac (the application) and with all that’s available as AU/VST I don’t know I really care about having the Gadgets as plugins.

            Different strokes for different folks and all that?

   2. Thank you for the heads up on Caustic 3, billfusion, I hadn’t come across it before! Will deffo check it out!

4. FYI, Recife is a MPC type drum machine from the looks of it and may have way to use outside samples
   IT is not in the online manual yet

   1. Yeah, Recife is an odd ball for the new gadgets. It doesn’t allow for user samples to be imported in any way so it’s just like the London gadget with fresh samples, with a GUI and parameters more to that of Bilbao. But so far, only Bilbao and Abu Dhabi support sample import into the gadgets themselves. Cool samples on Recife though

5. too expensive as a laptop DAW. Great on iPad though.

6. $299, there having a laugh surely. Yeah, if the gadgets were all AU too then it would add up to a lot of AUs but outside KG I doubt they would sell. They’re mostly single screen, simple affairs that would not stand up in the current sophisticated AU market.

   1. I think the gadgets DO also come as individual AUs, in which case $199 starts to look a little less crazy.

      1. maybe ad up the gadjets together, off sale of course

7. on sale for $199? lol right…..I’ll wait till they come down to their senses and sell it for $50

   1. or take a look at caustic3
      really look at it, it is kind of a mind blower

      1. has caustic ableton link?

         1. No, it doesn’t support Ableton Link

            1. what’s ableton?
               just had put that out there

   2. $199 buys 30+ Gadgets which are also AU’s. That equals to $6.63 per plugin.
      Can’t go wrong with that.

8. “Currently, the KORG Shop is experiencing heavy access. Please wait for a while until the sale of KORG Gadget for Mac resumes. Thank you for your patience.”
   Looks like a hit to me…

   1. Web site down could be a hit. Or it could be flaky infrastructure. Or heavy unrelated network traffic. Or many other things.

9. I still think it’s a slap in the face to iPad owners who bought gadget and several of the individual modules for Korg to not offer something to existing customers

   1. They did. The new drum machine, the audio recording gadget, and the cabinet simulator are all in the app for free once you update. I got a jam started already with the update on my old iPad 4 and am very pleased so far.

   2. i agree, especially those who may have bought quite a few of their products

   3. I bought new tires for my truck and it’s a slap in the face I have to buy them for my car too.

      1. well, the could offer a free spare tire

      2. That’s not even a valid comparison – software should work across a variety of platforms vs tires which are planned as an expense item to be used. Korg once released an expensive piece of software called legacy collection which they completely stopped supporting – released an update years later and charged existing users for it and it wasnt supported. That turned into this. Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me. Go make america great again somewhere else el jeffe!

         1. An iPad and a Mac are two completely different machines so this was completely re-written. A lot of PEOPLE worked on creating this. Are they supposed to work for free?

            Software is consumable just like anything else. Most products have a one year warranty. After that if it breaks or wears out you either pay to have it fixed, replace it, or dispose of it.

            Your BS Trump comment is considered a personal attack. We all have opinions but rudeness is intolerable ya big poopy head.

            1. What they should have done, is discount those gadgets you already purchased…. caustic, nanostudio and others are free on windows and mac, and you paid for IOS version… I am NOT going to pay again for all the gadgets, which will make the whole gadget mac/ios package like $400…. no way !!!!

               1. I think most people are missing the real point of this coming to desktop. It is not for the benefit of iOS users. It is for the mobile-music-making holdouts who see certain apps and think, “If it were on desktop, I’d give it a try.”

                  Of course they included the obligatory feature of being able to move from iOS to the Desktop (even though you could kinda already do that with Live Export). But again, obligatory.

                  This is not a gift to iOS users. It’s Korg trying to expose an entirely different market to Gadget.

   4. To be fair, this is Apple’s doing, really. Gadget for OSX is only available through the Mac app store and there are limits to the way coupons/discounts work there. They could generate a one-time code in Gadget iOS but getting that to work in the Mac App store would be a total nightmare at best (if it were even possible to distribute that many one-time codes). And without it being a one-time code, it’d be a discount for all in a matter of minutes. The way devs have ‘dealt’ with this Apple limitation so far on iOS is to offer a fairly steep intro price discount. Not ideal.

      ‘sides, who else is gonna give them $300 for Gadget on OSX other than heavily invested iOS customers? 😉

      1. Funny, it’s not in the Apple app store at all. Might want to check your sources.

         You can only get it at the Korg online shop. $6.66 per gadget isn’t bad pricing at all and it works really well with Logic Pro X, fwiw.

10. For a “virtual studio”, $299 might not be expensive, but I think that most folks already have a DAW and would simply like to have the AU components with no need for anything else – which of course is part of the price. Unfortunately, even for $199, I have no idea if the AUs are really worth it (as much as I love the over Korg soft-synths – personally I would have hoped for Korg doing emulations of their other synths prior to developing a DAW-like environment).

    1. Well, there is the Korg Legacy collection: MS-20, Polysix, Mono/Poly, M1, Wavestation, MDE-X effects. $199

       IIRC you can get a discount on it if you buy a Korg controller.

       The big app/plugin that seems to be missing from the legacy collection is Odyssei, which is available standalone for iOS and also included in macOS Gadget I believe.

       1. could wait for a sale a get a even better deal on legacy

11. So just tested on my phone, found a Gadget dropped from a user on Allihoopa, can only open it in either Soundtrap or Take. I’m hoping Gadget is a choice later, otherwise I’m just allowing people to listen to what I made which is already accomplished on Gadgetcloud. I’m sure it’s in the works, but this was already delayed a month and this is really what I’m waiting for lol.. 🙁

    1. Let korg know, they will fix
       first version of gadjet did have a few bugs
       I wish they will bring back import song though

12. This app is such a missed opportunity for korg. It would work so well on windows 10 with a touch screen.

    1. Hmm, why do you think they shipped a macOS port before a Windows version? Probably because Korg hates Microsoft, Windows users, and making money, right?

       Or maybe it’s because Gadget is written in Objective-C using Apple’s APIs and built with Xcode, so the macOS port was a lot easier and faster to do.

13. So…it’s like Reason 9…without any of the fun. Good luck.

    1. or cables

       1. Yeah this is the problem really… ok great, intro price, that’s cool. But when the difference between Reason and Gadget (off intro price) is a hundred bucks, that’s a pretty tough sell… will be interesting to see how everything looks when the dust settles. Maybe a cross grade or something for existing Gadget users would make it more enticing, I dunno… though the way the app store is structured I really have no idea how this would work.

14. Yes, the price is too high, but this feature is outstanding: “Supports exporting plug-in data with Ableton Live Export.”

15. costs more than logic X and works like garage band except the pricing!
    um…nope.

16. Can you explain to me how to import in Zurich long audio files (more than 16 bars) ? Because if you can’t, there’s very little you can do with this new gadget… My intention was to import an entire track (or even more than one) from other apps like Cubasis or GarageBand or from my MacBook (LogicPro X) and add other tracks in Gadget on iPad (I have bought all the gadgets for the ios version during these years) but it seems that there’s no way to have an audio track longer than 16 bars… and this would mean that Gadget has not become “a real DAW”

    1. Who writes songs that are longer than 16 bars these days? No time for that.

       1. well there are, but are just remixes of those 16 bar songs

17. If you could ‘flip’ these gadgets around ala reason to get at more parameters, the price would be more interesting to me.

    1. I think you can with the Mono/Poly and Polysix Rack Extensions? But I don’t think Gadget includes the REs unfortunately?

18. The pricing definitely puts it in Logic/Reason/Live territory but it’s more of a collection of VSTs or a mobile app on steroids.

    It’s also annoying that there’s no discount if you’ve already purchased all of the gadgets on iOS.

19. Not interested. But that might be the dopest product video track I’ve ever heard.

20. So let me get this straight…starting to compose on your iPad in Gadget, and then refining and tweaking more on the Desktop and then sending it all out with Midi and VST (Gadget automation) in tact in order to finish in Ableton Live with the same Gadgets, or different VST’s of your choosing is something to look down on?

    Yes I am being sarcastic.

    Yeah, I took the plunge because the above scenario fits my workflow exactly. I love working in Gadget on iOS, but I always wanted to get more out of it and now I can get everything out of it that I need and then some…

    Mobile+Desktop music creation equals JOY to me…

    Sure I wish it were $99.00 instead…but hey…what are you gonna do? Complain or Create? As artists we always have a choice 🙂

21. Big Korg fan here but this v3 release is ho-hum. Like others have said, can’t load user samples to that new MPC style drummachine…WTF? No documentation on how to record with Zurich or to utilize the input section of the Rosario? Can’t do anything other than whole bar loops, I can’t drag those loop brackets to anything other than whole bar lenths and apparently only on the first beat of whatever bar it may be.

    BIG ONE: Why can’t there be transport controls when you double tap on the gadget to make it bigger and more playable? So, i have to arm the sequencer to record and then double tap the maximize the gadget so i can play it? POOR.

    At first I didn’t mind considering paying the intro $199 for the Mac version even thoough Logic has been my main DAW since v2.5 (shit something like 20 years ago) but after coming to terms with what these above mentioned faults, I definately am strongly reconsidering plopping down the money on the Mac version.

    Personaly I think the Gadgets are stellar for their simplicity and sound, I’ve programmed some killer sounds out of all the gadgets: EP, Wurli, Ivories included, albiet unconventionally. I also think it is cool they included the three new gadgets free. I do believe that offering the gadgets as plug-ins for other DAWs is a deal maker, pretty generous. That’s about it from there.

    Korg is amazing in all the ways they have pushed the envelope in so many facets of electronic music, on so many platforms in ways of creating it. Then they do lame-o things inbetween like releasing the Platinum and White versions of their hardware…that must be their downtime, keeping busy regimen.

    regardless, LOVE YA KORG!

    1. Korg is the reason why i have an iPad

22. OK well most of us here already have own at least one DAW and some plug ins so maybe $200 seems like Korg is asking too much. Today the cost is less than $10 each for 30 instruments. To me that seems like a good deal. The M1 and ODYSSEi alone are worth that. Now suppose you are just starting out with a new Mac. Garage Band and Gadget is tough to beat for future music producers. I love the simple nature of these (great sounding) Gadgets. Korg would probably do better to sell Gadgets à la carte on the Apple App Store.
    HOWEVER there are some disappointments. MIDI sync is not well implemented. The audio,recorder is extremely basic. I was hoping to use the audio recorder with Maschine, but could not figure out how to do that. The on screen keyboard that looks just like the iPad makes no sense at all without a touch screen. Huh? Are we supposed to play this with our mice? Surprised to find the new drum machine lacks the ability to sample directly in to.
    Looking forward to updates……

    1. You forgot iWavestation and iMS-20!! They are brilliant.

       Hypocritically enough, I’d probably eventually buy most if not all of them over time if they were $10 a la carte on the Mac app store, but $199 all at once kind of makes me ill considering I already bought them all on iOS.

23. Zurich needs IAA audio input. Great it supports external audio interfaces inputs, but it really needs IAA inputs. It could be used as a channel destination in AUM for example, and you could integrate those recordings into Zurich… bit of an oversight which I hope gets fixed soon.

24. Lets flip that “cost per instrument” argument around again. Sure, that’s a lot of gadgets for the money, but they are all very limited in comparison to one full featured software synth. The same money would buy you far more capability elsewhere. Simple to use gadgets make fantastic sense on an iPad, when most of us are thinking in a sketchpad kind of way. But when you sit down to get things done on a desktop, the paradigm collapses, just seconds before the ROI of your cash does.

    1. although to be fair there are some instruments that are not even worth being free