S88 MK3 no Play Assist?

jox2321

Are you only allowed to use Play Assist while in Komplete Kontrol? I upgraded from an MK1 and honestly regretting the purchase as I assumed the light guide was a general feature. I find Komplete Kontrol to be less performant than Kontakt and try to avoid using it. Am I missing something here?

reffahcs

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/22474/s88-mk3-no-play-assist

Unfortunately that is correct. As of now Play Assist only works in Komplete Kontrol. There's talk of adding it to standalone mode, but I haven't heard anything more from NI about when that might be released.

Maciej Repetowski

It is planned to be done at hardware itself, sometime in 2024 (hopefully).

jox2321

Not sure why they would release a partially finished product. I underestimated all the complaints online. Good to know moving forward 🏃

Ojustaboo

Sadly it’s very very common for companies to do this.

Usually due to the higher ups and marketing insisting the product is released by a certain date.

It’s also very common, and to a point unavoidable, for products to be released with bugs, main reason is the amount of different PC setups, it’s impossible for them to test them all.

Its even worse in the computer gaming industry and I have been a beta testa for one large game where we all told them it wasn’t ready for release, they ignored us and it got slammed as a buggy mess in the press over the following year, totally avoidable.

I think where the S series mk3 went wrong is that while like most other companies, they gave no hints until it was released, they also had no clue as to what a lot of users liked about the mk1 and mk2, and wrongly (some might say arrogantly) presumed they knew better than their user base and are now having to play catch up, just to give what users are used to.

And sadly, it is getting slated in various reviews which is a shame because I love my S88 mk3 and do believe that over the coming months, most requests will be sorted.

If NI are like other companies I’ve dealt with over my life, chances are there’s a lot of devs etc there either saying “told you so” to senior management or at least thinking it. Usually the devs in these situations are as peeved off as the user base but have their hands tied. They either keep their jobs and do what is asked without publicly complaining, or they find another job (which isn’t always easy to do).

I worked in IT all my working life and have seen the sort of ****** that goes on, management who don’t have a clue about IT suggesting unworkable things, I remember I once told our centre manager that what he was asking was not only impossible, it would be me and my team having to work every hour of the week including weekends to sort out the mess it will cause.

Role on 6 months, I had to work all weekend, cancel taking my young kids out on bank holiday Monday as we were trying to sort out the mess that I told the boss it would cause. At the next meeting, I said to him “I told you it wouldn’t work and would be me and my team sorting out your mess”, his response was modern business gobbody gook along the lines of “let’s be positive, let’s look forwards and not dwell in the past”

DunedinDragon

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/130644#Comment_130644

Maybe your company should implement the practice my old company had. On semi-annual reviews not only would your performance get reviewed but you had the opportunity to anonymously review your direct supervisor's performance to HIS supervisor. That really quickly got rid of the type of thing that happened to you and your team.