Why does Massive X 1.6 still not fully support NI keyboards?

Kymeia · 2025-07-30T08:06:46+00:00

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It's been a couple of years since NI brought out poly aftertouch capable keyboards and yet the latest update to Massive X still does not support them. In fact apart from Kontakt (and Reaktor with a bit of work) none of the NI synths support Poly aftertouch, and of course this is also a long standing limitation of Maschine, which doesn't support any kind of aftertouch, not even mono. Why bother bringing out keyboards with this wonderful expressive potential and then not make use of that potential in NI's flagship synths and 'DAW" (almost)? This just seems inexplicably self defeating.

Most plugin synths these days can make use of poly or mono aftertouch sources interchangeably for aftertouch modulation - Pigments is a good example - but to play Massive X expressively, as intended, I have to switch my keyboard to mono aftertouch mode, and I can't even use Maschine to record what I play.

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chk071

"Why bother bringing out keyboards with this wonderful expressive potential and then not make use of that potential in NI's flagship synths and 'DAW" (almost)?"

If I had to guess: Hardware and software department are two separate work spaces (obviously), and don't necessarily communicate with each other in terms of bi-directional functionality.

And, if you take Massive X specifically, it becomes even more obvious that there's not much thought which has flown into Komplete Kontrol or DAW support. I mean, seriously, if a synth even 6 years after its release doesn't have basic functionality like parameters being revealed to the DAW for automation, then I really don't know what the people developing the synth are smoking all day long.

And, what do they do? Implement a Player page, and make a free Massive X Player. Big "MEH".

Sorry for the rant, but, after 6 years, you really lose patience a bit. "But people asked for this and that" can't be the notorious excuse for basic functionality missing, which has been requested so often and for many years now. People also asked for support of NI's hardware, and also for DAW parameter automation lots of times.

This also confirms another thing I'm suspecting for years now: It only matters what Facebook and other social media fans of NI think, or influencers on social media, but not what actual users here or elsewhere think. It also confirms my thoughts about flat hierarchies, and home officing. Very bad for productivity.

Kymeia

Yeah it definitely reflects a lack of joined up thinking and work practices plus a short termist focus on selling addons. However clearly this is a self defeating approach ultimately as sales of keyboards and instruments are connected, but unfortunately the short term focused execs don't care about the bigger picture.

Tobias_NI

We are planning to release automation of all parameters with one of the next updates. We already wanted to ship that feature in spring with the 1.5 update, but then ran into complexity issues. Now that the first iteration of the Player is out we can focus on that again.

Kymeia

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/235802#Comment_235802

Cool - thanks Tobias, then I guess it will also need full NKS2 support? Which brings me to the question about poly aftertouch because this is also about full integration with NI flagship keyboards.

KaiLabs

I am one of those people regularly making YT videos about NI products. I came here to see what other users say about the play page. "Meh" is an interesting take as I think that NI is taking an interesting step in direction of the amateur community. If I compare NI to Arturia though, I think NI has still way to go. I know, Pigments and Massive X are totally different products, but Pigments is so much more user friendly than MX. I am not into sound design. But with Pigments even I can achieve decent results. If I tried to turn a few knobs and faders in MX things got off the rails pretty quick. For me, the morph pad in MX's play page is a game changer. It is a fun way to work with the presets I have.

I own a Kontrol S61 MK3 and it is really astonishing, that there is no support for polyphonic aftertouch in MX. Want to know something really funny? Arturia has no midi controller capable of polyphonic aftertouch, but Pigments and the Augmented Series support it, no problem.

I get it, Massive X was launched long before NI renewed their flagship controllers. And implementing aftertouch on a single note level is a totally different beast. Anyway, I think, NI is doing the right thing here. If Massive X gets more popular with people like me (meaning being clueless in sound design) there will be more money for development.

Long story short: though you aren't too enthused about MX player my video will be quite positive about this change. But I respect your opinion, of course. 🤷‍♂️

Kymeia

I didn’t say I’m not “enthused” by the Play tab - on the contrary it was one of the things I’d suggested myself, but there are also a lot of features that didn’t make it into this update and full compatibility with NI keyboards is chief amongst them. I get that it may be more difficult than some think, but they have had 2 years and something like this should be a priority, even from a commercial standpoint I’m sure it would help sales for the synth and keyboards if they were more compatible.

chk071

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/235802#Comment_235802

Thanks! 😊

Sean_Clarke

@Tobias_NI

Can you comment on supporting polyAT with MassiveX?

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