NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
sporkles
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NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by sporkles » Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:43 pm

Has anyone used KK M32 with Live yet? It looks pretty close to what I've wanted from Ableton themselves; i.e. just a small 32 key controller with 8 knobs (plus a bit extra). From what I understand, the scale, chord and arpeggio features are only available in NI's software, but even so, I think this would sit nicely on my desktop!

Mark Williams
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by Mark Williams » Mon Mar 11, 2019 10:10 pm

Old video but should still be relevant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ8Xmjt16VE
Live 11, M1 Mac Mini, Push 2, Scarlett 18i20 & ADA8200, Softube Console 1 Mk2, Deepmind12, Hydrasynth, Cobalt 8M, Moog Subsequent 25, IK Uno Synth Pro, Plethora X3, Nord Drum 3P

uhbuv
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by uhbuv » Tue Mar 12, 2019 6:13 am

Well it doesn't integrate with Ableton right outta the box. The script doesn't seem to work and the brand new serial number I just pulled out of the box is invalid. Not really diggin my first experience with Native Instruments

Mark Williams
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by Mark Williams » Tue Mar 12, 2019 7:32 am

Simply launch Ableton Live, and in Preferences (MIDI / Link tab), select 'Komplete Kontrol A' as Control Surface, and 'Komplete Kontrol M DAW' for input and output. Ensure you are running latest Ableton Live 10
Live 11, M1 Mac Mini, Push 2, Scarlett 18i20 & ADA8200, Softube Console 1 Mk2, Deepmind12, Hydrasynth, Cobalt 8M, Moog Subsequent 25, IK Uno Synth Pro, Plethora X3, Nord Drum 3P

sporkles
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by sporkles » Tue Mar 12, 2019 2:15 pm

Hey, that video was really clarifying; thanks!

So, in addition to control of the KK plugin, will the keyboard also give you regular "Blue hand" control of other plugins and native Live devices?

Mark Williams
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by Mark Williams » Tue Mar 12, 2019 5:12 pm

You can control 3rd party VSTs, via Komplete Kontrol, and save as a preset within KK, but not Ableton native devices.
Live 11, M1 Mac Mini, Push 2, Scarlett 18i20 & ADA8200, Softube Console 1 Mk2, Deepmind12, Hydrasynth, Cobalt 8M, Moog Subsequent 25, IK Uno Synth Pro, Plethora X3, Nord Drum 3P

sporkles
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by sporkles » Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:44 pm

Are you sure? The knobs on NI controllers can't control plugins/devices that are not wrapped inside KK at all? That seems like really poor integration, considering that the controller even ships with Live Lite.

Mark Williams
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by Mark Williams » Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:28 pm

NI controllers are designed for NI products quite simple to understand. Having Ableton Lite as part of the software is only an addition for Komplete Kontrol to be used, you have to premap non NKS plugins - and for the last time NOT ABLETON DEVICES.
Seems quite a good integration choice for NI controllers to integrate with NI software first & foremost. Anything else is a bonus,
Live 11, M1 Mac Mini, Push 2, Scarlett 18i20 & ADA8200, Softube Console 1 Mk2, Deepmind12, Hydrasynth, Cobalt 8M, Moog Subsequent 25, IK Uno Synth Pro, Plethora X3, Nord Drum 3P

jestermgee
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by jestermgee » Tue Mar 12, 2019 11:40 pm

Mark Williams wrote:
Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:28 pm
NI controllers are designed for NI products quite simple to understand. Having Ableton Lite as part of the software is only an addition for Komplete Kontrol to be used, you have to premap non NKS plugins - and for the last time NOT ABLETON DEVICES.
Seems quite a good integration choice for NI controllers to integrate with NI software first & foremost. Anything else is a bonus,
Not entirely true.

I have a video showing how to create a custom user script for the S Series MK1 to add macro control and "blue hand" like with any MIDI controller. It allows you to simply switch to MIDI mode on the keyboard to control macros and device parameters, tho with limitations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzdd_gSlZYk

One issue here is it requires you to set an additional control surface slot for the keyboard. It could probably be bundled into the existing script, but I haven't the time or the desire to learn Python at the moment and reverse engineer their scripts.

The next problem currently is both the new A series and M series of keyboards lack any customisation or setup of the MIDI controls. That will come at some stage but currently you are pretty limited, however you could still create macro controls.

It is also possible to use the keyboards smart play features to play Live devices (using the Arp/Chord functions) so it's actually quite flexible in what you can do beyond what NI allows you to do. Still loads of development they need to do IMO but has a lot of great features.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ8Xmjt16VE

Mark Williams
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by Mark Williams » Wed Mar 13, 2019 7:37 am

As I said, anything else is a bonus, & certainly not out of the box. Already posted link to your video if you scroll up.

Currently without my KK S61 Mk2, as it developed a dead key and has gone back to NI repair centre Germany.
Live 11, M1 Mac Mini, Push 2, Scarlett 18i20 & ADA8200, Softube Console 1 Mk2, Deepmind12, Hydrasynth, Cobalt 8M, Moog Subsequent 25, IK Uno Synth Pro, Plethora X3, Nord Drum 3P

jestermgee
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by jestermgee » Wed Mar 13, 2019 7:46 am

Ah, was lazy and didn’t read the whole thread.

Certainly out the box it’s more limited and honestly it would be great to see more focus on features and integration but understandably there is only so much they can afford to do with integrating to 3rd parties. Seems sometimes they have a hard enough time integrating their own stuff with what they have.

Mark Williams
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by Mark Williams » Wed Mar 13, 2019 11:26 am

Completely agree, although NI do seem to be edging towards tighter integration with Ableton going by past few hardware releases, I would like to see a KK controller without keys or pads
Live 11, M1 Mac Mini, Push 2, Scarlett 18i20 & ADA8200, Softube Console 1 Mk2, Deepmind12, Hydrasynth, Cobalt 8M, Moog Subsequent 25, IK Uno Synth Pro, Plethora X3, Nord Drum 3P

marcfjacobs
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by marcfjacobs » Wed Mar 20, 2019 8:27 am

I picked one up yesterday, and after going through the intense process of installing all separate NI software, finally got it to work in Ableton Live 10. Seriously, why can't they make that easier?! Took me a while and a few YT video's to figure out which components you HAVE to install so you can get the Monark and Prism vst's working.

However as stated before, the 'blue hand' automatic mapping does not work (yet?). I have used manual MIDI mapping to control an Ableton instrument with the M32 knobs which felt great, but switching between instruments or effects is obviously not very easy when you do that.

NI has this on their website: "M32 keyboards currently require the user to select 'Komplete Kontrol A' as the control surface, but dedicated scripts and automatic selection / configuration will be available in a future update to Ableton Live."

I really hope this will be the case soon, it will absolutely komplete the experience ;-)

sporkles
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by sporkles » Wed Mar 20, 2019 7:20 pm

I'll sit on the fence for a while. The funny thing about all this is that it inspired me to start using Push a lot more again. And Jester: the trick of putting a dummy instance of Komplete Kontrol on one track is simply brilliant! I immediately included it as track # 1 in my default template. I also made a ClyphX action that changes the MIDI input on the selected track to "from track 1 / Komplete Kontrol" and assigned it to a pad on my Launchpad Mini, to quickly have arpeggiator input on any track. It's so much better than putting the arpeggiator on individual tracks, as you record the output notes from the arp, rather than the input notes *to* the arp.

I hadn't explored the KK arpeggiator until now, but it's got this really nice sequence feature that I'm getting a lot of mileage out of.

One thing I noticed though, after mapping some Diva patches in Komplete Kontrol, is that when I hold 'delete' on Push and touch an encoder to reset to default, it does reset, but the value in the Push display doesn't reflect this until I twiddle the knob slightly. This does not happen when I'm using the VST directly (without KK).

doghouse
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Re: NI Komplete Kontrol M32?

Post by doghouse » Wed Apr 10, 2019 3:34 pm

According to p.115 of the M32 manual, it can control native devices in Live, much in the way an APC40 does. Are the comments above saying this does not actually work properly yet?

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