NKS

[leeleema]

'Boss, la' or 'a bag of balls'? Anyone using it? I sort of think NI are trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist or a problem that some have but most do not. But what do I know?

[Reefius]

It's pretty cool to quickly find a preset because of the previews.

[aMUSEd]

It's also cool not to have to setup mapping to a controller for every plugin and to have it all available visually using the screen

[JonSolo]

It is extremely effective in getting to sounds and textures of a project, instead of having my inspiration robbed by mindlessly scrolling through plugins and presets.

[apoclypse]

I mean it's great idea that would be even better if it were an open standard that every hardware manufacturer would implement instead of something only for NI controllers.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Would have been great if they had evolved from Kore and kept to the 8 knobs + 8 buttons thing, which was perfect. Plus the ability that Kore already had to jump directly to a parameter page. Then you wouldn't have knobs used for buttons, which is idiotic. And you wouldn't have to hit page up/down or left/right whatever it is, one at a time to go back and forth between pages, which is even more idiotic. It's completely unusable as any kind of dep tweaking or sound design tool. Only really important parameters on a couple pages. It's infuriating because they already had a design that worked, even if you remove all the complex stuff of Kore, like snapshot macro morphing etc, which was all excellent as well. Biggest waste I've ever seen in the computer music industry.

[apoclypse]

Would have been great if they had evolved from Kore and kept to the 8 knobs + 8 buttons thing, which was perfect. Plus the ability that Kore already had to jump directly to a parameter page. Then you wouldn't have knobs used for buttons, which is idiotic. And you wouldn't have to hit page up/down or left/right whatever it is, one at a time to go back and forth between pages, which is even more idiotic. It's completely unusable as any kind of dep tweaking or sound design tool. Only really important parameters on a couple pages. It's infuriating because they already had a design that worked, even if you remove all the complex stuff of Kore, like snapshot macro morphing etc, which was all excellent as well. Biggest waste I've ever seen in the computer music industry.

It's so interesting how so many years later people still talk about Kore. it was such a well though out product. It made me feel like I was working on a keyboard workstation but with my computer. In contrast Komplete Kontrol makes me feel like I'm dealing with a preset machine. I had gotten Kore in a bundle deal with Komplete 4 and I was an instant fan. Kore 1 was a bit clunky, but Kore 2 was amazing.

[TVbene]

One of the most important parts of my live jamming/looping setup. I'm defintively not saying it's perfect, but I think standards for preset browsing and parameter mapping are a good concept. We use the Maschine controller for effects like Guitar Rig and the Komplete Kontrol keyboard to play around with VSTis to reduce the need for a mouse. Honestly I don't buy non NKS plugins anymore. But that's a pity if Kore 2 really was more advanced.

[TVbene]

Then you wouldn't have knobs used for buttons, which is idiotic.

Yeah that's stupid...

[leeleema]

I guess I like to think of using a particular synth for a sound, rather than a sound regardless of synth. And I know what synths I prefer for particular sounds. So my thought process would be: (sound in head) -> particular synth -> category/user preset + tweak. Whereas I guess with NKS it would be: (sound in head) -> NKS. The latter would involve more auditioning which wouldn't be part of my workflow. Also with NKS, there may be: (no sound in head) -> NKS which would involve even more auditioning. I guess my workflow is just different, horses for courses, YMMV etc. There's also the need for NI hardware and as much as they will get buy-in from other soft-synth manufacturers, there will never be 100% buy-in from everyone so you will have to go to some soft synths and use presets the old way, which kind of defeats the point of NKS. And what happened to NI Kore? To paraphrase Battlestar Galactica, all of these things have happened before and will happen again

[andypryce]

It takes too long to instintiate(10-15 secs) so as much as I love the concept I just don't use it for this reason alone.NI should do something about launch times. Same for Kontakt, Machine, Battery. First instances that is.

[TVbene]

Whereas I guess with NKS it would be: (sound in head) -> NKS. The latter would involve more auditioning which wouldn't be part of my workflow.

Well you can select a specific plugin with NKS.

[bharris22]

I love the ability to preview presets. However, I don't have NI hardware, and don't always want to use Maschine as my DAW. Thus, it would be great and more efficient (for me) if a DAW had the ability to preview the NKS presets directly, rather than having to load Maschine as a VST in Ableton or Reaper, which is what I need to do now.

[Tj Shredder]

I don‘t have any NI hardware, but me thinks the preset handling in Bitwig does the same, with the difference, that I would have to store the presets and mappings myself. But that might even be an advantage...
Is there someone out there who has experience with both?
In general thinking in presets without the need of having first a synth in mind does make a lot of sense.
I wish there would exist a standard. NKS is not, if it would be, I should be able to load NKS presets without a NI plugin directly into any DAW supporting it...