Komplete Kontrol has conceptual "flaw"?

nightjar · 2022-02-27T03:30:05+00:00

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I wonder if others feel there is a conceptual "flaw" in KK?

KK started as a companion app for hardware KK keyboards... and limitations of the display found on these Keyboards dictated how the GUI of the computer app looked and function...

But the reality of most users workflow is that the GUI of the computer app is PRIMARY, and the display on the KK keyboard tends to be secondary.

This misstep between the products original concept and the reality of the products true usage has hampered the development of the KK computer app. It should have a far better GUI for searching and displaying results at this point in its existence.

Does this seem logical to others as to why things have been so slow to get better?

The display in the hardware has had a choke hold on KK?

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D-One

I agree there are more important issues rn but the interface is also high prio for me, a complex 2022 SW with a 2010 UX approach dictated by low res screens does not seem sustainable for much longer, the more features are added the worst it will get... GUI/UX design is a far more complex and understood science now than it was a decade ago. For now, the interface in the SW gets a 5/10 for me, just average, not that bad or great but in 2 years my opinion will be much harsher.

The Browsing system / interface will become an increasingly hot topic as apps like Cosmos, XO, Atlas, etc became a norm. A direct comparison is a bit unfair since those apps mostly focus on browsing only while KK is also plug host, performance tool, HW controller, etc... The approach is also the opposite: A custom-tailored and supposedly consistent full browsing system VS automated sample-only sorting.

For a company like NI that has a million instruments and expansions, it makes sense to have something like NKS, for companies with little to no instruments it makes more sense to do it automatically but for samples only... NI's approach is more ambitious, as it requires 3rd parties to get on board and follow whatever they decided is a propper sorting method, if they decide BPM and Key sorting/tags are not needed we have no choice but to accept that; pros and cons... maybe the solution in the future is a combination of NKS for instruments and auto sorting for samples?

Olihop

Auto tagging when importing a sound bank into kk or maschine would be super handy. It's cool to be able to assign tags to samples, but it's really annoying when you have to do everything with the mouse...

Hippstar

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/7457#Comment_7457

This mostly sums it up.

But still, I would not buy any 3rd party plugin if it is not NKS. It's a selling point.

I just recently tried a free synth, and while it sounded pretty decent, preset management was a mess. It had like 20 banks with 50 sounds each. No way to search for certain words, no tags, always clicking for a preset change. Every developer saves it's presets different, even if there is a dedicated VST3 preset folder. KK sums that up to one place.

What should be done:

VST3!!!!, window size, user presets (in Maschine you can at least change the saving folder, but still no tagging while saving and so on)

Other than that it's a decent software (someone said it's already 10 years old, damn I am getting old).

nightjar

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/7951#Comment_7951

ML could be used to make everything NKS prepped...no need to wait for 3rd parties to get on board.

Kubrak

Some of those who convert non-NKS to NKS could tell you, what different problems they face.... It is difficult for experienced humans, forget ML....

This wave of ML/AI is already third or so. Deep learning has been superpopular 30 years ago and seen as thing that can solve many tasks. Then it evaporated on many problems....

The only difference, now, is that computers are roughly 1000 times more powerfull and dedicated chips even more. And theory of ML/AI has also advanced a bit.

nightjar

Forgetting ML at this point in time (as you suggest) would be fatal to the future of NI. The joining with iZotope was a smart move to enhance this expertise.

The technology is now ripe to be the transformative tool for many types of tasks. And auto-tagging is essentially pattern recognition.

KK app needs to be a full-force effort to evolve ASAP. It is the key to NI's future.

Kubrak

Autotagging is pattern recognition, but NKS is not just tagging of samples. NKS is much more anything else than tagging....

ML might be ripe. Or hype, like at least twice in the future. It seemed to be ripe 30 years ago. And developers and users were in the seventh heaven. But....

Deep learning is not anything mysterious and advanced. Just few matrices/vector calculations. Nonlinear mathematical transformation from n-dimensional space to m-dimensional space. It works fine, if gets similar data it has been trained to. And it works terribly and almost unpredictably if unfamiliar data come....

Future will tell if the technology is ripe and usable in consumer´s segment without problems. Or if dispointment and hangover will come....

NI already uses AI technology in modelling the musical gear. So, they investigate ways how to use AI, neural networks and ML.....

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/8010#Comment_8010

On the surface level yes, it's not that hard to distinguish a Kick from Snare but it's a whole other ball game to deeply categorize instruments, especially the Character sub-tag, things like "Evolving", "Analog", "Synthetic", "Acoustic", "Processed", etc can be a bit subjective or too nuanced to be categorized by a machine or at the very least it's too prone to error... I think; not an expert tho.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/7954#Comment_7954

Indeed... Even if it had to be done in a separate dedicated app as space in KK/MAS is very small to tag a lot of content manually, I'd prefer this route tbh.

@Kubrak said:

ML might be ripe. Or hype, like at least twice in the future. It seemed to be ripe 30 years ago. And developers and users were in the seventh heaven. But....

Ripe might be a good description. Devs into this stuff usually always mention the PhD thesis of Sankalp Gulati made 10 years ago but we have only been seeing it applied in the industry for the last few years, actually, most youtube videos that go in-depth about how it works are from the last 1-3 years. I imagine doing this requires a lot of computing power that is more accessible now VS a decade ago? Maybe Moore's law played a role in this becoming more accessible? Interesting topic

Kubrak

It is more than 10 years. There was Neural networks hype in early nineties and it was based on papers from eighties, if not late seventies.

I have been crunching numbers and doing deep learning on powerful 386 using 387 coprocessor and having biiiig RAM (32 MB) and biiiig HDD (20 MB). There was big hype about neural networks, that they are solution to hard tasks.... Well, ......

Now, thanks to Moore´s law. It might happen. Computers or dedicated chips probably deliver power needed. But. To make it work well, one needs representative data to train on. And experts to decide what data and in which structure are needed.

Garbage in, garbage out... One can train NN on any data, but it is advisable to use data without mistakes and covering wide range of possibilities. We may speak about million+ items of data, that must be checked for correcteness and so on.

nightjar

We can thank smart phones and their cameras for this HUGE leap in ML.

The feature battle between iOS and android to include fast recognition of faces/objects and other image processing is bringing other rewards.

Kubrak

There is no battle between iOS and android. Android has 70% marketshare.

Chips for AI is something like adding floating point coprocessor to processor 30 years ago. Or extending CPU instruction set for vector calculations.... Or adding audio/video codecs to CPU. Or adding cryptography support to CPU. AI support is just another special purpose calculation unit added to CPU. Like many, many others before.

nightjar

Back the conceptional rethink of KK...

Perhaps it is helpful to restate the fundament role NI plays in music creation:

1) A DAW's primary function is to collect, edit and mix performances. (This is NOT NI's role)

2) NI's role is to make tools to create performances. (Performances that can also be enjoyed live)

3) And the the essential elements of NI's tools are a catalog of sounds (analog captures and generated), and interfaces (on-screen GUI and hardware controllers) that present controls to manipulate these sounds for both patch design and real-time patch performance.

With these 3 things being said, I believe that the KK app needs to evolve to be a more capable gateway to the entire NI universe of tools:

1) The KK app needs to present the most elegant way to explore, find and audition all the sounds that NI offers.

2) The KK app needs to then immediately present an on-screen interface to adjust the primary "performance parameters" of the found sound. Deeper "sound-design parameters" are secondary.

With these 2 things being said, I believe that the current KK app has not been looked at broadly enough in its function. It seems to have stumbled along linked to a vision from 10+ years ago.

NI is sitting on a gold mine of sound assets, and the KK app needs to be a far better tool to easily access and manipulate them.

iNate

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/7527#Comment_7527

Honestly, the only reason I use Komplete Kontrol is because Native Instruments has such awful preset browsers in their virtual instruments. Beyond that, it offers little to nothing I don't get natively in my DAW (Quick Controls) or on other MIDI Controllers at the FW Level (Arpeggiator, Scale Mode, Chord Mode, etc.).

It does deliver eye candy, though.

iNate

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/7970#Comment_7970

Depends on the Synth.

Arturia's stuff, I could care less if it were NKS or not. Their preset browser is amazing. Analog Lab, Pigments, V Collection, etc. The browser for thier plug-ins, as well. Ironically, Waves' plug-ins and virtual instruments have pretty nice preset browsers, and they are hardly the heralds of good design. All Komplete Kontrol does is increase the CPU requirements of my projects when used everywhere... It's like hosting everything in Akai VIP or Nektarine instances...

The biggest offenders when it comes to preset browsing are, unironically, Native Instruments' virtual instruments. People have been begging for a better preset browser in Massive X since release, but they refuse to do so; probably because it being as awful as they can manage actually makes the NKS system look a lot better.

Most newer commercial synths have fairly decent preset browsers, and even plug-ins are shipping - increasingly - with good preset browsers.

The value in NKS is, for me, largely for Maschine MK3 - where I prefer to use the controller like a standalone. The PC is running the software, but I literally never touch the PC when producing with the Maschine. So, NKS is of value there. When producing in Cubase I only use Komplete Kontrol for - specifically - Native Instruments' synths with really awful preset browsers.

And that's decreasing, as I'm doing more and more of my own sound design from scratch, these days. There is no point in running Massive X in Komplete Kontrol if you're building your own patches - nor does a Komplete Kontrol S series bring anything to the table to make that easier... that I can't get from something like a Novation Launchkey Mini controller (speaking literally).

nightjar

iNate.. your views on the the current state of KK indicate just how critical its weaknesses have become.

I do think it is possible to fully address the shortcomings you encounter, but only with some deep change to some fundamentals.

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