Software aside, how are people who own the S mk3 series liking or disliking it?
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Hi! Nope, different guy. I had a feeling of "musical kismet" listening to some of this stuff, as well as having seen some of his free material on You Tube. I need to spend more time on it before I decide to personally recommend. But he has hit the high points very well in the areas of Circle of 5ths, and other theory fundamentals.
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This is my thinking too. I'm happy to wait patiently on this, at least for now.
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Although NI would say otherwise, they are behind the timeline communicated at launch by quite a bit.
This is very common for new or newer dev teams to get a handle on how long it takes for the development process. They'll make their best guesses, but they'll probably be overly optimistic for the dates on the deliverables. Everybody is, even the guy redoing your bathroom!
Also...I've had to read other peoples' code, embark on countless quests for understanding, and then change said code and hope I'm not ripping a jagged hole in the space-time continuum. It's probably the worst part of any dev job. Yeah, probably even with QT. Some things just don't change all that much.
As I’ve said previously, NI communicated in the comment section of their launch video that these templates would be available in Q4 we. They pushed that back to Q1 24 about a month later and vehemently denied they ever said they would be done in Q4 23. Now they are saying first half 24 and denying they had ever said they’d be done in Q1 23.
And that right there is also very common.
The risk of constantly missing promised deliverables dates is that the customer [whether that is the "Big C-Customer" (us, the paying customer) or the "Little c-customer" (internal teams that use the outputs of one team as inputs into their own processes)] can lose enthusiasm and heart over time. This is why "big launch" success is so very critical. The lower the success rate of the launch, the more labor will be needed to fix all the things borked by the launch. Once you reach a critical mass of launch-borked stuff, you find yourself with not enough resources to even begin to look at the backlog of "legacy borked" stuff from before the launch.
It's super difficult for small dev teams to "move the needle" when there's so much to fix. For every guy like me who can't see the tiny fonts, there'll be 100 others who will insist that 50 something elses are a million times more important. And they're not wrong either!
We need to continue being patient, of course. But I feel that the current situation is very precarious because the risks are very real as I mentioned in my post over the weekend. Senior leadership could reduce or withdraw support and funding at any time in favor of other projects. Hey, there might be a Komplete 15 this year, right? Or just because somebody with "VP" after their name has an itch for near sighted cost-cutting, which is probably most likely when a venture capital firm is the corporate owner and they're eyeing their next big purchase.
We need some wins. Big wins. And repeated big wins. Each big win will quiet down some of the dissent. And we need more than one or two of them with each release.
Hoping for a good week!
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I just got my S88 MK3 on Saturday but I have gotten it all working and checking it out and so far so good. I did have to go through the process outlined in the first announcement in this section to get my firmware upgraded which was tedious, but it is updated and working normally. Checked out several of my libraries from NI as well as other vendors and all have worked as expected. My sustain pedal is working normally also.
The only problem I've encountered at all is with the standalone charger. It's weird this isn't included with the unit as just a common, modern USB charger for phones will work, but because the plug is kind or in a hollow in the body, the plug doesn't always seat correctly and you have to play with it to get it working.
I absolutely LOVE the piano action keyboard. I'm still trying to figure out how to use the polyphonic keyboard effects. But I'm thoroughly impressed so far with how easy it was to get it configured and working. Next step is to start recording.
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Hard to ignore the SW when it's such an integral part of it but speaking for HW only I like it although it doesn't blow me away... but tbh I am not sure what would on a keyboard other than SW-related features.
It feels like a refinement of the S Mk2's with nice details like the strip position for example. The big screen is really impressive to look at altho changing menus/pages feels a little bit laggy.
I only have a couple of really tiny little annoyances:
- The knobs feel awkward, they are slippery due to the surface finish and the amount of tension/resistance of the endless pots even with the sharp edges - this might became better once I have time to break them in, I'm also not sure if it might be due to some kind factory residue still being there or something.
- My unit came with the mod wheel rubbing against the top plastic case, making a scratching sound, I pushed it towards the middle to stop it but was a bit scared to break any solder joints or mechanical parts so I tried to be gentle but It was a bit scary.
- For the tactile switch caps I prefer the stiff plastic ones (used on cheap M32) to the rubbery ones as if you press more towards the corners they bend and overall feel mushy, (think membrane QUERTY keyboards VS mechanicals for those who like mech keybs) also sometimes don't register especially in the top right corner, this might be due to me not having developed muscle memory yet to press more towards the middle without looking.
I have the S49 and I am not qualified enough to comment on the keybed but it does feel better than all the cheap generic keyboards I've tried, I don't have my S MK2 anymore to compare if the MK3 feels different.
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Not bothered about pads as have Maschine (and pads on my Keylab 61).
Personally I think some things are nicer controlled by faders, it also effectively doubles the amount of controls. That said, the way my Keylab mk2 and my S88 mk3 work are quite different, so I don’t think faders would work with the S series. This is because of the screen and the buttons lining up to whatever on the screen.
Whereas my Keylab, the buttons/faders will happily control whatever Komplete Kontrol instrument I have open, but until I move the faders, I don’t know what controls what, although the knobs usually tie up with my S88 (left hand knob on Keylab controls same thing as left hand knob on S88 etc).
While theres no obvious way of controlling the instruments volume from the first page on the S88, the master slider on the Keylab usually does this without me assigning it (unless I assigned it while playing around of course)
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Continuing on with my discoveries as I explore my new S88 MK3 in the studio.
Overall the keyboard has worked very well in a studio environment using the current release of Ableton Live 10. Since I already had a S49 MK2 I was reasonably familiar with getting it setup although there's a few additional steps and capabilities. That's where I came across an unexpected anomaly in configuring the external hardware, in particular my sustain pedal. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it appears to have lost it's configuration between sessions, sometimes not. I'm still working this out so it could be the pedal or it could be me not understanding how/when the configuration gets saved.
Other than that it's connection and control with Komplete Kontrol is very robust and useable. I can pretty much operate autonomously from my PC although it's often more convenient to just use the PC interface for some things. I've been pretty happy also working with a non-NKS environment such as Soundpaint, but of course I have to depend more on my PC interface. But it's fine for capturing a track configuring and using their libraries.
I've been bit surprised at the velocity settings and how hard I have to hit the keys to raise the velocity on the notes, but that may simply be a factor of an adjustment I haven't yet discovered in the Komplete Kontrol and S88 configuration. The same goes for the polyphonic touch sensitivity. Again, it's likely me trying to understand how that's configured.
This is a big and fairly complex system, so it's worth noting that so new users know what to expect and the depths of knowledge you may need to get this performing the way you want.
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Worth noting that the MK3 is only officially supported in the most recent version of Ableton 11. You may experience bugs using it with 10.
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I have been consistent in saying:
- The work would begin in Q4 2023 (it did)
- The work would continue in Q1 2024 (it is)
- We hope to release in Q1 2024 (we are on track for beta)
- We hope to release in H1 2024 (we are on track for public release in the first half of this year)
Please don't characterize anything as changing, as it has not.
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Yes Matthew, but half a year since release to update firmware with new functionality is hardly anything to be proud of. I dare to guess that Play Assist implementation will take another 6 months or so. So, sometime in 2025 we might have a controller with full functionality (2 years after release, which IMHO is suboptimal).
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Consistent yes... but it does seem like a slowish pace for something so fundamental.
What is the biggest reason for the slowish pace?
What could speed it up?
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oops...I misstated..I'm on the most current version of Ableton 11
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Actually that's pretty much standard for digital hardware firmware upgrades across the industry. Generally you get about 2 per year from all the modeling companies and pretty close to that with new audio interfaces. A little longer with things like more complex MIDI controllers. That's why they tend to line up with the big tech shows in summer and winter. I think the initial Line 6 Helix went about 11 months for their first big upgrade. But that was a MASSIVE update.
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It’s only standard, because we allow them to get away with it and not vote with our wallets 🤣
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Imo these so called updates are basic fundamentals that should have been ready at launch. Having to wait for them after purchasing a flag ship product is nothing less than a joke. NI can try and sugarcoat this is much as they want but they slipped up big time here.
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