Please make all UIs scalable

JeremyCorbett

Hi, just found this thread after having a similar issue.

This is Kontakt opening on my 12", 2880 x 1920 resolution laptop.

This is completely insane lol.

Is nothing happening about this?

SH-1

Kontakt 7 is better about this, but still not great.

And I do not know what the future holds for all the other instruments, sadly.

ProfessorChaos

There are a few things that I just don't understand coming from a company that, while I don't know the size of, it's certainly one of the big players in the virtual instrument arena, so they can't be excused by the typical "we are a small company and we don't have the time and resources" excuse.

• They did a completely new HiDPI GUI for Guitar Rig 6, which looks great and is actually scalable because you can scale text up, as opposed to just resize the window like Maschine 2. So if they were going to spend time designing a whole new HiDPI GUI, why start with a product that really didn't need that as bad as the major two products they have, Komplete Kontrol and Kontakt?
• They may have done a partial new HiDPI GUI for Kontakt, but many portions of it remain horribly outdated, especially the instrument editor, which has a font from the 1970's. The new portion is decent, still a bit constrained, but certainly usable. The problem is...
• ...If you decide to spend a lot of money on one of their very nice keyboards like the S88 MK2, and you want to use everything in it, you're forced to use Komplete Kontrol. Only two programs provide integration with it, Komplete Kontrol and Maschine 2, although the latter is more as an accessory to the Maschine hardware and provides the ability to change the speed of the current selected pad (I think C3 is the same as pressing the pad, and the lower you go, the slower the speed, and the higher, the faster, which is a pretty nice thing to have).
• The fact remains that if you spend the big bucks in an S88 MK2 or the smaller models as opposed to a Nektar, M-Audio and other cheaper brands, in part because of that integration you see in the two screens, you're forced to use a program that sucks and behaves erratically:

This keeps happening all the time with non NI plugins, like Symphobia and others.

• Komplete Kontrol (the program, not the hardware), is a disgrace. It's tiny on current screens, it expects you filter by "types" and "characters" as the only two criteria, and/or search, and when you do, it only shows you three and a half presets as results, and you can't click and drag the bottom edge to show more results. Blocking the user from having the simple ability to click and drag the edges to enlarge the window is absurd, and I'm sure it's a simple variable in the code that they can change in a minute.
• Also, many of the presets that you double click on give you an error because it doesn't support Apple Silicon or VST 2 to VST3 migration:

• Given that NI never seems to be in any hurry to bring their software to the present, like 4K and 5K monitors, that gives me a sense that it will be years before we see full integration with Apple Silicon.
• But all this tells me it's a rather poor design from the start, since they are the ones touting NKS to the masses, and this shows that NKS is not all it's cracked up to be. I'm about to spend some money on an NKS file someone did to integrate Arturia's Analog Lab V into Komplete Kontrol, and that person deserves to be paid for it because it's a lot of work, but it shouldn't be. This should be a behind the scenes deal like usually Rosetta 2 is when loading older software, not a huge undertaking from the 3rd party developers having to remap everything in their plugin to shows up fine in the two screens in the S88 Mk2.
• Why have two separate programs as the gateway to several instruments and the KK hardware manager? Why not simply have Kontakt 7, which is by far better than KK, have that functionality? Just shoot down KK, bring the hardware manager code and the other things into K7 and then pull the trigger on it.
• This can be alleviated very easily. Even if it takes them several months to rework their GUIs to HiDPI, in the meantime, just make it scalable as it is. Doesn't have to look sharp, it just needs to look larger, so I don't have to zoom in and out all the time, or, keep my second monitor as 1080p so I can see the freaking text. And that is a problem because display management in macOS is an atrocity, so many times you end up with swapped display roles but not resolutions, so keeping two monitors at different resolutions in macOS is a nightmare.
• So just make Komplete Kontrol larger. Not even HiDPI for now, just larger so people can read the text!

Jon Watte

It's quite possible that the actual "development" happens by separate individual developers, and NI is more of an "aggregator" than a "development house."

If so, then the amount of HiDPI/UI smarts available for each product, depends on the particular skills and experience of the developer(s) for each of their products.

Maciej Repetowski

This is not just a problem with HiDPI screens. I have 49” Dell Ultrawide with 5120x1440 resolution, Kontakt looks so tiny. Maschine software is barely usable due to small fonts and Komplete Kontrol is an ergonomic disaster…

Justerini

I am vision impaired and find it extremely annoying I cannot use some of the instruments because I simply cannot read them - Kontakt 7 is better but for Absynth, reaktor, Massive etc its a pain

yoyoyo

Sorry to beat a dead (?) horse, but I personally think it's beyond ridiculous that we have to lean within an inch of our monitors or use magnifying glasses to see the params of NI's products. I was using FM8 today, and while I love the sounds, I hate the GUI with a passion. Honestly, it should have never been made with text that small to begin with. I keep getting emails from NI telling me to upgrade Komplete. I will not upgrade until the GUIs are fixed (yes fixed), and there is a new Battery. Good day

Raikro Scorp

Dear everyone,

I invite you to take a look at the new Feature Request I have raised today.

[Feature Request] - Enable Full Screen / Maximize Window in all Standalone Applications

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/11444/feature-request-enable-full-screen-maximize-window-in-all-standalone-applications

I know this request won't be the cure to this big and old known issue, but it might be a step further in the right direction.

Please, take a minute to read it and show your support if you are agree with me.

This will benefit us all.

Thank you,

nwebb

Another year on and another year without a scaleable interface. Pretty embarrassing at this point, really. There's clearly a huge demand for it.

RedwardMc

Let's keep pushing to make this an issue. If we make enough noise they will listen.

I just want to use Arturia plugins in Komplete Kontrol but trying to use high-dpi scaling in Studio One messes up the GUI.

Revillo

Just got back on producing after a long time, with the latest Komplete library and Ashlight. When opening the window I saw the low resolution and after a while found this thread. I can not believe this is a thing.... WHY the hell don't you update the graphics??? Unbelievable...So I jump on this train to be another vote on this one..

DrWashington

Yes, I agree, this is definitely embarrassing. Much like Massive X having no industry standard MIDI learn still, but that's for another thread. NI is stagnating badly, and it's kind of sad watching a bunch of new, ambitious upstarts stomp all over them lately.

Even some really established players like u-he are doing amazing work that looks and feels modern and are keeping up with the times relatively well with some enormously complex products.

There really can be no more excuses at this point: NI needs to do something and do something fast. This is no longer acceptable.

Geoff Modulate

Another bump for this.

Dear NI, your software is pretty much industry standard, and I get you have a lot of it...Komplete is a huge resource. But these days almost every professional producer (and I guess a lot of semi-pro or hobbyists) is working on a large highDPI monitor. Most other manufacturers now make scalable or high DPI interfaces, look at FabFilter, Valhalla, Arturia, Softubes, U-He, Cherry etc. So lets not mince words here, your interfaces simply aren't where they need to be. As most people have pointed out, they are tiny on a high DPI screen. In fact, so small they are almost unusable. Battery, Kontakt, Maschine, FM8 etc.

We all know the software sounds great, that's why we use it, that's why we bought it. But the user interfaces really really need an overhaul if you are going to stay relevant. Please don't ditch things because they are old. Just because a synth is old, Absynth, FM8, Massive, Battery etc doesn't mean they aren't amazing pieces of software. Maybe they evolved into their perfect audio form years ago, much like a MiniMoog or a TR909, but the interfaces are making using them really difficult. And I want to use them because I love them.

It might be a hack, but even a wrapper with a new High DPI interface that somehow accessed the original sound engine would be great over trying to recode the original interface. Even something that just enlarged the interface and left it fuzzy but usable. I get that over the years, things developed, things were done in various ways, some software is easier than others to recode the UI. But right now, it's frustrating as hell. I have a large High DPI monitor, it's great. I have my DAW's looking great in High DPI, and most of the software I use, apart from a few much loved NI instruments.

If nothing else, update the software people use the most.

SH-1

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/64304#Comment_64304

AFAIK they are well aware it's a huge issue. My fear is that they will go all in on Komplete being a content only bundle as that is inevitably going to be more ROI as you have to pay less very expensive developers- plus content is easier to sell as a subscription :D

But I also understand there is a lot of technical debt as there seem to have been a gigantic number of layoffs (for an audio software company) before the merger into the soundwide conglomerate happened.

Chances are among those laid off were some key people who actually knew more about the codebases of these older synths&FX that we are now finding very hard to use due to postage stamp UIs.

At any rate I don't see anything happening too soon as NI are probably mostly busy trying to keep the lights on, and updating older software in existing bundles for free doesn't do that as it seems to be easier to offset the value the Komplete bundle loses through included software being deprecated by... including more and more content for Kontakt.

Which is cool and all but IMO it's still less worth getting Komplete nowadays than it was 10 years ago, as you get way less usable software in a Hi DPI world. And my guess is people are going to notice the shift in value proposition over time.

micdim

I was just looking at the 50% Discount today and was tempted to buy it. I have Complete 11 Ultimate, and was thinking up upgrading to 14 Ultimate. Am I ever glad I researched this issue with the scalability. Very disappointing and now I won't upgrade until this issue is fixed. I have a 40" 4K display and have no incentive to use Native Instruments because it's so small, and it's just not worth it for me.

Looking forward to Native Instrument fixing this issue some day. As for now No Thank you!