KORG Gadget 3

I’ve just bought this, the blurb led me to believe it has 40 gadgets, it has twenty, the others are purchased. Why is this not made clearer? I feel conned by this and it has left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I have Gadget but rarely use it as I mostly play live with Korg Module. I just bought a Keystage so please update Gadget (and module pro) to take advantage of aftertouch (channel or poly). Such a waste of the potential for using an iPad with the Keystage.

The sounds are inspiring, the interface is novel and designed to get-out-of-the-way when inspiration hits, and the package is even better now its (mostly) auv3. The new search engine also solves my biggest software gripe by allowing RAPID auditioning of sounds. So many apps claim to have thousands of sounds but make it tedious to find “the one”. Never thought I’d ever find a search box worth reviewing - but this one is wonderful. Would like to see more rhythm machines like guitar-riff delight “santa ana” in future, as I think arranger keyboards with live chord recognition are fun - but for now this (and Korg Module) are my favourite part of living in the Star Trek future….

Update: free upgrade to Gadget 3! Finally an undo button and more fx! Still no AUv3 support inside Gadget BUT you can now use the Gadgets as AUv3s in other DAWs. So yeah, this is fantastic! Still pretty clunky automation and send FX have not been made more versatile. Hoping this comes at some point. I’ve been using Gadget 2 for years now. I’ve fully composed, mixed and mastered tracks with it, and no one ever could guess they were made fully on Gadget unless I told them. It’s hands down the best, most straightforward and musical app to compose tracks. Not to mention the amazing add ons you can buy giving you access to iconic KORG synths alongside their great standalone apps. They’re often on sale too. I have bought in the KORG ecosystem big time without regret, including the Nano Key which makes composing on Gadget a truly musical and fun experience. For anyone who hates to make music with a mouse and keyboard, feeling like that just kills their inspiration then this is for you. Having tried many alternatives I haven’t found anything that comes close. If this app had AUv3 support it would steamroll every other iOS groovebox and DAW. Unfortunately it doesn’t, and that is SUCH a shame. It would honestly be hands down my favorite DAW across all platforms with a few fixes. The automation implementation as an example which is clunky at best. The LACK of an undo button, why? The send reverb, which, whilst being nice to have it, just sounds tinny at best. It would also be great to have more sends like a delay, or just a flexible return track system. Trying to make any track that doesn’t follow the grid or isn’t quantized that closely is pretty clunky too. A linear song mode instead of loops would be great for that. Still, it’s the app I come back too all the time. It helped bring a multitude of tracks from start to finish and whilst sometimes I had to export to other apps like Cubasis to access some functions Gadget doesn’t have, it’s undeniable Gadget inspired me to make more music. In fact I’ve accidentally inspired friends to get into it after showing them the app. It’s just inspiring, and for that it remains an amazing app to this day.

Very good

Recent update freezes the app when opening an existing file after using the new from genre feature. Workaround for now is to not use this feature, or create a new file and then go to open existing files.

Great update with the AU functionality, but my first foray back into creating a track in Gadget itself, and it’s crash time again. New track, saved, added some drum fills, then it froze up when trying to save the drum fills, edits lost. This is why I stopped using v1, and v2, and now….v3. Back to AUM then.

Bravo Korg! You have emerged finally into the world of Audio Units! I can now use the many IAPs I’ve purchased over the years in other DAWS like Cubasis and GarageBand. I also appreciate that some of the purchases I make in Module translate into available machines in Gadget. It’s still too fiddly on my new iPhone 15 so thank goodness I have an iPad to create my music.

This was always my favourite music-making DAW, but since the update it has attained another level of wonder for me. And the fact many of the gadgets are now auv3 it will surely tempt many more people into entering this wonderful world of music creation.

Amazing update. The only thing that disappointed me so far is that the gadgets I paid for and which I use the most like Lexington & Montpellier are not available as auv3. I hope they also get added as auv3s in next update. Apart from that big thumbs up!