NKS compatible "Spitfire Audio Plugins" no longer shown in "Komplete Kontrol 3.0"

RumbleMonk

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/115715#Comment_115715

Other 3rd party plugins do have access to that functionality, or at least used to, but some are more broken with the latest Komplete Kontrol updates than others.

For instance, I can load up Cinematic Soft Piano in KK, no additional view is seen.

If I go to .../View/ up top I see the Default/Additional/Edit views are all greyed out. Ok. Weird.

If I click on the expand button (two diagonal arrows) top right in the Soft Piano UI the full view pops up for a split second, then disappears.

If you start up KK 10 times, and each time press ctrl+2 for the Additional view you might get it to actually work maybe 10% of the time. Despite that option being greyed out in the menu, so you have to use the shortcut. I then tried switching back to default view, and now nothing worked again. Stuck in additional view instead.

I then closed it, and KK crashed. Kontrol will make Ableton crash if you use that shortcut every time, so be careful.

I have attached a screenshot of Soft Piano with the additional view before it crashed my Ableton session.

I have BBCSO Pro and that used to work without problems. I can't remember if the free version has those views at all though, even when loaded outside KK I mean. But the Pro version had plenty of stuff that's now unusable in KK.

KK.png

Can someone at NI confirm you are aware of this and are working on a fix please? As of now I am using my NI products less since they are broken.

Kymeia

I have a lot of plugins and that is the only example I can think of where a third party dev has had access to the edit view menu but I guess it is part of the NKS API that NKS partners potentially have access to, but apart from Spitfire few (if any?) have used it.

I suspect though that was created back when NKS was a VST2 based standard, and in the switch over to VST3 maybe that part of the API was not carried over (they are very different plugin formats)? So trying to force KK to access it may indeed cause it to become unstable. @Jeremy_NI is my educated guess correct, and is this a known bug?

spicemix

My analysis of this bug (it also gives me "Apple Silicon" errors on Mac) is that it's a restricted tolerance in the NKS format that broke backward compatibility. Note how web browsers still support completely ugly HTML because they need to support backward compatibility for decades. NI should afford the few developers who actually did the work supporting their proprietary format the same grace and not force them to update the files for existing releases. New releases can get gatekept for inclusion in the licensed version I suppose if this restriction is that important.

To workaround this, go into the plugin chain view, and add the plugin directly there from the VST3 menu. No error that way, the plugin runs fine, and you can map your own knobs and save it all as a favorite. But you lose the browser stuff a lot of people on this thread like. Yes I agree the old browser UI for Absynth etc. was very good for its day and better than what's here now. Contemporary search would be free text (or speech) descriptions that are interpreted intelligently. But at least getting KK3 to actually work would be great thaaankks...

Matthew_NI

@spicemix that is not correct. There is no restricted tolerance, nor did we break backwards compatibility in this regard.

MyStudioOne

I also experienced the Spitfire expand plugin button not working right and I could not fix it except to open a new instance of KK and move the data to the new instance. So it expand in the new instance but glitches out sometimes and I have not figured out why so far.

spicemix

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/123667#Comment_123667

Do you want me to debug this for you?

Matthew_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/123678#Comment_123678

I'm trying to add clarity - you're asserting it is something it isn't.

spicemix

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/123697#Comment_123697

Certainly clear to me. Anyway, my main concern is that NI will say the 3rd parties didn't follow instructions and need to fix this on their end. Spitfire isn't likely to do that very quickly if ever given my observations of their own process. So kindly fix it on your end.

Kymeia

I'm still curious about what is going on with the Spitfire plugins. I wonder if it is not so much a KK3 issue as a NKS/VST3 one? Do the same expand problems exist in 2.9.6 with Spitfire VST3? (I know the vendor issue is different, there it seems to be to do with KK3's shift towards brand based browsing, which I hate tbh, it seems to be the least useful way of categorising plugins and never used the vendor tab in the old KK and now it's forced on me)

spicemix

Software is infinitely plastic, and today's computers are essentially unconstrained for resources. But the mk3 keyboards apparently have their own little computers inside, like the Maschine+ does, which may have serious constraints.

So a plausible explanation for the problems in KK3 is that they are struggling with the limitations of the embedded systems in the new keyboards, which would slow down fixes that might otherwise be four hour checkins for desktop platforms. And the company won't want to have problems specific to the new product line..."Spitfire works fine on mk2 keyboards but not mk3" would be bad for sales. So that would explain the holdup and a lot of the misery also with the categorization changes.

Of course, as their rep is pointing out, I'm speculating with zero internal information. But these things aren't always incompetence or malice. Sometimes they are just difficult problems with a lot of simultaneous constraints.

Kymeia

Yeah but as far as I can see this is affecting people without the MkIII keyboards too, and it would be useful to know if the non expanding problem also there in the VST3 in KK2.9 because that could imply this is more to do with the parts of the VST2 NKS SDK that enable plugin developers to hook into the Komplete Kontrol interface to allow for use of the view menu not yet being carried over to the VST3 SDK?

nightjar

@spicemix: So a plausible explanation for the problems in KK3 is that they are struggling with the limitations of the embedded systems in the new keyboards, which would slow down fixes that might otherwise be four hour checkins for desktop platforms. 

I have expressed this theory a few times also.

I'm along for the ride in what good stuff may happen with the S-Mk3 in 2024...

But, if were King of NI, I would not have gone down the path with this huge developmental dependence on the on-device embedded systems and the limits of the on-device screen and its navigation.

I would have made a new generation of "dumber" controllers...designed first as excellent devices to convert human motor skills into performance data, and second as convenient remote control of "desktop" application elements.

I think that possibly NI decision makers looked at Universal Audio and how their outboard DSP allowed for a "hardware dongle" relationship in locking in users.

But that has proved to be a diminishing path for Universal Audio in that "going native" is now their big push.

spicemix

It's funny because I was telling UA years ago they should make a controller and instead they made a DAW. Which was a deeply questionable decision. They may have been scared off from the history of the D-Command which cost digidesign so much to develop they went broke and had to sell to Avid. But now UA has the most expensive thing to maintain rather than only the most profitable parts of the ecosystem.

And Avid in turn later decided to rely on the iPad for the screen and software part of their controllers. Having a keyboard that had an iPad UI wouldn't be a totally awful outcome. Although it is a bit klunky having the knobs surrounding this perched tablet. And not so easily portable as it comes apart.

Companies often end up at odds with themselves, their partners and their customers when they try these platform ideas. UA still refuses to sell Neve or API "summing" (just saturation models) to non-Luna people, losing themselves revenue and their customers value. Maybe these crippleware strategies work and maybe they don't. Generally music as a culture has always loved modularity based on open standards like +4 line level audio and MIDI and is unkind to these forced bundle efforts. But sometimes they organize enough value to be worth it.

Still if you're gonna try it, you have to be the source of stability and not the source of uncertainty. This lingering Spitfire incompatibility is not a good look for the NKS ecosystem. I also don't know what they are doing with MIDI 2.0. They might have a good plan, or they might be missing the boat...we will see.

nightjar

Well for some time now, I have been a loud voice advocating a high quality "dumb" controller that would rely on its "brains and display" coming from user choice of PC, Mac or iPad...

The on-device limitations of CPU, screen and its navigation will never keep up.

Vagus

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/123758#Comment_123758

I'm going to guess with some confidence, the issue for this thread (Spitfire Audio plugins no longer shown, nor expanding) in KK3 has nothing to do with onboard MK3 dependence or resources - because it would work when MK3 is not powered on.

It's a plugin design issue (UsTwo is actually a great developer, so I'm not sure why), but as with anything Spitfire, it'll take years for them to update anything. However, there is a KK issue, because it worked fine before KK3, and works fine in Machine.

Still, nothing to do with MK3 onboard tech, or resource management.