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

Matthew_NI · 2024-03-04T17:53:26+00:00

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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:

Ship official macOS Sonoma support
Deliver three major Kontrol S MK3 on-device features to beta:
1. MIDI Templates
2. Accessibility
3. Play Assist
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.

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.
Deliver three major Kontrol S MK3 on-device features to beta:
1. MIDI Templates: likely to hit beta in April

Play Assist: likely to hit beta later in Q2
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
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.

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Comments

JesterMgee

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/167335#Comment_167335

Well, history has taught me to never expect more than a single egg in the basket so if Midi Templates is what is toted, that is ALL you will get and nothing more. Can't be adding in too much workload for the year…

Beatsandmore

Well at least my mk3 is in the keyboard tray and don't have to see it until they get it right until then I use my trusty arturia keylab pro keyboard.

MorrisEd

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/167271#Comment_167271

I would take the opportunity to try something else. I was deeply upset after buying the S61 MK3 at launch because of the removal of midi templates and lack of disclosure by NI in their advertisements. I also felt the removal of Maschine controls made it lesser than the MK2. I still believe it was a terrible product, but it turned out to be a blessing given the disasterous issues with Native Access that happened this year. I had already stopped using the MK3 and pretty much fully transitioned away from NI plug-ins. My setup is a lot more stable now, and I rarely have to go through all the update maintenance and downtime that NI software had become. There are a lot of great alternatives out there. I can’t say I will even download the midi template update at this point because it’s been so long at this point, and I expect there will be some hassle with it; bugs; or standard fare terrible design choices that NI has become infamous for.

Skijumptoes

Love my S88 Mk3, plays great, integrates with Kontakt - moving from a S49 Mk2 i've been super impressed.

However, the wait for on-board elements like the play assist and templates is ridiculously slow, it's not a good look when you read the plan on this thread, and decide to buy on that presentation, in truth it's already fallen short.

We should be at the point where other third parties are utilising direct connection as Kontakt uses. But instead we're still waiting for the core functionality to come online.

However, for me, my reaction isn't as harsh as a lot of you other people. I think it's a great controller and very happy with it, but I was aware of the 'current' shortcomings when buying mine.

Beatsandmore

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/167886#Comment_167886

Great design it is but what I purchased it for and like others do not warrant $900 price tag..

Seeing that NI are missing there deadlines on release candidates means there are unforseen bugs or what being proposed functions are not working.. either way product looks good and yes it works with kontakt but that's it..

BIF

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/164303#Comment_164303

Having spent most of my career in that type of environment that's probably why I'm a bit more patient and understanding of what's going on, but I will say NI has been forced to be more transparent with the user base about the mistakes they made in the initial release, but from what I can tell are making the appropriate corrections to get things aligned for smaller but more stable releases. But only time will tell at this point.

Yep, I've been in that environment too. The whole of the software development industry is now "all in" on Agile. That's Agile with an uppercase A, which is a thing. But take a drive on You Tube, and you'll start seeing all kinds of content basically saying that "the emperor has no clothes" when it comes to "Agile-capital-A". I knew this about 2 years ago when the company I was working on went "all in" on it too. And it was a miserable failure.

Without proper safeguards in place, the 2-week sprint cycle (which is a major part of "Agile-capital-A") ends up becoming a finger-pointing culture. It's terrible and it makes it VERY difficult to keep staffing levels up because either people are leaving or the line-managers are being told they have to lay off 10%, 20%, or whatever senior leadership has on its mind at the moment. 10% of a PROPERLY sized delivery team is 1 FTE. When you go from 10 to 9, you damage morale in more ways than you ever can imagine. I believe that this is partly what happened to NI.

That's also why I'm less alarmed by release dates slipping as that would indicate a much more thorough and disciplined approach toward stable releases. I'm not a big fan of the "quick fix" releases they initially came up with to get the last batch of things stable. I understood the necessity, but that's not what I'm willing to endure in a full featured next generation release.

In my observation as a technician and as a manager, most humans just are NOT made to wait. That's one reason that the 2-week sprint cycle was invented; it was supposed to give smaller but more frequent feelings in the customer that we're getting something!

But to make that 2 week cycle, you absolutely MUST shrink the number of things you can include in each cycle. NI was trying hard, but nobody seems to figure in the Beta cycle, which does not fit neatly into any 2 week or 3 week release cycle. So the release cycle becomes 5 to 6 weeks even for small releases.

Even if "true Agile-capital-A" was being followed, pretty much everything not in the currently being worked release, will just end up being thrown into the "Backlog-capital-B", which is another thing in Agile-capital-A.

Human nature being what it is, when you tell the customer something in the backlog, that's like saying it's not being planned. Why? BECAUSE HUMANS ARE NOT MADE TO WAIT FOR STUFF.

It doesn't help at all to do bigger releases either! The upcoming release for MIDI Templates (a "big release") is currently (I think) in Beta. So maybe hundreds(?) of people in the Beta will know that, but they're all under NDA and probably can't say anything here in the forums. So it doesn't change public sentiment, and now you have people here in the forums (for weeks now) admitting that they have have lost faith that MIDI Templates are even being worked on, all because it's being talked about now for 3 months (or close to that) and nobody (but the silent Beta team) has seen any deliverables.

So whatever the methodology, "Agile" or "Waterfall", or whatever nomme du jour it may have, humans are NOT made to wait.

I believe that the upsettedness of the customer base will continue until the NI development teams get some wins. That's "wins", plural. MIDI Templates all by itself will not change anybody's mind. We need a string of successes. And we probably deserve a commitment (complete with WORDS and BEHAVIORS) that NI will never let another release farce like KK MK3 happen again. I'm kind of still waiting for that commitment. Haven't seen it yet, but I'm holding out hope.

BIF

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/167326#Comment_167326

…compared with eternity, April to July is not such a long time…

You're right, it's not at all a long time. And yet he STILL is convinced it will never happen. This is precisely why I say that humans are not made to wait. No matter how sensible you are, no matter how well you explain it, THEY. DON'T. WANT. TO. WAIT.

And for this reason, NI needs to make a commitment to never let this happen again with another FUBAR'd release like KK MK3 was last October/November/wheneveritwas.

BIF

Your full and complete list will NEVER be completed in just 2 weeks, 2 months, and maybe not even in 2 years, what with all the on-board MK3 features NI needs to get started on.

This may be painful to hear, but I think the best we can hope for is that a few of your items will be addressed, along with some new stuff.

BIF

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/167429#Comment_167429

You're right about that. Remember, the MIDI Template dev team has members that were pulled in from other teams. Those team members would likely be released back to their original teams, which will reduce the workforce for Komplete development.

Furthermore, the month of August is fast approaching. So if "The New NI" has a lot of team members from Europe, they may be taking most or all of August off work, which will push more work onto the US-based team members. Also, there's the Olympics happening in August, so pretty much anybody who's into sports could end up being less "plugged in to work" during that month.

And then it will be no time and we'll be seeing the US Labor Day holiday weekend, followed by back-to-school in US, and then in just a couple of short months by the US Thanksgiving holiday and Christmas for the whole world.

My point is that there's going to be tons of things happening for the rest of this year that will provide some level of distractions for people. And yes, to your point, we really CAN'T be adding in too much more workload for the remainder of 2024. Not without bigger teams, or more teams. And I doubt any company is increasing its workforce.

As for me, I'm just doing other stuff while we all wait. I've been considering getting another MIDI keyboard controller, such as the Novation SL MK3. But the real problem is that almost everything available for sale is a model that came out back in 2015 or earlier. It's slim pickin's for new technologies. Except maybe for Komplete Kontrol MK3. Go figure.

Beatsandmore

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/167947#Comment_167947

So just like JesterMgee stated we will get midi templates only and I will add it won't work as expected also 😆

JesterMgee

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/167947#Comment_167947

I have also been doing stuff as I wait for actual updates, my kids were born and are now almost out of high school. At this rate, they may be married with kids of their own before anything substantial happens.

Skijumptoes

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/167910#Comment_167910

I was weighing up buying a Roland Fantom-8 or going 'in the box' with the S88 Mk3. At a third of the cost, and combined with Komplete it does a hell of a lot already. Plus it's a hell of a space saver, even the 88 key version as it's not overly deep.

MIDI Templates not an issue for me as i'm able to use the deeper integration with my DAW and prefer parameter displays on the screen than going back to general MIDI. It knocks the socks off most competiting controllers now that it interacts direct with Kontakt plus the light guide support for mapped articulations etc.

Any external instrument control I route through the DAW too, so get pages of automation parameters on-screen via Cubase or Reaper, able to control third party instruments or effects direct.

I appreciate that not everyone is tech savvy enough to take that route though, and for those that want general MIDI CC support it's been a long wait.

However, it's easy to just focus on what it doesn't do and forget the many plus points it has, and what a great future is ahead of these devices too. The scope is massive 'if' they can get things into gear and third parties, or MIDI 2.0 being the driver.

MyStudioOne

Thanks Matthew, but understand as others have pointed out, we've been hearing things like this since April.

…compared with eternity, April to July is not such a long time… 😋😉

I like to think I am as "glass half full" minded as anybody but midi users haven't been waiting from April pushed to july. They have been waiting since November 2023 when they first discovered they can't use their midi controllers as midi controllers unlike recent buyers who may have known going in if they had done any digging/researching.

Now somewhere between 9 and 10 months has passed us by since the release. First early owners were told first quarter '24 for midi if I am not mistaken, then 2nd quarter '24 and now we are halfway through 3rd quarter '24 and still no midi update. So who wouldn't be pissed? And how could anyone have a successful hardware business doing bone-headed things like this. It truly boggles my mind.

I build homes for a living and the closest comparison I can think of in my field is telling the owners halfway through the job that doors and windows aren't included in the intitial build but I can install them for them at some point after they take possession. But be prepared to wait because doors and windows aren't my main focus since more people would rather have a roof to start with.

And to you potential new buyers, you are welcome to buy this unfinshed home from me as long as you are willing to pay full price up front for it and are willing to patiently wait for as long as it takes for me to finish it for you!

But even in this ridiculous scenario, the buyers were at least told up front what they weren't getting. In the case of the MK3, the buyers were puposefully deceived at worst or badly misinformed at best. And neither is acceptable in the real business world. And few companies would survive such antics for long.

So of course NI is eating s—t over it as the derserve to. Will I make any difference? I doubt it. The few us us who choose to continue to take them to task are just branded as a dissident minority who could never be satisfied in any case. Ignore the dissatisfied for long enough and they will just go away.

Well I guess there is some truth to that. After all, I think I have had one foot out the door for some time now, yet for some reason, I still linger. I think I am a closet "eternal optimist" even though I also understand that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over (in this case believing that NI will change), and expecting a different result.

Skijumptoes

So of course NI is eating s—t over it as the derserve to. Will I make any difference? I doubt it.

It makes a big difference for anyone who researches before buying. I was reading these forums and the various youtube comments and it completely put me off buying a mk3.

The only reason I eventually got one was because the shop were happy for me to try one out and bring it back if I wasn't happy for any reason. I'm willing to bet there's a whole many more users that either stick with what they have or go buy something else, this must be hurting their potential sales.

However, I think reading all the negativity is why I ended up with a positive experience when I got it in my hands, my expectations were so low. But then I don't 'need' the MIDI Templates, I have a Maschine for Maschine use, and also upgraded from Standard to Ultimate which really opened up the experience for me.

At least NI are engaging with users and attempting to be as transparent as possible, i'd much prefer them to miss certain dates than not own up to issues or give us an idea of the plan moving forwards. So we have to be a little careful with the bashing or they will just go quiet on that front like many other companies.

If they fail to deliver and these plans turn out to be a sneaky sales drive then it's incredibly low, I don't think that will be the case though. I think it's more about changes/resources and the people involved actively do want to see things through to completion.

Matthew_NI

I don't 'need' the MIDI Templates

Most users don't. But some do, and they're understandably frustrated, such that you'll read about it here. I think a lot of those users will enjoy this update.

It's definitely taken longer than anyone would like. We've had a ton of headwinds - and the irony of full transparency is that when I say we're working on something, we are, and when I mention our target release dates, it can sometimes be worse if they slip for any reason within or outside of our control. Saying nothing, I would argue, is still worse.

If they fail to deliver and these plans turn out to be a sneaky sales drive then it's incredibly low, I don't think that will be the case though

Now THAT would be a bad PR move. Nah, we're in beta with Release Candidate 1 already, and have Release Candidate 2 landing tomorrow.

I ended up with a positive experience

I'm glad to hear it. Public forums such as this tend not to hear as much about those experiences, which are still in the majority for Kontrol S MK3. I hope that once this update ships, and then the next few follow-on updates ship, that even the greatest skeptics will come around.

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