What's going on, everyone? Brian here from
Native Instruments. In this installment of How to Use Everything, we're going to be going
over the new Kontrol Series. We're going to be covering the hardware, the software and
everything in between. With the Kontrol Series, you can stay in the flow with an intuitive
connection to instruments, effects, your DAW and directly with Kontakt. Find and control your instruments on a high
res screen and elevate your playing using polyphonic aftertouch. Let's jump into it.
The first thing we'll need to do is download and install native access. You can download
it by going to and I d forward slash control dash setup, which is also a helpful guide
for getting things set up in general like on the native access link here, depending
on your computer specifications, you can download Native access for Windows Macs using Intel
chips or Macs using the M1 or M2 chips. Once you've downloaded and installed native
access, go ahead and open the program. Either login using your email and password for your
new account, or if you don't have an account yet, you can create one by clicking sign up.
Now on the back of the keyboard, we now have two Usb-c ports. We want to connect the custom
Usb-c cable into the host port and then plug the other end into the computer. If your computer doesn't have a usb-c port,
you'll need to use a usb-c to usb-c adapter. The other part you would use if your computer
or USB hub isn't providing enough power to the keyboard. If this is the case, the display
will let you know and you can connect an additional usb-c charging cable like you'd have for an
iPad back in need of access in the bottom left. Click add serial and enter the serial number
that's on the card in the box. You can also find the serial number on the underside of
the keyboard. It may take a moment, but once the keyboard is registered, all of the products
included with the keyboard will appear in need of access that still need to update the
hardware via the hardware connection service link available at the top, then applications
and then click install. This new program is what connects your plugins
to your keyboard. Well, now I want to make sure that the keyboard is on the latest firmware,
so go to Nico de forward slash control dash update and download the firmware updater for
Mac or Windows. Go ahead and open that program and run the device updater if your firmware
needs to be updated once it's complete, the keyboard will restart itself. Let's pop back over to native access and install
additional instruments and effects under available and application. Either install or update
to the latest version of Kontakt seven Reaktor six and Komplete Kontrol software. There's
a ton of additional products that come with the S-series. There's the bundle Komplete
14 Select, Hypha, Stradivari Cello, Guitar Rig 7 LE and the iZotope Elements Suite, and
Ableton Live Light. Feel free to pick and choose any additional
instruments, effects and expansions that you would like. Or just click the install all
button. The products included in the iZotope Elements Suite Bundle are also available for
installation via native access like Ozone, 11 elements or Nectar four elements. Just
click the install button for those as well. As I mentioned, you also get a copy of Ableton
Live Lite. After registering the keyboard, you should
have gotten an email about getting your license for Ableton. Click the link in the email.
Log in with your native ID and click request license. You'll then get a separate email
with your license for Ableton Live Lite. Go ahead to Ableton website and follow those
instructions for downloading Live Lite and using the license you received. Now that we've installed all the software
that comes with the keyboard, the next thing I want to do is configure my sustain or expression
pedal. The series has four assignable tr s pedal inputs with a default sustain and expression
pedal. By default, the sustain and expression pedal should work. But if you do need to change
any of the settings, what you can do is press the settings button here. Now, right now it's set to hardware. Don't
worry, we're going to be covering all of these settings as well. But I want to navigate over
to pedals, so I'll hit button two and now I'm on the pedal setting using knob one. This
is where you would select which pedal input you want to configure. Right now it's on the
system and all of these settings will be preset for you. So by default, the mode that you would want
for a sustained pedal is the switch mode where the sustained pedal is either on or off. Now,
if you press down on the pedal and you realize that the keys are being sustained, you can
always invert it by turning this knob here. If you need to adjust any of the additional
MIDI settings for your sustain or expansion pedal, you can access the other pages using
the right arrow. So this is page two of three and page three
of three. Now, if you need to configure your expression pedal, all you would do is just
use knob one and turn it to expression. And this is where you can adjust those settings.
If you need to configure the other two additional pedal inputs. You can also use knob one and
just turn this to assigned one or assigned two. But again, sustain an expression. These are
going to be set up automatically for you, so just plug it in and you'll be good to go.
Since Ableton Light comes with the Kontrol Series, we're going to be talking about DOM
integration using Ableton. However, the keyboard does integrate with a handful of other Daws.
You can find a full list of the additional Daws the Kontrol Series integrates with and
their setup instructions in the description below. Let's get the keyboard configured with Ableton.
So with Ableton Open, the first thing you want to do is go to live preferences. So I'll
work on live here and go to Settings. Next, we'll click on the link tempo and MIDI tab.
Now that we're in the media setup, the next thing I need to do is add the keyboard to
my list of Kontrol Surfaces. You'll first find an available slot that you
have. In my case, I don't have anything in here at the moment, so I'll just use slot
number one and under Kontrol Surface. You click the dropdown menu and you will find
the Komplete Kontrol s mark three. With that selected, I'll now add the keyboard for the
input output. So clicking the dropdown you'll see I have three different options. There's main DAW and external and what we
want to select is Dom and we'll do the exact same thing for the output. The last thing
is enabling the midi ports, the inputs for the keyboard. So I'm going to turn on track
here and this basically lets Ableton receive midi from the keyboard when I play the keys
or turn any of the knobs with the Kontrol Surface setup and the ports, you'll now see
that the DAW button is illuminated on the keyboard as well as the transport controls. Unlike the previous versions of the keyboard,
if you wanted to take full advantage of the keyboard features, you would need to load
the software in Komplete Kontrol. However, with the new Kontrol Series, the keyboard
integrates directly with Kontakts. So this means you can just load up Kontakt and be
able to browse, Customize your sound, use the light guide and create multiples all directly
from the keyboard. So now with Kontakt on the first media channel,
you'll see that on the keyboard. I'm now able to browse through all of my Kontakt instruments,
the eight knobs below. Let me refine the type of sound that I'm looking for. So with Knob
one, I can start filtering by different types of brands. So again, these are not just native
instruments, Kontakt libraries, but any Kontakt library that I have installed on my computer. So first let's just select native instruments
and then now to this is where you can start scrolling through all of the different products
within native instruments. Now, if you need to scroll down a little bit further, you can
actually hold shift and you can kind of speed scroll through everything. So let's just go
back to the top and select the first instrument was. We’ll choose something from Analog
Dreams. With Analog Dreams selected, you can then
filter even further. For example, we have the bank selection here, so within Analog
Dreams, I can select between Analog Dreams 1.0 or 2.0. I can then further refine the
list by choosing a type of sound that I'm looking for, such as bass. I can choose subtypes
like synth and then under character I can go one level further and choose something
like digital. As an example, With all of these filters selected,
you can actually see what you've chosen at the top here. Everything on the right hand
side. This is your results list. So right now what we're seeing are eight different
presets within Analog Dreams, with these filter types selected to scroll through the presets,
you can either use knob eight here or you can use the large encoder and scroll through
all of the different presets. Now, as I scroll through the presets list,
you'll actually hear audio previews of these particular instruments. This is really helpful
when you're dealing with large Kontakt libraries. It lets you get an idea of what the sound
is without having to actually load it. And this really just saves you time. So if you
want to turn on or off the premiere function, all you have to do is hold down shift and
then turn on or off premiere. So I have it turned on right now and you'll
also see it as a little speaker icon, letting you know it's enabled. Let's scroll through
some of these presets now, if there's a particular sound that you like, but maybe it just doesn't
fit the project you're working on, you can always set this as a favorite and be able
to access it later on. I'll just click the set favorite button and
you'll see now that this preset has a little star next to it, I want to go back and basically
search for presets across all of my Kontakts libraries. What I can do is hold shift and
hit reset filters. This will just reset all of the filters, taking you back to kind of
the initial default state when you first loaded Kontakt. Let's say I want to find a preset across all
of my Kontakt libraries. I have a currently set to basically all brands and all my products.
From here, I'll start filtering for a particular sound that I'm looking for. Well, first go
to type and select base. Next, I can always choose a different subtype such as, you know,
fingered fretless synth bass or I'm just going to go back to just all the subtypes. And lastly, I'll select character and choose
something like Tempo. Select. Let's go through some of the presets and see if we can find
that we like. Again, you can either use Knob eight or the large encoder as I scroll through
using the encoder, it's basically going to be going down one preset at a time. You can
actually now scroll through by pages by holding shift and just turning the encoder. All right. That one sounds pretty cool. You
can actually see that this preset I had favorited before. Let's take a listen. Now, to load this, all I have to do is just
hit the load button or I can push it on the encoder and if I want to swap out the sound
I have loaded, there's a couple of different options that I have. I can either press the
browser button and kind of re filter and just scroll through presets, or you can also use
the preset up and down buttons here. If I press next, it's basically going to be
going down to the next preset in the list so I can press it again. So now it's letting
a preset from Output substance. As I'm scrolling through the presets list, it still maintaining
the same filters that I have selected. So all of the presets that we're listening to
still have the bass and tempo sync filter. Now again, I can go back and hit browser and
start changing all sorts of settings. I can look for different products, I can choose
different filtering options here, but if I ever want to go back to the filters I had
selected on the current preset that's loaded. What I can actually do is just hold, shift
and hit quick browse. This will basically recall the exact filter
options that I had selected with the current preset. If you're ever changing the filter
types or selecting different products and brands and you just want to get back to the
current preset that you have loaded and all of those filtering options, you can just use
the quick Browse option, touching upon the favorites section again. Let's go back and just reset all of the filters.
And from here I'm going to go to favorites. So right now this is showing all of my favorite
presets across every car type library that I have. If I select an individual library
or an individual product and hit favorites, it's only going to show me favorited presets
within that product. So again, these are all of my favorites across
these products that I have selected. Let's take a listen to some of my favorite presets.
Oh, now that it's loaded, I can start playing the keys now that we have an instrument loaded.
The next thing you'll probably want to do is customize the sound a little bit just to
make it fit your project. So on the keyboard we have the eight knobs
here which allow you to customize the sound or the instrument that you have loaded. Right
now the first page is generally the more frequently used parameters you would want to manipulate
in order to customize the sound. However, right now there's also two pages of parameters
to adjust. So right now you can see I'm on page one of two. If I hit the right area over, I'm now on page
two of two. So let's just customize the sound a little bit. You know, nothing really specific
in mind, but just being able to tweak some of the knobs. You know, we've adjusted some
of the knobs. It's now kind of this more washed out sound. And one thing that you'll notice
is we've updated some of the parameters that you can adjust previously with certain things
that were basically an on off function. We actually have this on off button, so we
actually don't have to turn it that far to enable or disable certain parameters. So no
endless scrolling until a parameter is enabled. Now let's say you've customize the sound and
you want to save this for, you know, a future project. What you would do is go into the
software and first click the save button. Here, and this is where you would name your
preset. So I can just name this Bryan's actually preset and then just click Save and now it's
all set. So to access this from the keyboard, what we would do is go back to the browser
area. Right now we're still on favorites, so we'll just disable that and then go to
user Saved. Now we're in the user saved area. And this
list here, these are all of my saved presets that I've created and saved across these products
here. Now, if I scroll over and select something like Playbox, now I'm viewing my own save
presets with inside of Playbox. So when I scroll through these, you're not going to
be hearing any audio previews, so you'll just have to load one of them and kind of listen
to what it sounds like. One of the powerful things about Kontakt is
not just being able to load one instrument, but being able to load multiple instruments
simultaneously and create really unique and inspiring layered sounds. I have the symphony
series string ensemble loaded and with the Kontrol S-series, I can actually create multiple
directly from the keyboard. So what I'll do is click the tab over here and I have an empty
slot. I'll go back to the browser and now I can
load another instrument. So I want to create a basically a full orchestra just on the keyboard.
So I'm going to go over here and select the brass ensemble and just load this first preset.
I have two layered instruments. I have the symphony series, String Ensemble and the Brass
Ensemble. When I play the Keys, you'll be able to hear
the string and the brass libraries being played simultaneously. Well, let's add one more instrument to this
multi. I'll use button two to go to the next available slot press browser and let's load
the woodwind ensemble to now. We have a full orchestra directly on the keyboard. We have
the brass, the string, and the woodwinds all at my fingertips. What's unique about creating
multi is directly from the keyboard is I'm now able to actually control each of the parameters
on the three different instruments I have loaded. So if I use button one, I can access the parameters
for the brass ensemble or the parameters for the string ensemble and the light guide changes
as well. Now, if you want to remove any of the libraries that you've added to this multi,
for example, let's say we want to remove the brass section, I select brass. I just hold
shifts and hit remove and now I just have the woodwind ensemble and the string ensemble
loaded. Now, if you want to save this, you'll have
to go into Kontakt and save this as a multi. But again, you'll have access to this by manually
loading it and then having multiple instruments at your fingertips. Let's talk about the light
guide. So the light guide on the keyboard visually shows you important information based
on the instrument that you have loaded. So let's take playbacks as an example. All
of the red keys here, these are basically the notes that I'm able to play and anything
that's blue, I'm not going to be hearing any sound. And the light guide is going to be
different depending on what instrument you have loaded. So let's take a orchestral library
as an example and to go back to browser and let's just reset all the filters or go to
brand or choose native instruments and let's load the symphony series library. So again, I can hold shift, scroll through
the products a lot faster. And here is the string library. Let's load string Ensemble
and in this example, the red keys represent the bases yellow are cellos. Viola is green.
And lastly, blue are for violins. With this example, the like, I just shows
you what instruments are on, what sections of each keys. And again, depending on what
instrument you have loaded, the light guide is going to give you visual feedback like
we saw in Playbox. Let's check out rudiments. In this case, the different colors in the
Light Guide represent the different drum hits in this instrument. So for example, the Reds are typically kick
drums. Yellows are snares and the other colors to be something like symbols or just cool
sound effects. Now, this section up here, these are for all of the different pre-made
patterns within this instrument. So I can just simply hit any one of the purple illuminated
keys and we'll hear a pattern using these samples. And you can actually see that the light guide
is illuminating the different keys that are being played for those patterns. So I can
either trigger pre-made patterns here or I can just trigger individual drum sounds with
a light guide. Now, you don't have to aimlessly search for the kick drum if you can't remember
what key it's actually on the light guide will give you that visual feedback, allowing
you to find the sound very quickly. Using the light guide with Kontakt doesn't
just work with native instruments libraries. It also works with any third party content
library or any of our end cast partners that have chosen to take advantage of using the
Light Guide. In addition to being able to load Kontakt libraries Komplete Kontrol, it
can also load, since it can also load loops and one-shots from expansions. And you can also take advantage of the play
assist features like scales, chord and ARP mode. So let's take a look at Komplete Kontrol
software. Let's go back into Ableton and just close out of the Kontakt window. And instead
of loading Kontakt, this time we're going to find Komplete Kontrol and drag it to the
next available slot. You'll notice that the display is very similar browsing and Komplete
Kontrol as it was inside of Kontakt. You'll see that I'm able to browse through
different brands. I can cycle through and search for different products and I also have
the ability to filter based on sound attributes like type sub banks and character. As I mentioned
before, Komplete Kontrol allows you to load different synthesizers, not just Kontakt libraries.
So if you scroll down, we can find something like Massive X within Massive X, I can use
the type filter so I can choose from a wide range of different types of sounds or I can
also just use the character section here and choose something. Let's say deep as I scroll through the presets,
just like we heard in Kontakt, I'm able to hear audio previews of all of these sounds
without actually having to load massive X. I can favorite it just like I was in Kontakt.
I can click set favorite and there's a little star there and let's just load this sound
on how our how our. As I mentioned, you're also able to load loops
and one-shots inside of Komplete Kontrol. So let's go back to the browser and I want
to reset all of the filters I currently have selected. So I'll hold shift it, reset filter,
and now I'm back to square one. I'm currently selected on instruments and if I hit button
four, I'm now on loops or I'm on one-shots. So let's go back to the loop section. Everything
that you see in here, these are all of the loops that I have available from all the expansions
that I have installed on my computer. So if we chose something like let's say motherboard,
I can also filter for different types of loops within an expansion, or I can just filter
across all of my expansions, letting me to find the sound that I want as quickly as possible
with Motherboard selected, I can use the type filter and refine my list of loops based on
a type of sound that I want. So let's just choose drums. And now I have
61 results available so I can use the large encoder and scroll through the different loops
and kind of hear what they sound like. One thing that you might have noticed though,
is as I was scrolling through the BPM or the speed at all of these loops were playing,
they were all identical. Even though the BPM that's listed here, all of them were different.
One of the great things about browsing and previewing the loops inside a Komplete Kontrol
is they're all going to be turbo sync. So if you're scrolling through different loops
and trying to find one that fits your project, you're actually going to be listening to them
in the same tempo as your project. So you're not listening to loops that are just way too
fast and out of context. So it's a lot easier for you to decide, Will this loop work on
my project or won't it? Let's load this loop here so I'll push in
the encoder and now the loop is loaded into Komplete Kontrol’s audio engine. I can play
it back on the keys using the keyboard in the default mode with the audio engine
playing different keys is just going to be repeating the loop, but the tempo is still
going to be matched to your project's BPM. I have additional settings that I can customize,
such as just retuning the loop if I need to increase or decrease the tempo
of the loop or change its length, I can use the tempo and the length knobs here. I also
have different modes such as stretch formant or re patch. So there's a lot of ways for
you to customize how this loop is going to be played back inside a Komplete Kontrol that
was loading a loop inside a Komplete Kontrol. Let's take a look at using a one shot inside
of the software. I'm currently on loop, so I'll tab over to the one shot section. And
now these are all of the expansions of the one-shots that I have access to. I can use
the encoder and find a one shot that I want. Let's just listen to the first few. I'll push in the encoder to load it. I have
the one shot loaded and a Komplete Kontrol sampler and there's multiple pages of parameters
that I can use to adjust the sound. For example, I can go over to page two and change the type
of playback from a one shot to ADR. Now, if I hold down multiple keys at once, they'll
play as long as I'm actually pressing the keys again. There's tons of pages to go through. There's
six in total for the sampler. There's effects that you can adjust. There's envelope adjustments
as well. So load of one shot go through some of the pages, tweak it and customize it to
fit your project. I have the one shot loaded and it's a pretty basic sound and I want to
customize it a little bit more. Just make it more exciting. And to do that,
I'll start loading some effects directly from the keyboard. I'll hit button two and now
I'm able to load an effect directly inside a Komplete Kontrol. I'll go back to browser
and all of the products that you see here. These are all of the effects that I have available
to load inside of Komplete Kontrol. All of the native instruments effects can
be loaded and browse directly from the keyboard as well as encase effects. I want to load
two effects to make this sound a little bit more exciting, so I'll use knob to and select
dirt, which is a great distortion effect. And since these are just effects, I'm not
going to be hearing any audio previews so we can just load one and see what it sounds
like. Sounds pretty good. Let's load one more effect.
Let's load a reverb such as drum. I'll hit button to go over to the next available slot
browser and scroll down until I find some. There we go. And let's load one more here.
We can also do is rearrange the order of effects that you have and Komplete Kontrol. The order
that you have certain effects is going to affect the way that the sound sounds. Right now we have dirt and then rum and this
is what it sounds like. Let's swap the order of them. What I'll do is I'll hold shift and
let's move rum over first. So now the order is the sampler or the one shot. Then I have
rum and then we have dirt. And you can now hear how the distortion is affecting the reverb
as opposed to the reverb affecting the distortion. If you want to remove any of the effects,
let's say we want to remove dirt, I can just hold shift and either bypass the effect altogether
or I can remove it. Any of the effects that you load, these can be added on to one shot's
loops and all of your instruments, whether it be Kontakt libraries, Reaktor instruments,
or encase instruments as well. An amazing feature that allows you to play
your instruments in a way more expressive way is polyphonic aftertouch, polyphonic aftertouch
come standard. On all three versions of the Kontrol Series, the 4961 and the 88 aftertouch
has been around for a while, but with polyphonic aftertouch you can apply pressure to individual
keys and whatever the aftertouch is mapped to, it's only going to be applied to that
single key. So let's just stop talking about it and show
you how it works. I currently have fables loaded which supports polyphonic aftertouch.
If I play a simple chord in the left hand. Oh, you can hear the basic chord. Now I'll
play the same court again and add a single note at the top and then start applying pressure
only to that note and you'll hear how only that note is being affected. It's a
very weird sound, but I use this as an example to really let you hear how polyphonic aftertouch
works in the software here inside of Fables. If I click this icon here, you'll see I have
a whole aftertouch area which allows me to change certain functions and how polyphonic
aftertouch is going to affect the sound. So I can change something like the proximity
will lower the volume. Let's just open up the filter, open up the resonance, and let's
change the pitch up and just make it something really dramatic. Oh, so again, you can hear
the chord I'm playing in. My left hand stays the same. I'm not applying additional pressure,
so the sound really isn't changing. But the individual note that I applied pressure
to, that's what was really being affected. Let's take a look at a couple other examples
of polyphonic aftertouch with different types of instruments. One thing I do want to point
out is polyphonic aftertouch is really dependent on the instrument that you're using. Not every
Kontakt library or sent out there supports polyphonic aftertouch. So for example fables does and also deva by
you here supports the polyphonic aftertouch. Let's take a listen to this one you can hear with this the individual notes
I was playing and the right hand was adding a little bit of vibrato, but the notes in
the left hand pretty much stayed the same As another example. I have Ableton Wave table
synth loaded and with the polyphonic aftertouch. As I apply pressure to individual notes, it's
going to be cycling through the different waveforms and affecting the sound. And when
this is recorded as automation inside of Ableton, you can actually change the amount of pressure
that you've applied to individual notes to further refine how it sounds. Every instrument
that supports polyphonic aftertouch is going to be using it in a different manner. For example, with orchestral tools, time,
macro or time micro. As I apply pressure to individual notes, it's actually going to be
blending between different sounds. With this example I have loaded by applying light pressure,
you're going to be hearing a men's choir. Sustained. But as I start applying more pressure
to the notes, lower strings are going to start entering into the mix. We, as you can see, the possibilities are
endless when using polyphonic aftertouch. It really just depends on the instrument that
you have loaded and if it supports polyphonic aftertouch or not. It's great to think that.
Imagine having an orchestra at your fingertips and as you start applying more pressure to
the keys, the dynamics are changing. So this really just adds an additional layer of expressiveness
when you're using the keyboard. In addition to all of the hardware and software
upgrades that have been made with the Kontrol Series, there's also some improvements that
have been made with Encase or what we call next Gen and chaos. A lot of the improvements
are for instrument builders and developers making integrating their products with the
keyboard much more seamless. But as a user of a keyboard, there's improvements that have
been made to allow you to find and customize your sound much more easily than previous
versions of Encase instruments. Let's take a look at some of our next partners
that have updated to the next gen and chaos. I have a new instance of Komplete Kontrol
loaded and I want to start filtering by brands first, so I'm going to go and select our etruria
and let's load CSC 80 and we'll just load one of the presets here. Now load for those
of you who are familiar with our Arturia CCD, you'll know there's a lot of parameters to
adjust. Right now we're just seeing only that we can
adjust with the next gen. Next, we have this edit button here. All of the parameters have
been conveniently grouped together based off of their functions for example, we have the
master level, voltage control oscillators, filters, amp envelopes, modulation and we
have four tabs. So I can do sub oscillators, ring modulator, arpeggios, macros, effects
one and two. So now everything is grouped together, making
it a lot easier to find the parameter you're looking for. Let's say I want to adjust some
of the filter settings. I can go over to v f here and now I can see the high pass filter,
low pass filters. I also have three pages worth of filter adjustments, so I can also
then go over to a different tab here. Let's say I want to go to the ring modulator
effect if I just change it here. So with ring modulator I have page one of one, but if I
choose something else, let's say effects one. There are 70 pages worth of parameters to
adjust within this effects one category. Another great thing with next gen and chaos is previously
when you were using the left and the right arrow, you were always tabbing over by groups
of eight. What happens if you want to see the eighth
parameter and the ninth parameter simultaneously? Any instruments that have been updated to
the next gen and CSS, if you hold shift and hit the left or the right arrow button, everything
actually just shifts over by one value. So now I'm able to see size. And the next parameter
here, if you're familiar or more comfortable with the classic view when controlling your
sound, you can always hold down, shift and click on classic view. And this will bring up the parameter mapping
that you would be used to if you were using a mark to keyboard. But for myself, the new
edit function and how everything is grouped together, it makes finding the parameters
I want very easy and just more accessible. Built in the Komplete Kontrol software are
these great functions called play assist, previously known as the Smart play features. This included functions such as scales, mode,
chords mode and the ARP mode. Let's take a look at the skills mode first to access the
scales, chords and art mode. First, what you'll do is press the play assist button here next
to activate the parameters for scale mode, I'll press button one and to activate it you
hold shift and hit button one and you'll see that there's a blue dot here activating scale
mode. You'll also notice that the light guide has
changed and this basically tells you what notes are and aren't in the scale. You can
choose from a wide variety of different scales, scale banks, and basically this allows you
to not play a wrong note if you want to change any of the scales. What you would do is use
the knobs here and you can choose from, again, a wide range of different scale banks. Let's just choose something like main and
for type. You can choose common scale types like harmonic, minor, minor pentatonic blues
scales and so on. So let's just use harmonic minor and the root note in this case is see
on the light guide. Any of the keys that are illuminated basically say that these notes
are in the scale of C harmonic minor. Now in map mode, any key that's not illuminated
or not in the scale, Komplete Kontrol is automatically going to adjust that note higher or lower.
So you're never playing a wrong note. As an example, if I play any of the keys on the
piano, if I'm playing black white keys, it's all going to be in the same scale of C harmonic
minor, making it very easy to play any type of scales you want. Now there's different types of key modes.
What we're on now is mapped mode by You can also choose something like guide mode, where
the light guide will just visually show you what notes are and aren't in the scale. However,
if you play one of the notes that aren't in the scale, you're going to hear the actual
pitch of that note. So this is a great tool for you to use. If
you're trying to learn different scales, you can also choose something like easy. All you
have to do is just play the white keys and it's going to play whatever scale you have
selected for. Lastly, in learn mode, it's very similar to the guided mode. However,
if you play a note that's not in the scale, for example, C-sharp, you're actually not
going to hear anything. So again, this is a great way for you to learn
scales on the piano. Let's change this back to mapped mode, and next is chord mode. In
chord mode, you're able to play different types of chords with a single key. Currently
it's off and let's choose harmonizer mode first. In harmonizer mode, you can play different
types of chords like one, three fives, one, four or five, seven and so on, and, and the
chord that I'm playing is based upon the scale that I have selected. So if I choose something else, like a major
pentatonic scale, the chords are going to be different. You can also change the different
types of inversions with the chords. Right now it's in root. I can do first inversion,
second inversion or third, which is back basically to the root position. So let's just change
this back to root. And the last type of chord mode is the chord sets in court set mode. These are different types of chord progressions
that you can just play individual keys in sequential order and it will play back common
chord progressions or you can just jump around and find something different. Let's select
one of the different chord sets or choose minor three and listen to how this sounds.
Sounds a little familiar. Let's choose one other. Let's do major seven. Pretty simple. So that's
scale and chord mode. Lastly, let's talk about art mode. Now to enable art mode, I'm just
going to select button two to select the parameter adjustments for that. And just like scale,
I'll hold shift here, button two and now ARP mode is enabled. So art mode or the arpeggio
later you can just play a single key or play a chord and the keyboard is going to arpeggio
at the notes. Now what's pretty cool is I have the chord
set mode enabled and I have the arpeggio or mode on. So by holding a single note, it's
going to arpeggio. The chord set using the eight knobs. You can adjust how
the arpeggiated is functioning for right now I have the 16th note rate selected. I can
just use the knob and change it to something else. Like an eighth note. You can have it select
different hostages, different dynamics. There's also a second page of additional parameters
you can adjust. But one of the functions that I love using are these preset arpeggiated
rate slots at the top. By simply pressing any of these here, it's going to automatically
change the arpeggio at a rate. And if you want to change any of the rates in
any of the slots, all you have to do is just selected here. Change the arpeggiated rate from down below
and you can see that that rate has now changed. So it's a great way to get creative. Honestly,
you can load a one shot hi hat and actually use the arpeggiated to create some cool hi
hat roles or you know, just use it for a wide range of different functions while being able
to control your sound directly from the keyboard is great. Being able to control the key important functions
inside of your DAW is even better with the Komplete Kontrol S-series. The keyboard integrates
directly with a wide range of Daws, such as Ableton Logic, Cubase, Pro Tools and FL Studio
and many more. So let's take a look how to really utilize the keyboard and how to integrate
it with your DAW in plug in mode. I'm able to basically control the plug in
that I have loaded now. If I select DAW, this brings up the mixer page under mode, I'm able
to see all of the different tracks and how I have them labeled. So Alisha's Keys is currently
selected and as I play something, you can see the volume adjust on the keyboard. Using
the knobs below, I'm able to decrease or increase the volume of the selected channel. If you want to do some fine adjustment, you
can hold shift and also use the encoder and it's basically moving it in smaller increments.
The buttons at the top allow you to mute or unmute certain tracks inside of Ableton or
your doll. And by holding shift, this allows you to solo a selected channel. I can also
adjust the pen settings of each individual track by holding shift and clicking up on
the encoder. And now I can pan certain things to the left
or to the right. So let's get back to the mixer section, the encoder on the right. I
can rotate it, but I can also click at left and right to start navigating to the different
tracks in my project. Now, if I have a track that's selected that doesn't have Komplete
Kontrol or Kontakt loaded, you'll notice that the plug in button is not illuminated. Now, if I select a track that has either Kontakt
or Komplete Kontrol loaded, you'll see plugin has illuminated. I press it and now I'm able
to control that instrument that's selected. If I have plug in mode open and I scroll left
and right, it's also going to automatically just pull up the instrument that I have selected.
If I choose the non-Kontakt or Komplete Kontrol track, it's just going to be in the default
MIDI template. Or if I click right now, I'm back on fables
inside of Kontakt. In addition to being able to adjust the volume and pan settings mute
and solo, you also have dedicated buttons for the key functions inside of your DAW,
such as transport, control, undo, redo, being able to enable automation turn on and off
your metronome and quantized your notes so let's just record something really quickly
and kind of show you how those functions work. So first I'll just hit the metronome button,
which enables the metronome inside of Ableton. If you hold shift and tap the metronome button,
this is basically going to adjust the project's BPM based on the rate that you tapped out.
But I'm just going to leave the default 120 on and to record something, I'll just hit
the record button. It's going to give me a one bar count, then
I'll play something and when I'm done, I'll just hit stop. Let's take a listen to how on beat I played
the chords. So to play back from the beginning, I'll just hold shift and hit play for Restart
so it's not perfectly lined up with the grid. So what I can actually do is just hit the
quantized button here by pressing Quantized. It's going to quantized all the notes to 100%. Or let's say I want to undo the quantized.
I can hold shift and hit quantized and it's going to quantized everything by 50%. So if
you're quantized in some drums and you want to maintain some of the human feel to it,
maybe look into quantized stuff by 50% instead of 100%. So I'll just hit undo hit quantized.
So everything is locked perfectly to the grid. And now let's take a listen. It sounds good
to me. Now, lastly, I want to add some automation, and I want to, let's say, increase the amount
of reverb applied as I'm playing this chord progression and the reverb. I'll use the one
that's built into Alisha's case to record automation directly from the keyboard. We're
going to start from the very beginning, and the first thing you want to do is make sure
that the auto or the automation button is illuminated. I'll hit record again, tweak some knobs, and
the parameter changes will be recorded as automation inside of Ableton. So I actually
want this pattern to loop. So what I'll do is I'll hit the loop button and you can see
in the software my loop start and end Point. It's a little bit off. So what I can actually
do is hold down loop and use the encoder and it's going to slide to the start and the end
point of my loop over. So let's just take a final listen and listen
to the automation. Previously, if you wanted to adjust any of the settings directly related
to the keyboard, you had to do that inside of the software. With the new Kontrol Series,
a lot of the hardware settings can be adjusted directly from the keyboard. Let's just go
through some of the pages in the settings area. So first I'll press the settings button on
the keyboard and right now we're on the hardware tab. So from here I can adjust certain things
like the brightness of the LEDs, which basically mean the brightness of the lake side here,
all the LEDs that you see on the encoder, the mode wheel and the pitch wheel, you can
also adjust the display brightness, but you can also turn on and off the light guide if
you want to. And by default, you can also change the color
of the light guide to the encoder and the pitch and one we'll currently have it set
to orange, but I can cycle through a wide range of different colors to fit the vibe
of your studio or however you're feeling during that day. There's also two pages worth of
hardware settings. This is page one, and from here on page two,
we have something interesting to point out. The Kontrol Series Support Mini 2.0. However,
Mini 2.0 isn't widely adopted just yet, so when more companies start utilizing the MIDI
2.0 functionality, the Kontrol Series will be able to support that. So for right now
you can just set this to mini 1.0. However, you'll just need to reboot the keyboard
in order to activate it into mini 1.0. Let's go over to the next tab and this is the keyboard.
So this is where you're going to adjust the velocity curve of the keyboard and where you're
also going to be able to adjust the aftertouch settings. If you want to just completely disable
after a touch, you can do that here. You can also set this to monophonic aftertouch
or polyphonic aftertouch the next tab over pedals. This is something that we covered
previously, but again, the pedals area, this is where you're going to be configuring the
assignable tree pedal inputs on the back. I currently have sustained selected, but you
can select the expression input and the third and fourth assignable pedal inputs. Next, if we go over here, this is the touch
strip settings. So on the left here, this is where you configure basically everything
the touch strip could do. Now you'll notice though, with pedals and expression, the mini
here is also set to channel one Number 11. Same thing with the touch strip. So if you
want to have expression when you're playing a certain instrument, if you have an expression
pedal, you could do that. Or if you don't, you can always use the touch
strip here for the additional level of expression. The next tab over this is where you adjust
the pitch and the mode wheel. Currently, these are the settings for the pitch bean wheel,
but if you click the right arrow over here, this is where you're going to adjust settings
for the modulation wheel. That just about covers everything you need to know about the
new Kontrol Series. For more information, you can find a link
for the manual in the description below as well as additional resources. Thanks for watching.
