Encoders don't instantly change On/Off values of instruments

Hi there,

I've bought a Komplete Kontrol MK2 and I do really like this piece of hardware so far.

However, there's one thing about controlling instrument values that's really bothering me.
Every time I want to change an instrument's "enabled" value to either On or Off it takes several turns on the corresponding endless encoder to actually take effect.
I can only guess here, that even though it should be represented as a binary value, the internal value in the software changes values between 0 and 127. In that case it would explain that one has to scroll between 0 and 63 to select the Off state and 64 to 127 for the On state.

Well, whatever reason may stay behind this doesn't actually matter to me. I just don't like this behaviour at all!

Is there anything I can do about it?

 

Nope

There is no way to actually set the behaviour of encoders for different automation controls. A button should send 0 or 127 but using the encoders as "buttons" they still have to step through the whole range.

It depends on the plugin though. Some will register ON as anything above 0 and Off as 0. Some require 64 as On and below as Off.

 

Yep, it's completely retarded.

 

This always bothered me too, its all over the NI ecosystem, change on/off with encoders takes a lot of rotation for no reason.

 

There's unfortunately no easy way to sort this out. There is no way to tell if an automated parameter is continuous or not, it's a limitation of VST host automation system, which uses a floating point value from 0.0 to 1.0 for ALL automatable parameters (to my knowledge). Another way would be manually telling which parameter needs to be a switch in NKS controller pages, which would mean redoing each and every NKS preset ever made...

 

Ok, VSTs are a problem of its own for sure. What I don't understand is why this is also a problem for NI's self-made instruments.
For example, load Monark and right on the first page for filters there is an On/Off property called POLARITY. This must be an unfortunate oversight of NI, not a technical problem.

 

Monark is hosted in Reaktor, which is also a VST instrument and loaded as such in KK, so automation of parameters is done in exactly the same way, which means there's no way to tell if something is a switch or a continuous parameter. So no, it's not an oversight.

 

There is an easy way to do this. Use the touch sensitivity of the encoder. Tap to toggle of and on.

 

Are you saying that would be an easy way to accomplish this feature or that's an easy way to actually do it? On an MK1, it does not toggle with a tap.

The suggestion has been in the past to allow a quick tap to toggle on/off but the issues that would arise from that would be the fact these controls are close to each other and personally I brush against them accidentally all the time. If that started causing the value to jump max/min that would be a pain.

There really should have been some forward planning to allow a control to be configured for things like On/Off, Center display (for pans), invert, max/min value etc. to allow for better mapping. It wouldn't be hard to update template files if they wanted newer features to be added in.

 

I'm saying this could be easily accomplished. If you're worried about brushing there two solutions. 1. a double tap or 2. make it an option to allow tapping on and off. This way you could disable it for live performances and enable it for studio work etc.