Native Instruments has announced that their new NKS Hardware Partner Program is now live, with support for a range of controllers from several manufacturers.
NKS brings pre-configured mapping to controllers from Akai, Korg, M-Audio & Novation for over 2,000 compatible instruments and effects.
NKS integration is now available for leading controllers from Akai Professional, Novation, Nektar, Korg, and M-Audio, providing access to over 2,000 NKS-compatible instruments and effects from more than 250 brands.
NKS is now supported by the following third-party controllers:
- Akai Professional: MPK Mini Series (MPK Mini, MPK Mini Play, MPK Mini Plus)
- Novation: Launchkey MK3 & MK4, FLkey, SL MK3
- Korg: Keystage MIDI 2.0 controllers
- M-Audio: Oxygen Series keyboards
Support for the Nektar Impact LX MK3 is expected to be available in April 2025.
Here’s a video overview of NKS:
Availability:
NKS is available now, see the NI site for details.
If you’ve got one of the supported controllers, you can also download Komplete 15 Select ($99 value) for free, so you can get started with NKS immediately.
Still nothing for nektar users
I would really like to see Arturia join the fun here too.
Me too, but that obviously is not going to happen, since they are direct competitors. And if you would ask me, stronger competitors.
Arturia is listed in the NKS Partners link. https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/komplete/this-is-nks/nks-partners/
Very limited, not open-source, from a company that drops technologies at will.
Don’t fall for it!
Akai, M-audio, and Novation all have the same parent company, inMusic, so it’s not a surprise that they all adopted it
Novation’s parent company is Focusrite and not inMusic.
you are correct. Thanks
So in the 80’s companies were able to adpopt a common, open standard, that is still used today – I mean MIDI. On the other hand, today’s companies are too lame and too greedy, and they just push obsolete solutions, even though things like MIDI 2.0 already exist and could do so much more.
I’ve been using Nektar Panorama for almost a decade now. It is also a proprietary standard, but it just eats NI for breakfast. And it doesn’t require wrappers.
NI = Not Interesting
Even as someone who already has a lot of software, the software bundled with the Launchkeys is now pretty amazing. The new Bass Station plug-in and now Massive X are two standouts for me,
It’s weird that Arturia that was one of the first to adopt NI format for NKS does not have hardware that supports it…