Using Komplete Kontrol causing my DAW (Reaper) to freeze every 5 minutes (KBDSW-7859)

I think the official NI crew is not back from the holiday break until Jan 6.

VP

Just adding my voice to the chorus. Bought an S61 MKIII in April of last year.

KK3 not only crashes Reaper seemingly at random, but severely affects the performance of my sessions. I've reproduced this a number of times, and every time I freeze or delete the tracks using KK3 my session's performance returns to normal. Massively disappointing.

Tried on 2 Windows laptops and my workstation, same behavior everywhere.

FX is the button in Reaper you push to load a virtual instrument or effect, virtual instrument or insert effect. Do you use Reaper?

All technical details are already shared multiple times. A 100% reproducible test case can be found in this thread. NI confirmed this bug, but there is zero progress since November 2023. We're at page 7 now and you see still new complaining customers which never ends without a solution.

Correct: REAPER accepts VST3 plugins and instruments on a track which is called FX.

REAPER developers are not able to debug and fix this problem as this bug is located in the KK 3 binaries and pointing back to the NI KK developers. AFAIK, all other VST3 products from NI and other manufactures works fine in REAPER.

The only way forward is allocating one NI software engineer launching KK3 in REAPER in a debugger and start investigating this problem. Investigation should not take more than one or two days for a skilled engineer as a similar bug was already fixed in Kontakt.

@Chris_NI Can you manage this or do you need more technical information?

@Vocalpoint Unfortunately, the information in the NI post link from your previous comment is known and incomplete as you can read in following comments. NI marked it as answered, but is not accepted by customers as there is no solution.

Customers requested NI to fix KK VST3 plugin to run it on a REAPER track just like any other NI plugin in REAPER as documented here:

https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015830357-Plug-in-Administration-in-Reaper

There is REAPER support, otherwise this page did not exist. The KK3 VST3 plugin is similar to any other NI VST3 instrument plugin such as Kontakt.

The real problem of this thread is running the KK3 as VST3 plugin on a REAPER track where we request NI to fix KK3 VST3 plugin to stops crashing REAPER. This should be an easy bugfix for NI, but NI is not willing to understand the problem so far since there is no communication possible other than this thread or email. I wish we could talk to a human with sufficient knowledge. Even funding this bugfix has been rejected.

DAW integration means mapping the keyboard display/buttons/rotary controls to KK3 running in a DAW and is beyond the scope of this request: 3rd party REAPER plugins already support full DAW integration and is not related to this REAPER freeze. Should we post the links again?

NI always refers to unsupported REAPER DAW integration which is not requested in this thread, we need a KK3 fix to stop freezing REAPER instead without DAW integration. Minimum engineering effort, high customer satisfaction results in more sales. Now our NI investments in hardware and software are on hold.

As long as NI employees and NI support keep referring to their "DAW integration" excuse, then they are part of the problem and not participating in finding a solution to support their customers.

Hopefully Chris_NI sheds more light on this when he can.

Fact: Last activity in @Chris_NI profile was 7 November 2024.

@Vocalpoint Please correct me if I'm wrong, it looks like you're working for NI, but your account is listed as normal user which is confusing. Is it possible for you ping Chris internally?

@Erwinew

"Please correct me if I'm wrong, it looks like you're working for NI, but your account is listed as normal user which is confusing. Is it possible for you ping Chris internally?"

I will correct you right off the top. While I am a huge fan of my NI stuff and like to think (hope?) I have positive relationships with selected users on the boards here and even the NI employees (and mods) who monitor the forums here - I do not work for NI.

Next - with all due respect to you AND not knowing the technical internals of Komplete Kontrol - my gut feel on this issue has a number of angles.

Firstly - Reaper is not a supported DAW for Komplete Kontrol "integration". While I know this annoys you - this specific requirement cannot be overstated and it certainly should not be slid under the table either.

Secondly (and respectfully) - you have repeatedly made a point of assuming that just because Komplete Kontrol is a "VST3 plugin" and Reaper loads VST Plugins - that KKv3 should magically just work in Reaper.

That is like an Audacity user, or Traction user or Wavelab user coming in here and declaring that all their apps "host" VST3 plugins - so KKv3 should automatically just "work" too. That is technically - never - a guarantee of anything.

Finally - we (the collective "we") have no idea whatsoever about the internal code, requirements, design or anything else within the Komplete Kontrol framework to make any assumptions about anything.

That "official" list of supported apps - is official for a reason. As difficult as this may sound for you - maybe Komplete Kontrol simply cannot just "be" a VST3 plugin in any other DAW than those above.

Maybe there are requirements/elements/support within those 8 DAWs above that allow KK to "just work" as a VST3 plugin - that Reaper simply does not have. Maybe NI has had technical conversations with the Reaper crew and specific technical requirements cannot be agreed upon.

Again - I have zero knowledge on why this issue is occurring nor am I dismissing that there is an issue. I am not a Reaper user and I feel for you guys here.

But I do know that the world revolves around priorities and the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" in almost all situations. It is very easy to see the 8 other DAWs that are supported and how many tens/hundreds of thousands of users of those products need help with their KKv3 installs as well.

Bottom line - if this was an easy fix - it would be easy.

Only Chris_NI can provide official comment on the status of this item. I will leave it to him to do that.

VP