AIR Music Technology

TigerTheFrog · Post by **TigerTheFrog** » Sun Jun 04, 2017 10:07 pm

For those of you who have Native Instrument Komplete Kontrol keyboards, you might want to know that there's a guy named Jason Absolom who has created NKS templates for Omnisphere 2, Keyscape, Trilian, Korg Legacy, Sylenth1, among others.

He's also done patch browser templates for Loom, Hybrid 3, Vacuum Pro, and XPand!2

Most of them cost $10 Australian, which is about $7 US.

As I like my Omnisphere stuff and found them well worth the money, I took a chance and bought his template for Xpand!2, which is something I don't use much. Now that I have it, I use it a lot more! As any of you who has tried to browse patches in Xpand!2 know, it leaves a lot to be desired. It's much more convenient using Jason's template on my Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol. Nice to be able to switch presets from my controller.

Be aware, it doesn't appear in your main KK browser, but in your User Presets. But it works the same way.

He usually makes free versions available so you can test them out to see if they work before you buy. They have a limited number of presets.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Wed Oct 04, 2017 11:10 am

Is there official NKS support in the pipeline yet?

sbangs_air · Post by **sbangs_air** » Fri Oct 13, 2017 5:10 pm

aMUSEd wrote:Is there official NKS support in the pipeline yet?

We are the developers of the alternative VIP format which is quickly being adopted by a number of developers and works with any plugin.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Fri Oct 13, 2017 5:41 pm

That's not a solution for people which use NKS and prefer it.

The two "standards" can coexist for sure, there's nothing preventing you from implementing NKS in your products, despite you being developers of VIP (unless, of course, you want to push yours instead of showing open hands to other cool ways to integrate software in certain workflows).

sbangs_air · Post by **sbangs_air** » Fri Oct 13, 2017 6:01 pm

We have an open arms approach in the sense that VIP supports any plugin or hardware unit not just pre-approved options we have also supported the OP in creating his great 3rd Party maps to provide options

Unfortunately NI is not always the most open in supporting other brands.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Fri Oct 13, 2017 6:07 pm

Well, there's a pretty nice list of 3rd party developers supporting NKS and being supported by NI to implement it... SDK can be freely requested and it will be supplied, then it's up to the dev to implement.

It would be great if AIR officially supported NKS, since there are some things you can do as a developer that an unofficial 3rd party pack cannot do (i.e. patch previews in Maschine/Komplete Kontrols).

jestermgee · Post by **jestermgee** » Sat Nov 04, 2017 1:03 pm

Almost any feature can be achieved and is available in the User libraries. The NKS I have released has sound previews, banks, full tagging all working. I also offer thanks to Air Instruments and Simon for helping me update these for users. I am still working on a few of them.

I'm certainly keen to see more NKS compatibility but Simon reflects the same things I have been hearing from other vendors I have written too in that the NKS requirements while technically easy to achieve (for someone that knows how to problem solve) is extremely time consuming, tedious and to questionable promotable benefit (I assume on that part) and some said the guidelines are too tight to operate within. Some that ARE NKS partners have even had to cull their control mapping pages because there were "too many" and make it more performance based. Problem from my perspective is I don't want performance, I want studio where if I decide I want to tweak a control on page 18 I should be able to without having to stop and map it.

Fact is I have been writing to vendors (probably several times) for the last 2 years and have really not heard of any that seem interested (or seen many new NKS partners) which is why I have been very focused to create NKS for as much as I own and can get my hands on. My suggestions have always been for NI to implement a similar approach on the Advance and let Users submit to a library. Having used both the Advance and the Komplete (I just prefer the komplete keyboard physically) the Advance has much more functionality in the software especially the latest versions. Just "intelligent" integration with DAWs from the hardware is not there.

Both options are maturing really well but there are always stumbling blocks as things need to be figured out over time to keep things flowing. If the NKS uptake doesn't increase, the market for it will certainly decrease.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Sat Nov 04, 2017 1:29 pm

Well thanks for your hard work Jester

On this subject, is an update for Loom 2 in the pipeline?

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Sat Nov 04, 2017 9:16 pm

Oh I see it's there - that was quick

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Sun Nov 05, 2017 11:12 pm

Would be good if the XPand 2 plugin name didn't have a ! in it - it makes it impossible for the image thumbnail to show in the keyboard browser

Scotty · Post by **Scotty** » Mon Nov 06, 2017 1:03 am

Ok big thumbs up for the Korg Legacy bundle NKS .. over 5000 sounds, logical parameter mapping, all images loading and sound previews (wow) .. Outstanding.

So a big request to Jason if he is watching, ... can we have an Air complete bundle at a discount? The Korg Legacy bundle covered 6 products at about 2 times the cost of a single product. Something similar for the Air bundle and I'm in.

Thanks for posting this thread.

AIR Music Technology

KVR Audio

Unofficial NKS Templates for many AIR synths are available