Ask me anything: Kontrol S-Series MK3
Comments
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Thank you very much Kymeia, I was really upset. You made my day ;)
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This simply isn't how things work. My attempts to help and explain bear no resemblance to playing the victim. I appreciate you're an early customer - that's fantastic. I'm dismayed you're having a bad experience and only trying to help.
There's an entire supply chain at play here. A tightly choreographed dance, that rarely goes wrong if everyone plays nice. That it's gone wrong here is incredibly frustrating to you, and also to us, as we're now chasing down illicit pre-sales shipments that our commercial agreements make abundantly clear were not supposed to happen. The rug of normal operating procedures was pulled from under us.
It is absolutely routine that hardware products build up inventory ahead of launch, ready to ship on day one, whilst the software and firmware is finalized, and then made available to customers, also on day one.
Truthfully: it's even worse. Based on the timing of this shipment, you have likely been sent a unit never intended for general sale, that we'll need to take back in order to provide you a new unit without issue. Please DM me and I can sort you out and make things right.
TL:DR if you're interested:
Inventory must first be shipped from source, for which there are typically two options, ocean and air freight. The former is very slow, but cost effective and more environmentally efficient. The latter is very fast, but extremely expensive (you're paying for convenience, and also the fuel to weight ratio). Mass production of the Kontrol S MK3 began in Tunisia and China over the summer, in order for ocean shipments to arrive on time.
Those shipments then arrive at distribution warehouses en masse, whereupon they're shipped to retailer warehouses weeks ahead of launch. This is to allow retailers time to prepare their own set of logistics, and ensure they've adequate stock from day one, so that they're able to sell and ship on from the day of launch. It is routine for a product launch that physical hardware inventory is shipped ahead of time.
When hardware is manufactured, it has factory firmware installed. This is known as Day Zero firmware. Again, this could be 3-4 months prior to launch, because of the aforementioned supply chain. During that time, we continue to improve the software and firmware stack, fixing bugs found in beta, as well as prepare to upload this software and firmware to native access, and enable the user-facing authorization flows. This is known as Day One firmware, as it's the first thing a user sees when they get their new product, register it, and are prompted to install it.
We're in between Day Zero and Day One. This is how hardware products work. You've been sent one before launch, without our knowledge. That is an issue. As I said, please DM me and we can figure out how to make it right.
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Yes. I am not at liberty to share that date, but it is several weeks away.
If they're selling and shipping it prior, this contravenes normal procedure for any given hardware product launch, and puts customers in a difficult spot. Particularly as it's possible that depending on the timing, they're being sent hardware that wasn't intended for general sale and might already require repair (the hardware that is intended for general sale is being sent to retailers on an ongoing basis).
I think we've heard of about 10 to 15 units that were inadvertently shipped out, three of whom were reported here, the rest to our support team. Never a dull moment.
Yeah the cable is 6 ft.
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My comments will not post! I click "Post Comment" and it never shows up and goes to my drafts. How do I make the comment show up? I'm logged in to my account. Maybe it is too long?
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That's really strange. Maybe try posting a shorter comment, since this once worked. Or, DM me the full comment, and I can repost and answer publicly.
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Yes - you could use Kontrol S MK3's MIDI out into Push 3's MIDI in. You would get the basic MIDI functionality, but not the NKS experience.
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No, it won't be.
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Exactly as @Kymeia says:
- Forthcoming content will continue to be both NKS 1 and NKS 2 compatible
- Kontrol S MK3 can load either
- Kontrol S MK1, 2, A and M series can load NKS 1
To the other thought on graphics - vendors will be shipping updated graphics with their installers to show up on the new keyboard. These are additive to the older graphics, and both must be included. Partners have access to a design app that render all the assets automatically for them. For VST vendors that have not yet done this, we have placeholder artwork. For most Kontakt instruments we know of, we've already coordinated and implemented new artwork.
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Feel free to DM me and we can also go more in depth.
Nothing is confidential, it would just get a little off topic for the AMA.
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For sure - that's also a perfectly valid user experience.
We ultimately thought removing the buttons, and instead doing the per channel thing was a better overall UX (pros and cons to each).
But to introduce long press is a great idea. I don't know if we currently track a timing increment on button press, but of course such things are possible. I'm going to bring this to the team as a suggestion.
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Le sigh.
You're one of the 10-15 customers who received units shipped weeks and weeks before they were supposed to. Based on the timing, those units are not intended for general sale. Fine for demo units, etc, but may potentially have a hardware defect we've already fixed in the units that will be for general sale. In addition to which, none of the software required to register and run the keyboard is publicly available. Because nor is the keyboard supposed to be.
Apologies for this. Could you please DM me with your contact information, and the retailer information, and I'll put you in touch with our support team for a resolution?
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In my implementation for the MK2 I've made extensive use of double-clicking some buttons. You can think about this way, too, double-click to select the track. Furthermore, long presses could be used to select multiple tracks inside the project.
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Thanks for another great question!
Aftertouch can be used to drive interactions with the Arp, yes. This can be enabled or disabled, as desired. And of course the Aftertouch itself can be switched between Off/Mono/Poly.
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Not at launch for DAW control, no. The connection to Kontakt and Komplete Kontrol should work, but we haven't tested in Sonar.
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It was already the case that rendering both the parameter metadata and the graphics frame by frame, in Komplete Kontrol, before sending down the pipe to S MK1, S MK2, A and M keyboards was unnecessarily taxing to the plug-in itself, even more so on large format sessions. Add to that our desires to build animations, and richer on-screen visuals, and it worsens. In addition to which, custom logic that extensive was a complete non-starter for any other product to implement discretely, be it our own (e.g. Kontakt) or a third party. Thus long requested features like Direct Connection were never a realistic possibility until the logic could be abstracted from the plug-in layer and rendered elsewhere.
We already support the existing NKS 1 implementation. We'd added a new tech stack for all future hardware, inclusive of the NKS 2 implementation. It's a full ground up redesign. To build and maintain a third architecture that's legacy from the start was simply untenable. We already get complaints we're not working quickly enough, so to further impede our ability to support products wouldn't be ideal.
Of course, I can understand why MK2 users would like some of the new features. Where NKS 1 is good, NKS 2 is great. But we do at least commit to supporting MK2 and NKS 1 indefinitely, and ensuring new content is made for both.
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