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The software instruments, therefore, come alive as not only preset selection is made easier but also editing, mapping, tuning and performance, all done via hardware, so negating a lot of – but not all of – your mouse clicks.ģ: Other People’s Plug-Ins Load in other plug-ins via the drop-down menu, but don’t expect them all to be NKS-ready just yet. They are designed in such a way that the hardware/software combo almost mimics a hardware experience, so suddenly that FM7 preset you have always loved becomes an FM7 preset, which is easily and dramatically tweaked. The integration then dramatically swings into action as the most/important parameters of whatever sound you have dialled up are mapped (via Native Map) to the Clear View screens. You can load up the Komplete Kontrol software standalone or as a plug-in. The beauty is that all of this can be done via the hardware controls, so you can be away from the computer screen and more focused on your playing and recording.
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Perfect Integration Within Komplete Kontrol you get access to all of your Komplete instruments (and now other plug-ins) and you can select sounds via the instrument title and then focus on preset type and select that way. If not, here’s a quick recap of my previous review to explain that all important integration. If you have any of the existing Komplete Kontrol S-Series, you will be at home here. There are performance keys, arpeggiator controls and the transpose keys to the left of these, and that is it. There are Browse and Cursor buttons on the right to navigate through the KK software and eight Clear View screens and rotaries in the centre. It includes personal favourites Retro Machines, Monark and Massive, but there are some other choice titles here, including The Gentleman (piano), Drumlab and Vintage Organs – a little bit (actually quite a lot) of everything to show off what the Komplete Kontrol 1.5 software can do. Needless to say, this takes advantage of all of the S-Series’ hardware’s integration features while also offering a great selection of Native Instruments’ own software line-up. For now, we’ll cover what else you get with the software and the more immediate bonus: £850 of instruments within the all-new Komplete Select bundle.
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We’ll be looking at how Komplete Kontrol works on third-party software as we review it (look out for the Arturia V collection update soon). So far, Heavyocity, ProjectSAM, Arturia, Spitfire Audio and Sonokinetic are just some of the big guns who have signed up. This includes third-party support, with the all-new Native Kontrol Standard (NKS) essentially meaning that the KK software and keyboards can be opened up to the VST community, so we’re not talking about hardware integrated with just Komplete but potentially a lot more developers.
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