How to fix Komplete Kontrol VST2 after 3.0 update ?

How many percent of the users do NI think reads changelog before updating Komplete Kontrol for the fact that it abandons VST2? I bet it is around 1-2% at maximum. This is so stupid mistake from the point of not thinking the products from the user’s perspective it hurts. Luckily I was going through old projects and found this nice little surprise. Bet many will not notice.

Does this mean I have to reopen every project that I've worked on in the past 6 years, save my presets in VST2...Then load VST3 and import them back?

500+ projects all ruined thanks to these horrible NI updates. Would have to spend weeks switching out the VST2 for the VST3 if we want to work on any of these projects again. This is enough to make people uninstall for good and choose to stay far away from NI due to the unreliability / inconsistency of this software.

Some of us barely have enough time to work on music as it is and I would personally rather start a new project using old VSTs that have proven to be consistent rather than playing a game of roulette with KK and potentially losing my whole project.

The next update needs to fix this issue on it's own or at least include an option to keep the old VST2 content folder (rather than having to manually downgrade just to then upgrade again).

You have to copy the settings over manually.

It will not automatically change the instruments over. Like if it's a kontakt instance, then you will have to manually select the instrument you used, and also the settings for that instrument.

so you need to open the vst 2 version, and use that as reference to copy over your setting for the vst3 track.

Same goes for Multi's Thats a nightmare.

It's a Pain to do. If you have a lot of tracks and songs, this could take you a whole day to do.

Basically, yes, but this is also something you should be doing anyway since VST2 has been EOL for 2+ years now and warned of being EOL for a good 10+ years and certainly you should not be using VST2 on any new projects created within the last few years without good reason.

Or you can simply stick to the KK V2 software if you do not own an MK3 keyboard there is really no reason to upgrade. mac users tho have to run in compatibility mode so they should have been updating things to VST3 years ago.

You can then slowly work on updating all your past projects. It's a good time to clean your closet too, finished tracks just render off, note down all the instruments that were used on every track (as professionals should be doing in a track list record anyway) then in future you can just switch in something similar. Most professionals I know will always save out every preset for every instrument/effect as a backup too so they can easily reload it.

Tracks in progress you can easily switch out plugins or just make a decision that this project is never gonna be finished. Of course any time you start updating things like this you would (as you have always done) make a copy of the project as a new updated version. I like to add a _VST3 tag to the end of projects so I know that it is 100% VST3 compatible and updated

I covered an answer here for a duplicate post from the above user on the matter:

The thing to keep in mind is this is prep work we all should have been doing for the last 10 years as companies migrate to VST3 and for mac users, this should have been even more important to know about since VST2 is no longer supported on ANY new macOS system nativelly by any developer, you have to run in compatibility mode to get back to VST2 in most cases.

If you take some time and care, most of the stuff can be switched out and updated pretty easily. The key is to make sure you switch out BOTH KK and the loaded plugin BOTH for the VST3 versions but also, any other plugins and effects not loaded in KK also need to be updated in the same way as not everything migrates from VST2 to VST3.

The challenge is finding the same preset (which you can just save out the preset from the plugin before you switch it out to VST3) but also, if you have automation that can also a challenge because you need to know what was automated and what control position it was etc. This is what takes some time but it's 100% doable, thousands (including me) are working through and doing this exact thing, only personally I am also updating hundreds of thousands of NKS files for updated compatibility too so nothing is impossible.

Just takes a little patience and time to work through things and approach it with care before blindly updating things and digging yourself into a hole. Never trust a computer or software to EVER work for you from one day to the next. You should always have a way to go back if your move forward makes a mess of things.

If you have projects that used VST2, your issues are several being a mac M1 user especially since you seem to be oblivious as to the limitations around this on any new mac of the last 3 years...

macOS running M1 chips don't support Intel code natively and all software must be updated to work with the M1+ chips. THis was all at the same time that VST2 was announced by Steinberg as now being EOL and discontinued so basically all developers now decided they would no longer support VST2 as a format. THis is why many mac users (in the pro industry at least) are already prepared and updated because the issue has been years coming.

First, you need to be using I believe Ableton Live 11, unsure if V12 will even have any VST2 support for macu users anymore.

You then need to have KK V2.9 installed

You then need to be launching Ableton Live in Rosetta Compatibility mode which will affect performance quite a bit but allows the VST2 plugins to now load. From there, you do everything I have already explained.

Hi @Alfonx

I am glad you have largely resolved your issues. Unfortunately, I returned to my projects after a hiatus, and stupidly downloaded the upgrade when prompted to.

I have attempted your track duplication advice, but since I create some fairly extensive parameter changes to the tracks I simply cannot replicate the sounds, especially with instruments that combine sounds like Hybrid Keys. The settings have disappeared from my tracks, so there is nothing to copy.

I am feeling incredibly devastated as I essentially have had every single project rendered completely uneditable, and I am hoping there is another way to recover my settings.