Komplete Kontrol S series MK1 keyboards End Of Life

Now that I've had my MK3 for a few weeks, I can say that the chassis is not overly large just because of the screen. It's the SUM of the height of the screen + button row + knob row that makes the keyboard have to be deeper. The light guides are very narrow, but they too add to the depth of the whole unit.

But that also affords you with nice spaces where you can place the palms of your hands when you are browsing and scrolling, loading, and test-playing sounds in your library. That's a very nice convenience.

Also, I think more than ever a touch screen would not work as well, and that's purely because there's already a knob for everything you'll really ever need. Yes, only up to 8 functions at a time, but you can bump to the left or right with a button, and you'll have 8 more knobs.

Plus, if you REALLY need more UI twiddly bits, the Komplete interface on your computer screen is right there too. Why not use it? I'm even thinking of putting an old 24" monitor in front of it and changing the resolution just to make VSTi UI windows take up most of that screen. If you're playing live, you're going to configure your needed instruments so that you don't need a monitor anyway, so having an added monitor won't be needed.

And finally, a touch screen would also limit what keyboards you might be able to put above it in a 2-tier or 3-tier stand. But then the same is also true of keyboards with a lot of physical controls. I also have a Roland Fantom 61. It's like having the helm controls for the Starship Enterprise, and with all those fiddly bits you just can't put anything above it on a multi-keyboard stand. You just can't, because it will make it too difficult to see and access the bottom keyboard's myriad of sliders, buttons, knobs, and the touch screen too.

If the desktop screen and on-device screen are designed to match.. then this would still be fine.

Gives the preferred option to all... those who want and immersive "heads-up" experience and those who want an immersive "heads down" experience... whatever keeps a creative person in their best creative flow.

The "NKS2 experience" should not be locked into the on-device CPU/display.. let it fully exist in desktop software and screen too.

I thought you and I had aligned some thinking when you gave a positive "Exactly!" reply to this post from @B.Minor:

Hi to all, usualy i'm not a big fan of posting comments, but in this case within i'm affected too, i was thinking why NI doesn't implement in Native Access a option to remove the update notification if you own a KK S MK1, i guess it won't be confusing anymore for those who hit Update All button when you have more than 2-3 updates. I don't know, just saying...sorry for my rusty english. Peace!

Re: trying to sell Mk1's. Perhaps unintentionally, these have turned out to be great as MIDI controllers, because the displays for the pots will receive data, effectively giving you motorised controls using Mainstage/Ableton etc on stage. I've got through three or four of them over the years as they don't stand up to touring very well. The keybed is also super playable so I wonder if those niches might make them easier to sell than you might fear.