Is it safe to install KK 3.2.0 yet?
Sorry but the discussion on this topic is way too long to read at this point and I was away from it for a couple weeks.
So I'm on Windows 10 1909, Cubase 13.0.21 is my DAW, and have a KKS88 Mk II. I'm currently still using KK 2.9.6 and am wondering if I should go for version 3.2.0 yet. I have quite a few third party libraries which in the past I've had some trouble with KK finding in the past (Soniccouture, Spitfire, Arturia, AAS, Xils and a few others) I see two issues fixed with Cubase between the last two updates: are there more hanging out there? How is library scanning in the new version? Is KK pretty stable yet?
Thanks for any input.
Best Answer
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It may "Work" to a degree and be acceptable to some, but even with all the poor design choices and crippled browser functionality (plus lack of almost any user suggested features) there are actual things to be aware of that may impact you upgrading and affecting your past projects.
KK V3 does not offer a VST2 plugin anymore so if you have past projects that had the VST2 version of KK on a track, all these HAVE to be updated to VST3 instances or you will lose your instruments on those tracks. A simple way to test if you are ready, just remove the VST2 plugin from your plugin directory and open all your old projects to see if any don't load.
I cannot speak of any stability concerns because I am still not willing to update since there are far too many shortcomings and I prefer to use what works best for a task, not what is the latest. In my tests 6 months ago I found memory footprint was much larger, and seemed to take a little longer to load some plugins.
There is a way to install both together, tho I am not confident that would actually work properly but question I always ask is WHY do you actually want to update? If you don't have an MK3 keyboard, what features in the new version are you wanting to access? Are you happy to be able to not browse presets and have the plugin viewable as that is one of the biggest downgrades of the latest version, the butchering of what was once a great browser.
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Answers
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It works ok here (Win 11, Cubase) with a MK3 keyboard. There's missing functionality still, but whether that's n issue depends how you use it. You can always download it and try it, then if you're not happy roll back to 2.9.6, that's probably the easiest way to check. Just keep copies of projects in case you need to roll them back. Scanning is generally ok, although I find that some of the Softube plugins hang occasionally so you have to terminate ScanApp.
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I've been running 3.20 flawlessly on my Windows 10 with Ableton even using my S88 MK3 for the last month or so. However, I've gotten rid of my previous version of KK and Kontakt 6 in order to not have any problems with trying to load VST2's into 3.20 project. For me it's just simpler and more bulletproof to do it that way. If I encounter and older project that used the previous version it shows up with the KK track showing a missing plugin. So it's very easy to replace it with the new KK and instance of the library and everything's working again and updated.
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It may "Work" to a degree and be acceptable to some, but even with all the poor design choices and crippled browser functionality (plus lack of almost any user suggested features) there are actual things to be aware of that may impact you upgrading and affecting your past projects.
KK V3 does not offer a VST2 plugin anymore so if you have past projects that had the VST2 version of KK on a track, all these HAVE to be updated to VST3 instances or you will lose your instruments on those tracks. A simple way to test if you are ready, just remove the VST2 plugin from your plugin directory and open all your old projects to see if any don't load.
I cannot speak of any stability concerns because I am still not willing to update since there are far too many shortcomings and I prefer to use what works best for a task, not what is the latest. In my tests 6 months ago I found memory footprint was much larger, and seemed to take a little longer to load some plugins.
There is a way to install both together, tho I am not confident that would actually work properly but question I always ask is WHY do you actually want to update? If you don't have an MK3 keyboard, what features in the new version are you wanting to access? Are you happy to be able to not browse presets and have the plugin viewable as that is one of the biggest downgrades of the latest version, the butchering of what was once a great browser.
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Seriously? You can't browse presets in 3.2? Then what the heck DOES it do - what is its purpose?!?
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Yes of course you can, what Jester is referring to are some of the features people were used to in KK2 have been removed or changed
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No, not what I said at all.
Of course you can browse presets but it is different in how it works than KK V2 which if you have used something for 10 years, daily, and then have the whole way in which you used it changed, it does not sit well.
The design of the new KK is based more on what suits the developers than the users and as usual, long time users are never top of the list of concerns, only new fresh blood is the target.
The browser is now a separate "panel" which you have to switch to and it is overlayed where the plugin is so you cannot browse presets AND view the plugin at the same time. THis was something many of us users likes to be able to do, it was fast and efficient to switch presets, test and adjust a few things all on-screen but now it is a constant back and forth hassle.
The second issue with this is that it use to be possible to browse your samples and one-shots and drag these into plugins like Battery to build kits. THis is now impossible to do.
The third is now the browser is a horizontal scrolling browser across the screen instead of a list vertically. When you want to scan a list of hanes it is proven to always be faster to scan down a page rather than a scrolling list across the page, so that too is now a major frustration.
Seems every time we ask if this will all be addressed it's basically ignored which means it will never improve. A few people dont mind but any serious user who has used KK for years likely finds it annoying AF.
So yes you can browse, but as I mentioned IMO the single strong function KK had has now been crippled worse than timmy.
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You know I respect you. But you may need to be more clear in the words you choose.
You didn't do anything wrong, but sometimes it may be possible that your language is so badly "down on KK 3" that it can come across as worse than you're actually intending to say. Or maybe it comes across exactly as you're trying to say, and the other person just over-interprets your meaning?
I know, you're intending to say it's pretty bad. I get you, but there's always a balance in almost every issue that humans deal with. And since you don't use KK3 *at all*, your wording doesn't include the other half...that balance I'm referring to.
And then people can misinterpret, and get it all wrong.
Food for thought, that's all. Carry on, good sir!
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To answer the OP, I'll put it this way:
- If you have a heavy dependency on how things "used to work", then no. Maybe keep V2 for awhile longer. We're STILL only seeing 1 update each month. Even though they're fixing 5-7 items with each update, it's really only 5-7 items each month. That's a rapid pace, but in the face of the sheer number of issues, it's kind of slow (even if it IS the fastest anybody can work). So we may be not quite there yet, but there should be another release this week or next, if they're trying to keep the same rhythm.
- But if you're like me and you have virtually ZERO dependency on how "things used to work", AND if you have a MK3 keyboard, then I say yeah, go for it. Just ignore all the stuff that's not there anymore, and start using the application and the sounds. You can make music with what you have or you can talk about not making music with what you don't have (or what you lost). It's up to you.
I value the old version and all of the stuff it used to do. I value what people did to contribute to the community with those old versions. But the fact is, I basically have zero need for the old ways RIGHT NOW, so I've moved to V3 and I don't plan to go back.
I just wish the fix pace was faster. But at the same time, I'll be the first to say that "Agile" development practices almost NEVER can make a bad release better. And this WAS a bad release, mostly because too many things didn't work and/or bricked too many units, and also because too many features were removed without a proper vetting between the V3 designers and the user base.
I know, I know, NI says they went off of the usage statistics to make a lot of decisions. But it may also be possible that NI is over-relying on the usage statistics being collected, while simultaneously UNDER RELYING on conversations with the user base.
It should also be noted that users can optionally turn OFF those statistics, and if a lot of people did that, then the NI designers might not be getting a true perspective. There's no substitute for TALKING TO EACH OTHER. The good news is that NI, at all levels of leadership, appears to be communicating much better and much more effectively now, so I'll take that as a silver lining.
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You know I respect you. But you may need to be more clear in the words you choose.
Actually, I know nothing of you nor your level of respect but thanks. What I said was pretty simple and clear. Can you elaborate on exactly what "words" were not in a clear context, for the benefit of the rest of us not reading it in the way you have read it (or compiling a vision based on recent posts I have made)?
You didn't do anything wrong,
Phew, thank god for that, now I can rest easy knowing the FBI isn't after me any longer...
sometimes it may be possible that your language is so badly "down on KK 3" that it can come across as worse than you're actually intending to say. Or maybe it comes across exactly as you're trying to say, and the other person just over-interprets your meaning?
My language is appropriate for how I feel and I will choose to express that where applicable, in a calculated manner because for 10 years nothing positive anyone has fed back was ever even considered. Even simple things like improvements to the filtering of sounds, that is actually even more clunky to click through now.
Waiting 2 years for major bug fixes, putting in hours of time to make videos and reports on the issue, having hundreds of other users contact you direct about an issue you know is a problem but has not been fixed and THEN have a new version of KK release with the SAME ISSUE still there, oh and your ticket was closed off as solved.... Just one of many failings that can make you wonder "what is the actual point..."
As you can see from my post count, I have interacted a lot here and even more on the old forum. Dealing with the changes in forum, brand changes, direction changes and now the one piece of NI software I actually use also being made so bad to work with (from my POV) I cannot actually use it myself, yeah, gets a little frustrating to say the least. This is not just me personally, many of what I consider the top power/experienced users all sing a similar tune especially around Maschine and Traktor, I use to invest LOT of time helping out on the forums when I had more positivity in what was to come but when something is "updated" and received in an overwhelmingly negative way it does make you wonder about things.
So this is why I don't post much here anymore, I get frustrated as I read things and this comes out in my posts these days. I am typically a helpful and accepting user which almost anyone will attest to, I am also pretty straight shooting so will call a spade a spade and I grew up in rural Australia where a certain type of language is the norm, not usually understood by international folks, but mark my words, usually if you read into something a certain tone, it is no accident, and is usually heavily reserved.
I know, you're intending to say it's pretty bad. I get you,
Proves my point. Without even saying it, my view comes across and this is deliberate. It's not the fact the new V3 is "bad", there are good points of course and some positive steps, the most of which is the engagement and attitude of the likes of Matt, nothing wrong there, but what I have issue with is the complete lack of any interest at all to consider suggestions from users. Not even a joke, literally ZERO suggestions any of us have made were even part of the V3 initial launch and the ONLY one that was added after months was the ability to resize the browser which is all but useless now without the ability to fit the browser and plugin on the same screen. In addition to no new features, many actual existing features and function were completely left out or removed and we now have that "we will look at adding that back" so, it's a waiting game which if you played that for 10 years, it's not something you view with positivity.
So I will pass on my apologies if what you read comes off as a little negative, but constant disappointments over time do that.
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"So I will pass on my apologies if what you read comes off as a little negative, but constant disappointments over time do that."
I wasn't looking for an apology, and you certainly don't owe one to me or to anybody else as far as I'm concerned.
I was only suggesting that your reader of that prior post (SF_Green in this instance) took your meaning based on your wording, which you admit is based on your long-term disappointment, which is great indeed.
So yeah...message received (on the other person's part). But then you had to spend valuable time to correct his/her misinterpretation and re-center the discussion. All I'm suggesting is that maybe your wording sometimes does that...takes the conversation off-target, and that requires you to re-word yourself in order to feel like you were properly understood.
Even in your disappointment, you still want to be properly interpreted and understood. Anybody can see that that's important to you; hence my attempt to put all of this into words for you.
Again, no apology needed or intended. Only my respect.
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Well thanks for the concern and taking it upon yourself to try clarify, but even if I have to re-explain something, the point of drumming on the same aspect is so it is hopefully always at the forefront of consideration. Sadly, most topics here are now about either issues with the new version or frustrations, but as you likely notice, I try balance one frustrated rant out with a helpful post so it’s not 100% negative…
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