concerning kontrol s61 mk3

wma · February 4

hello, i'll interested in kontrol s61 mk3 mostly for the keybed it has, planning to buy after a month or two, but not much satisfied because the cases happen to others where it's main board got bricked while trying to update .. after few months is it still a nightmare setting up the keyboard or thing has changed to better? i didn't look at the arturia and novation and korg as i have no chance to try the keybeds (the action and the profile of the black keys) .. and not sure if arturia and novation will release new ones within the upcoming few months and what keybeds the will use, however i've tried on other keyboards the fatar tp/9s, i'm well satisfied with it's action the the profile of the black keys .. i have to get the kontrol s61 imported and will cost me, and don't want it to get bricked as it will be near impossible to return back

Matthew_NI · February 5

Last week, an update to the firmware resolved an issue that in rare cases caused units to brick during update. Any non-bricked unit now avoids running into this issue, as the firmware fixed that bug.

wma · February 5

@Matthew_NI thanks you for response .. that's good news

Uwe303 · February 5

I have a S49 MK3 and on my windows system everything worked perfectly, the keys are very good in my opinion, and the whole device feels awesome, the knobs and wheels are made out of metal or at least feel so. I only wish it had a better, deeper DAW integration but the mix controls you have is very handy.

mchbox · May 24

I have a brand new Kontrol S61 MK3 and it got bricked during first update, so even was not able to use it - I'm so disappointed, probably it will be end of the story with NI for me. how this is possible you get the new hardware you download official software, try to update keyboard and it got bricked?

Actually I have a screen " Something wen wrong , please re-run update" bit tried on 3 different computers, 1 Mac and 2 Windows. Mac is somehow trying to do something , but after 20 second it get back to "something went wrong". Windows is not able even scan device in the update software.

So bad…

PoorFellow · May 24

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/155899#Comment_155899

Actually I have a screen " Something wen wrong , please re-run update" bit tried on 3 different computers

Try the

Power cycle the keyboard 5 times. At the 5th time, the recovery screen should appear and you can re-update the controller. In order to power cycle, turn on the device, wait 2-3 seconds and then turn it off again. Please repeat this 5 times.

Else , doesn't sound to me as if your device is really bricked probably more like you need to get a PSU with USB-C PD and an USB-C to A port adapter , and then quality cables that will transfer at least data for data port and power for power port or both (though no data are transferred through power port).

Yes, none of that ought to be necessary but you will have to address this to N.I. , I am just another user here.

mchbox · June 4

Hello All,

I have contacted support, they suggested solution from the forum, bot one thing was interesting "please make sure you have good quality USB-C cable".

I tried all before, with an additional power supply, and so on, but i havent changed maine USB-C cable that connects to the computer. This is crazy, but the cable that came with the instrument, with fancy circle key at the end to connect to host socket is actually very poor - I have changed to high speed high quality USB-C cable instead the attached one with teh instrument, and all went fine for the first time !!!

Even i did it without additional power supply, just only USB-C to my MacBook, 3 - 5 minutes and udate was done.

Seems in many situation taht might nbe a problem, I didnt expect that the cable that came with instrument is not good enought to make firmware update - this is really crazy :)

Anyway, I'm enjoing now new instruments, the stock cable works fine for normal operation, no more problems.

PoorFellow · June 4

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/157779#Comment_157779

Thank you very much for returning to confirm the fix.

Yes , I mentioned that you had to use 'quality' cables in the above , and retrospective then I maybe should have put more emphasis on that and yes it is rather crazy that N.I.'s own cable doesn't work. I have recommended the use of better cables for probably more than six months now 🤔

Maciej Repetowski · June 4

Interesting. I’ve just used the cable included with S49 and everything went buttery smooth. I guess those included NI branded cables do vary in quality significantly.