KKS61_Mainview

Native Instruments have just announced the Komplete Instrument. At first glance, its a controller keyboard- albeit a very good looking one- but pigeon-hole it in the DAW controller with ever other MIDI controller on the market and you’ll miss where NI are coming from with this. Here’s our cheat sheet to understanding fully what this new board is about and why we think you should get excited.

Conceptually, Native Instruments’ aim with Komplete Kontrol is to bring an experience more like that of hardware workstations to users of Komplete 9 and 10. It is not designed to take over from your current controller that you use for all your regular instruments and DAW control, but rather to sit along side as a dedicated board in the same way you might with a Korg or Roland workstation. The idea being is that you then have the best of both worlds. Ease of use and immediacy of a hardware workstation with the range and quality of the computer-based sounds.

So; what does Komplete Kontrol have, feature-wise, that we should be so excited about? Let’s start with the obvious eye-candy- the light strip- the row of multi-coloured LEDs that sit at the top of the key bed. As well as looking fancy and adding to your studios flashing light count, you’ve got a very quick visual reference for functions like key switches, patterns and note data. You’ll know instantly when you pull up a Kontakt library, for example, where the key switches are. Patterns are colour-coded differently, and if you’re playing a pattern, you’ll see which notes are triggering.

The key bed itself is a really high quality Fatar Supreme action. They’ve used the best-quality synth action that Fatar have available meaning that you have one of the most responsive and tactile actions available.

The top panel features 8 rotary controllers. Native Instruments have spent a great deal of time setting all these controls up so that when you load an instrument, you’ll have direct access to the most popular controls directly there. They’ve also made these knobs capacitive- touch sensitive- so as soon as you touch one, all the relevant information associated with that control is brought up for you to analyse, so you’re always aware of what each control does and where you are in your edits. Other controls are accessible across multiple pages, and as you might expect, the screens change to reflect what it is you are editing.

Rather than a standard mod wheel and pitch bend, Native Instruments have gone with a touch strip- a little like the ones found on some of their DJ controllers. They’ve done this for a very good reason- namely that you have the ability to program these strips do some very cool things like controlling how fast the pitch returns to the centre, or possibly controlling the speed and range of an lfo with how you manipulate the mod strip.

The last feature is a rather understated addition of previous/next path browse buttons. Something rather ubiquitous on hardware workstations and synths, this is where the power of the new keyboard really lies and where your workflow and conceptions of Komplete will really change. This is where with the included Komplete Instrument software becomes more like hardware. Rather than thinking in terms of, “which instrument do I want to use”, you will be able to approach composition in terms of “what sounds do I want”. The actual engines of creation are no longer a worry- whether the sound you want is in Kontakt or Massive, you’ll be able to filter by sound type, basses, pianos, synths etc, and use those prev/next buttons to simply move thru sounds- making finding the right sound as easy as possible.

Taken together, this really feels like the final piece in the puzzle and makes the Komplete system a formidable package no matter how you look at it. Whilst the price sets it at the top end of available controllers, if you’re a Komplete user, you’ll not find anything else that currently offers you even half the available features that this does.

With the new versions of Komplete, Native Instruments have added 10 new instruments and effects to 10, taking the total to 39 with a 130GB sound library, and 15 to Ultimate, taking that to 75 products with a 440GB sound library.

Komplete Kontrol and Komplete 10 will be here on the 1st October. We’re expecting high demand for this and are taking pre-orders with a deposit to secure stock from the early shipments. We’ll have the 61 key on display as soon as they land- call or email us and we can let you know when it is in for you come and try out, along side Komplete 10.