Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S25

I love this keyboard. It has a fantastic feel (it uses a Fatar keybed, a very high quality component). It has a semi-weighted action with aftertouch, and in weight feels somewhat similar to a DSI Mopho x4 or Akai MPK-261, but to my hands feels even nicer. It functions both as a straight up MIDI controller, like any other, but also as an NKS controller, which is kind of like MIDI on steroids. NKS is a protocol that allows the keyboard to physically reflect and interact with numerous virtual instrument attributes that MIDI can't do by itself, such as visualizing instrument class or organ register right on the keyboard. Auto-mapped parameter labels and values are visible on the keyboard as well. It's very cool, and, though not *entirely* necessary, does make things easier and more seamless. The keyboard comes with the rights to NI's "Komplete Select," which is a bundle of a bunch of really nice virtual instruments. The price definitely reflects this software, and the keyboard would be overpriced without it. Still, even if one already had this software or didn't care for it, I could understand why it might be worth it for the keyboard alone -- it's my favorite keyboard controller on the market.

So why only 3 stars? Two reasons:
1) Native Instruments support bites. They don't respond to direct email, and their forums are not nearly sufficient to work through basic issues.
2) The software installation process is horrible, and NI makes things so much more confusing than they need to be. It took me two days to work out the kinks. The documentation and web site don't match. You're supposed to use a horrid piece of garbage called Komplete Select Downloader, which should come with some kind of trigger warning and coupons for free vodka shots. It doesn't do parallel downloads, has no pause functionality, and throws up random errors for which solutions are not readily discoverable. Serial numbers that Native Instruments generates for you once you register your new keyboard may show up (falsely) as invalid when you try to enter them into this tool. For accessing software you supposedly own, this is unacceptable. They have a tool called Native Access, which you can find on their web site and which I recommend over the former downloading tool. You need to make sure to install the Kontakt player as well as the Reactor player in order to get all of the free instruments to work -- this is far from obvious to those new to the platform, and you can find yourself with weird "unable to load plugin" messages just because they don't take care to manage interdependencies.
I love this keyboard. It has a fantastic feel (it uses a Fatar keybed, a very high quality component). It has a semi-weighted action with aftertouch, and in weight feels somewhat similar to a DSI Mopho x4 or Akai MPK-261, but to my hands feels even nicer. It functions both as a straight up MIDI controller, like any other, but also as an NKS controller, which is kind of like MIDI on steroids. NKS is a protocol that allows the keyboard to physically reflect and interact with numerous virtual instrument attributes that MIDI can't do by itself, such as visualizing instrument class or organ register right on the keyboard. Auto-mapped parameter labels and values are visible on the keyboard as well. It's very cool, and, though not *entirely* necessary, does make things easier and more seamless. The keyboard comes with the rights to NI's "Komplete Select," which is a bundle of a bunch of really nice virtual instruments. The price definitely reflects this software, and the keyboard would be overpriced without it. Still, even if one already had this software or didn't care for it, I could understand why it might be worth it for the keyboard alone -- it's my favorite keyboard controller on the market.

So why only 3 stars? Two reasons:
1) Native Instruments support bites. They don't respond to direct email, and their forums are not nearly sufficient to work through basic issues.
2) The software installation process is horrible, and NI makes things so much more confusing than they need to be. It took me two days to work out the kinks. The documentation and web site don't match. You're supposed to use a horrid piece of garbage called Komplete Select Downloader, which should come with some kind of trigger warning and coupons for free vodka shots. It doesn't do parallel downloads, has no pause functionality, and throws up random errors for which solutions are not readily discoverable. Serial numbers that Native Instruments generates for you once you register your new keyboard may show up (falsely) as invalid when you try to enter them into this tool. For accessing software you supposedly own, this is unacceptable. They have a tool called Native Access, which you can find on their web site and which I recommend over the former downloading tool. You need to make sure to install the Kontakt player as well as the Reactor player in order to get all of the free instruments to work -- this is far from obvious to those new to the platform, and you can find yourself with weird "unable to load plugin" messages just because they don't take care to manage interdependencies.