NI Komplete Kontrol vs. Akai Advance

I'm not sure if this post or thread will be allowed to stay up,but i wanted to hear from users who have tried both. I own a NI Kontrol S61 and while I'm in love with the Keybed and design, I'm not impressed much by the software. I'm also interested in the Akai Advance, for a few reasons.

The first I'd have to say is there Vst tagging system, it seems well thought out over the KK software. Theres a feature which basically automatically tags all of your plugins, for the most part. Ones that don't there's still an option to import,and it still picks up the tags. This is something the KK software needs badly.

The second strong point is their MULTI system, I'd kill for this in KK software, and can't believe NI left it out upon release. Who doesn't use Multi's or layer?

Anyways I haven't had a chance to play the keyboard, and theres not many reviews out there. Are there any users here that have tried both? What are your thoughts on the two?

My local stores don't have the Akai Advance in stock yet, curious what your thoughts are regarding the keyboard quality and software.

Thanks

 

Apparently the keybed may be stiff... (something you can't change with software...

http://www.musicradar.com/us/reviews/tech/akai-advance-49-622887

I would wait to see what NI has up its sleeve for its 3rd party plug-in effort in Komplete.
I think my S-25 keybed is very good indeed....

 

Yep, that key-bed was a deal killer for me. I'm a fairly accomplished player and could not deal with that action ten hours a day. The pads are also basically useless for finger drumming in that in-line configuration. I do love the VIP software structure, and am hopeful that NI will follow suit in a similar manner with the Kontrol keyboard. All things considered I would rather continue to use my non-NI VST's in the traditional manner and have the clearly superior hardware. I have no doubt the KK software will catch up in short order.

 

I kinda like the stiffness since my main keyboard is an electric piano. The drum pads are really nice - you can play with two fingers on one pad since they are big and very responsive - although there are only 8 so it's limited and the distance is too large. Automapping VSTs is lacking - it detected synths, NI stuff and Omnisphere but not my EWQL Play libraries or LASS or any of the less popular libraries I have (meaning that for me it automapped not much more than what KK does). I expected it won't be that easy though. The midi mode is easy to configure, so there is that.

The software and hardware are very stable, everything works as advertised although you need to manually switch VIP instances (I believe in KK it's the same way? at least in Sonar which I use). I love the features that allow stashing several instruments on one - it's great for improvisation and easier that doing it in DAW.

I don't thing though that KK is in any way a worse choice. I personally decided on Akai Advance because it was better matching my use cases.

I am not a professional though, I only use it to compose music for my games, so don't take my opinion for granted.

 

I note that folk are, again, saying what the software WILL do. We Kore users used to talk about what the software WILL do. Then NI dumped it. I see Maschine users asking for features -some of them almost from day 1. They are still asking (I understand that you still can't automate mutes ffs). People used to lecture me on how NI were justifies in dropping Kore to concentrate on Maschine (an argument that cut not ice with me). I wonder how much of maschine they've put on the back burner to work on KK.T

he killing of Kore caused me to completely lose faith in NI. My occasional visits back here show that my lack of faith is justified. KK is a keyboard that does a small part of what Kore did and still people are buying in to the promise.

My Akai Advance arrives on Tuesday.

 

With you
Without a Akai Advance though
Continue waiting on a proper Kore successor. Will buy when it's available, not when someone promises that

 

I was also a Kore 1 and 2 user, so I felt that pain equally. Which is what got me slowly into Maschine I guess, now here I am looking for another Kore like workflow to say the least. ;0

Thanks for the replys, keep them coming as you guys check out the Advance series. I'll probably pick one up in a week or two as well. Summer can mean a few more months,and I'm really interested in comparing the workflow of the two.

If the keybeds from the Akai are as bad as some say, I hope Akai decides to launch a newer design, Fatar does really good keybeds, it's worth it to get the hardware right in the beginning imo, but I've gotta check it out before making the call.

cheers

 

definitely awaiting to hear from you,to see what you think of it, has the board yet arrived? i'm thinking of upgrading myself

 

this guys seems to be having a few issues.

 

lol
anybody trying to use Electra-X in Komplete Kontrol has an even bigger issue...

 

Hello there! Yes. It's arrived. Sadly, the world has stepped up its efforts to put things in my path to keep me away from music so, other than finding time to shuffle my other keyboards around to make room and installing SOME of the wonderful bundle that comes with Advance, I've not had a great deal of time to play with it.

Bearing that in mind, these are VERY early impressions. And they're mostly very good. The keybed is firm and springy; a little more firm than I'm used to but it only took a few moments to acclimatise. Running through a couple of tests of some of my favourite bits saw no decrease in accuracy of playing and, indeed, I seemed to have a slightly better feel for dynamics on this keyboard. Aftertouch is fine and the feel of the two wheels is, again, very pleasant. I know that some daft twerps have taken the piss out of the size of the knobs but I would suggest that they just go back to playing with other knobs because the ones on the Akai are superb. Great feel and accuracy.

I haven't even started to scratch the surface of VIP but, again, first impressions are HIGHLY favourable. I've only (so far) used the synths that come with but browsing is a doddle and control over the loaded patch is a real joy. The screen is very crisp and clear and presents all of the information one could need.

I'll come back with more detail as soon as I have more time to really settle down and play. I'm a fairly picky sod and, usually, by this stage of proceedings, I would have found SOMETHING to grizzle about but, so far, I'm VERY happy with my purchase (even the 'free' synths are great and have a far higher number of usable patches than many for which I've paid a lot of money).

I hope this helps.

Oh! PS. as for the guy in the video making a fuss about having to click to select, forget that. Without clicking, you would load a sound soon as you'd browsed to it - even if you wanted the one above or below. Honestly, a single click to select is no effort.

 

@schrage musik

so does it load Kore2?

sowari

 

Short answer: yes. But, to expand, as I stated above, I've had VERY little time for experimentation. So far, Kore is only showing 128 sounds. I tried a few of these and was able to open them and their plugins within Kore within VIP. I was dreading Kore picking up VIP as a plugin because I would have HAD to open it within Kore within VIP with Kore within..... To see how far up each other's arses these would go.

I've experienced a couple of GUI freezes in VIP but these have been quickly resolved by closing the GUI and reopening. The reopen has brought me straight back to the correct state and could well have been caused by my impatience rather than a genuine problem.

I'm even more pleased with this purchase than I was yesterday as the vast majority of my VSTi's are showing and working. And this without spending any real quality time on it.

 

schrage,
glad to hear your very detailed response to the keyboard. Thank you for that. Very interested now in bringing one home.

 

I own Hybrid 3 also it's an amazing VA, along with loom

 

My Advance 25 just arrived. I haven't had time to really take it for a spin. But my initial impression....it looks more like a Native Instruments product than the Komplete Kontrol. It looks great sitting next to Maschine Studio.

The pads feel like Maschine pads. This is a negative for me as I prefer my old skool MPC pads. I don't care for the feel of the 8x knobs..feel kind of slick for a lack of a better term. They should have used the MPC Qlink kbobs or something similar to the knobs on Maschine. I definitely want to swap them out but MPC Stuff charges $105 for 8x MPC knobs. The knobs on the 2 larger Advance keyboards appear to be different but haven't seen them up close.

The colored LCD on the Advance keyboard is roughly the size of the iPhone 6..perhaps slightly larger by a mm or two. Outside of the logos of leading DAWs (Logic, Live, etc), Akai doesn't really take advantage of the colored screen. The GUI could be more interesting. As an example..take a look at the GUI of pretty much any iPhone synth app. Akai could draw inspiration from just about any of them.

More feedback to come......

 

I'm surprised at your comment about the screen. I feel it gives the right amount of info in a clean, clear way. The fact that it can display more colours doesn't (to me, anyway) mean that it should. I don't want 'interesting'. I want info - clear and simple.

 

"Clear and simple" could be taken as dated. I have plenty of iPhone apps whose user interfaces are very clear and easy to read. But they also look very nice which is inspiring. Likewise, the UIs of MPC hardware are clear and simple and have gone relatively unchanged in 30 years. This is boring although it does the job.

 

Writing itself is 'dated'. That doesn't stop it doing its job perfectly. It depends what you want; something to give information or something to give a light show. The GUI on the Akai Advance shouldn't need to be 'inspiring'. It's there to give info. Which, to my eye, it does perfectly.

 

Well...let's just agree to disagree. I think it should be great looking and inspiring.

Additionally after using this keyboard for 3 minutes...I am already annoyed. It is great to be able to browse thousands of plugin presets from the controller. But users have to keep pressing the enter button. This is awful and makes me not want to use this keyboard.
I have owned plenty of sound modules and keyboards (still own a Fantom G and Mo Phatt). If I had to press an enter button to play a specific patch, I would throw them out the window. I should be able to turn a knob and play the patch. Advance keyboards need an Autoselect function immediately!