London Expo 2014

Went along to London Expo 2014 today to check NI's demo of Komplete Kontrol S61 & Maschine Studio with Maschine 2.2 software

Must say looks like a lovely setup. It was a pretty smooth demo. they basically just went through piecing a track together. The keyboard lights are nice for those of us who are musically inept, but with an added bonus of knowing which keys are relevant if you are playing drums from the keys.

They programmed drums with the S61 and I wondered is a Maschine controller really necessary? M-Studio didn't really get used. However, afaik, you can't get the software by itself. They emphasised that the whole deal is that you are using them as instruments and are really just using the computer as the brains, and they seem to have made it so that the S61 will not operate Maschine to the degree a dedicated controller can. At the end of the presentation they took a couple of questions and it was asked if they would release an Ableton style product. The answer was along the lines of you never know..Well, they have really, but they've decided to spread it over 2 products. The Kontrol keyboards do have a lovely feel to the keys and are good quality. The touchstrip was demonstrated, and that looked good.

I had a chat with one of the guys on the stand afterwards about DAW integration and exporting, and he was of a mind that why export it, or use it as a plug. So, I questioned is the next step a full DAW from NI? His answer was that it's likely.

Komplete 10, Kontrol S25, Maschine Mk2 would cost £1,357 and you still wouldn't get a full DAW. Ableton Suite with Push costs £878, with a deal on for £638, atm, and you get full DAW. Ableton is still a very attractive bundle.

Had a little play on the S8. Not quite tempted to sell My X1 Mk2's and done 92, but it's a bloody nice all in one. Really great feel, look and build quality; lovely pads, brushed metal. Awesome kit for a mobile DJ; definitely no toy-like feel of the S4.

NI was a busy stand. There was a distributor with a pair of Pioneer 2000 nexus and 900 nexus mixer that no one was interested in, but of course it is primarily a studio exhibition.

Point Blank, a music school was doing an Ableton tips and tricks seminar that I sat in for 5 mins. Unfortunately couldn't stay for the Bitwig demo.

Thanks for the write-up, I really wanted to get along to this but could not make it. Was this more product demos or was there also new stuff on show, eg like BPM?

While the Kontrol S keyboard is interesting, I think the price point is too high,

Bit of both I think. I didn't stay that long. There was a lot of traditional outboard gear: eq's, compressors, etc. I wasn't interested in all that so i didn't find out about them. When I came back I looked on the website and saw that waves was meant to be there, but didn't see them. It was pretty small. PMC were there and Yamaha and Novation