Kontrol S61/S49 MK3 Velocity Response

davinwv

Is anyone else having issues acclimating to the action of their S61/S49? I'm finding that the black keys have a much hotter velocity output than the white keys, especially when glissing from a black key to a white key with the same finger.

I feel this difference and have this issue regardless of the velocity curve setting. I've also tried turning the aftertouch off, and that doesn't make a difference, either.

Is this something that could be addressed in a firmware update down the road? Currently, I'm not certain that this feels like a top of the line semi-weighted synth action.

Mishu Calian

I feel the same way when I play mine

davinwv

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/105854#Comment_105854

Mine felt a bit better when I sat down at it yesterday.

I read on another forum that tightening the screws on the bottom of the unit that secure the keybed to the chassis might help.

I'm glad that I'm not alone in perceiving the action this way.

Babrekulf

Yeah, i also am having it hard get into the feel of the keys. Coming from a Yamaha Montage 6, and had high hopes of this MKIII being at least somewhat close.. But no.

Tried my friends A61 the other day. Felt way cheaper but the action was more distinct..

BIF

Interestingly enough, one of the pianos asked me today to go through a series of tests, first playing pianissimo, and then forte, and then some other ways, so as to "calibrate" with my keyboard controller. I thought that was interesting....I think it was Piano V3 (Arturia?).

davinwv

I'm trying to figure out whether I should exchange mine for a replacement unit.

Does anyone have one with black keys that behave normally?

reffahcs

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/105985#Comment_105985

There's another thread where someone had asked the same question more or less. With my S61, playing forte (which is the strongest I think?) I could only average around 65.... so yeah really hard to maximize the entire 0-127 range. I've been meaning to look into the different velocity curves for the keybed. I'm currently using linear which is the factory default.

BIF

Interesting, thanks. I think I read in one of the other posts (or maybe it was someplace else?) that it might be advisable to change from Linear to...whatever else there is. I, obviously, haven't done that since I don't even recall what the other options are.

Thanks for the info!

davinwv

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/107368#Comment_107368

My S61 gets to the higher velocities much too easily on the black keys (so, the opposite problem you have).

The white keys feel fine to me.

I've been bouncing between the Linear and Hard 1 velocity curves in settings so far.

reffahcs

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/107370#Comment_107370

To be honest, I didn't measure the black keys, but now I'll have to give it a go

@BIF I found the PIano V3 calibration screenshot from the other thread I posted in. This is white keys only, but now I'm interested in seeing how the black keys respond.

BIF

Yep! That is the dialog box I remembered seeing. I was fairly impressed by it (especially by being able to drag the various nodes around), but it didn't occur to me that it might only be for the white keys. One of these days, I'll dig back into it some more.

mickeyl

I like the velocity response of the MK3 keyboards less than the MK1 ones. What I'd love to see is if we could – in addition to the hard and soft curves – get a constant offset that gets applied to the velocity. That way I could have e.g. linear + 25, that would give a linear response all over, but with less pressure required.

reffahcs

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/107533#Comment_107533

It would be pretty cool if NI could add some sort of calibration routine to the keyboard, similar to what's in Arturia's Piano V3. But It seems like they have their hands full right now putting out larger fires. We can hope though.

It would be nice if there was some sort of feature request tracker like Microsoft/Asobo has done with Microsoft Flight Simulator, where basically the entire community votes on community suggested features they care about. It's actually a really smart way of prioritizing features in my opinion. If someone knows the right NI person to tag to recommend this please do.

Here's an example of how they prioritize tasks. It's so simple, I don't know why more companies don't follow this approach @someone_at_NI

They've also separated bugs from feature requests.

dinu

I made a short video with my MK3. It's frustrating me a lot and on ballad projects or very soft parts its inutilizabile - keys not sound - just if I press harder. I tried change the velocity and even on Soft 3 the keys are softly then Curve Linear or Hard 1 but has the same problem - just if I press the keys all range 100% the sound will come. This is unacceptable...

Im sorry, I tru to paste the link and I cannot....

reffahcs

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/107628#Comment_107628

You can upload it to youtube and just post the link as youtube [dot] com / myvideo etc..... people will understand what to do

Babrekulf

I also have the issue of the black keys being way hotter. It’s easy to test: play a white key and then a black key, with the same amount of force.