Feedback - Komplete Kontrol 3.0
Comments
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As a software developer myself, I do wish people in this topic would stop making assumptions about the composition of the development team and assuming nefarious reasons for your disappointment in the application.
Just because something may seem obvious or easy to implement, doesn't always make it so. Sometimes things interact in ways you wouldn't assume unless you have intimate knowledge of a codebase. This can create competing priorities and mean some things, even essential things, may not be implemented in what would seem like the most logical order at first blush.
Someone earlier in the thread (I think it was this one) had mentioned that in the old days, programs like this were created by musicians and were better and more powerful because of that. Ignoring the faulty assumption that there are no musicians on the development team, teams these days account for things that they may never have been accounted for back then such as accessibility. While it may mean it takes longer to get all the features you want in to the product, it opens the application up to a whole group of users that may not have been able to use it before. And this is just one example.
Voicing your opinion and dissatisfaction is important so developers can know the concerns of the community. But please, when doing so, remember that there can be many reasons the product isn't the way you want it to be, but it doesn't mean they're nefarious or even uneducated reasons. There's been a lot more communication from the NI team recently that I don't want to see go away. Be vocal and share your thoughts but please be respectful and don't assume things. It makes the back and forth much more productive and pleasant to read.
Edit: And I just wanted to say, there are some very productive and pleasant conversations already being had and I'm glad about that.
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Oh no worries. I don't want to co-opt an open feedback thread to become an official company sanctioned messaging one, if that makes sense. Plus, feedback will evolve, so I'll need to keep that list updated anyway.
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"Just because something may seem obvious or easy to implement, doesn't always make it so. Sometimes things interact in ways you wouldn't assume unless you have intimate knowledge of a codebase. This can create competing priorities and mean some things, even essential things, may not be implemented in what would seem like the most logical order at first blush."
Well said! 👍️
This should be the penultimate disclaimer to lead this thread - in addition to Matthew_NI's list of the current KK priorities that are consistently being lost in here.
Everybody seems to have a position that this is easy.
They should try to code this stuff up themselves and to find out exactly how "not easy" it really is.
VP
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Do you work for Native Instruments?😃 Actually do you really use products and can judge from a user perspective the recent developments here or you just want to raise a hand from a developer point of view?
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Well - I do not work for NI
I do use all the products being discussed in this thread almost daily and can judge user perspectives on these recent developments as good as the next guy.
And I am a developer.
If I put my DEV hat on - the choice is VERY simple - if you have a MK1/MKII Kontrol Series board - stand down on KKv3 until it has time to ferment a lot more. KK 2.9.4 is where you will actually get something done.
If you are the proud owner of a new Kontrol Series MKIII board - KKv3 is all you have right now. Do the best you can with what you have.
Everyone has a choice - but ragging on this for 17 pages is not going to magically make it better.
VP
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I like the new keyboard a lot. I have no doubt that 3.x will ultimately be sorted out and has all kinds of headroom to improve over time as well.
So then the question simply becomes one of corporate culture with respect to how/if user feedback should be incorporated into product improvement. I recall connecting with Matt while the new forum site was being created. I beleive Matt was the driving force behind it and thanks again for your effort. I think we can all agree it is a huge improvement.
During this discourse, one thing that got me excited was that the new site had the tech required for things like "up-voting" feature requests. I appreciate Presonus in this regard because they always take the time to incorporate the most requested features and it makes a big impact on user sentiment and overall satisfaction.
Matt, I think this might be the perfect time to implement such a feature if you are interested in allowing users to be involved in 3.0 improvements. It seems like a good way to measure/quantify data for user your "feedback loop".
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"So then the question simply becomes one of corporate culture with respect to how/if user feedback should be incorporated into product improvement. "
While I think NI "could" benefit from a system like PreSonus does it - I am a huge Presonus fan and even I do not 100% dig that system of "upvoting" this and "down voting" that over there.
Let's be serious - it is VERY clear that PreSonus development has their own idea about what the "real" roadmap looks like and if we really believe the Studio One roadmap was built exclusively on our feature request voting - we are kidding ourselves. Sure - it's nice to "get one" here and there - but it's rare.
Same deal for NI. But having people torch Matt in here because they do not like/agree with/despise what the new KKv3 has (or does not have) is solving nothing. I am sure he will take something away from this long diatribe in here - but not much.
It's abundantly clear (to me anyways) - KKv3 needs major work - let them get to it and use 2.9.4 in the meantime.
VP
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Through my years of experience, user up/down voting on a set of feature requests is not a good way to approach product development for a large number of reasons. Happy to discuss those in a different forum, but this thread probably isn't the place.
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Thanks for that statement from different angles.
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I do not work for NI. I mostly wanted to just share my perspective as someone that's been in the exact situation that Matthew and the NI team is in. Armchair software development frustrates me because no matter how many times you explain why something hasn't been implemented, some people can't get past the idea that "this feature is so simple and must therefor be simple to implement" or not understanding why some features may be removed when there's been a large rewrite to the codebase.
This is not to say that those concerns aren't valid, shouldn't be addressed, etc. Much of the time, it's the opposite, they're very valid and should be addressed. All I'm saying is that without being an actual developer on the project you can't go making assumptions about why something was or wasn't done.
Matthew has been extremely transparent in his posts about why they've made the choices they've made. I think a lot of the frustration comes from this point he mentions: "more users than not browse on-device". I myself use mouse and keyboard more often than the on-device screens and I wouldn't be surprised if many power users do as well. With the new keyboard launching and most users browsing on-device though, I completely understand why the team didn't focus as much on the application's frontend interface when they were rebuilding so much from scratch.
Yes, that can make it more frustrating to use than prior versions and if that's the case for you, they've offered a solution of staying on the previous version. However, Mathew has also been very forthcoming on their short term plans which seem like, at least to me, will get KK back to where it was before, if not better, from an application standpoint and can begin to work on more new features.
I'm actually getting an MK3 so I'm excited to try out the smoother on-device experience. I'm hoping it will help keep me more on my instrument and less on my computer. That being said, I do a lot of organizing and tagging of things so I'll be looking forward to the improvements that should be coming.
I guess that's my perspective as both a (non-NI) software developer and a user of NI products.
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I think this is a good suggestion
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It’s incredible how many musicians are developers. With the ones here and the ones in Audiobus forum, I could reprogram the whole world 😂
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So - we don't plan to do this at this time.
But nor have we removed the capability to browse through presets whilst playing.
Check the image: we have a PIN functionality that allows you to keep the browser pinned when browsing until you find the preset you like.
I don't know why I didn't mention this before - I think making users aware of PIN goes quite a long way to allay any frustration regarding preset to preset browsing.
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I'm reaching the end of my working day today (Tuesday, October 17th).
As of tomorrow (Wednesday, October 18th) I will be taking some time off to spend with my toddler after the end of a long release cycle. I say this only because I will be fully disconnected, in order to be fully present with the aforementioned force of unrelenting energy.
Meaning, I won't be responding here for a while. Please don't take my absence as a sign of inaction and please do try and keep conversations on topic, and respectful. As I've already clarified a few times, the team is hard at work on next steps.
Meanwhile, some of my colleagues will continue to monitor various threads from various different perspectives, should anything critical emerge. Note: that does not mean I'm signing them up to be as present as I've been, but they'll be staying close to the conversation.
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Enjoy the family time, Matthew!
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