The NKS Standard and Users

+1

 

+1
Jason does killer work. NI, you should listen to him!

 

... and please support Jason, by purchasing his NKS libraries. They're dirt-cheap and well worth it.

 

+1

 

+1

I'm considering S61 MK2, but the lack of response to this thread/issue makes me think, I'm gonna pass. Especially being an owner of KORE ...
I also use Vienna Ensemble Pro (VEP), so ...

Thanks to Jason for the effort!

 

Hi,

Like one of the previous posts I have to applaude NKS for the accessibilty it has given to blind people since Native Instruments
introduced text to speech support on both PC and MAC.

As you will appreciate there is a growing user base within the blind community who are adopting and investing heavily into the Komplete Kontrol universe, as finally we are able to browse and edit our soft synths and Kontakt libraries.

Many of us owe a debt of gratitude to Jason for the immense work he has done for us in converting various libraries to the NKS format.

I constantly campaign and write to developers to encourage them to take up the NKS format, and also give mapping suggestions to improve workflow for those that do.

I hear many stories as to why they aren't picking it up, in most cases they cite the expense of licensing and serialising their products as the main reason.

It's often a 'chicken and egg' scenario, as customers are reluctant to invest in the hardware because their favourite VST's aren't supported, yet if the format were opened up they would surely sell more!

What if the formats Komplete Kontrol recognised were opened up, so that KK could load for example Omnisphere patches by default, would Spectresonics allow this instead?

Certainly the way things are going much as I'm loathe to admit it, I can see Komplete Kontrol slowly dying.

Despite bringing out a MK2 model, there is still no true host integration for Windows based DAW's, and as such no Windows user will want to upgrade to the new hardware if all those additional transport controls are just dead!

Despite having the accessibility support for over a year, there has been no updates to allow users to save patches or even access the software beyond what we were initially given, as such the blind community has addressed these issues themselves with the use of macros and auto hotkey scripts.

I truly hope that if the format is to survive and flourish beyond it's present state, Native Instruments need to allow greater flexability in allowing third party contributions to what should be an industry standard.

 

It's great to see so many who understand and support this. After all, without us all there wouldn't even be an NI.

I personally never even had an intention of getting into developing these NKS packs, I just got sick of waiting for word from vendors and having a system that works only with 20% of what I owned was dissapointing. I've had to teach myself quite a few things to make it happen and make extra investments to maintain hosting etc but honestly, the feedback especially knowing it's actually helped users who are blind has really been great to hear and kept me going. I'm just looking to the future where I'd love to see the standard expand.

I'm happy to work with anyone to help things happen. I'm 20 years experienced in production and technology so no spring chicken. Hopefully with enough voices we will see some kick ass development for the MK2 and later versions of KK.

 

+1 - Open the NKS standard, API to your users. Learn that "Closed" is not better. Don't be afraid of change.

 

+1 . Surely this is a premature release and NI are about to unleash v2 of KK and blow our minds. I am a gear SLUT and a power user of KK and Komplete and so far, dear NI, you have shockingly not enticed me to want your new keyboard. I've been waiting 18 months for the new version and all I see is a pretty screen. Mk 1 for me!!!!

 

+1 Thank you Jason (Jester) for all.

And yes, thank you Kymeia, you are the Kore-Hero of the first hour.

 

+1 and thank you to Jester and Kymeia for their invaluable and ongoing contributions to the community here!

That said, we've seen how this ends before with their Kore product, which as Kymeia has mentioned, is still vastly superior to KK in some aspects. It's the single best preset organizer and speed browser I have ever seen. The truth is that NI makes some incredible software, but they absolutely do not listen to their users.

When they killed Kore, we started a support group on Facebook. That was created on June 9, 2011! "Loyal Kore Users" if anyone is interested... So I doubt that anything will be different this time around unfortunately.

As I said on another thread, perhaps one day NI will step back and take another look at that incredible product and these pretty keyboards and find a way to open the system up and make it more efficient for their business model at the same time. They have the best looking stuff in the market, but like Apple, they want you to conform to their workflow rather than allowing you to work however you choose.

 

Hi there, I just wanted to say that I'm with you on this. I too am a blind producer. I took the huge risk of moving to komplete ultimate, as much as I love this system, there are third party developers of libraries who really do not help the situation. One company nearly had a large order from me until the question was asked, are your libraries NKS supported. the answer "no" came minutes later. that company lost nearly £3000 and I won't be entertaining them. I go back to the days of much older systems where accessibility was a real headache but just about doable, so having komplete in the setup I use now is a real help. With regards Spectrasonics, I use their software but with great difficulty and of course the support from Spectrasonics is bad, they're not interested in nks support nor are they interested in resolving problems. they just want your money. You and I both have been dealing with various developers and manufacturers over the years discussing the various matters concerning accessibility and adaptation. We're lucky that with Apple that we have Protools and Logic Pro X on our side, along with native instruments via komplete kontrol, but that's really it and of course Jason for his hard work.

 

We really need to push Native Instruments on this and make our presence felt. It's one thing to make an NKS standard, it's another when companies refuse to support it. I was dealing with a developer rather recently online, just about to put in a big order for libraries, when I asked the vital question about NKS support, that's when the deal and any conversations stopped. the words "no we don't do that" came back and I pulled the job to a hault. I'm not paying serious money on libraries that don't work with komplete kontrol when it's the only resource within native instruments as a blind user I can use. So, Native Instruments, why not give us the tools and resources so that we can do this, why not develop an app that will help us grab the data we need from an instrument plugin, so that we can make the plugin or library work for us better.

 

Ed, feel free to join the Komplete Kontrol Access list, the is also a Whatsapp chat group, we are working with N.I. to improve accessibility and currently looking to revise third party developers SDK to include improvements and understanding of access needs when mapping controls, here is the link
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/komplete-kontrol-access

 

So it looks like the preview feature will be some kind of proprietary thing available only to NI and official NKS partners, not to User created library's. I'd like to think this would be implemented at some stage but am not holding my breath.

The product is moving further and further away from what I initially hoped to see which is really disappointing.

 

Last time closed down APIs were still widely considered a good idea must have been way more than 10 years ago. NI just needs some fresh blood, som new hires with fresh mindsets. Or face some real competition, because I made a serious market research recently and there is nothing at all that can reasonably compete. Only other company producing pro-grade midi controllers is obviously AKAI (and also Kawai, but it's a pure grand piano experience, not even pitch bend is there). Roland, Yamaha, Korg… they seem to be out of the game, sadly

 

Unfortunately NI's management (evidently as NI has been showing this behaviour across most of their products as far as I can see) does seem to think it's a good approach to interact & share as little with its' user base as humanly possible, even to the detriment of it's' products and reputation, and refuses to work in an open/transparent way unfortunately.
This is what makes me purchasing the a KK s49 mk2 fairly uneasy at my decision to throw money at NI again, as NKS is just being the latest example of this mindset unfortunately imo... unfortunately, I do like their general approach. But chances are 50/50 at this point, knowing what to expect from NI in the future once they have released a product, that I will sell it again very soon if it does not convince me to +90% out of the box as it currently is.

Another good example for this mindset is the disregard for painstakingly curated user metadata on music files on the Traktor side, i.e. this:
https://www.native-instruments.com/...d3-tags-please-also-a-bug.115804/#post-789359
And there's another one I can't find with dozens of pages about the same.
NI never managed to make this optional, or even attempt to explain why this is mandatory.
And, the suggested 'official' solution is to write-protect your files..... which in turn can lead to Traktor crashes. Go figure.
So once I need to test/do somthing in Traktor and it touches my digital music library (which is a non issue atm as I haven't used Traktor in 2 years....), I overwrite all files Traktor messed up on the HD afterwards immediately again...

Fingers crossed...
c.

 

Someone knows if possible to save massive (NI) presets as nks not as nmsv?

 

.nmsv is the NKS file format.

 

+1 - I'd buy a KK in a flash if this came to pass. I'm currently using a Push 2 and Ableton aren't showing any signs of wanting to make it easier to map 3rd party VSTs either.