

But the NKS standard is open for manufacturers so it has been adopted by a good bit of companies. A gateway drug during thier biannual sale for Komplete.

The integration with NI is awesome and you get a good starter package that becomes. I had 49 and moved to 61 when I upgraded. From the little bit I've seen you post (we are both Prophet x owners) I think 61 would be best for your skill and style. And as mentioned by the great Evil Dragon, the screens are an awesome addition. Has a great mode to interface with maschine. Standard pitch and mod wheels but still having a touch strip is great. Who knows it is better than my original mk1 for sure. I think the synth action feels much improved on the new version even though it's apparently the same. Sold the mk1 to fund an mk2 when it was released. For that matter, I might give up waiting for a novel synth action hardware synth to complement whatever Kurzweil I upgrade to and go full software for everything else in my primary residence as well. Still, somebody could trump both of them easily with a great feeling keyboard featuring poly aftertouch and a decent feature set. The Nektar Panorama is another possibility under serious consideration if the KK looks problematic. With so much ITB action you'd think there would be room for a more thoughtful entry than the holdovers from an earlier era like Roland's A series. I completely agree that there seems to be something of a gap outside of budget controllers.

The u-he Repro purchase I made a few days ago would work well, so that's something. Thankfully, the NKS standard seems to have at least some traction with other vendors. If I was invested in NI software it would be a foregone conclusion, but I'm not and I don't like feel like tying myself to a particular vendor that tightly. If you eventually settled on something else, what was it and why? I’m not in a rush so I’ll keep an eye on NAMM announcements as well, but it’d be good to have a baseline impression of what’s on the market now. Any thoughts from buyers, whether you kept it or returned it? Logic integration is obviously of interest, but feel free to weigh in with keybed observations or other aspects if you use a different OS or DAW. I don’t really have the room for more than the bare minimum in any case. I’ll have a MacBook Pro with me so I can carry work in progress in Logic and a reasonable assortment of plug-ins to avoid having to duplicate a studio setup. Many sites I’ve seen conflate mk1 and mk2 reviews which makes it hard to be certain who is happy, or for that matter whether there were early mk2 issues that have since been ironed out. The NI gear looks great on paper but I keep seeing mixed feedback. I’m looking for a lighter action controller for a vacation home where I start to go stir-crazy being away from anything I can use to keep my fingers limber and capture ideas.
