Kontrol S-Series MK3 - Feeling like a beta tester. :(

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  • chk071
    chk071 Member Posts: 550 Pro
    edited October 2023

    FTR: I haven't seen your comment about me flagging your post. And, I'm usually not the type who's quickly with flagging posts, so, don't worry about that from me. 😉

    You're also free to dislike my comments about calling people stupid, of course. I admit that I exaggerate a bit most of the time, but, I still stand with what I wrote: Early adoptors aren't beta testers, They contribute NOTHING to the software that a beta tester would contribute. Thus calling them beta testers is simply wrong, and, assuming that companies use these early adoptors as beta testers is wrong as well.

  • BIF
    BIF Member Posts: 998 Guru
    edited October 2023

    "...I'm wondering how this couldn't have been tackled during beta testing."

    Because it is called BETA testing. Not Omega testing. 😉

    The beta team I was on (again...was another company, not NI) would report things the devs would prioritize then work on/fix during the beta phase. Note that I said WOULD PRIORITIZE THINGS. They very possibly had some more serious stuff to fix before release day. The beta team can and should report things, and even highlight how bad something might be if it's left broken on release day. But the dev team would always set the priority.

    Not everything can be #1 priority all at once. You have to pick. You have to fix the worst things. And we don't know (and due to NDA, we llikely will never know) if there were 10 other things that had a higher criticality than this part of the process.

    Never second guess the product owner or the various product managers. If they are wrong with too much frequency, believe me, they'll be replaced. It's just not for you or me to say, simply because we don't know the whole story.

  • RobertDorn
    RobertDorn Member Posts: 40 Member
    edited October 2023

    So, what's your point. There's easily over 20 independent users at this forum reporting cpu spikes with both the latest Kontakt and Komplete Kontrol update on their particular systems. Like with beta testers, only a small percentage of the users reach out to speak up their mind if anything doesn't work like expected. We don't know how many support tickets NI has received meanwhile, but we do know how much complaints only about perfomance efficiency over here have been brought up. I don't know how many and what kind of beta testers NI works with, I do know that one of the beta testers jumped ship because despite all his feedback, Komplete Kontrol 3.0 went completely south while he was watching it. Huge memory leaks were one of his feedback points. I'm not sure here, but nowadays a plugin has to be extremely cpu inefficient, will it cause CPU spikes and system overloads on the latest silicon MacBooks, Mac Studios etc. And if that's the case, like with Komplete Kontrol 3.0, I don't know anymore what the devs priority list is.

    Glad you were on a beta team, excellent, even more glad if it was with a product that landed well upon release. Unfortunately that can't be said about the launch of Komplete Kontrol 3.0


    But hey, there's always room to improve

  • gcorcella
    gcorcella Member Posts: 63 Member

    Hi everyone,

    when I open a Kontakt 7 or KK instance the screen on the keynoard stays on the MIDI Default Template unless I click on the S88 icon in KK or the keyboard's name in Kontakt. Same thing if I go from one channel to the other in Cubase. EVERY TIME I have to tell Kontakt or KK that I am using the S88 keyboard.

    In the Studio Setup everything seems to be connected correctly.

    Is anyone experiencing this kind of issue? This is VERY annoying.

  • Jezric
    Jezric Member Posts: 56 Helper


    Yeah, this seems to be the "by design" behavior unless you're using Ableton Live. I have not tried all the "supported" DAWs, but the couple I have (Cakewalk, Cubase), you need to manually select the controller in KK or Kontakt UI every time you switch to a different instance in the DAW.

    In Live, you can use the DAW controls on the Kontrol mk3 to navigate to the different channels that are hosting KK or Kontakt and that will put that instance into focus and set the Kontrol mk3 to that instance.

    Wouldn't it be nice if it just switched to whatever instance of KK or Kontakt was in focus upon focusing on it? Maybe there is some VST specific limitation with doing this, but knowing a little-bit about Windows development, it would surprise me if there was not some in-focus or take-focus event that happens when the VST window comes into focus, seems they could lock the controller to that instance when this happens.

    Anyway yeah... Works great if you're using Live. 🙄

  • LostInFoundation
    LostInFoundation Member Posts: 4,490 Expert

    That’s not by design.

    Report it as a bug by opening a ticket (even if I think they already know by now, if they didn’t even know it before).

    But NI politic seems “if not enough people report it, we won’t prioritize it”

  • gcorcella
    gcorcella Member Posts: 63 Member

    It's not normal. The keyboard should focus on the selected track as soon as you change it

  • gcorcella
    gcorcella Member Posts: 63 Member

    I'm already in contact with the support but things are getting slow and I cannot properly work since the keyboard has arrived

  • gcorcella
    gcorcella Member Posts: 63 Member

    By the way, I tried it with my Macbook Pro and my Windows laptop and in both cases it seemed to work fine 🤨

  • LostInFoundation
    LostInFoundation Member Posts: 4,490 Expert
    edited October 2023

    As I said, it seems they need a lot of people complaining about something to take action.

    Or maybe, talking about a serious flaw like this one, they are already doing it, but they don’t acknowledge it publicly to let users know it

  • Dr.Z
    Dr.Z Member Posts: 2 Member

    I got my Kontrol S61 MK3 for a week now, and after l managed to get the firmware updated, I got the surprise of the fact that the Keyboard is not integrated in Maschine software ((beautifull screen just showing dummy MIDI empty template).

    I thought it was something to do with me not setting it up correctly. So I googled around to find out how to set it up correctly.

    It turned out to be that it is in fact not integrated with Maschine. I was like, sorry, What?! Seriously, Ha, ...?!

    I did not expect that at all and I am just so confused.

    So now I have this beautiful and expensive Keyboard, but I keep it OFF all the time (as it is totally useless for my workflow in Maschine, due to the mentioned limitations in the original post of this thread). Now I am just using instead the Komplete Kontrol A25, which works better for my workflow.

    The whole thing just doesn't make absolutely no sense.

    NB: my workflow, is to jam around with Maschine MK3& Komplete keyboard A25 in Maschine software, to sketch and develop new Ideas and basically just have fun. And if something is more than good enough, then I export the stems and further arrange and mix in Ableton. I never used and probably will never use the standalone KK software.

    I tried to send it back to the retailer, but here in Malaysia they don't allow to return if original packaging is opened.

    So, if NI doesn't fix the otherwise no brainer integration with their own Maschine Software, I will end up with the worst buy in my life. What a waste ...

    I am just so disappointed and now I am even considering to move to AKAI MPC ecosystem; but the dilemma is that I really love my Maschine MK3, which I just bought to replace my old Maschine Studio.

  • Jezric
    Jezric Member Posts: 56 Helper
    edited November 2023

    I'm totally with ya on all your points here. I use Machine in the same way, even more so, I use an M+ to sequence and arrange a collection of hardware synths. Then dump all this into Cakewalk if deemed worthy of finishing. Since this whole Kontrol mk3 purchase and the lack of Maschine support (and no roadmap/plan from NI), I just bought into Ableton Live Suite (as this new Kontrol mk3 support Live very well) and am now facing the realization that the scene mode in Live is so similar to Maschine and with a full timeline DAW (arranger) in there as well, is Maschine needed anymore? I picked up the new Push 3 controller (with MPE support that is really a unique way of playing on pads) and am really grappling with the notion of switching off of Machine. Even though I really do love that workflow (more than the Live workflow, it's just WAY quicker than Live)... So, it's just all a bit depressing...

    Maybe I just need to not focus so much on the setup exclusivity and just make the music with whatever serves the moment. 🤣

  • Kubrak
    Kubrak Member Posts: 3,067 Expert
    edited November 2023

    Just remark about betatester part....

    It is not beta testing in its strictly technical meaning, but it is sort of "testing". Early adopters are more and more often sort of testing mice. Development is expensive, testing is expensive and time consuming.... Cost must be cut and timelines fullfilled....

    The both last two HW products by NI are sort of unfinished on firmware and software side.

    New keyboard does not work with Maschine.... My wild guess is that works on Maschine SW took longer than expected. So, it is not available, yet. And my bet is, it will be Maschine 3, or Maschine 2 with KK3 like browser.... And no support for KK Sxx MK1.

  • Hywel
    Hywel Member Posts: 55 Member

    It all boils down to the usual saying of "caveat emptor" or "buyer beware" ...

    HOWEVER, I do feel that NI have been knowingly obfuscatory, with the information that was available to buyers about these Mk3 products in the lead up to launch.

    I fear that a number of buyers may have been misled in some way by NI trumpeting the "look at everything you will get with the new products", while keeping VERY QUIET about the things that will be removed/temporarily left out/planned for the future but not available just yet.

  • Jeremy_NI
    Jeremy_NI Customer Care Posts: 13,047 mod

    @gcorcella I see you're in contact with my colleagues, they're waiting for a video showcasing the issue.

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