Just received the MK3 keyboard - Feedback

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Answers

  • PoorFellow
    PoorFellow Moderator Posts: 4,919 mod

    Thank you very much Chris_NI for being so kind as to confirm my deductions with respect to cause of problem !

  • remo
    remo Member Posts: 12 Member
    edited October 2023

    @Lev I had the same issue. You have to go one step further in the menu, click onto "Select from List of available Drivers on the computer", then select "Media", "Volume" or however this is translated. There you can specify the folder to your custom driver.



  • Lev
    Lev Member Posts: 11 Member

    Thank you @remo,

    I'm also turn off driver signature verification, thanks to you updated driver,

    but now I have 2x MK3 DFU


    and still update is failing.

  • DunedinDragon
    DunedinDragon Member Posts: 973 Guru

    Appreciate your interest. Just to set the stage, those aren't really my ideas exactly. For about a decade I worked as a program manager for a company which shall remain nameless, but has it's headquarters in Redmond, WA. (hint). I was selected to be on a team that would capture and document our basic product development process and share it with some of our larger customers who were struggling with their internal development processes. We spent quite a bit of time understanding why some product teams were more effective than others and ended up with a pretty decent model or framework of what the best practices were on the most highly effective development teams which tended to deliver the most important features our customers wanted in their products on a predictable schedule with the greatest stability on their projected release dates. So the ideas I shared were just a portion of what we discovered as it related to the testing perspective in the product development and delivery cycle.

  • remo
    remo Member Posts: 12 Member
    edited October 2023

    @Lev , I can't explain why it does not work on your side. On my PC the firmware update worked afterwards. It looked the same on my end, after I did the steps from @FlipBit . I also have two drivers:


  • Chris_NI
    Chris_NI Product Team Posts: 53 mod

    Yes i did, i posted over there also. Thanks again for going the extra mile!

  • trusampler
    trusampler Member Posts: 262 Advisor

    My Kontrol MK3 61 came in yesterday, firmware installed no problems. Returned the board to Guitar Center within a couple hours of playing with it. Probably the worst action on a $900 board I've ever played. I was an owner of the MK2 for years,but NI changed the keybed on the MK3 here, shortened the keys, so they are indeed more like an organ vs what the MK2 has.

    The actions not good at all for me, I'm gonna give the S88 MK3 a shot at some point, but I don't have much faith it will be any good either. I'm used to playing on workstation keybeds,analog synths etc.. the screen was great,but NI should really spend more quality and emphasis on the keybed. This ones not even as good as the MK2 61 imo.

  • xgman1
    xgman1 Member Posts: 26 Member
    edited October 2023

    My MK3 Tech Support Experience within week of purchase:

    1) Hey I’m having some issues whereas these things don’t work on the MK3 where they did on the MK2.

    Response: You better use the MK2 then. (seriously?)

    2) Well, I already traded the MK2 now and I really would like to get some help on the NMk3 issues.

    Response: You can send it to Native Instruments to evaluate and if we can’t fix it you may get a reconditioned unit. Turnaround time maybe 3 weeks or so.

    3) Well, never mind I can’t really be without a controller for that long. Can you pass my technical concerns to the hardware team top see if they have any ideas or maaybe up and coming firmware that might help?

    Response: Crickets.

    I don’t even know what to say.,.

    All the above aside, Sweetwater said that I had 30 days to return or exchange and that they could do an advance exchange arrangement if necessary. Also, they sometimes can fix the problems in house. hey, at least they are quite accommodating in this situation.

    I just thought I needed to post this less than expected experience. The response in this thread was much more helpful than actual support tickets. Oh well....

  • frankspappa
    frankspappa Member Posts: 26 Member
  • xgman1
    xgman1 Member Posts: 26 Member

    I like the new action as well, but set it to soft 1 for my taste. Definitely not standard piano action hammer like if that's what you prefer.

  • gcorcella
    gcorcella Member Posts: 63 Member

    Hi everyone,

    when I open a Kontakt 7 or KK instance the screen on the keynoard stays on the MIDI Default Template unless I click on the S88 icon in KK or the keyboard's name in Kontakt. Same thing if I go from one channel to the other in Cubase. EVERY TIME I have to tell Kontakt or KK that I am using the S88 keyboard.

    In the Studio Setup everything seems to be connected correctly.

    Is anyone experiencing this kind of issue? This is VERY annoying.

  • xgman1
    xgman1 Member Posts: 26 Member

    On Kontakt in settings midi port A stays. In KK, I'm not sure what the purpose of the little keyboard icon at the top is or what it actually is supposed to do when clicked.

  • TomSynsongs
    TomSynsongs Member Posts: 51 Member

    @Chris_NI

    Many thanks for your assistance on the issue. Being a Mac user, I am reading here, hoping to maybe find something which might help, because the Mac Updater bricked my S61 MK3. It seems that having a Mac is probably also not a really confident way of getting things sorted - at least not if it has an Apple Silicon CPU.

    Some friendly person from NI wrote on YT:

    "Brand new computers are unfortunately especially prone to causing unexpected errors, as they weren't around when testing was conducted. There is a small percentage of customers using Kontrol S MK3 with an Apple Silicon computer (M1,M2, …), who may run into problems with either updating the firmware of the keyboard (where it will not update completely), or during normal usage where certain button presses do not do the intended function. If you run into this issue, the easiest workaround is to connect the Kontrol S MK3 into a USB-C hub where it ‘cleans’ the USB communication with the Apple silicon computer, and will resolve the issue completely."

    Well, this statement gives a lot to think about, because Apple Silicon shipments were at 7 millions worldwide in Q4-2022 (nearly one year ago), making it hard to understand why NI suggests that they weren´t around when testing was conducted? Also adding more stuff to buy (power supply, USB-C hub) is a costly workaround but not really a solution IMO.

  • trusampler
    trusampler Member Posts: 262 Advisor
    edited October 2023

    That's cool, just stating my opinion, when I think of a good synth action, I like the Motif's, Montages, Kronos, Fantom 2019 - Sequentials. This to ME feels like a cheap midi controller action or low end Fatar.

  • Chris_NI
    Chris_NI Product Team Posts: 53 mod

    Hi @TomSynsongs

    If your S61 is bricked, please reach out to hardware customer support with the link below. You can tell if its bricked if you see that screen in the Device Updater.

    https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/14229160390045

    We did have extensive testing with Apple Silicon (M1,M2) computers throughout the hardware development, and we did make changes with the hardware design early on to improve the USB communication / signal as best as we can, which has really made it a rare case which you have run into.

    We have found that certain Apple Silcone (M1,M2) computers have more error prone ports, especially as you are plugging in power into any of the ports at any time. That is why we recommend to use a USB-C Hub if your computer runs into this problem. We found it does clean up the USB communication, the timing of the signals, etc... which ensure that that FW update is not disrupted.

    So considering that you have already bricked a unit, on the replacement you should try a USB-C hub at least for the FW update, normal operation of it is likely OK without the USB-C hub, as with any FW update for any piece of Hardware gear, you need to be extra careful not to disrupt the FW updating process.

    Let me know how this goes for you.

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