Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol A61 Controller Keyboard

The shopping experience:The first one I ordered came with a couple of loose screws in the bag. Upon inspecting the unit it appeared that they fell off. When I shook the unit I could hear little pieces of plastic rattling about within the enclosure. I opened the whole thing up and, as expected, the plastic standoffs had broken off so the screw holes could not be used anymore. Perhaps they had been screwed in too tightly during manufacturing. Furthermore, the keybed felt a little loose around the area with the missing screws.I quickly requested a replacement unit from Amazon and received it within a couple of days—pretty impressive on Amazon's part. The second unit I received was flawless.The controller:In any case, it's a great midi controller; however, it's important that you understand what you're buying an A61 for, as there are many other controllers on the market with seemingly better value at a similar price. Simply put, if you're using NI/NKS instruments, you're buying an A61 for the immediate plug and play functionality and parameter mappings of the knobs. You're also receiving a ton of software with the unit (it can be argued that the total price of the software you redeem is more than you'll pay for the controller itself). I use the Native Instruments ecosystem almost exclusively, so getting one of these controllers seemed to be a no-brainer for me.That said, the hardware is missing a lot of the bells and whistles that could benefit people in other use cases. For one, there are no pads on this unit. NI is assuming people that want pads will shell out for the dedicated pads found on their Maschine products—I already own a Maschine MK3 so this doesn't bother me much. Not including the main encoder, there's also only 8 knobs; again, to mirror the knob distribution found on many of their virtual instruments. You also won't be finding any fader controls on the A61.In short, if you're sold on NI interfaces and can appreciate the streamlined minimal approach NI is taking here, go ahead and buy any of the A-series controllers. Otherwise, there are certainly much better options to consider.

Excellent Native Instruments high quality MIDI controller for small space. Macro knobs need Komplete Kontrol DAW plugin to actuate.

Short Version: If you are looking to buy a bass deck, and you live in a lot of the Native Insturments’ world of virtual synths, this is a no brainer and dare I say, better than the M32Long Version:I bought the “Analog Dreams” synth pack from Native Instruments at the start of Quarantine, and was VERY impressed with the sounds and overall 80’s vibe. VERY impressed. But, my main controller is an Arturia. Nothing against them, but the mapping always had to be done manually, and using the stand alone control software for live playing just didn’t work. Since I was mainly looking for a bass deck, I did my research and it was down to the A25 or M32. Everyone raved about the M32, but I didn’t hear much about the A25. So, after some deliberation, I bought one.First impression- This is not a small controller when it comes to 3-octave decks. The matte plastic finish and full sized keyboard were flat out impressive feeling. The discrete label controls also made it look VERY German, and very cool. The keys are a full size “Semi Synth Weighted” affair, and feel fantastic! I have fat stubby hands and I am no concert pianist, so the large layout felt natural. It is also quite a bit taller than your average 25 key deck, but since I don’t intend to try to write anything on a plane, I didn’t care about how portable it was. In fact, the large footprint is a plus as it fit well into a spare mixer stand I had.DAW and plugin integration- While this is a very smooth controller to play, it really is best when paired with Native Instruments software and plugins. The controls are mapped out simply and well, and when running the Kontrol environment app, there is ZERO issue! Although, I found out when installing this on a Mac, make sure you disable all other MIDI devices first. I had my Arturia Keylab 49 and my mixer’s DAW controls active, and the controller wasn’t able to be read properly. So, I had to uninstall and reinstall the Kontrol app and then things worked fine. Once you do that, it works like a charm. Jumps right into ProTools and Ableton without fuss. Even tried it in Reaper (My preferred editing DAW), which is famous for working with ANYTHING, but usually you have to do some routing and mapping no matter what. All I had to do was to decide which MIDI channels to use for the I/O in Reaper, and once again, it worked like a treat!Performance- The semi weighted keys are placed naturally for any piano player, and nothing on the keyboard feels cramped. This controller also rocks the pitch and mod wheels to the left that are a decent size and don’t feel overtly plastic. All together, this just *feels* premium. It really shines as a bass synth, with everything within reach of a single left hand. The only issue is that the LED display is quite tiny, and you find yourself squinting to see what info is on it. But, given. How it performs and at the price, I can overlook that as my attention should be on the laptop if I am tweaking the settings.Speaking of price, it is more expensive than other 25-key controllers, but you are really getting your money’s worth. This is especially true with the free software that comes with it. I have paid for plugins and synths that sounded and performed worse.If you have a home studio that doesn’t need moved around constantly, this is a VERY wise companion to you main controller. As an audio engineer and a musician, I am of the mind you really only need 3 main MIDI components: A large format keyboard, a small format keyboard and a drum pad/sequencer. This is exactly the kind of 25 key that you need for that kind of setup, and would be almost perfect with their Machine pad controller for producers who are looking for a clean, integrated beat production setup. For a keyboardist like myself, this sits above my Arturia and is the best bass key controller so I can double up on multiple tracks.