Kontrol S88 Keyboard MK3 Accessibility Features Rolled out yet?

marvin moore · 2025-07-19T04:57:34+00:00

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Hi Native Instruments,

I am a blind, award winning songwriter and producer. I have been using Native Instrument products for the last ten years, and I was so excited to purchase the MK3 keyboard with assistive technology. Your advertising clearly states that the accessibility functions were going to be made available in 2024 for this model, as they are available for the MK1 and 2.

I just received my keyboard today and tried to set it up, only to realize that the accessibility features are in fact, not available at this time, and there's no definitive release date offered by your company. This deeply concerns me. Can you please advise if I should immediately return this keyboard? Since without the accessibility function, I will have no use for it. I have been terribly mislead by your organization.

It has come to my understanding that the MK2 could be useful for the accessibility features. Is that keyboard and support even available anymore?

Looking forward to a timely response,
MDM

Screenshot 2025-07-18 at 9.53.34 PM.png

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mykejb

Hey Marvin - there's a thread here where @Matthew_NI comments on the state of the latest updates -

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/46550/from-a-blind-composer-and-producer-thanks-for-robbing-the-blind-community

The updates are close to release, and there's also a contact person given in that thread who deals with the beta program which you might be interested in. The person to contact is @Chris_NI

PoorFellow

I can give no guarantee that what N.I. delivers will fit your particular needs/situation or that it will be delivered in a 'timely fashion' , but N.I. do tell that accessibility features is being very much upgraded and that it is being worked on and in 'beta' now. However then the only 'safe bet is to test something that is ready available.

The direct link for Matthew_NI's answer is here.

Vagus

Deleted. Someone had already answered, but the new forum setup is awful, so I didn't see the replies.

JesterMgee

Yeah this new forum is honestly garbage! I love how each release NI make these days seemingly just makes things worse and alienates those of us that have been big supporters over the years.

To the OP, sad state of affairs for this situation to drag on for so long. Hope is there but it's a clear sign of a company that is completely understaffed and over extended and it's losing customers and generating an all time high rate of user dissatisfaction.

Matthew_NI

Regarding this comment:

situation to drag on for so long. Hope is there but it's a clear sign of a company that is completely understaffed and over extended and it's losing customers and generating an all time high rate of user dissatisfaction.

I agree that implementing accessibility for Kontrol S MK3 has taken longer than desired.

I also agree that having more staff would enable us to build more things more quickly.

But we have the people that we have. Those of us on staff are very, very busy working on all the right things in the right order.

And in fact, we have more active users than ever. Each month is a record high, even when compared against older versions of a product (Kontakt, in my case). That's thanks to increases in new users, as well as better retention amongst existing users, and upticks in returning users who'd previously left us. All of which correlate with the significant increases in satisfaction we've seen in various quarterly and annual surveys, other measures like Net Promoter Score, and even the issues and sentiments reported via Customer Support. People have particularly responded to the increasing cadence of updates across all the key product lines.

Ironically, that sometimes works against us. If things are going well, then powers that be may at times determine additional help isn't needed, given the efficiencies of the present. Which cycles back to the first two points on which you and I agree. I'd love to get more done more quickly, but we're getting the right stuff done in the right order.

I say all of this to say only that: you have a particular bias here; you represent a particular slice of the experience that hasn't been great, of late. You (understandably) want some particular updates made to the Kontrol line, that you're aware are coming, but are unhappy at having to had to wait for. Again, you know I agree with you there too. But please don't assume that you speak for the entirety, is all.

LostInFoundation

A couple of your paragraphs are particularly worrying …

Even MacDonald’s hamburgers are eaten by way more people than the ones that eat well done, well cooked, well thought and complex meat dishes…

That doesn’t make them a better and healthier dish… just the one that sells more…

JesterMgee

Would have thought more active users would generate more income that could be invested in more staff to support the more products and users to deliver updates faster and better.

From the outside of the black box there is a shrinking team that appears to struggle to spend dedicated time on any one product line. Going from days where there were teams per product line, sounds like it is down to just 1 team. Downsizing coupled with as you mention, more active users and less real-time support means all that income is going into someone's pockets then…

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