Komplete Kontrol S88: Komplete Review

sigmund droid

8 years ago

Time to do the Komplete Kontrol S88: Komplete Review. I was very excited to receive my S88 today – I was holding off on the S-series in the hopes that NI would put out an 88-key variant, and they did!

All of the unique Komplete Kontrol features are amazing – although I thought the LightGuide would be something of a gimmick, it has proven to be quite useful (especially when learning some new types of scales thanks to the Scale feature)! (It is worth noting that the default all-blue lighting does not look tacky…but even if you think that it does, you can turn it off from the Hardware tab of the Komplete Kontrol software’s General Preferences window.)

Contrary to what others have said, I am very pleased with the action of the keyboard. I actually have been using a Korg N1 for years, probably the “weightiest” of the weighted action keyboards. While some may have found the key action of keyboard itself heavy, I actually loved it. So many weighted action keyboards are actually not weighted properly at all, they show little heft. I actually found the action lighter and more responsive than the N1, but that should not be a surprise, because you have to have jackhammer fingers to use that controller. In any event, love the controller, love it.

It took quite a few installations of the software to get the keyboard to actually work fully and completely with my system. Mostly because of getting the Maschine Studio and the Komplete Kontrol to work together in perfect harmony.

The Komplete Kontrol Software works most effectively in 64 Bit across the board. If you were holding on 32Bit, now is the time to commit. Once you get the NKS plugins working with the Komplete Kontrol Keyboard, there is literally no way you will ever go back to editing your sounds through the computer itself. With the tagging and just a slew of features too numerous to mention, it is just a killer package.
But be patient with the installation process, it will take many hours of tweaking to get your system just right.

Best thing to do here is to watch this fellow lovingly unbox and play around with his “new toy…” his wig and his joy are infectious!

Native Kontrol Standard – Native Browser

Third-party instruments are tagged by the manufacturers themselves, ensuring that these tags are relevant and useful. NKS instruments show up alongside your KOMPLETE Instruments in the Native Browser – total browsing unification.

Native Kontrol Standard – Native Map

Native Map is also extended to third-party instruments. This means that plug-in manufacturers can design mappings that suit the instrument specifically. And that you get useful, musically-relevant parameters mapped to the eight control knobs automatically when you load an NKS instrument.

Native Kontrol Standard – Light Guide

Light Guide revolutionized playability when it appeared on the KOMPLETE KONTROL S-Series keyboards. Now, third-party instruments can use this industry-first technology to easily display key switches, sample mappings, and keyboard splits.

Native Kontrol Standard – Smart Play

Every NKS plug-in is set up to make use of the creatively-empowering Smart Play features in the KOMPLETE KONTROL software – including the touch strips, scale mapping, Chord Sets, and the powerful arpeggiator.