Using Komplete Kontrol causing my DAW (Reaper) to freeze every 5 minutes

Have no idea where Maschine 3 is. But until it appears - it’s not out. Last I read on another thread was year end 2024.

As far as your issue - I am sure that it’s been logged and catalogued by now. What priority it gets is unknown.

We haven’t had a new KK release in a while.

If I were to venture a guess - we are probably due for one after the K15 release at month end.

VP

@Matthew_NI Thanks for your confirmation. Can you give an estimation when NI can look at this bug?

That's very, very bad news. That means that I will not upgrade to Komplete 15 Collector's edition or any other NI product.

@GtaSa Thanks for your sharing, highly appreciated.

I would like to know if the Komplete Kontrol software has been updated in this release and if it has resolved the issues with working under Reaper DAW?

Short answer:

• No: NI is not able to provide a customer support plan when the KK VST3 plugin be fixed. Unclear if and when this will be fixed. Scroll up for details.
• If you're a REAPER customer, do not buy NI Mk3 or Komplete 15 products.

Long answer: This is what you can expect:

1. KK instrument focus when switching DAW track and DAW/Play/Stop/Record/Mixer buttons on the Mk3 keyboard is called "a full DAW integration feature". Full DAW integration feature is not available for REAPER and is not supported by NI. (Correctly not listed in the Mk3 product specification) Full DAW integration functionality can be added to REAPER by installing a 3rd party plugin DrivenByMoss in REAPER. Then you've full DAW integration working with KK and Mk2 / Mk3 and no problem that NI does not support this "full DAW integration feature for REAPER".
2. The Mk3 keyboard includes Komplete Kontrol VST3 plugin to control instruments between keyboard and DAW. Using this Komplete Kontrol VST3 plugin on Windows 10 / 11 (maybe other OSes as well) crashes REAPER when changing some buttons and loose window focus. There are multiple 100% reproducible instruments causing this, but not all. Visit page 2 for technical details in this thread. Crashing your DAW is a showstopper for any music production, at home or in the studio.

Now it comes to NI support:

• NI advertises their products to use all NI VST plugins in any DAW with VST support, including Komplete Kontrol and Komplete 15, page System requirements: Windows 10 or 11 (latest Service Pack)and Runs in 64-bit VST, AU, and AAX hosts
• For Komplete 15: `From the heart of commercial studios to creating on the go, Komplete 15 is ready to integrate with any DAW and setup.` This is clearly an invalid marketing statement: Advertising what NI product cannot offer knowingly and deliberately.
  https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/35493/is-reaper-daw-supported-with-komplete-15-ultimate
• This Komplete Kontrol bug has been reported since November 2023, confirmed reproducible by NI, administrated and then support stops.
• If you carefully read all other threads, you can clearly see that there is no active maintenance on Komplete Kontrol anymore. The complete development team switched to focus on new product development and customer reported bugs are not resolved in the meantime. Fixing the bug in Komplete Kontrol VST3 plugin takes around 1 or 2 days, but did not get any attention by NI after 11 months waiting.
• Also Mk3 keyboard firmware contains very simple bugs (bug in pedal invert option for example) which can be easily addressed in a matter of hours, but ignored by NI. Only new features are important for them such as the templates.

All NI support engineers including legal department keeps repeating that REAPER is not supported in general (scroll back in this thread), but the products are advertised to run VST plugins in any DAW. NI support keeps referring to DAW integration which is not requested and use this as an excuse to postpone (read: reject) fix critical problems in their software.

In reality, NI does not allocate a team with software developers to support their existing released products to keep prices low. I am willing to pay for support, but has been rejected by NI. If you encounter any problems in Komplete Kontrol or Komplete 15, they get "low priority" and no plan to get your problem addressed. No matter how many ProTools/Cubase/REAPER/etc customers are affected, fact is that there is no active maintenance on released products like Komplete Kontrol.

I do not want to switch to another DAW, as I have been using Reaper for over 15 years.

I use REAPER for around 15 years as well and do not want to switch or even enforced by NI. NI should clearly specify in their product specifications in which environment the products can be used and consider a re-organization to support their customers. You cannot use crashing software or buggy software for any business. Never had these problems before as 10 years NI customer.

Up to you to decide if you want to buy these products which comes with very limited technical support.

I’d like to chime that I am another Reaper user who reverted back to Komplete Kontrol 2.9.6 due to crashes. I did this last fall. I run Windows 10 and have a Komplete S61 mk2 keyboard. Since Kontakt 8 is not supported to work in KK 2.9.6, I’m feel I'm slowly but surely losing any ability or desire to upgrade my NI products, either hardware or software. I have dozens of VST3 plugins that function flawlessly in Reaper. I would also like to know when KK will be fixed so that it functions properly in Reaper.

Thank you. Good to know. 👍️

@iioto Thanks for your post. I'm sorry to hear that you as REAPER customer are also disappointed like any other REAPER customer following this thread.

It should take a few days to resolve this critical bug in Komplete Kontrol 3, but this thread is already open since November 2023 and there is no outlook for a solution. Downgrading to a previous Komplete Kontrol is not an acceptable solution.

There is not solution even when installing all latest versions of today. If you still want to keep using REAPER, you can ship the keyboard back to the webshop and request your money back. Don't forget to post a review with your NI experiences. Contacting NI support is a dead road as they keep answering that REAPER is not supported and have no idea what they are talking about, so don't waste your time with these nonsense answers.

I wish I could share a solution when NI was willing to provide customer support. I'm still upset about the behavior of NI and did not purchase any NI hardware and software anymore. (Can be verified in my account) Success.