Rig Kontrol 3 Support macOS Sierra Discontinued??

Greetings! First post here in the forums after having called technical support, and having been kindly directed here. Anyway, I am a long time NI customer. I've used Kontakt since version 1, Guitar Rig since version 2, and Komplete since version 8. At any rate, I'm seriously upset and worried by the news that NI plans on dropping Rig Kontrol support for macOS Sierra, and all future macOS releases. I have had both a Rig Kontrol 2, and when that died on me about 18 months ago, I ordered a replacement Rig Kontrol 3 unit from NI. I've literally had this piece of hardware for a year and a half, and now, according to the recent announcements, it's going to be obsoleted for the foreseeable future.

I have used my Rig Kontrol 2, as well as the replacement Rig Kontrol 3 pedal ever since I have used Guitar Rig. I make a living creating both music, doing professional audio production, and live performance. At the heart of my setup is Guitar Rig, and my beloved Rig Kontrol 3 pedal. This thing is seriously one of the most amazing pieces of hardware that NI has ever created, and I can't honestly think of any other piece of guitar processing gear that I've ever used as extensively as I've used the Rig Kontrol in conjunction with Guitar Rig. It's all over my albums, all over my TV / Radio / Motion Picture work. Everywhere. I'd be lost without it.

At any rate, I'm posting this in the feature request section because I don't know how else to get others like myself to rally around this piece of hardware, and to try to get Guitar Rig development team at Native Instruments to please reconsider NOT dropping support for the Rig Kontrol 3 hardware in future macOS releases. I understand that things change, and evolve over time, and things become obsolete, but I really can't quite wrap my head around why a piece of hardware that I haven't even had for two years is now going to be obsoleted. The worst part is the fact that Native Instruments has not offered anything anywhere near comparable as far as the features, and the integration that the Guitar Rig / Rig Kontrol offers with any of the other hardware offerings. I really don't want to have to purchase yet another third-party audio interface, and a MIDI foot controller just to continue using Guitar Rig the way that I currently do. As a loyal NI customer (and believe me, for me to be loyal to a company that produces software instruments is a stretch, because I'm a hardware guy through and through), I feel as though NI has left those of us who aren't interested in the Komplete Kontrol / Audio Interface / etc. offerings out in the cold when it comes to Guitar Rig.

So please, whoever is reading, if you feel the way I do, speak up, and ask with me that Native Instruments please do us loyal customers who have been there for years to do us a solid, and please continue to write drivers for this hardware. The Rig Kontrol is a wonderful piece of gear, with a wonderful audio interface and integrated foot control all in one unit. Please don't obsolete something that's made to work as well as it does with the software that is still being actively developed (Guitar Rig). I'm begging you.

 

One more thought... And I apologize in advance for seeming rather ranty, but after taking a cursory look at the GR forum, the general consensus here among the forum members appears to be an attitude of, "Why is NI slagging off their GR customers?". If the development team members for NI hardware such as the Rig Kontrol no longer have the time, nor the resources to continue to support things like the Rig Kontrol hardware, then why not let the community continue to develop drivers to continue using their hardware, by opening up the source code for the Rig Kontrol driver hardware, or at least providing the community with the technical spec sheets in order to write our own open-sourced drivers for said hardware, without having to take guesses at how things work, or having to reverse-engineer anything? If the device is no longer to be supported by NI, and the focus for Native Instruments as a company has moved further away from supporting software like Guitar Rig in general, then why not let us continue on with a community version of the drivers for the hardware? Apologies if I'm sounding a bit overzealous about the issue, it's just that the recent announcements with regard to deprecated hardware have been a bit of a punch in the gut. I still can't understand why support for a pedal board / audio interface, which is capable of 24-bit, 192khz recording (which is still very much current as far as audio quality / fidelity), and software integration is being phased out, when this unit is still more capable than some of the other "comparable offerings" made by other companies which are still currently being marketed. I can't imagine that I'm the only person out there who would at least like the ability to take a stab at working with an open-sourced version of the Rig Kontrol software / drivers.

 

I'm just guessing but maybe they dropped support so soon it's due a new Rig Kontrol is currently being developed so they wanna focus on that. Anyways about two years ago I was tempted to get the Rig Kontrol (at that time already discontinued) but I was afraid that they could stop developing drivers for new versions of OS X, so instead I got a lIne 6 midi pedalboard and so far I'm happy with it. Have you tried upgrading to macOS sierra? they wont update the driver but that doesnt mean the driver won't work, my Apogee Duet work with Sierra without any update, maybe you're lucky and won't have any problems or why not just skip this update? Personally I'll stick with El Capitan for a while, I'm tired of going through incompatibility issues every year each time Apple releases a new OS. If it's not broken don't fix it.

 

Hey tubeaudiogear! If a RK4 Pedal is being developed, they've certainly kept it hush-hush. My conclusions regarding the fate of the RK3 actually came from my phone call with a NI Tech Support Agent. The reason that the technician gave me as far as the discontinuation of the hardware support / driver is that, "Apple has changed something about the core of their OS, and their driver model", which to my knowledge, having been a beta-tester / developer for macOS Sierra, is not actually the case. Granted, there have been certain changes to the way that applications are sandboxed, as well as hardening of the filesystem, and the kernel, but certainly nothing that actually prevents the installation of the driver kext on Sierra.

That being said, the most worrying aspect as far as I'm concerned, is the fact that for quite some time now, NI has removed the ability to even do ANYTHING with the Rig Kontrol 3 in any recent versions of the Kontroller Editor software. This just makes absolutely no sense. The hardware is still quite capable (by anyone's standards), and the specs are still on par with current industry standards for both digital audio as well as MIDI. It feels like those of us who have been loyal Guitar Rig customers from very early on are being relegated to the corner with nothing but a dunce cap to show for it. As far as the compatibility of the software, the Audio Units, etc., all appear to function as expected under Sierra. I have yet to try to connect my RK3 Pedal to my MacBook (Running Sierra), in order to test it, but the driver did install (it appears) without incident. To be honest, the only things that I've noticed that appear to be any different are the addition of APFS (The HFS+ FS successor), and Siri in macOS. Otherwise, it pretty much feels almost exactly like El Capitan. Most of the OS changes have been implemented under the hood, and aren't readily apparent to most end-users.

To me, unless someone from NI can explain differently, it feels as though the OS update is more of a scapegoat to stop supporting the RK3, when no successor has been announced, when in reality, it seems as though the general attitude of NI has been that, "Guitar Rig customers aren't our largest demographic, and hence, make our Guitar Rig offering less profitable than our other offerings". I know I'm speculating here, and assumption is never a good indicator of what is to come or what isn't. However, precedent is. With the RK3 functionality removed from Kontroller Editor for quite some time, now, (for no good reason) I suppose that it feels a bit like foreshadowing. I love GR, and I love my RK3 pedal. I don't want to have to lose either of them. However, if an open-source solution like Rackarrack comes along, supports the RK3, and fills the void, I suppose I'll have no other choice than to switch.

If, however NI decided to release an RK4 interface, I'd be all over it, provided that I can continue using it the way that I'm using my RK3 pedal with Guitar Rig. But why deprecate one piece of hardware before even hinting that there's another newer version in the pipeline? Why not let us continue on with the hardware that we PURCHASED from NI until such time that a new offering of comparable capability is available? What gives?

 

Steve, I totally share your sentiment on Rig Kontrol. It's an incredible piece of hardware- it's sturdy and durable, reliable, and super lightweight. I use mine everyday. I know NI's definitely following the EDM trend by focusing primarily on DJ equipment, but GR's user base is massive. I'm not saying the DJ equipment is bad (I've heard good things about it actually), but that's appealing for a very specific demographic. A lot of their products are marketed towards studio producers and DJs, but the number of people using that stuff is astronomically smaller than the huge number of guitarists all over the world. Yes, electronic music is popular right now, but that trend isn't going to last much longer. Guitar, on the other hand, has never stopped being popular or profitable. Electric guitar goes back to the 50s, and even now in 2016 guitar is still the most popular instrument in the world. My point isn't to slant EDM at all, but people thought disco would last forever back in the 70s and there ended up being a backlash against it. Rock might not be the predominant genre on the radio at the moment, but you can still hear guitar on the radio in other genres like country. NI is devoting a lot of resources to their DJ products, but the problem is that they're devoting all their resources to stuff like Traktor. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, NI. That's a terrible business strategy.

I agree completely with you on how NI's left all of their users in the dark on GR. It's gotten ridiculous, and they've been doing it for several years now. I don't doubt NI's capability to make great products (like GR and RK), but none of us are going to buy anything if we don't even know if NI's working on GR. By not giving us some info on the status of GR, NI is forcing its users to jump ship and switch to rival companies like Line 6. We've established that GR is being worked on, but if NI is planning to just surprise release a new GR and RK and expect everyone to buy it, it's not going to work. You have to promote a product before selling it. Apple is notoriously secret about their new products, but at least they tell people a new iPhone is being worked on and when it's going to be released. That's what smart businesses do.

It wouldn't surprise me if NI is planning on releasing a new RK and made the old ones unusable so people would have to buy the new one. There's actually a petition that's been circling around the popular Internet guitar forums that's trying to get NI to release a GR6. GR's one of NI's flagship products, the company was practically built off its success and enduring popularity. The smart business move would be to maintain and grow the user base for GR, not keep them in the dark for years until they end up switching to your competitors.

 

I must admit that I also am quite disappointed that NI is discontinuing support for their old hardware items as well - I have a Rig Controller 3, Kore 2 Controller and Audio 6 Sound card. What does one do with these items other than keep an older computer around for their use and of course spend more money to have new hardware that will be compatible for a few years? P.S. What is the replacement for Rig Controller 3? and personally I still love Kore 2

 

Greetings everyone, I am also in the same boat, I am a Nashville pro guitarist and teacher, and guitar rig has been at the heart of my guitar set up since Guitar Rig 1 and the rig Kontrol 1 pedal, I now have the rig Kontrol 3 pedal, and while considering my self pretty computer savy, doing it since 98, with out the native interface for guitar rig like the kontrol pedal i'll feel up the creek with out a paddle, after all this time and 5 incarnations i still feel Guitar Rig is my best choice guitar effects, i use computer based processing live and have for 15 years or more. What will we do??? Has anyone tried the pedal with Sierra?

 

Just use a cheap Win 10 Pad for Guitar Rig with Rig Kontrol.
On Windows no problems.

 

Hey you can consider deactivating SIP... it WORKED first time for me and allows us all to continue using the pedal as a controller, as long as you have another sound card which most of us do anyways.

For anyone wondering how this is done I found this link pretty easy to follow: http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/05/disable-rootless-system-integrity-protection-mac-os-x/