Kontrol 2024 outlook: what was, what now, what next?

pierremarc

While I realise this is software focused and there is clearly a lot happening, which is appreciated, I just want to add a plea for a new S25. For those with an aversion to mini keys who like the more professional feel of the S series (I have an S88 mk3 as well), the A25 just does not compare. I loved my S25 as that “patch finder knock out a little bass line” desktop companion. Pretty please with a cherry on top?

Kymeia

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/139400#Comment_139400

It has to be both really if effects support is going to be usable in my view

AshC27

Interesting roadmap and it's nice to see NI becoming more open and communicative. . I'll admit i was one of those who was gutted when support for Kontrol 1 hardware was dropped in KK3, not least because you still haven't added an option to Native Access to hide the KK3 update, and because who knows for how long KK2.9 will continue to work with MacOS updates. I love Komplete for the accessibility and it was the primary reason I bought into the platform. I bought my S88 MK1 2 days before the MK2 was announced and the retailer refused to take it back, with hindsight I should have pushed harder but i figured it would be supported for longer. It would have been nice of NI to let MK1 owners known slightly ahead of time that the end was near, as we could have sold them while they still had some value - but now they're worth a fraction of what they cost and the new hardware is (unsurprisingly) a great deal more expensive. Perhaps you could consider offering discounted hardware upgrades to those of us who own MK1 or MK2 hardware, especially those of us who have also spent a lot of money on KK collector's edition upgrades over the years. I'd also love to see you produce a transport version of the Komplete system - essentially Komplete Kontrol without the keyboard - which might be better for some of us. The cost of upgrading a control surface should be a lot less than upgrading the full keyboard, and we could use any keyboard of our choosing but still have the KK hardware interface and (most importantly for me) the accessibility.

MLARS

The MK3 is extremely overpriced, especially the S88 - but it is fixing some of pretty terrible industrial design of the MK2. Touchs trip on the correct side is a step in the right direction. But ergonomics is still weak and expressive controls placed too far to the left on a 88 key for certain scenarios. 3 to 5 faders to the center left by the displays with similar functions would have been great. The thing going for it is that it is overall still is a nice product for music makers.

Not all composers uses multiple expression pedals - many use faders (a detachable control unit with touch displays, knobs and faders would have been a far better solution, especially when many put their S88s beneath their desk where displays and knobs are not visible (the expression controls to the left is pretty far away so many use additional third party fader controls. Really dissapointed detachable panel was not part of the MK3 release. Big mistake.

Great seeing Kontakt 7 without Komplete Kontrol - problem is you are years late. Some have built templates with Komplete Kontrol. Baffling how this took so long and only supported on the MK3. Not a good look.

A properly working Play assist on LogicPro would be nice - it did not convert to the assigned scale in midi data when recording rendering basically the feature useless in real production scenarios, easier using Cubase build in features instead.

Midi templates is a nice feature. Hope it will be easy to setup. Ergonomics is key. Kontakt UX today feels legacy old and convoluted.

Also important for a working midi mode to control synths and modular gear.

Browser Kontakt and Komplete Kontrol needs folders/custom tags and other properties (flags etc) to sort through preset and make it practical. I want to tag a preset for a specific project - that is a realistic use case. Assigning a color or merely a single star is bad UX. Cloud save these properties so I can find them on multiple computers.

Scalable GUI is still not fixed - updates are being made on the backend, and only a few libraries are supported. Third party support for scalable GUI is still nowhere to be seen - why should I invest in old library product lines where there is no messaging if GUI scaling is going to be added? For instance Heavyocity just released a new Novo library - there is no messaging if Novo will get a high res scaling update. Why spend money on old libraries with an obsolete GUI? Fix the messaging how future proofing will be rolled out! Talk to your partners and construct messaging what instruments will be ported to a scalable GUI.

MyStudioOne

Thanks for the communication.

You guys have a daunting amount of work to do on the product end as well as on the perception end I suppose. I like to consider myself "well informed" about Komplete MK3 and Komplete 3.x and in particular the differences between MK2 and MK3. And that is why I don't own an MK3 yet.

There is no other piece if gear in my home studio which I have spent more hours using than my S88 MK2 and I am a notorious early adopter. It has caused me a lot of grief over the years but I cannot help myself. In the end, my yearning for something new and better always wins the day.

So it says a lot that I very quickly gave up on buying an MK3 and if you ask me why, I would say it is because I felt and still feel that I have to give up too much to gain the improvements that the MK3 has to offer. I mean who really wants sacrifice so much software funtionality for a hardware upgrade?

While I do not consider myself a power user per se, I do greatly value device flexibility more than anything else. For example, I have a hard time believing that midi template users are such a tiny subset of the overall user base and we all know that midi editing on the MK2 was lacking enough! And the fact that it is such a low prioity to this day that you even saw fit to remove it entirely on the MK3 speaks volumes. You may as well have said, "If you want your midi controller to be flexible and mappable midi controller, you should probably look elsewhere".

Suffice to say (for what it is worth) that you seem to have managed the impossible. Despite my anticipation and excitement as the product release neared, I currently find that I have no desire to buy the MK3. I suppose a lot of that comes down to my having experienced the extraordinarily slow cadence of Komplete Kontrol improvement since the MK2 was released. And so I am reluctant to take the plunge because it feels like it could be ages before 3.0 and the MK3 get refined/polished enough to satisfy most users, myself included.

And even though my needs seem to have been put into a category of users that is a supposedly a tiny subset of the overall user base, I still cannot help but think that I am a pretty typical home studio enthusiast. But I don't have the data.

Anyway, hopefully the update cadence does not continue to slow down and that the forthcoming improvements described by OP are enough to sway me because there is a lot about the MK3 that I DO like and want.

Cheers.

Chregg

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/27325/kontrol-2024-outlook-what-was-what-now-what-next

Will KK ever be released as a vst fx

KenV99

@Matthew_NI I also greatly appreciate the update. I was wondering if your could either expand upon MIDI 2.0 capabilities as they currently stand or point me to a source. Especially on the Windows platform.

At NAMM 2024 there were presentation about the future update/implementation of MIDI services for Windows that inculded MIDI 2.0. There is a pre-release open source version on GitHub. They did not publicly

I was wondering how these issue currently impact the usability of MIDI 2.0 with the S88 mk3 on Windows? Are the future NI updates dependent on the public release of the Windows implementation? Are the drivers, as currently released by NI compatible with the use of MIDI 2.0 on Windows (with any other Windows MIDI 2.0 compatible software, i.e. Cubase Pro 13)?

Vocalpoint

My understanding is that none of the cool MIDI 2.0 features will be available on Windows (regardless of available NI drivers etc) until the official arrival of Windows MIDI services:

https://microsoft.github.io/MIDI/

Which is well underway (Developer Preview 5) but not yet available commercially on a typical Win 10/11 DAW desktop.

VP

RZEE

I'd like to see support added for Apple MainStage.

jgcamil

Thx for the updates!

Quick question about Smart Play: will it be able to be used with any midi track, not only Kontakt / Komplete Kontrol tracks? Think I read that somewhere but not sure...

elxsound

Longtime NI user, but new to the hardware and KK. I have the S88 Mk3 and immediately found it odd that play assist is only available through KK.

The more I use Komplete Kontrol, the less I like it, but two things…. 1) I bought it for use with Kontakt, and 2) I have Push 3 to use with Ableton.

tighter integration with channel strips has gotten my interest. I don’t want another controller as I think these two should be enough, so would love to see what you all come up with.

gviio

The following have been user requests since the KK mkII came out: play assist outside the KK software; direct Kontakt integration. Took 7 years to hear us and resulted not in firmware or software updates but “hey here’s a new keyboard”.

The one that gets me is the direct Kontakt integration. All that feature requires is for Kontakt to talk to the hardware in the same way KK talks to the hardware. That’s a Kontakt software update. Us KK mkII owners shouldn’t have to buy a whole new keyboard we don’t need because NI choose to limit Kontakt features to new hardware.

I am on K14 UCE and honestly I think this will be the last iteration. I bought a number of Orchestral Tools libraries where I had the option of buying for Kontakt or for their Sine player. I chose Sine player. If lightguide doesn’t work anyway, why choose software I can’t resize that appears to be far less memory and CPU intensive. Same is true of many Spitfire libraries and their own software.

If you’re not willing to support KK MkII with Kontakt - make the mkII code open source for other companies to support us, since NI have given up on us anyway. I’m sure Spitfire, Orchestral Tools etc. etc. would bend over backwards to support us.

rrahim

hoping to purchase an MKIII keyboard later this year.

Let's see how it goes.

darshie76

To be honest you didn't say much about the actual roadmap...

What is coming in the pipeline, beside improvements to the existing architecture? Is this device going to be still tied to the NI products or will finally become a stand alone product that you can use with different products, without make profiles for every CC as we currently have been doing for 10 years now?

At this price point I would appreciate to have an omni-controller for when I use synths and a DAW on a computer, and sadly this new version of the KK does not satisfy that requirement yet, so I am forced to use multiple products that takes space in my studio.

Matthew_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/139492#Comment_139492

The API running Direct Connection actually lives on the MK3 device itself.

Kontakt 7 "simply" implemented the client-side of that API.

There is no such API, nor any on-device capability to run it, on the MK2 device.

It wasn't about limiting features for the new hardware. It was about building new hardware that could handle the new features. The graphical and metadata processing necessary for the integration happens near-entirely on-device for MK3. With the prior keyboards, all that logic lived in Komplete Kontrol, which was an insurmountable technical hurdle to implementation in any other software.