Ableton Live and the KK S49 get along like a house on fire once you’ve walked through the DAW integration process on NI’s website. With that taken care of your attention can turn to finding sounds, and with the built-in screens you don’t have to turn to your computer monitor to do it. Firstly, the keyboard doubles as a DAW control surface, letting you commandeer the transport, track levels, solos, mutes, and more. The best thing about the S keyboards is how ridiculously simple it is to build a track using nothing but the hardware. No complaints, no ‘please restart session’ requests, and no software dialogue boxes asking you to select your controller. Another thing that impressed me was how quickly it settled into a DAW session, when turned on mid-session. The S49 Mk 2 runs perfectly fine off USB bus power but there’s still an on/off button at the back - no yanking the USB cable to turn it off. The full-size S88 keyboard comes with weighted keys. There’s a certain thickness about how the keys feel - a delicate balance between springy and weighty, with satisfying travel. The keybed itself is by Fatar and I love it. Also, the pitch/mod controls are wheels rather than sliders, while a single touch-sensitive slider underneath gives an extra expressive option. The Mute/Solo and Select buttons above the screens even have multiple backlight colours. ![]() Matte black suits it well and the backlit rubber buttons ensure visibility on a dim stage. It feels solid and has reassuring weight. FEELING OF KONTROLĮveryone who tried the S49 comments on its build quality. The row of buttons above and eight touch-sensitive encoders underneath help you navigate on-screen parameters swiftly, but more on that later. The new Mk 2 models have doubled up the visual feedback with the addition of two full-colour, high resolution screens. It can also light up a scale of your choosing if you forget how to play piano. a drum machine’s individual sample notes appear in a different colour to loops. Breaking up instruments categorically across the keyboard - e.g. ![]() The key illumination feature could have looked poxy, something a beginner might need to find Middle C. The most noticeable feature was the Light Guide. The first round of Komplete Kontrol keyboards were an all-round hit as Native Instruments delivered a physical interface for its NKS paradigm. Having played with the Komplete Kontrol S49 Mk 2 for a few months now, I can say these are the most intuitive, unobtrusive, inspirational MIDI keyboards I’ve ever reviewed. ![]() ![]() It was a relief to discover that rather than lobbing a grenade into my setup, Native Instruments was fighting the battle on my behalf. but I didn't get it, because I like working with my Native instruments on the two screens, and I like the aftertouch.The battle to find a free-flowing compositional experience can shift right under your feet new software, new gear, new instruments, integrating anything new can break your flow in an instant. Last week i saw an Mk1 88 key on my local Craigslist for a screaming deal. (In fact, I wanted the 88 key, but couldn't find it in stock anywhere, so I got the 49-key which was the only one in stock. So, despite the fact that the DAW integration in my specific setup is basically non-existent, I STILL love my Mk2. And honestly, if you want to use all of the groovy Native Instruments tools and instruments and sounds, aftertouch is a pretty handy thing to have. scrolling through your NI instruments, tweaking settings for each instrument, and the feel of the knobs and controls is SO GOOD, I really like the Mk2 screens and controls for navigating all that content.įinally, the Mk2 has a different keyboard that also supports aftertouch. This may seem like a small thing, but honestly. So if you aren't using Logic on a Mac, the key benefit of the Mk2 is that almost everything you would do with the mouse before, can be done on the keyboard itself. The transport buttons aren't supported at all, and most of the other DAW-controlling buttons don't work, either. I use a Mac with Logic, and the difference between the Mk1 and Mk2 is really nothing at all, because most of the fancy features of the Mk2 don't work on the Mac or in Logic. It really depends on which platform and DAW you are going to use it with.
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