Ask me anything: Kontrol S-Series MK3

Installed base - past and present tense, absolutely. That doesn't go away quickly, nor would we want it to.

There seems to be a clear distinction between users who see KK as a pivotal and central librarian of their collections (this is certainly how I use it) and users who see it as an inconvenience they want to side step.

Doing both is an option as well, albeit more involved. We'll definitely return to this topic in the months ahead. Partners are already asking about access to Direct Connection, as are users.

Both are indeed notable partners.

uHe in particular have been wonderfully collaborative, and their team is extremely dedicated, detail oriented and phenomenally impressive at what they do. Anyone who doesn't own their products absolutely should. Urs and I have talked about CLAP. We also met with Bitwig a few times this year to talk shop. Of course it is possible. They're doing some great work. It is not planned yet but we're not closed off to the idea. Partners tend to want to support one another in that regard. Such a decision is larger than say, Komplete Kontrol, or my immediate world per se, as it would imply support for CLAP across the entire organization, representing hundreds of plug-ins. B

Leaving dignity and self-respect aside for a second (I'm not claiming to have any, but also... ouch), it's fair to say I've clarified what I can in the context of a Kontrol S MK3 focused AMA, and that I think to continue doing such events, some with a focus on Maschine, would be more fantastic and productive than it would belligerent. At the end of the day, I can say Maschine is still supported, but talk is cheap, and there's clearly a disconnect whereby the actions aren't substantive in the estimation of some. What is true: we've updated Maschine software several times in the last year, including support for VST3 and Apple Silicon, and continued to fix bugs. And when we look into new features and improvements, we immediately hear about 100 different suggestions, many of which are good, not all of which we can do at once. TL:DR yeah let's have a larger Maschine conversation later this year and lurk in the forums in the meantime.

That's a really interesting idea!

There's nothing stopping us other than priority and time. Certainly, we'll start with implementing MIDI template management (this is how you'd save the map for a particular product).

But other steps that would need to happen to unlock this include making it possible to transmit MIDI simultaneously over DIN and USB-C (currently either/or) and establishing a paradigm for template organization and browsing within the KK flow.

That is not actually what I've clarified in more detail elsewhere.

We use a revised and significantly improved version of the TP9 and TP100. It feels much, much different to the MK2 keybeds, and the build quality control is much higher as well (we flew back and forth to Italy, Tunisia and China for endless calibration and quality assurance sign offs until we were happy). It's analogous to car manufacturers. The models differ from model year to year (e.g. 2018 vs 2023) but see continued improvement and refinement each year.

If our transparency here isn't enough, I'm not exactly sure what additional proof would satisfy, beyond proprietary and confidential documentation I'm unable to release. I'm proud of the new product, confident in our testing, and have nothing to prove about it. But I understand why you'd be skeptical after having had the experience you've had.

It's possible. But there are no plans at this time.

This is pretty much the gist, yes.

What's interesting to me is to see people point to products with non motorized faders. To each their own, but time and time again, we observe those with such faders to be frustrated by, and infrequently use them. To have them always out of sync, jump to erroneous values upon touch, and otherwise ignore automation is problematic.

To have motorized faders is fantastic for some, but overkill for most.

:-)

What would you like to see?