Core navigation controls as well as track and instance selection, quantize, arpeggiator and undo buttons are all available on the front.
There are also transport controls for your DAW, with extensive control of Logic and Garageband - and Cubase, Live and Nuendo in development. I've found this feature to be helpful for musicians of all levels, not just less experienced players. There’s no Light Guide on the A series - another concession to cost saving - but there is Smart Play, that lets you stay in key with over 100 scales and modes, play chord progressions and arpeggios with single keys, or map any scale to white keys only.
You get sound previews too, which let you hear a sound before loading the whole instrument. All the tag support is present and correct, even if the text display is somewhat smaller. You still get 8 touch-sensitive controller knobs that are “endless” (meaning they just keep on turning), and also a 4-way push encoder for project navigation and sound browsing.
The screen here is much smaller - though perfectly serviceable - and there’s less backlighting of buttons. Of course, there are some differences from the costlier S series. It also has a MIDI mode so it can be turned into a MIDI controller, and custom maps built using the Controller Editor software. In software terms, you can do almost everything you can do with the S series. As with the S series, the physical controls are designed to tie into the Komplete Kontrol software and also your DAW and any NKS-compatible plug-ins you may be running. There are traditional mod and pitch bend wheels, as well as octave buttons at the bottom left corner of the front panel. The semi-weighted keys are full size, and well suited to most kinds of playing you’re ever likely to do on a 25 or 49-key instrument.
The company has always tiered its hardware - from more entry level all the way to big and professional, but this is the first time it has really ventured into price brackets that seem designed to tempt ordinary consumers - by which I mean people not necessarily already in the music technology world. One important theme of NI’s recent mega-update of its products was that for the first time it included more affordable models of its hardware controllers. As a piano player I have a stage piano that never leaves the house, several performance keyboards too large for my studio desk and a Komplete Kontrol S61 which is great, but as I find myself working on the move more and more, I have begun to want a super-portable MIDI keyboard with the functionality of the Komplete Kontrol system. The larger models just space their controls out more. Sometimes as reviewers we are lucky enough to be able to request specific models for review - so why the smallest, 25-key model, you may ask? Well, in terms of their functionality, all three models - 24, 49 and 61-keys - are identical, save for the number of keys.
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