The problem is the Korg has a garbage output.
I know.. I own one myself and have had our engineers take one apart to see why the output is so low. It was obvious they cut corners when engineering the device.
Regardless of that, since there is no return level knob on the 68 to boost the return level I would suggest running the output of the Korg back into the session input and use the session IN level knob to adjust the return level.
You can then turn the input level of your Kaos Pad down so its not distorting the input.
Its a pretty good workaround:)

Ok I'll give it a go. Whats effects do you use Zach? Do you use any other external effects hardware that do a better job, or do you tend to just use the VST effects in ableton on a separate laptop?

I love the KP3 other than its poor output and do not use any other outboard effects processors. The workaround works well:)
Using the USB insert for VSTs is pretty sweet as long as you have a computer that can run at low buffer settings.

zach is right all the kaoss pads i own KP2, 3 and quad suffer this.

You really have 2 choices-

1. What to do is always play your music coming into the mixer in the green, not even going into orange by trimming the PGM level input down until your well green.
2. Now engage Flex fx button with ext insert also on and trim Kaoss pad input volume(with no fx applied) until the level on 68 master = level that was going in.

By staying away from the high levels it works without distorting.

or

As Zach says run it back into" session in" or a spare channel( as 68 has 4) so you can boost the volume there.

If doing this i have found that it works better with KP on direct mode and also engaging the "EXT INSERT" on mixer. This makes using fx like the loopers work soo much better as it kills the track volume and you only hear the looper as it should sound(on its own).

Hopefully one of these workarounds will do you, I'm still hoping that rane can provide us with a return gain control in the future ;)

Hope these workarounds work for you as you really dont want to give up 68, its a REAL good mixer nor sacrifice your kaoss pad which provides great fx.

Thanks to both of you! I'll experiment tomorrow and see how it goes.

Cheers!!!

oh... also is there any way of telling the kaos pad 3 what the temp of the track is, perhaps via a midi clock, as the auto detect on the KP3 is really bad!

I thought about doing this by perhaps syncing a track in the bridge, so ableton knows the tempo of serato and then assigning my midi keyboard (MPK25) to midi clock receive, so it is then synced to the tempo of Ableton and then using the midi out from the keyboard to send the tempo speed to the midi in on the KP3.

This seems very long winded and i don't even know whether it will work.

Can you suggest something to achieve this?

Nice 1!

I've never tried the midi sync yet so cant comment....

But I'm sure there would be a way of getting the usb midi clock from 62 into the midi in on KP3. Maybe using something like -www.amazon.co.uk

I usually just manually tap the bpm with KP's

I know, i'd just really like to do it with the 68. I don't understand why sera to doesn't have an option to send the track tempo out of the software through one of the midi cables like you've shown above. It essentially does that when you sync a track with the bridge... it sends the tempo of the track and sets that tempo as able tons master tempo.

If I could somehow use this method, but have serato send it to a program like this:

midiclock.com

may solve the problem.

Is there any hardware i can by to do a workaround?

I've been reading about VSL and QTZ to send midi data and programs like midi pipe, but it seems so complicated and i don't know if anyone out there is actually using it to do what i want.

What do you think?

what about this:

www.redsound.com

seems a bit dodgy though.

Unfortunately SSL cannot send a midi beat clock nor can the 68.
You will need to rely on the auto bpm detection on the KP3 for now.
Hopefully Serato will add the ability for SSL to send a midi beat clock in the future.

What a shame. Thanks for your help. I really hope they do! It seems to be something Traktor has. Judging by the capabilities of the serato team I'm sure it's not out of their depth to add this feature. Fingers crossed it happens soon!