Kontrol 2024 outlook: what was, what now, what next?

Hi, folks!

We're constantly enhancing features and revisiting old ones. Many of you have asked for clarity on certain issues, or for a clearer roadmap in general, so let's dive in.

This is an open dialogue - your thoughts, feedback, questions, and answers are welcome. Note that specific dates are unavailable beyond those mentioned here.

How did we get here?

Past

Kontrol MK1 (2014)

This was designed to:

• Speed up your creative flow with unified browsing of/seamlessly integrated control over your entire Komplete library.
• Expand your creative possibilities with Play Assistance.

To realize this vision, we introduced:

• The Native Kontrol Standard (NKS) SDK, powering the automatic hardware integration. 
• Komplete Kontrol software, acting as the librarian of your content and the brains of the automatic hardware integration. 

We improved the capabilities over time, creating a more equitable music making experience for all with Accessibility features, and opening NKS to 3rd parties.

Kontrol MK2 (2016)

This included both hardware and software upgrades:

• Exponentially more NKS compatible instruments/effects.
• Enhanced browsing via Audio Previews for NKS compatible instruments.
• Deeper DAW control (Undo, Redo, Quantize, etc).
• Introduced a Maschine integration for both transport and creative control.
• Two colour screens for more immersive on-device display overall.

The Kontrol community grew exponentially larger, with which came some user requests and usability themes, most notably:

User Requests

• Wanting capabilities (e.g. Play Assist) to be on-device (software agnostic).
• Wanting Komplete Kontrol to modernize (visual features like HiDPI and Resizing).
• A general frustration at the slow cadence of updates to Kontrol.

Usability themes

• 2/3rds of the content loaded in Komplete Kontrol was Kontakt. Those users often asked that the integration be made available directly in Kontakt instead.
• The Maschine integration –beloved by those who used it– was rarely used en masse and unwieldy to maintain. The (exponentially larger audience of) Kontrol-only users would often express confusion at the seemingly “broken” or “non functional” buttons. 
• The seamless integration NKS offered was good, but could be greater. Not every parameter is logically controlled by a continuous rotary encoder, for example. Endless page scrolling also left some to be desired.

A wholesale modernization was needed, to iterate on this large volume of user search and feedback, and set us up for a next generation of hardware devices (yes, this plural is intentional). 

Kontrol MK3 (2023)

The first product on this new tech stack, it added on-device processing capabilities, and allows us to build and iterate on many of the ongoing feature requests, but at launch included:

• A focussed set of high quality hardware design improvements (materials, controls, screens, etc).
• Some usability improvements, such as:
• Direct Connection to Kontakt 7, as requested
• NKS2, a much improved parameter integration with new iconography and navigation for better ease of use.
• Polyphonic Aftertouch, kickstarting an ongoing story of Expressive Input.

Meanwhile, the software transitioned from (tech talk alert) a static UI built mostly of bitmaps to a dynamically resizable UI built on the Qt framework, allowing us to ship resizing and HiDPI. Of course, any major step forward is not without cost. An explicit focus on what to prioritize also creates an implicit focus on what not to do. The most controversial examples were:

• Maschine integration. Since very few users used this and it was confusing to everyone else, it wasn’t something we were willing to prioritize at the expense of other features. Basic Transport integration may return at some point, but not to the prior depth.
• MIDI Templates. Only a minority of existing users used custom templates, so we deprioritized the capability to a post-launch update and focussed on the main features users asked for (see above). This was particularly frustrating to power users, and we hope to have it reintroduced soon (see below). 
• Browser Property Editing and Drag+Drop were not widely used, and remains available in Komplete Kontrol 2.9, so this too was deprioritized to a post-launch update.
• Kontrol MK1 support was frozen as of Komplete Kontrol 2.9.6 due to incompatible and outdated frameworks. 

Though the launch was well received and widely adopted overall, for users of the above, understanding why a decision was made is not the same thing as finding it palatable, and nor should it be. Please know that my intent in sharing the roadmap update here is not to re-litigate the past, but to build for the future.

Since the initial launch, we’ve continued to iterate, adding new features and stability improvements more than once a month via a total of 7 software and 2 firmware updates since October 1st 2023. This is a much faster cadence than ever before. The biggest new post-launch feature was Browser resizing. The biggest stability fixes were twofold: a catastrophic Windows S88 driver issue, and a rare but insidious firmware bricking issue. Though still a small minority, those issues affected hundreds of customers and were incredibly frustrating for all - as seen on the forums.

Of course you all wish to see more. Hence…

Present (Q1 2024)

Where are we now, in Q1 2024? We had originally intended to deliver the following by the end of the quarter, and in this order of priority:

1. Ship official macOS Sonoma support
2. Deliver three major Kontrol S MK3 on-device features to beta:
   1. MIDI Templates
   2. Accessibility
   3. Play Assist 
3. Ship two minor (but major to affected users!) browser improvements:
   1. Property Editing
   2. Drag+Drop

It’s early March, and the teams have made excellent progress considering the trials and tribulations life threw our way. Some unexpected bugs slowed us down, albeit the silver lining was the team’s quick response to shipping fixes. Absence due to winter sickness also hit hard.

1. macOS Sonoma support 
   1. Komplete Kontrol is in beta, and is planned to ship in March, barring unforeseen bugs.
   2. Kontrol S MK3 is held up by a bug on Apple’s side that is being addressed by them. I’ll share more as I have it.
2. Deliver three major Kontrol S MK3 on-device features to beta:
   1. MIDI Templates: likely to hit beta in April

1. Play Assist: likely to hit beta later in Q2
2. Ship two minor (but major to affected users!) browser improvements:
   1. Drag+Drop: this was temporarily paused as some higher priority topics emerged for the Browser team. I’ll share more once it’s back in active development. 
   2. Property Editing: this is done, internally, with some kinks to work out before shipping
3. Accessibility: likely to hit beta in April

   We also took on a number of emergent issues and have a long list of small but impactful improvements coming soon, such as font size improvements, pedal configuration improvements, and so on. Here are some assorted screenshots of what's coming.

   This shows MIDI Template Zone Editing:

   

   We have some recall bugs to fix and some user experience improvements coming to the pedal configuration process:

   

   Future (2024+)

   Once the above have shipped, I imagine there are still questions about what else will happen, and by when. Although I can’t talk about everything we have planned in a public forum, I can share at least some of the things likely to bump up the backlog next. The topics of interest include:

   Q2 / Q3 2024

   • A more powerful production experience, with deeper DAW integrations. We’d love to improve the DAW integrations beyond basic transport functions, and improve the way we interface with stock Browsers, Instruments and Channel-strips in general.
   • Increasing the immersion, with better visualizations on Kontrol S MK3. Today, each product loads a static banner image. Tomorrow, each product should have more control over what imagery is shown when, rather than one size fits all. 
   • Greater expressive potential, going beyond Polyphonic Aftertouch and utilizing the full power of the Kontrol S MK3 hardware.
   • Expanding the MIDI 2 implementation on Kontrol S MK3. Yes, this is limited until DAWs and content manufacturers implement MIDI 2 more widely and robustly. But I expect this to expand greatly, since MIDI 2 has some compelling capabilities. 

   Q4 2024

   • ?!?! There are some larger announcements planned for this time of year. But that’s as much as I can say for now.

   That’s all I had, let’s talk! What do you think? What would you like to hear more about? What would you advocate for or against?

   Kind Regards,

   Matt

   Appendix:

   The Team(s)

   Since I made reference to some topics living with various teams, and some here have asked their own questions about it, I thought it might interest the community to know how we approach things, internally. Within the division, we are several small but mighty teams working together, each hyper focussed on one aspect of the products.

   • Team working on the desktop software
     • This includes Komplete Kontrol, Maschine and the NKS SDK.
   • Team working on the on-device software
     • This includes Kontrol S MK3 and Maschine+.
   • Team working on the device firmware and hardware
     • This includes Kontrol and Maschine.

   As you see, we work simultaneously on Kontrol and Maschine. You’ve seen some progress on the former, and will see some progress on the latter before too much longer. Things are happening! We also collaborate directly with several more teams throughout the company:

   • There is a team working on Discovery
     • This includes the Browser, which products like Komplete Kontrol and Kontrol S MK3 use.
   • There is a team working on the Kontakt Builder Experience
     • This includes implementing NKS in KSP, the Kontakt Script Processor that instruments are built with.
   • There is a team working on Kontakt’s end user experience
     • This includes implementing the Direct Connection API built by the on-device team for Kontrol S MK3.

   And of course, our colleagues responsible for building the instruments and FX, with whom we collaborate on continually improving the NKS experience.