Any point updating to KK 3.3.0 as a S61 MK2 user?
Answers
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With all due respect my friend you're still missing the point. I've purchased an expensive board that I've owned for less than a year and it's already started the process of being made obsolete, why? I know I can continue to use it at the moment with a choice of 2 versions of KK but that's not the real issue here. I would really like to know whats behind the decision to decide why this was even necessary on a product some owners would have only owned for such a short period? NI seems to have introduced a worrying practice of not supporting a number of their products in recent times and those that are being supported are being rendered unusable at times but that's another issue.
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"I've purchased an expensive board that I've owned for less than a year and it's already started the process of being made obsolete, why?"
I will challenge your notion that there is any process to make this board obsolete - except for maybe the natural (and inevitable) passage of time. The board you bought was already 5+ years old in "tech time" when you came along.
Your specific ownership length here however - is 100% irrelevant. You made the choice to buy a 6 year old product - but that does not mean you bought 3 or 7 or 10 more years of support from the vendor for it.
Q: Why do you think our boards are on their way out? Just because they haven't updated the firmware in 4-5 years? Or that they decided to close development on KKv2 in favor of the newer KK v3? Which fully supports the MKII BTW.
Second question is: It's clear the MKII series debuted in Oct 2017 - I bought mine 3+ years into the cycle and you bought yours 5+ years into the cycle - but what exactly do you expect NI to do for us? Act like our boards are hot, new exciting pieces of tech? Keep developing new functions and new features for these 6 year old models ad infinitum - all while the MKIII is their primary focus now?
Believe me - I get that you are sore about only owning your board for less than a year and seeing the landscape change rapidly. But that is no different for any other product you will ever buy. Every single thing we buy - is only hot - right up until the next thing comes along.
This rule is absolute - especially in the particularly aggressive world of audio software/hardware. All vendors follow this rule to the letter - out with the old and in with the new - regardless of how we feel (wronged, slighted, taken advantage of) after the fact.
That said - for me personally - until NI actually states the MKII IS on it's way out OR they confirm there is zero software support (NOT new features) for my MKII - I consider my board supported and fully functional.
Suggest we enjoy these MKII boards, make some music and move on to more important discussions.
VP
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Once again I have to repeat my earlier statements because of your inability to understand my concerns. Support for a product should start from the moment it stops being offered for sale at full retail price as a brand new item not start from when it was initially launched. It doesn't matter how long it's been in production for. I purchased mine because it was the current and latest model and well before it's replacement was announced. It was not a priority to check how long it has been in production for, I doubt many purchaser's check this when buying a new product at full retail price. One would hope that as a new product, which at the time of purchase was still in production, it would be FULLY supported beyond less than 1 year of ownership, regardless of whether or not a replacement product is launched.
What hardship would it be for NI to actually FULLY support my expensive purchase beyond the launch of it's replacement? This practice is only reinforcing many people's opinion that NI really don't care about their customers.
I've already mentioned I'm not interested in new features being released in the shape of firmware updates. Firmware updates can also cover compatibility issues if they arise at some point and that is my worry now after the announcement that no more updates will be released. Why are you still making your defence on this about me expecting new features or that it's not had a firmware update in 5 years. That isn't relevant with anything I've said.
That rule is not absolute, I've got other tech that's even older that still has full support in terms of firmware updates if they're required.
And for the second time of saying, I'm not sore that a newer version of my board came out a few months after I got mine. I wouldn't purchase that now even if I didn't already own my MK2. Apart from all the issues it had at launch, and the missing features, it's way over priced for what it is imho and it doesn't offer much in the way of new features compared to the MK2 anyway.
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I am thoroughly confused.
Support for a product should start from the moment it stops being offered for sale at full retail price as a brand new item
Support for the product starts when we launch it, and continues after you buy it.
What hardship would it be for NI to actually FULLY support my expensive purchase beyond the launch of it's replacement?
There is no hardship. We already do.
Kontrol S MK2 is fully supported, to this day.
Kontrol S MK2 is fully supported by the very latest version of Komplete Kontrol 3.3.1 and beyond (and of course many older versions if a user actively chooses not to install a more recent version).
Both of the above will continue indefinitely, without any plans to the inverse.
I am simply perplexed at the argument here.
This practice is only reinforcing many people's opinion that NI really don't care about their customers.
What practice? I don't know what people are arguing about, because there appears some meta concern about Kontrol S MK2 being unsupported, which is factually untrue.
Kontrol S MK2 works exactly as well as it did the day you bought it. It is still capable of everything you purchased the product in order to do, and still actively supported and maintained. Being that it's a supported product, that of course includes a commitment to it working on any latest, greatest OS or chipset that gets introduced, which is most commonly when things break.
Kontrol S MK2 users are our single largest cohort of hardware users, period. We continue to support them, and there would be absolutely no reason to stop doing this, which as I am repeatedly trying to convey, we have no plans to stop doing.
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"Support for a product should start from the moment it stops being offered for sale at full retail price as a brand new item not start from when it was initially launched. It doesn't matter how long it's been in production for."
This makes no sense whatsoever. If I buy a new computer today - I might need support on it tomorrow - and the next day and three weeks from now - not three years from now.
"It was not a priority to check how long it has been in production for, I doubt many purchaser's check this when buying a new product at full retail price"
That is on the purchaser. It is up to me to find out how old something is, when it's best before date is and all of that. If I pull the trigger on something today - and a new version of that thing appears tomorrow - that is my problem - not theirs.
"One would hope that as a new product, which at the time of purchase was still in production, it would be FULLY supported beyond less than 1 year of ownership, regardless of whether or not a replacement product is launched"
I think you really need to clarify exactly what you mean by "fully supported" - as I am sensing massive confusion with your definition and mine.
If by "fully supported" - you expect to be entitled to the latest cool new firmware/software, brand new MKII functionality and enhancements PLUS the ability to call into NI when there is a problem - that is not current support for the MKII.
Current "support" (as I understand it) for my MKII is the ability to call into NI if/when there is a problem and as @Matthew_NI has clearly stated - NIs ongoing commitment to ensure my MKII remains fully operational on the latest, greatest OS and/or chipsets that get introduced.
Within this definition - yours (and my) MKII - ARE supported.
"What hardship would it be for NI to actually FULLY support my expensive purchase beyond the launch of it's replacement? This practice is only reinforcing many people's opinion that NI really don't care about their customers."
Like @Matthew_NI in his post above - I remain baffled with your inability to grasp that your expensive purchase IS supported.
I think the crux of this issue is that your idea of "support" appears to be quite different from the rest of us…
VP
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Very often, regardless of which company, a product gets reduced in price or included in a sale and a few weeks or months later, without warning, the next version is released.
This always happens, doesn’t matter which company we choose to use.
Likewise, no companies ever tell of their future release dates, wanting the retailers to clear their previous stock of hardware/software before release.Both are normal business practices that all companies use.
I Personally don’t see anything different from NI releasing the mk3 than any other company releasing their latest product.
I think some of the confusion is because with the mk3 release and the new v3 Komplete Kontrol software, some users of the mk2 were advised to stick to 2.96 version, giving the wrong impression that the v3 software was only for the newer mk3 and giving the impression that if this was true, which it isn’t, then as they wrongly think the mk2 is only supported up to 2.96, support and updates have effectively ceased.-1 -
So you're denying that a statement was published that there will be no further firmware updates for the MK2 boards. If there will be no further updates to it's firmware then it's not fully supported imo.
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Feels like I'm repeatedly banging my head against the wall here.
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Komplete Kontrol 3.3.0 broke connection for some A, M and S MK2 keyboards (MK3 was unaffected).
We deployed Komplete Kontrol 3.2.1 rollback installers via the Community Forum overnight
In connection with this I would like to ask if N.I. could please stop this, seen from a user perspective, totally backwards demand by e.g. installers such as KK 3.3.0 & 3.3.1 for there to be a previous installation of KK for the installers to work. Actually it would be nice if N.I. would completely drop this approach. I have had more problems lately with Native Access hanging and never completing the installation of Komplete Kontrol and then when exiting N.A. and grabbing the KK installer then all one gets is that it will not install because N.A. apparently must already have uninstalled the old version of KK , a behavior which also sort of explains why the N.A. installation of KK hangs in the first place , with N.A. first uninstalling the app then after doing that then hangs on install because the app is no longer on computer and the installer demands it. I have had exactly the same problem with other N.I. installs hanging. With respect to KK then I could at least install the version 3.2.1 and then smack the version 3.3.0/3.3.1 on top of that , but still it is extremely backwards with both N.A. failing and user not being able to just install the app manually when it fails. I also noticed that it apparently is prohibited to say yes to reinstalling the Komplete Kontrol and MK2 drivers when it asks that as the installer will throw an access violation when attempting to do that or at least it does so on my PC on Windows 10 64 bit.
Otherwise then it's great that N.I. managed to fix the KK 3.3.0 problem with the MK2 keyboards , thank you ! It were a major problem for me when entertaining a guest and I turned on the keyboard to demonstrate the N.I. software and then I were just sitting there unable to get the stuff to work until later when getting the software updated again , of course after again having had some KK installer problem with N.A: and the KK installer.. The software works now for me but it would be nice if there were no installer problems to have to deal with.
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Finally - the confusion has cleared. And it seems I was on the right track.
IMO - This assumption (on your part) - that "support" automatically means ongoing firmware updates - is (unfortunately) false.
As Matthew already stated - "Support" is a ongoing commitment from NI to ensure your board is working on any latest, greatest OS or chipset that gets introduced.
Firmware is hardware level logic and is never exposed to the OS any way - so it would be very rare that meeting this "support" commitment would ever require a firmware update.
The MKII had just two FW updates - ever - like way back at launch and nothing was (or has been) needed since then. The board runs true and the FW is doing it's job.
Now - not 100% ruling it out - but it would be VERY rare to see a FW update now unless a major showstopper hardware level problem suddenly surfaced - which after 6+ years surely would have shown itself by now.
More accurately - this commitment will be met 100% with ongoing updates to Komplete Kontrol.
Glad we finally got it sorted…
VP
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If there will be no further updates to it's firmware then it's not fully supported imo.
I respectfully disagree with this , at least to some extend. You can not in earnest expect N.I: to keep updating a firmware if there is no problems of importance with the firmware and if the features that it were supposed to have has been shipped/delivered by N.I.
Matthew_NI writes in the above (emphasis by me) , quote :
Kontrol S MK2 works exactly as well as it did the day you bought it. It is still capable of everything you purchased the product in order to do, and still actively supported and maintained. Being that it's a supported product, that of course includes a commitment to it working on any latest, greatest OS or chipset that gets introduced, which is most commonly when things break.
To me that is just about as good as it gets.
I think that Matthew_NI also stated on another occasion something like that S-Series MK2 users were the largest customer group when it came to sales of I think software ? (Kontakt libraries, Komplete bundles and stuff like that I suppose) Which supports Matthew_NI's statements in general.
Of course it would be really nice as per (what I think sounds as) your expectation that new features would be forever added to already purchased keyboards. But that is simply not feasible , with the major explanation for that being that it costs resources and that customers will not keep buying the old models anyway if/when competitors makes new models and because N.I. couldn't possibly future proof the old keyboards to be able to support not yet fully developed techs still in the making.
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I'm not denying anything.
If you read any statement concerning our hardware, it is highly likely I wrote it. I cannot recall every one of my posts here, but it probably read something to the effect of "we have no plans to deliver any further firmware updates to Kontrol S MK2". That is certainly true.
Firmware runs at a very low level on the hardware. It connects physical components to a virtual world, by talking to on-device software. The on-device software in turn talks to desktop software, and thus exists the user experience you get. That there exist no planned firmware updates for MK2 is because there exists no need for any such updates to exist.
You're equating that to a lack of support, but that's simply not the case.
If an OS update (e.g. macOS or Windows) or a chipset migration (e.g. Apple Silicon) causes issues, then we fix those issues. If there's a bug in a supported DAW that surfaces, we fix that too. That has nothing to do with firmware. You will notice that we have introduced support for every operating system since, and also Apple Silicon, without ever needing to update Kontrol S MK2's firmware. A firmware update might be needed if say, we wanted a physical button press to result in a different action to the one it currently results in.
I'll leave this topic to rest with this:
You bought a supported product, that continues to function every bit as well as the day you purchased it.
That product is fully supported by Native Instruments, who have no plans to drop support for that product at this time - which would be particularly ill advised given we have more MK2 users than we do any other piece of hardware.
You are taking a statement (I'm not sure exactly which one) about the fact we intend no further firmware updates to MK2 as a statement it is no longer supported, and will suddenly break and never be fixed, which is again untrue, and perhaps a misunderstanding.
For any who read this far:
Kontrol S MK2 is fully supported. Simple as that.
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Some of us have different opinions on what FULLY supported actually means.
Yes, my MK2 keyboard works well, I wish the same could be said about the kk software. I have a choice to use the older version with it's superior lay out and browser features but has major bugs including some VST3 plugins that refuse to show their gui's and will now never be fixed or the current version that I and many others consider to be a step backwards.
If what you say is true and changes to an OS or NI software can't result in my MK2 to stop functioning which would be fixed only with a firmware update then I'm happy with that, my only fear surrounding firmware was purely just about that. I'm not expecting or hoping for new features to be added through firmware updates.
Oh, and just to clarify, I have not once said it's not supported. I said imo it's not fully supported and I stand by that despite a difference of opinions.
That's my last say on this.
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