![]() M32 didn’t quite offer such a seamless experience – I did need to update its firmware and wrestle with Logic’s control surface setup, but it was soon up and running. With the A49, the keyboard automatically assigned itself as a controller in Logic, at least after updating the KK software in Native Access. Add the Monark and Reaktor Prism synths, the Scarbee Mark 1 piano and free time on Sounds, plus a £22 voucher to the NI shop, and you’ll agree that it is quite a bundle for £99, with a keyboard thrown in! It includes 2,000 sounds and a bundle of 17 instruments and effects including the great Carbon, Mikro Prism and four Reaktor Player instruments. You get the Komplete Kontrol software that lets you home in and manage particular sounds and instruments, plus you also get the all-new Komplete Start, a bundle of sounds and instruments that now comes as standard with any KK product. But then it’s still a pretty decent bundle. I almost feel relieved when I discover that, yes, there is less software bundled with M32. ![]() The real cuts must, therefore, must have been made in the software bundle, then, right? You also get a single screen on the M32, just like on the A-Series, so I’m guessing, then, that operation is going to be very similar between the two. The actual keys on the M32 also lack the size and playability of both S- and A-Series, but they’re suitable for newcomers and reasonably playable, especially in a world full of synthesisers that seem to be adopting touch keys over real keys to keep costs down. There’s a Shift button to double up functionality but, of course, you don’t get the glorious Light Guides as found on the full-fat S-Series, those lovely colour LEDs that lit up the keyboard keys. ![]() This means you get all the transport, select and navigation areas, plus the eight rotaries. The most incredible thing is that it packs in pretty much all the buttons and rotaries that you get on the more expensive A-Series keyboard, only lacking ‘proper’ pitch and mod wheels, these being replaced with touch strips. It actually feels okay in terms of build – plastic, yes, but also very solid. Both are great if you are carrying the keyboard around and have only a small amount of desktop space, of course, and lighter does not necessarily mean flimsy. It’s only a 32-note keyboard and combined with smaller keys, it covers a very small footprint and is as light as a feather. Unboxing M32, you start to believe that to be the case, as initially you feel like you are unboxing nothing, it’s so light. Whichever way you look at it, some shortcuts must have been made, right? The big gain for NI has to be that newcomers to music-making will forever worship the company for making their entry-point so cheap, and then upgrade to NI’s vast suite of other software by way of thanks. When we first encountered the M32, I bemoaned the fact that it used to cost newcomers a fortune to get into music production, and now you can do it for very little money. ![]() I’d buy that for less than 200 quid.”īut just when you think it couldn’t get any better, along comes the M32, and it’s cheaper still! Just £99 gets you the keyboard, and yes, there’s even a bundle of instruments and other software thrown in not as good as with the A-Series, nor a patch on the full suite of KK software, but it’s still one heck of a lot of hardware and software for just two figures of cash… How? Why? What the heck! You’d think that £149 for a piece of hardware that controls a bunch of great software is a great price, and I certainly did, concluding that: “You get a full-sized keyboard, a bunch of high-quality plug-ins and a great conversation between the two of them. This Native Kontrol Standard is Native’s way of integrating its ever-cheapening hardware with it and third-party software, with hardware controls automatically assigning themselves to much-used software parameters, thus making the whole software-hardware thing very seamless. ![]()
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