native instruments komplete kontrol s49 mk2 keyboard review

In place of pitch and mod wheels you’ll find touch strips with LED position indicators. These displays show mapped parameters, with values indicated by a horizontal slider graphic. The touch–sensitive knobs offer just enough resistance to feel expensive, and each is accompanied by a beautifully sharp monochrome display. With power (AC not USB, I’m afraid) a wave of colours washes across the surface as the ‘Light Guide’ key lights come to life causing grins and ‘oohs’ from geeks and non–geeks alike in our house. While nicely crafted and classy in appearance, the Kontrol–S is rather unassuming.

Rather than packing every square inch with knobs, sliders, button and pads, all the S–Series keyboards have just eight main rotaries, two modest clusters of buttons, and a selector knob. The keyboard’s panel couldn’t be more different than most of its contemporaries. Feel and build quality are similar to Maschine - solid and sleek, with the same mixture of glossy plastic and brushed-metal surfaces. Out of the box the Kontrol S is a pleasingly narrow, low-profile slab of black.

The hardware also offers some special performance sauce from the arpeggiator and auto–scale/chord features, and intelligent integration with many DAWs. All the presets from Komplete are accessible from a single browser, with plug–in parameters pre–mapped across the eight rotary encoders. Komplete Kontrol focuses on one aspect of the Kore vision: providing a unified user experience across all NI’s many and various software instruments.

You’ve probably already figured this is more than a MIDI control keyboard, so what is it? First, it’s not Kore reincarnate, at least not entirely.

The Komplete Kontrol S–Series is the obvious next step, bringing a hardware front–end to the mighty Komplete instruments bundle, and a high-quality keyboard option for Maschine users or NI–centric users of other DAWs. NI have more or less defined the shape of modern hybrid music production and performance with their Maschine and Traktor Kontrol ranges. NI turn their hybrid expertise to keyboard design with an innovative controller for Komplete and Maschine.

Native instruments komplete kontrol s49 mk2 keyboard review