KVR Audio

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 8:25 pm

Surely you can make your own templates for it too though?

K-Bee · Post by **K-Bee** » Mon May 02, 2016 2:13 pm

DJ Warmonger wrote:I now seriously consider getting VIP keyboard. I have few questions now:

- Can you drag and drop VSTs from inside VIP directly to DAW? (Ableton in this case). This is quite important to get unified workflow for me.
- Is there a significant delay when browsing presets from different plugins and playing them?

(

You don't drag and drop. When first using VIP you let it scan your computer for available plugins. They'll show up within the VIP GUI and you then decide which ones you won't include. VIP is a sort of host/wrapper in itself. The only delay you'll experience is when you load the vst inside VIP. Obviously switching presets from say Kontakt to Omni will take longer than say Synth1 to another CPU light instrument.
I reckon the VIP/Advance workflow isn't for everybody and if you want to do drag and drop, it's not really the option for you. With VIP/Advance you'll have to change your workflow drastically. For me, it changed to the better

Surely you can make your own templates for it too though?

Supposedly, yes. I just can't figure it out, and I know it's something giving many owners a lot of grey hairs

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Wed Jun 22, 2016 7:23 am

M-Audio CTRL is coming!

http://www.m-audio.com/products/view/ct ... 2o7m7iLSUk

Certainly it's the most complete workstation like nothing before - all Advance / Code49 features + mackie mixer (faders / buttons).

Surely it will be more expensive - in fact all Advance keyboards in Poland are heavily discounted even though exchange rate got very unfavourable in last months. Buying them for original price would be insane.

Not sure about physical quality of M-Audio hardware, though. Great ergonomic layout, but these pads look poor. Waiting for reviews.

K-Bee · Post by **K-Bee** » Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:55 pm

"The CTRL49’s integrated high-resolution full-color display and robust hardware controls instantly auto-map themselves to your VST plugin controls using the included Virtual Instrument Player (VIP) software. This unprecedented tight integration between hardware and software enables immediate 1:1 access to your all of your plugin controls as well as your DAW channel level, solo, mute, record, select and transport controls—all without ever reaching for the computer."

Hmmmm where have I seen this before??

Oh wait, that's the Advance doing that!
To me this sounds like the advance with an M-Audio sticker on it. It seems every company are going for these wrapper/integration players these days. NI is another
"all without ever reaching for the computer" - well, that ain't happening. While the Advance sorta gives you the ability to keep your hands off the computer, you often end up in front of the screen anyway due to menu diving and fiddly controls. Don't get me wrong: My Advance has changed the way I work and I am saving a fair bit of time. However, the VIP software is unstable at times and not too happy about Windows 10, but hopefully a future update will solve that issue. The Advance is on it's way but it's not quite there yet. (Plus - they still need to make plugin maps for the Arturia V5 collection I just purchased)

DJ Warmonger wrote:Surely it will be more expensive - in fact all Advance keyboards in Poland are heavily discounted even though exchange rate got very unfavourable in last months. Buying them for original price would be insane

Well, that's the way things do. Newly released stuff is expensive - older stuff is cheaper (unless you venture into the analogue hardware scene of course

)

It's all a matter of build quality and a competitive price if the M-Audio CRTL is to sell.

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Wed Jun 22, 2016 3:49 pm

To me this sounds like the advance with an M-Audio sticker on it

It has more features - mixer sliders and mute buttons. Full pimp, I mean it!

Newly released stuff is expensive - older stuff is cheape

I meant they are on sale because their launching price was rirdiculous and no one was going to buy them. Besides - who is the target customer?

- Newbies don't have that kind of money.
- Experienced producers already have some keyboards, so they are not going to spend 500 USD on another one just for preset browser.
- Advance 25 is kinda absurd as master keyboard with 2 octaves

. You can pretend it's only a preset browser, but it's still very expensive and doesn't let you actually test all the presets with 2 octaves only

Back in January I saw CTRL49 launching price set to 450 USD, which is competetive compared to Advance 49, which was 500 USD.

trusampler · Post by **trusampler** » Wed Jun 22, 2016 3:57 pm

They need to make a desktop Kore like controller that one can angle in front of the end user, along with NI with their Komplete Kontrol, I agree, most producers already have their dedicated Keyboards with their favorite keybeds in use in their studios. I've had the advance as well as the Kontrol 61, but I'm holding out for a better option.

K-Bee · Post by **K-Bee** » Thu Jun 23, 2016 7:38 am

DJ Warmonger wrote:Besides - who is the target customer?

Potential Komplete Kontrol and M-audion CRTL owners? KK and Advance are evenly priced too but that hasn't stopped them both from selling. Since so many companies are venturing into this kind of wrapper based controllers, surely the customers are there. The main issue here though; How long will these controllers be supported? It's not like stuff is kept in devolvement for years these days.

I'll agree about the Advance 25 being pointless though. I bought the 61 version but I probably should have gotten the 49 version though, since I also have and old Roland A-90 for the more piano based type of playing.

trusampler wrote:I've had the advance as well as the Kontrol 61, but I'm holding out for a better option.

Which one did you prefer?

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Thu Jun 23, 2016 8:19 am

KK and Advance are evenly priced too but that hasn't stopped them both from selling

Depends on country (and income). I live in Poland and people don't have that kind of money.

Since so many companies are venturing into this kind of wrapper based controllers, surely the customers are there

I believe it's the only way - in recent years controllers are blooming thatnks to more advanced electronics. You can always stuff more electronics into device, but not really more knobs or faders.

There are now many "complete studio solutions" on the market. Push, Komplete Kontrol, VIP and recently MPC Studio. The issue is, these "complete solutions" usually don't work easily with each other, so you have to choose one or another.

The main issue here though; How long will these controllers be supported?

As you can just see, VIP series just gets expanded with more advanced model. I think they will last if they are supported by big companies if only there's userbase.

K-Bee · Post by **K-Bee** » Thu Jun 23, 2016 10:58 am

DJ Warmonger wrote:Depends on country (and income). I live in Poland and people don't have that kind of money.

Makes sense. I recently went to Krakow and were suprised how expensive electronics are when the general cost of living is taken into consideration. For instance. A restaurant meal is 1/3 of what we pay in Denmark but a TV costs the same as over here.

DJ Warmonger wrote:I believe it's the only way - in recent years controllers are blooming thatnks to more advanced electronics. You can always stuff more electronics into device, but not really more knobs or faders.

Good point. It becomes either too fiddly to extensive when it comes to menu diving. The Advance suffer from that to a certain point but once you get used to the structure / workflow it will become 2nd nature. But as I said earlier. You still need to visit the big computer screen and mouse once in a while.

DJ Warmonger wrote:As you can just see, VIP series just gets expanded with more advanced model. I think they will last if they are supported by big companies if only there's userbase.

Hopefully you're right. But then again (and please correct me if I'm mistaken), didn't NI chose to discontinue Kore despite it's popularity?

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 6:59 am

My Advance 49 arrived on Monday. Whil the keyboard itself is impressive quality and the plugin pack is great as well, the preset manager doesn't work as expected.

Firts of all, it's buggy - especially right after unpacking. The app, both on Windows and keyboard itself, tends to crash. Few 3rd party plugins (or even AIR transfuser) don't work or their presets are not handled correctly.

While AIR instrument pack is tagged quite nicely and browser gives instant access to it, factory presets of 3rd party plugins are not tagged as expected. Out of 512 factory Sylenth1 presets , there are maybe 200 in total listed in "instruments" column - which means most of presets will never be found by browser. Then there's "auto-tagging", which seems to be based on preset name only. If the presets reads explicitely "bass", it will be added to basses. But when it's "BS" or just whatever else, it won't.

If I'm going to tag all the presets myself, it'd take months. Which is hardly "time saving" I hoped VIP to be.

On the other hand, if I atcually have thousands patches at my disposal, it's better to browse through them rather than downlaod more or get any new plugins and instruments

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 9:25 am

Patrice of BigTickAudio coded the Akai VIP, and talked about that issue in a thread last year:
viewtopic.php?f=102&t=438001&start=45

K-Bee · Post by **K-Bee** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 9:41 am

Firts of all, it's buggy - especially right after unpacking. The app, both on Windows and keyboard itself, tends to crash

One of my main gripes about VIP as well. It's just not stabile enough. That need to be fixed since it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. The whole purpose of VIP suffers if they can't get it right, and loads of users are suffering a lot because of this issue. Too bad since the controller would be a real winner if they got things working. I dunno much about Komplete Kontrol but judging from the users it seems to function better in terms of stability (?)

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Thu Oct 06, 2016 5:04 am

There was an update yeasterday which fixed the serious bug of some synths crashing at preset change - at least for me.

So there's a chance we'll get usable product in some time

K-Bee · Post by **K-Bee** » Thu Oct 06, 2016 7:55 am

Thanks. I haven't been home so I was unaware of the update. Hopefully, it will better things. Good to see they aren't abandoning Advance users completely

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Thu Oct 06, 2016 9:07 am

K-Bee wrote:Hmmmm where have I seen this before?? Oh wait, that's the Advance doing that!
To me this sounds like the advance with an M-Audio sticker on it. It seems every company are going for these wrapper/integration players these days.

Well, since the parent company of both Akai and M-Audio is InMusic, this isn't at all surprising or curious. All of their brands will have some variation of each product. It's like they just randomly pick a brand for the next iteration of the IP... Seriously, compare the product offerings from InMusic brands and you'll see that there's a lot of overlap and some downright carbon copying of product from brand to brand.

Akai Advance keyboards