Ask me anything: Kontrol S-Series MK3
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The user and all related content has been deleted.3
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Indeed, we did spend a considerable amount of effort revising these buttons, in the new silicon 'button islands' which are protected from dust and moisture, and the tactile feeling of the button press itself, so that you really know when you press it.
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Hello Reefius,
Thanks a lot for your answer, I wasn't sure about that because NI didn't speak about that anywhere and i saw nothing about any full integration with Maschine+
I heard that there was no "fantastic" updates but here to hear that there is no integration with Maschine+ I'm totally surprised and upset regarding the first entry price : 749 euros...
@Chris_NI , a future total integration with Maschine+ hardware is planned on future updates or not at all ?
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We aimed to maintain the focus of this keyboard around the instrument experience for the main use-case for most customers, and set guardrails up to make this experience excellent. We omitted faders (for organ workflows) for the same reason why we decided to omit pads (For drumming), for the same reason why we decided to omit faders for other purposes (mixing, etc..). As soon as start to build towards all of the other various use-cases you could do, it creates a complex user experience, and means that we loose our focus on the core use-case, taking energy away, and resulting in a sub-par user experience for all use-cases across the keyboard. Less is more, in this sense.
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MIDI 2.0 support in DAWs and hardware products is currently rather limited, however in the coming updates we will start including more and more MIDI 2.0 features like high resolution parameters and jitter reduction timestamps. Caveat: JRT (Jitter Reduction Timestamps) is currently not supported by anybody as far as we are aware.
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Re: the MkII and stand-alone Kontakt, is it not possible for Kontakt to at least pass lightguide info to a MkII via a Kontakt update? We’re not asking for the full NKS2 integration necessarily - just better use of Kontakt with the MkII. I know it’s something us MkII owners have been promised for years via firmware updates that never happened. The current press a key and hope it makes a sound method doesn’t work well. Especially for those Kontakt libraries where each key has a separate function (like drum libraries). To be honest, I’ve been using my Keystep Pro more with standalone Kontakt than I have my MkII because it’s closer to my monitor and easier to line up the active keys. Kontakt inside KK has lightguide, so whatever KK does to trigger lightguide on the MkII should presumably be possible in the Kontakt software without having to buy a new keyboard us MkII owners don’t currently need.
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We aimed to maintain the focus of this keyboard around the instrument experience for the main use-case for most customers, and set guardrails up to make this experience excellent. We omitted faders (for organ workflows) for the same reason why we decided to omit pads (for drumming), for the same reason why we decided to omit faders for other purposes (mixing, etc..). As soon as start to build towards all of the other various use-cases you could do, it creates a complex user experience, and means that we loose our focus on the core use-case, taking energy away, and resulting in a sub-par user experience for all use-cases across the keyboard. Less is more, in this sense.
We truly believe that the integrated instrument experience that we are creating (next gen NKS, Kontakt, etc..) cannot be copied by any other company, so we are pushing to give you something unique, rather than making another 'everything' controller.
It really does take the entire company to make this type of magic happen, which we have delivered in the MK3 (built of previous generations), and in that bit of knowledge is where the importance of this focus comes in (and why we didn't try to do everything).
Lastly, on touch screens, we definitely evaluated it for this product, however after countless hours of analysis we decided against it, as the user experience doesn't need it. There are plenty examples of certain competitors using all-in-one touch screen to compensate a bad user experience. Much like driving a car, you cannot rely on the touch screen where you really should have a tactile / easy to use / understand / memorable, tactile interaction. This also applies to making music, you shouldn't be so focused on menu diving on a screen, and rather spend more time feeling the music (and not wasting time trying to get to a certain function, because we have made it a memorable interaction, with good design).
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Well @Chris_NI to be fair, the touch screen idea would have been a really good one if implemented in a smart way.
This also applies to making music, you shouldn't be so focused on menu diving on a screen, and rather spend more time feeling the music (and not wasting time trying to get to a certain function, because we have made it a memorable interaction, with good design).It's not so conducive to playing music when in spite of filtering through presets (and I do salute the improvements in filtering by manufacturer etc), you have to twist a knob endlessly to reach the S, T, Z letters.
A touch screen would have solved that, by allowing to go way down the list of presets and refine in with the knob, as a best of both worlds.
Same to compensate the lack of faders, for those needing to do some level of mixing. I think the NI approach on discarding the touchscreen is lazy. Ask what the customer wants by doing customer discovery ahead of the design stage, figure out what their pain(s) is/are and work from that, as opposed to suiting yourself.
One of my pains, and this is voiced throughout the NI user community is the slow browsing of presets.
When I am in my audi car and need to browse through contacts when using A****Play, although I don't have a touch screen (which is fine for a driving environment), if I need to go to a contact way down the list (in the P or T), I simply turn the large encoder faster and I can cycle through letters, which is a smart way of avoiding RSI and frustration. At least, NI can hopefully implement something to go faster through a preset list with those encoders (shift?, a second encoder for faster browsing like the Push3, press and turn like on a Monogram [oh wait that last idea is not possible with those knobs...]
Maschine? I understand the reasoning behind not supporting it (for now at least anyway) but still...
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Great to read this post.. this kind of decision-making is spot-on in my opinion. Thanks for reaching high to bring such a product into existence with a refined vision of usability .
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Hey guys! I’m very excited for the MK3 release! (I’m still on the MK1!).
My question would be - will the MK3 still use the Controller Editor software to create our own custom templates and velocities in etc (not to mention making those sweet multi-coloured light configurations across the keybed). Or if not, will this now be handled by the on board computer?
I have a lot of templates saved due to my lighter playing style and some of my software instruments reacting differently to the MK1’s keybed, so I hope there will still be the option to configure different set ups with the MK3 too.
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Komplete Kontrol vs. 'less is more' - probably a simple mater of expectations.
Perhaps Kontakt Keys would have produced less confusion?
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Well now, you DO raise an excellent point. We're calling it "Komplete Kontrol", but in some viewpoints, it's not either.
But I think that's a diminishingly minor point, because the compliment of features coming with the MK3 is plenty for almost anybody to be able to do some fun stuff. And THAT is all-important. I don't want or need faders on this type of instrument...especially not faders that aren't motorized. Matthew/NI and the others are 100% correct. Give me motorized faders or no faders at all. Endless rotary encoders are always "in sync", and THAT works for me.
Besides, I've got scads of other fader devices here from Behringer, Arturia, Novation, Roland, and Avid, and I just don't use them all that much; not even the motorized ones.
I did preorder the S 61 from Sweetwater here in the US. So even if it's not "komplete", it surely will be "Gud Enuf Fer Me Kontrol", as it were. 😏
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Excellent job on this AMA! And congrats on the release! It's very nice to get a glimpse of the humans working on this behind the scenes :)
Most of my questions have already been answered, but here goes another one:
I bought Komplete 13 Upgrade for KSelect some time ago. If I sell my MK2 to get the MK3 (I understood there are no improvements on using multiple keebs at the same time), will that upgrade work with the KSelect that comes with the MK3?
I'm very excited about the potential of Direct Connection. Will there be a public SDK for this? Any chance it can work on mobile devices?
I think my favorite feature of this release is jumping directly to specific parameter pages ❤️
My least favorite is not being able to select tracks in the mixer with just one button press like before. And I'm also sad about the Maschine integration but I understand why it has to go... maybe combining a Maschine mikro with the mk3? it would definitely work for me even with the same old GUI with the split in the middle.
Well that ended up being a lot of questions 😅
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Actually the new keyboards are not called "Komplete Kontrol".
New keyboards are now called "Kontrol S-Series".
I like that shorter name.
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When I first saw the MK2 I had three things in mind:
- Midi Control - since it is listed as a midi controller on most vendors. I won't go into details, but it certainly fell short comparatively here, my question whether 'pulling the usb cable is still an acceptable way to change modes' still stands unanswered.
- Production Environment - however limited some would consider it, I could write performances in maschine without turning to my computer. It worked far better than any other keyboard sequencer.
- Komplete Instruments - which is of course the focus.
Nothing wrong with the new approach, as long as the expectations are clear. I personally don't need faders and pads since I have Maschine and X-Touch to cover those needs, but a touchscreen would have made sense - to at least be able to search for presets.
Looking forward to see how the instrument develops, there's certainly a lot of potential for growth.
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