Native Instruments

The DJ Mag Tech Awards 2018 hosted its yearly live stream yesterday, with a panel of carefully selected judges voting for the winners across six categories.

Strictly Rhythm and Sounds.com – Native Instruments' new sample venture – have teamed up for a new sample pack featuring sounds from artists like Reel 2 Real, Black Magic, Dennis Ferrer, Armand Van Helden, Ultra Naté and more. 

The new Native Instruments Maschine Mikro was announced last week and at first glance it may appear as a smaller version of the larger Maschine MK3. But for £199, it's impressive what's included ith the bundle, not least the Maschine software and impressive sound library. The new touch strip, taken its cue from Maschine Jam seems to add a versatile new way to input FX and performance options, including the ability to 'strum' notes by moving your finger from left to right. 

Native Instruments have announced a new version of their DJ software Traktor Pro and their S2 and S4 controllers. Last majorly updated in 2011, Traktor has had a mainly GUI update with some under-the-hood updates such as a new élastique time-stretching algorithm and new FX DSP for higher quality effects. There's now also the familiar one-knob that can control both filter and effects, changing the sound depending on left or right rotation. For anyone running sound through Traktor, it now has a pure bypass so it's not affected by Traktor Pro's internal mixer. 

Native Instruments have completely rebuilt their DJ software Traktor from the ground up, as well as doubling the size of their Traktor team. In an email message sent out to tech media, NI’s Director of Products (Traktor) Pedram Faghfouri set to reassure users after a long period of dormancy from the software, explaining that new hardware and software will be coming in 2018. 

NI Traktor has added some new advanced CDJ features in a new update that's currently in beta. Most of what's new in version 2.11.3 – now available for download – is based around using Traktor in HID mode with CDJs, including full colour waveforms, beatjump buttons for instantly jumping forward or backwards in your track, displaying the phase meter, coloured stripes mimicing Traktor's overview stripes and support for the new Pioneer DJ CDJ-TOUR-1.

Native Instruments have launched version 2.0 of their Komplete Kontrol software. Using their Native Kontrol Standard (NKS), users of Komplete Kontrol keyboards and software can now control all NI effects as well as instruments directly from the hardware. Third-party effects developers including Waves, Softube, iZotope, Arturia and many more have also joined the NKS world, with the control parameters being designed by the developers themselves. 

Win an Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S49 mk2 keyboard in our new competition! The NI keyboard features 49-key Fatar keybed, two hi-resolution screens, Light Guide and integration with Maschine and all major DAWs. To be in with a chance of winning, all you need to do is join the DJ Mag Tech Facebook Group before the end of April. We’ll choose a winner at random on May 1^st.

Native Instruments have updated Maschine to version 2.7.3, adding Logic Pro X control and a new Loop Recording mode, letting users sample and loop as soon as a certain number of bars have elapsed. It's a much-requested feature, one that can be utilised both live and in the studio.

Deeper control for Logic Pro X has also been added, with mute, pan, solo, looping and mixing functions all available from the hardware. There's also some smaller additions in the form of additional scales for Komplete Kontrol and minor bug fixes. You can download the update from the Native Access app. 

Point Blank Music School welcomed Radio 1 royalty Pete Tong to their London school recently for a crash course in making music with Native Instruments’ Maschine. He linked up with expert Maschine instructor, Paul Ressel, for an intensive one to one session. Check out the short video of his visit below, and take a look at PB’s Maschine course, taught in a special Native-Instruments supported studio.