I play keys and guitar. In my line of work, you more or less have to.
I rely heavily on Native Instruments' Kontakt. With its very large number of third-party sound library developers who use the platform, flexibility and great sound quality, there's really no way of avoiding it, especially if you use orchestral instruments.
Kontakt 7 is great, but like all Kontakt iterations, while you can make the plugin vertically larger on the screen, the typeface and onscreen controls stay tiny and are kind of a PITA to tweak. Native Instruments has also made a host plugin called Komplete Kontrol for their other plugins, as well as third party NKS and now even VST plugins.
For quite a few years they've made keyboard controllers to make dealing with this steaming pile of audio a little easier. They got it pretty right with Kontrol S version 1, and even better with version two, but not quite enough to whet my appetite. I stuck with the trackpad and mouse. But Kontrol-S Version 3 (hereafter KS3) is different. I decided to buy one to use in front of my computer screen because what I saw in the NI video demos told me this one is a must-have.
I already have an 88 key Yamaha controller that has a great feel that I use mainly with piano, but it doesn't have aftertouch, and its mod and pitch wheels are on the top panel instead of next to the keyboard, making it less ergonomic than I'd like. However, for piano, my main instrument, it's a great key bed.
So I got the synth action 61 key KS3 model. For playing orchestral instruments like strings, I like a synth action. 49 keys isn't enough for orchestral work, 61 keys barely makes it (they should make a 73 key version), but it's livable.
So this whole NKS thing and the concept behind this controller isn't a gimmick. It's actually well thought out, and the keyboard itself feels very high quality. The aluminum knobs are touch-sensitive, not wobbly or cheap feeling, and the control wheels are also aluminum, have their own little lighted center marking, and feel like a million bucks compared to the wobbly junk on most controllers.
The screen itself is glass, not plastic that scratches easily. The materials of the casing feel high quality, NI says the chassis is anodized aluminum; maybe that's inside. I can't tell if the casing itself is aluminum or a nice plastic, but either way the synth feels solid and well made.
It has polyphonic aftertouch, meaning you can control one note's attributes and yet hold the rest of a chord at the same time and not modulate the other notes. This is cool and useful. The screen is huge, and interacts automatically with Kontakt and Komplete Kontrol.
Installing the software on my computer was easy, and when I pulled up Logic, the keyboard automatically set itself up as a control surface for Logic without me having to do a blessed thing. Yeah, it can control Logic's recording controls, it's mixing features, and all that interesting stuff all by its little self. Cool.
Open a Kontakt instrument and boom. Everything's controllable, and with the large screen right in front of your face on the keyboard, with the knobs and buttons automatically mapped to various parameters (they can also be reassigned to other parameters) - and it's different for each instrument - you are in business in short order. You can audition sounds because there's a list of sounds for all the banks of not only Kontakt, but all of your software instruments within Komplete Kontrol. And the buttons and knobs are mapped for that, too.
Press a button to control the plugins. Press another button and control your mix in Logic or other DAWs.
There's a row of lights right above the keyboard that isn't a gimmick. Lots of software libraries have different sounds on different keys. This keyboard knows which keys those are, and lights up each section in a different color. No guessing "Is the hand percussion starting on D3 or D4? Which keys are the tympani and which are the bass drum? The lights tell you. They show you other things too, but those things aren't things I do, so I don't remember what those functions are.
No squinting at tiny lettering on large computer screens to control Kontakt. The keyboard tells you which knob controls what parameter. Your patches are listed on the keyboard as well as the screen.
And more.
Oh yes, there's MIDI 2, for DAWs and instruments that can use it. MIDI two involves more than the 127 step limitation of any MIDI controller. You get much finer control - Over 4 million steps. Logic can be set for MIDI 2 already. Most third party plugins or hardware can't yet, but that day is coming fast. More on this in a later post.
The key action feels very good for synths. It's not cheap, flimsy or cheesy, the bed was made by Fatar, an Italian company with a ton of experience making key beds for other manufacturers as well as their own instrument line, Studiologic.
The drawback: This is one of the more expensive 61 key controllers. But the way it integrates your software with your hands makes getting this a no-brainer, especially if you use NI's Kontakt.
KS3 is also becoming popular among film composers, because so many sample libraries run on Kontakt. Today I even got the keyboard to control the parameters of EastWest's Opus, in the way it controls Kontakt. Pretty slick.
I rely heavily on Native Instruments' Kontakt. With its very large number of third-party sound library developers who use the platform, flexibility and great sound quality, there's really no way of avoiding it, especially if you use orchestral instruments.
Kontakt 7 is great, but like all Kontakt iterations, while you can make the plugin vertically larger on the screen, the typeface and onscreen controls stay tiny and are kind of a PITA to tweak. Native Instruments has also made a host plugin called Komplete Kontrol for their other plugins, as well as third party NKS and now even VST plugins.
For quite a few years they've made keyboard controllers to make dealing with this steaming pile of audio a little easier. They got it pretty right with Kontrol S version 1, and even better with version two, but not quite enough to whet my appetite. I stuck with the trackpad and mouse. But Kontrol-S Version 3 (hereafter KS3) is different. I decided to buy one to use in front of my computer screen because what I saw in the NI video demos told me this one is a must-have.
I already have an 88 key Yamaha controller that has a great feel that I use mainly with piano, but it doesn't have aftertouch, and its mod and pitch wheels are on the top panel instead of next to the keyboard, making it less ergonomic than I'd like. However, for piano, my main instrument, it's a great key bed.
So I got the synth action 61 key KS3 model. For playing orchestral instruments like strings, I like a synth action. 49 keys isn't enough for orchestral work, 61 keys barely makes it (they should make a 73 key version), but it's livable.
So this whole NKS thing and the concept behind this controller isn't a gimmick. It's actually well thought out, and the keyboard itself feels very high quality. The aluminum knobs are touch-sensitive, not wobbly or cheap feeling, and the control wheels are also aluminum, have their own little lighted center marking, and feel like a million bucks compared to the wobbly junk on most controllers.
The screen itself is glass, not plastic that scratches easily. The materials of the casing feel high quality, NI says the chassis is anodized aluminum; maybe that's inside. I can't tell if the casing itself is aluminum or a nice plastic, but either way the synth feels solid and well made.
It has polyphonic aftertouch, meaning you can control one note's attributes and yet hold the rest of a chord at the same time and not modulate the other notes. This is cool and useful. The screen is huge, and interacts automatically with Kontakt and Komplete Kontrol.
Installing the software on my computer was easy, and when I pulled up Logic, the keyboard automatically set itself up as a control surface for Logic without me having to do a blessed thing. Yeah, it can control Logic's recording controls, it's mixing features, and all that interesting stuff all by its little self. Cool.
Open a Kontakt instrument and boom. Everything's controllable, and with the large screen right in front of your face on the keyboard, with the knobs and buttons automatically mapped to various parameters (they can also be reassigned to other parameters) - and it's different for each instrument - you are in business in short order. You can audition sounds because there's a list of sounds for all the banks of not only Kontakt, but all of your software instruments within Komplete Kontrol. And the buttons and knobs are mapped for that, too.
Press a button to control the plugins. Press another button and control your mix in Logic or other DAWs.
There's a row of lights right above the keyboard that isn't a gimmick. Lots of software libraries have different sounds on different keys. This keyboard knows which keys those are, and lights up each section in a different color. No guessing "Is the hand percussion starting on D3 or D4? Which keys are the tympani and which are the bass drum? The lights tell you. They show you other things too, but those things aren't things I do, so I don't remember what those functions are.
No squinting at tiny lettering on large computer screens to control Kontakt. The keyboard tells you which knob controls what parameter. Your patches are listed on the keyboard as well as the screen.
And more.
Oh yes, there's MIDI 2, for DAWs and instruments that can use it. MIDI two involves more than the 127 step limitation of any MIDI controller. You get much finer control - Over 4 million steps. Logic can be set for MIDI 2 already. Most third party plugins or hardware can't yet, but that day is coming fast. More on this in a later post.
The key action feels very good for synths. It's not cheap, flimsy or cheesy, the bed was made by Fatar, an Italian company with a ton of experience making key beds for other manufacturers as well as their own instrument line, Studiologic.
The drawback: This is one of the more expensive 61 key controllers. But the way it integrates your software with your hands makes getting this a no-brainer, especially if you use NI's Kontakt.
KS3 is also becoming popular among film composers, because so many sample libraries run on Kontakt. Today I even got the keyboard to control the parameters of EastWest's Opus, in the way it controls Kontakt. Pretty slick.
Last edited:
