Once you have built your software ecosystem, you can key your hardware into it at different levels. It’s a comparison I’m sure NI would find flattering, and it’s also pretty accurate. The integrated nature of the way NI builds software and hardware, where software is developed to accommodate hardware of varying price points and complexities – is not dissimilar to how Apple does things.
Of course this doesn’t mean lowering your standards – merely making things a little more accessible. The company has always tiered its hardware – from more entry level all the way to big and professional, but this is the first time it has really ventured into price brackets that seem designed to tempt ordinary consumers – by which I mean people not necessarily already in the music technology world. One important theme of NI’s recent mega-update of its products was that for the first time it included more affordable models of its hardware controllers. As a piano player I have a stage piano that never leaves the house, several performance keyboards too large for my studio desk and a Komplete Kontrol S61 which is great, but as I find myself working on the move more and more, I have begun to want a super-portable MIDI keyboard with the functionality of the Komplete Kontrol system. The larger models just space their controls out more. Sometimes as reviewers we are lucky enough to be able to request specific models for review – so why the smallest, 25-key model, you may ask? Well, in terms of their functionality, all three models – 24, 49 and 61-keys – are identical, save for the number of keys. I’ve had the new Komplete Kontrol A25 (amongst other new stuff) up and running in my studio for a few weeks, and I’d like to share my impressions of it. But we have also been lucky enough here at Ask.Audio to be among the first to get hands-on experience with the new gear. Those announcements – Komplete 12, the Komplete Kontrol A series, Traktor 3 and much more – are all now of course public knowledge. N the late summer of 2018 I was invited to Native Instruments’ London offices to be shown a raft of upcoming products – more new stuff, in fact, than I had ever seen one company prepare to release at the same time. Hollin Jones took the smallest sibling, the A25, for a spin. Native’s new A Series of Komplete Kontrol keyboards have many of the features of the S series, but at a price that may surprise you.
0 kommentar(er)
