On the Internet, you can find lots of stories of people with brand new Korg nanoKEYs who just can't get the damn thing to work with their system. Those were of no help to me for the problem I was having: after five years of using a nanoKEY with Finale 2010 under Mac OS X and later Windows 8.0 (long story that), it just wasn't working anymore. I was putting nothing but rests in Finale.
I tried restarting my computer. I tried restarting my computer with all USB ports clear (except for QWERTY keyboard and mouse). Nothing. The Korg logo would light up but the octave up/down indicators would not. Maybe after five years it was time to buy a new nanoKEY. I started weighing my options: I'm not flat broke, but I'm not rolling in dough either. Would the hassle of note entry with the mouse be enough to justify the cost?
And then I noticed a cryptic message in the notification pane about a failure of a USB device to properly initialize. What if the problem was the USB cable, not the nanoKEY? I thought it was a long shot, but it wouldn't cost me anything to try a different cable, since I have a few extra USB cables lying around, some of which I don't even remember what equipment they came from.
What do you know, it worked. I plugged in, my computer made that sound that lets you know something USB has been plugged in and recognized. The Korg logo lit up. I pressed the octave up key and the corresponding light turned green. I started a default document in Finale and entered a few triads and a couple of sevenths.
These days, things aren't built to last. But sometimes, it's a relatively inexpensive component that breaks down and needs replacing, rather than the whole kit and kaboodle.
