Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol A49

Sources split. Every magazine — SOS, MusicRadar, MusicTech, Bonedo, AMAZONA — rates the custom NI semi-weighted keybed at or near the best in its price class, some finding it hard to tell from the S-Series' Fatar bed, and a run of owners agrees. A distinct camp finds it springy, noisy and — the real sticking point — inconsistent in velocity: quiet unless you hit hard, jumping between soft and loud, and not adjustable on the hardware beyond a fixed-velocity switch. No aftertouch. If even dynamics matter to you, try it in person or plan on a velocity-curve plug-in in your DAW.

Sources split on one detail. The eight touch-sensitive endless knobs (touch one and the OLED shows its parameter and value), the four-way push encoder and the full-size pitch/mod wheels are the same parts as the S-Series and draw consistent praise; the small OLED is legible but shows only a name and a value. The buttons are the recurring gripe: hard plastic instead of the S-Series' rubber, with a loud, sharp click that magazines note in passing and some owners find bad enough to avoid the buttons altogether. A few also find the 4-D encoder wobbly.

Sources split, and the split tracks where you live. Inside the Komplete Kontrol plug-in the keyboard auto-switches into NKS mode, browses tagged presets with audio previews and lands every important parameter on the knobs — SOS calls it the killer feature rivals still haven't cracked — and transport/track control works well in Logic, GarageBand, Live and Maschine (Cubase/Nuendo, Studio One, Pro Tools and FL Studio were added later). Outside that world the same hardware frustrates: knobs and buttons that do nothing until the right software is installed and set up, Windows units not being recognised, one-off setup fights, and the arp/scale/chord tools only working through Komplete Kontrol. Some 2018 complaints — no MIDI editor, no Cubase — have since been fixed.

A strength no source disputes. The launch bundle (Monark, Reaktor Prism, The Gentleman, Scarbee Mark I, Maschine Essentials, the free Komplete Start) was called generous for the price by every magazine and by owners; NI now ships a voucher for a Komplete Select edition plus Ableton Live Lite instead. Two honest caveats: existing Komplete owners gain little from it, and the Smart Play scale/chord/arp features live in the Komplete Kontrol software, not the keyboard, so they vanish in plain MIDI mode.

“Pour ne rien gâcher, le bundle de logiciels fourni est, comme souvent avec Native, relativement généreux.”

Arnaud Cueff (Los Teignos) · Audiofanzine

“All the software it comes with is absolutely killer (Komplete Kontrol/Ableton) and the keys feel pretty good too.”

Mountainlynx Maine Coons · Amazon (verified purchase)

“Overall, I am very impressed with the variety of sounds/software that comes bundled with it.”

Jennifer S. · Sweetwater customer review

Consistently the weakest axis, and nobody argues otherwise: a single USB-B port (bus-powered, and it will run stand-alone from a USB host) plus one ¼-inch pedal jack assignable to sustain — no 5-pin MIDI in or out, no CV, no expression-pedal input, no power switch. Anyone with hardware synths, a second pedal or a need for a volume pedal is pointed at the S-Series. One owner also notes the pedal can't follow the keybed's MIDI channel when templates change channels.

“The keyboards have no built in MIDI ports, but are capable of stand-alone operation over USB.”

Simon Sherbourne · Sound on Sound

“Fünfpolige MIDI-Buchsen gibt es hier nicht. Wer diese benötigt und ggf. auch ein zweites Pedal nutzen möchte, muss entsprechend zur S-Serie greifen.”

Felix Thoma · AMAZONA.de

“The pedal input only supports a sustain pedal, not a volume pedal, so I can't use that for expressive control.”

Mikey Micheletti · Sweetwater customer review

Lighter and narrower than the S-Series because the screens are gone, USB-bus-powered, and light enough that MusicTech carried it upstairs under one arm; it's a full-size 49 all the same — 82 cm wide and 4 kg — so it's a car-and-studio keyboard, not a backpack one, and one desk-bound owner found it bulkier than it needs to be.

“The A49 on test was a ’carry up the stairs under one arm’ job when I took it in my studio which, probably because I’m always lugging gear around, I see as a good thing.”

Andy Jones · MusicTech

“I've got this on a desk, and it seems bulkier than it really needs to be.”

Mikey Micheletti · Sweetwater customer review

Broadly praised: an all-plastic chassis that magazines and owners call surprisingly solid — no flex, no creak, the wheels and knobs lifted from the S-Series, rubber feet that keep it planted. Two dissents form a small tail: owners who move to an S find the A noticeably less sturdy (softer pots, cheaper-feeling 4-D encoder), and a handful report failures — a unit with erratic and dead keys, a wobbly and creaking encoder, an OLED dying after five months, a firmware update that never took.

Sources split along the same line as integration. Every magazine calls it an outstanding deal — pro-grade hardware plus a real software bundle for under $220 — and most owners agree. The dissent comes from people who aren't in NI's world or fought the software: Amazon's own value tally runs more negative than positive, and NI's forum holds owners who regret it or call it the worst gear they've bought. Two things reframe the question now: new stock is drying up (NI's store, Thomann and Amazon are all out), and a used A49 or a clearance S49 MK2 can land within a few dollars of each other.