NAMM 2025: Introducing the NKS Hardware Partner Program

Agree on FX. BTW I wonder if NI with iZotope plugins would release an NKS mix controller?

Two third party candidates for NKS FX control support is SSL and Softube. SSL has the Solid State Logic UF1 hardware which is a likely candidate for NKS implementation with four knobs and a dynamic display with four buttons at the top (a half Komplete Kontrol).

Softube has dropped NKS support on their software plugins but the new open support for third party hardware could open up the door for NKS again (I hope so). Suspect they may already be working on a similar master fader controller as the SSL UF1 (with FX control of Mastering chain macros, Reverb, Delay etc), adding NKS could make sense for FX plugins like reverbs and delays. They could also add NKS support for the already released Console 1 (which already support some limited third party plugins EQs, Compressors, Shapers, Saturation with their own proprietary control layer).

Sold my M32 last year when it never got Kontakt compatibility. A new M32 MK2 or bigger M-series (hopefully 37 keys) keyboard, likely with NKS2 and Kontakt compatibility, may arrive now as early as February or March (but this year). I would wait if I was looking for a M-series keyboard a few weeks more.

XY expression works ok on the MK3 keyboards. Y for Modulation Midi CC1 and X for Expression (touchstrip is sideways) Midi CC11 is default in some Kontakt instruments. Agree though, a touch pad would be nice.

Agree Massive X feels underserved and the Reaktor tech debt is kinda awful atm. The life cycle management at NI is not super clear and sometimes it feels like products are just forgotten instead of providing strong incremental releases boosting the value of the products. Meanwhile Arturia just released Pigment 6 as a free update - this is a much more fun flagship softsynth compared to Massive X at the moment IMO.

I personally have moved my excitement for Arturia synth products atm. NI needs to release synths with killer presentation and either considerably upgrade Reaktor or move to a new DSP platform to compete with Arturia's overall synth offering. There are hints we may see new (hopefully competitive) NI synth products in 2025-2026.

It’s quite interesting how presumed moves for “integration and inter compatibility in favor of users” like this get a lot of talk and attentions while others (imo real attempts) pass under the radar:

https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-us/articles/19743606863629-Introducing-DAW-Project

What Presonus and Bitwig did (and also Cubase adopted it) is REALLY trying to facilitate user’s life: a format that EVERY DAW can adopt allowing an user to move his projects between the various programs he uses (and therefore using the different strengths each of them have), or allowing different users to share their projects to collaborate even if they are not using same programs.

Practically what they are telling us is “Hey, your friend uses a different DAW? Don’t convince him to switch to ours. We give you an easy way to collaborate even staying on what you guys already have”.

And if I recall correctly, it’s open source, so any DAW manufacturer can adopt it.

https://github.com/bitwig/dawproject

Or even Export as Ableton Project can be seen as on this ballpark.

Wanna talk about “we want to facilitate users”? NI, adopt this. It would be even easier for them. If they consider Maschine just as an “ideas sketcher”, giving a way to move those sketches to the DAWs we use should be a no brainer.

What do you think @Matthew_NI ?

I know Cubase has this now but haven't tried it, suspect it is not perfect.

For large templates with hundreds of Kontakts instances any plugin support that may facilitate migration of projects, yes please.

Reaktor should be maintained at the very least, but probably upgraded too to be honest

I know this too, but that does not mean they will further develop it for new synth products. Maybe they will just upkeep it until they can retire all the Reaktor synths from the Komplete bundles - and in parallell release new products on new/other DSP tech.

With Maschine 3 the included old Massive and Prism that no longer have any big updates which kinda stagnates the core sound production on the Maschine platform (however, yes they work with older expansions) - bad move IMO. Not very inspirational with a couple of old synths on a new software release. Here we should have seen new modern updated products added.

NI tend to release a synth and not do any big new releases with them with updated GUIs. Compare that to Arturia who make big number releases on most of their synth products. For example, Pigment 6 was a big release.

NI's software upgrade life cycle management could be way better with, have at least big mid cycle release on most products, both in the synth category, but also with the Kontakt sample libraries.

You can have legacy plugins on Maschine which are only there to support older expansions. But with the prerequisite that they are only updated to run, not to have a great experience. NI should however be more up front about this with products like Massive and Prism by giving them "Legacy" status.

NI should probably also avoid having synth presets in groove sample expansions (does not work with conversion software).