Allen & Heath AH-XONE:K2 XONE:K2 Professional USB DJ MIDI Controller

Product Information

At the time of writing, the biggest differentiator is the F1’s ability to handle Remix Decks fully and completely. The K2 doubles up as a great sounding audio interface and comes with a carry case, but the F1 is marginally cheaper and includes a Traktor Pro licence. The Kontrol F1 has pinch style, short throw faders, the Xone K2 has longer, looser faders with studio style caps.

The F1 can be configured to work in standard MIDI mode, but you only get a single layer of control – so the K2 has an advantage there – but considering that Traktor is such a powerhouse in the DJ software world, and for a lot of users a single layer of control is all that will be configured, the F1 just squeezes this one. The default is channel 16, please see page 13 of the 1D user guide describing how to change the midi channel of the second 1D to channel 15. On the one hand, the K2’s layering system gives it lots of options when configuring it to work with just about any software, but on the other, the F1’s super tight integration with Traktor is a huge feather in its cap. Whilst the F1 has RGB lights (although they only work properly in Traktor mode right now) and slightly bigger and nicer buttons, the K2 has more knobs. With both installed you can now map them in Traktor making sure to set both XONE devices to transmit MIDI on different channels.What I mean by that sentence is that the F1’s full scale RGB lighting can only be accessed in Traktor’s ‘F1’ mode, though, as opposed to being able to specify basic lighting parameters via MIDI CC value in ‘MIDI’ mode. And while the Kontrol F1 performance pads are a head turner, to get more adventurous with MIDI, and have greater control of more software features for the widest range of applications, the Xone:K2 has more going for it. To be able to Map both the 1D devices in Traktor Controller manager, add a new Generic MIDI device and assign the In-Port and Out-Port to the Xone MIDI Device, there will be another instance titled Xone MIDI Device (2), leave this for the moment.

drivers are currently available for Windows XP 32bit, XP 64bit, Vista 32 Bit, Windows 7 32bit, Windows 7 64bit and OSX 10. Both the F1 and K2 are well built, sturdy units; it’s quite difficult to choose a victor in this area.Download the latest driver and connect both Xone:1Ds, run the installer, when this has finished, restart OSX then once restarted, check the OSX MIDI device window to ensure 2 instances of the Xone MIDI Device (direct) icon are present and not greyed out, this indicates the installation was successful. The two controllers are so close to each other in all the important stakes that it’s really tough to put one ahead of the other overall. But if we’re talking about MIDI controller vs MIDI controller on a level playing field, the issue becomes considerably harder to resolve. The bottom line is that because both units are so good, and their added extras are worth roughly as much in ‘real money’ as each others, I’m declaring this area a tie as well.