Ask me anything: Kontrol S-Series MK3
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While the M32 will fill in some gaps, the lack of lights and screens does hinder use.
Also, as someone else was saying in the forum this week, the M32 acts funny when connected at the back of Ableton Push3, with keys not all triggering (not an issue I've seen on my KK MK2, nor my Arturia Keystep37).
Might have something to do with lack of class compliance?
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1) A few things...
- MIDI 2. We are talking with OS manufacturers, DAW manufacturers, etc, and seeking to drive adoption of MIDI 2. There are things happening! It's not just higher resolution parameter control, but features like capability discovery that I'm excited to explore.
- Play Assist standalone - which is coming (we're starting work on it this year, although i cannot promise it also ships this year).
- Improving Play Assist capabilities across the company over the next 1-2 years - we have some great ideas, especially with the coming together of brands focussed on assistive tech.
- Direct Connection in more products without losing the idea of the keyboard as a librarian (browse your whole collection).
- Animations, more iconography, a richer NKS experience. Encouraging more VST3 partners to implement Dynamic Callbacks to dynamically show/hide parameters (benefits all users with cleaner lists for DAW automation and NKS display).
- Maybe bringing back the touchstrip physics models MK1 used to have, as a form of expression.
- etc etc
But since you asked for one thing, the most proximal priority that I'm most excited about is to bring support for Accessibility to the new keyboard. We have thousands of users who rely on Accessibility mode in other hardware, to make their music making experience anywhere from easier, to even possible.
2) uHe have been an incredibly supportive NKS partner, and are a fantastic, inspiring and engaging team to work with. They've definitely poked and prodded us a few times on the topic, and CLAP is for sure very interesting. The effort would be non trivial for us (not because CLAP is hard - it is very clean and clear) but because such decisions become larger than my team - if we do it for one plug-in, it begins to have implications for the hundreds of other plug-ins we have, so it requires more thought. Are we looking? Yes - it's in my to-do list to follow up with the uHe team (we have a shared Slack channel) and at least talk more about the possibility and what it could look like. Is it planned? Not yet, no. Silly story time: I've been in Berlin this week (I'm usually based in Boston, USA) and literally within a few hours of flying in, and taking a taxi into the city center, I hear someone saying "Matt, Matt!". I turn around, quite surprised that anyone would know me in the middle of a major city (I wasn't at the office) and it was Oddvar from uHe. What are the chances?!
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- "Direct Connection in more products without losing the idea of the keyboard as a librarian (browse your whole collection)."
@Matt_NI , do you mean within other Native Instruments software (Maschine would be the only one I can think of?) or also DAWs (such as Ableton for instance... when in Berlin...)
or did you mean instead (or as well) more products as in Hardware (by Native Instruments? Potential Hardware partners).
Integration between Ableton/Push and the NKI/KK Hardware/Software could definitely be tightened.
OffTopic: As regards Maschine, for the upcoming AMA, I am sure numerous users will ask for a tighter integration with their DAW. For example the Ableton workflow of routing separate tracks is so cumbersome (in comparison to how Elektron do it for instance) and tedious to set up if you're not just using Maschine's stereo output.
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Can you tell us why cv gate outputs are not considered by NI, or if this might be something for coming in a different product?
can you tell us the reason why smart strips weren’t considered instead of Faders?
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@Matt_NI says: Silly story time: I've been in Berlin this week (I'm usually based in Boston, USA) and literally within a few hours of flying in, and taking a taxi into the city center, I hear someone saying "Matt, Matt!". I turn around, quite surprised that anyone would know me in the middle of a major city (I wasn't at the office) and it was Oddvar from uHe. What are the chances?!
Silly story? A chance encounter?
No. The universe is nudging either a rom-com bromance or the first 3rd party Direct Connection.
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To follow up on this, would you consider an S MK3+ series with faders (or touch strips) as well + visual feedback and possibly a small screen next to them (the current MK3 versions are deep enough for that)?
That would be brilliant to be able to control the plugin, while having the ability to simultaneously tweak several library parameters (for instance orchestral libraries) with the left hand while playing (1st pic)
or even take it further and stick 8 x touchstrips instead of 4, which can make it 16 macros altogether, or a split between 4 automapped parameters on the right faders and track volumes on the left faders for example (direct visual feedback of key track volumes while still being able to tweak parameters, so you can see, without looking at the computer or getting out of the plugin control mode, how a given preset or parameter affects the volume of that track, with the ability to fix up that track volume on the fly)
See how I added a Track select button as well (in yellow)
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For example - more than Kontakt. Other 1st party (e.g. Massive) and 3rd party products to benefit from the direct connection - so Komplete Kontrol is not needed. However - we would still need to provide for a way for users to seamlessly browse their entire collection, which is one advantage of using Komplete Kontrol.
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CV gate outputs are being considered for future products across the portfolio.
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For now, we considered it and decided against it.
Not because it's not a good idea - it is - but because we don't see enough indications of demand to make it worthwhile to manufacture at scale. Yes, some users would absolutely buy and use such a device. But, it would be more expensive, and not all would willingly pay so much and/or some users don't like touchstrips as faders and would prefer physical.
One thing we do plan to do - is use the capacitive touch on the knobs to allow for track selection.
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Ok thanks.
I guess you can see how sales of the new MK3 products go (and whatever is coming up) and work from customer feedback and customer discovery to what would appeal the most to the wider audiences in terms of complementary devices
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I have an idea for touch strips, to make them feel more like real faders... an alternative "takeover mode" which, rather than jumping the current value to a new value as soon as the user puts their finger on it, just reads the user's finger position until it matches the current value, and only then allows it to change.
I realise there are implementations of this already at the midi level, but the idea is to give them this inherent native behaviour in the first place. Ideally there would be a graphical "grab-handle" around the current value, and then you could just "grab and move" that.
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config changes depending on the use between the Nord Stage and the KK S61 MK2 (soon 3), as I’m not a fan of weighted keys on the Kontrol S and prefer to have a dedicated keyboard/controller with weighted keys for pianos alone.
note how a now deeper Kontrol S MK3 will force a user to pull out keyboard drawer all the more now when needing to see the screens and access parameters…
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Any details you can tell us about the internal CPU and operating system in the MK3?
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As the 29th is first approaching, and this AMA will lock - I wanted to thank each and every one of you for your participation.
I'll of course still be around on the forums - I think I'll do a devtalks next as Komplete Kontrol 3 nears or releases, and we're talking about upcoming AMAs we may do too.
Thank you!!!
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@Matthew_NI thanks for the response and letting me know you’ve considered that product.
For use case clarity, it’s not about a knob-based controller like Console 1. I have lots of mapped knobs. It’s the Komplete Kontrol hardware browsing/screen experience that I’m after. I used to love choosing patches without my mouse and having the controls update per-patch. I just didn’t need an extra keyboard.
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