Woo Hoo!! X2a Producer and 3 Korg NanoKontrollers working properly 24 tracks of faders!!

Well Worth It!!
 
After about 10 days of messing around with these somewhat fussy controllers, I finally got them to work properly on Win764 and also XP.
I haven't had "real" faders in my small studio setup for years and they are a real time saver, especially having the transport controlls and mute/arm/solo/pan on each track as well.
 
They will install using standard windows drivers, but I had some issues getting it to play inside of Sonar, so I tried the Korg midi drivers (whick nuked my usb/midi cable driver to my drum controller, but that is another story).
 
The steps of installing the korg drivers seems like it should be easy enough, but it's very important that you read entirely through the one page installation instruction. Otherwise the controller will show up in the computer device manager, but the Korg editor software wont be able to connect and Sonar won't see them either.
 
it's a 3 step process ONCE you install the initial Korg driver program. After the driver has installed then follow the next steps/
1: install the midi driver setup utility
2: configure the Korg USB-MIDI driver
3:Install The Korg USB-MIDI device  (you must do the for each controller that you have)
 
Stat the Korg Editor. If your device is not listed as available for connection then you have not gone through the 3 steps above, please recheck.
However it you are sure that you have gone through the steps properly then it's very possible that the controllers are being assigned to a midi channel higher than 10.
 
To unclog your computers midi assignments, run the korg uninstall program for the kontroller. you will see a list of the midi ports on your computer. I had usb audio device on several of mine that could be removed to open up midi spots for the korg kontollers. (I think you have to click the options button to be able to clear any of the midi ports that donot belong to korg)
 
After I did this step and opended up several midi ports under 10 that the 3 kontrollers could bind to, I did a reboot.  poof! They were found,installed, and were able to be seen by the korg editor software. just close the editor software
 
Now on to Sonar configuration
under preferencec, go to midi  -> devices and make sure that your nanokontrol is available to be checked.
If it is then go to  midi-controll surfaces
press the + button and add a "Cakewalk generic surface" with the nanokontrol as the midi input (no output)
 
close any open windows and go back up to the top of the tool bar to "utilities" and drop down to Cakewalk Generic surface1
 
the options for this screen will let you assign the virtual sliders and buttons to the virtual sliders/buttons on the screen
 
The next steps are really easy.
 
set number of track strips: 8
set configure strip number: 1
set base track as 1
 
Basically this is saying to start at the base track of #1, we are going to configure track #1 and will build up through track #8
 
now change the drop down radial boxes to this"
1 volume
2 pan
3 solo
4 mute
5 record arm
 
To assign physical fader 1 to virtual fader 1:
select the radio button for volume,
move the physical fader up and down a few times
and the press the learn button
 
now try slider 1. it should be moving, linked to the fader on the sreen
do the same thing for the pan/mute/solo/arm buttons
 
ex: select radio button 2 for pan, spin the physical pan on channel 1 controller, then press learn
 
do the same for 3-8
 
when you are done, save the preset with a name like "Korg (1-8)" for later recal later
Now select "configure strip 2" and repeat the same steps. above
 
then configure your transport controls the same way.
 
click the radio button for play. press the play button on the controller, and press the learn button.
do with with the rest.
 
Save the preset and close the preference page.
 
Your first controller should be ready to use
 
when you add a second controller you need to assign it as a "Cakewalk generic controller" but point the input to it as the second controller (NanoKontroller#2). Go into utilities and select the second controller. setup the second controller as you did the first BUT MAKE THE BASE TRACK 9(so it will controll tracks 9-16) and then save the template as "korg 9-16"
 
add the third the same way.  (Save the preferencec before you close!)
 
Once I figured out the driver problems, It only took about an hour to set the controllers up and now they are all ready for mix duties.
 
I hope this helps someone. Check the Korg support forum if you are still stuck. I spent a few days there.
 
Once again I"ll admit it's a pain in the AS* but once it's working right it's well worth solving the mystery.