FEEDBACK: Komplete Kontrol A-series integration with Ableton Live

Already posted this in a comment and figured it could use its own thread.

Hi, I got the A25 yesterday to use it in conjunction with Ableton Live (running version 10.05). These are my thoughts so far:

Negatives / suggestions to developers:

• The 8 rotary encoders on the A25 can only be used to adjust the volume and pan position of the first tracks in your Live session. I don't see why this is prioritized over controlling the 8 macros currently highlighted by Lives "blue hand" auto mapping.
• The encoders should auto-map to Abletons "blue hand" auto-mapping. Pretty please. An example of a simple controller that does this is the Behringer X-touch Mini, this is the kind of design I'm suggesting.
• A tracks' volume should instead be adjustable using SHIFT + rotating the 4D knob in my opinion. This would make it so that only the highlighted track in Ableton Live can have volume adjusted.
• This should have been a part of the manual (link to Ableton support site). It would make installation a lot easier to at least be aware of it.
• I think the PLAY button should start playing from the blue arrow/marker in Ableton Lives arrangement view instead of its own separate green arrow. Right now I can not use "the scroll playhead position" (by rotating the 4D button) and play from that selected point in arrangement view.
• There is apparently no way to arm a track to record. This would make the ability to change between tracks in arrangement view actually serve a purpose.

Positives:

• The keybed feels fairly nice. No it does not compare to weighted keys, but I appreciate them being a fair middle ground. As an example, they are good enough to play leads and drums.
• The modulation wheel and pitch wheel feels awesome and quite sturdy. This is definitely not where the corners have been cutted (although the keyboards' edges are noticeably sharp haha)
• The keyboard feet are made well and makes the keyboards' weight less of an issue (read: it does not slide around the desk).
• The encoders seems to be of high quality (that said, there is really no use of them in conjunction with Ableton Live unfortunately)
• My initial impression of the USB port is good. It does not move around internally a whole lot and should probably last a while.

TLDR / Overall; The hardware itself is quite good and has the potential to be a great keyboard. However the software, if used in conjunction with Ableton Live, does not really help me creatively nor productively. If they worked a bit more on the host integration, taking feedback from us users, this keyboard has the potential to be awesome. For now it remains a tough sell. (If used with Ableton Live).

 

Maybe there will be some custom integrations later that work more like you expect, but I'm not an ableton user so can't say much about that. About the hardware I can say the same as you - it feels really great.

Uwe

 

Agreed - this is completely uninteresting for me too. I am far more interested in controlling devices. However this is possible with the S Series using a script I created so hopefully once we get the midi editor I think should be coming we can remap them and script it to use the blue hand.