TerraSin

SnehankurAlso please don't rule out Roli's Seaboard

At $2000 for a 37-key board, it's already been ruled out in my books. I'll wait till one of the other companies makes a similar product at a much lower price before I consider it. What it does is simply not worth the inflated costs in my opinion.

Yup, me too. Nice gimmick, but overpriced for a controller.
 

http://forum.cakewalk.com...-m3307113.aspx#3342943

Sounds and Gear compare Akai Advanced & Komplete Kontrol keyboards

This is a great review and illustrates the huge differences between the two...

https://youtu.be/lvYmXSjxjow
 
Personally I'm leaning towards the Akai as it does many things I like but am holding off in hopes they'll come out with a semi-weighted 88...
 
I agree, wait till Namm...
 
If you want an instant hit with Sonar, the Nektar Impact lx 61 or 88 is very inexpensive and a great bargain.  However, you don't get all the vst control of the Advanced/Kontrol units.

percepto
I have been looking at the Kontrol 61 from NI which would obviously be a great choice as I have Komplete 10 Ultimate, but the Akai Advance and Nektar Panorama also look interesting.
...
Quick and easy integration with Sonar/Komplete is also a requirement.

Except mentioned Nektar Impact, modern controllers have no Sonar support. They can be somehow integrated but I have not seen any success reports.
 
Nektar Panorama communicates throw proprietary protocol, so the probability it will be integrated with Sonar at the same level as with other DAWs (big part of its advertisements) is rather low (can be done by Naktar only). Other 2 are more open for third party developers and so Sonar integration is feasible. Still some parts of DAW integration (like NI Kontrol) can be done by corresponding producers only.

azslow3

percepto
I have been looking at the Kontrol 61 from NI which would obviously be a great choice as I have Komplete 10 Ultimate, but the Akai Advance and Nektar Panorama also look interesting.
...
Quick and easy integration with Sonar/Komplete is also a requirement.

Except mentioned Nektar Impact, modern controllers have no Sonar support. They can be somehow integrated but I have not seen any success reports.
 
Nektar Panorama communicates throw proprietary protocol, so the probability it will be integrated with Sonar at the same level as with other DAWs (big part of its advertisements) is rather low (can be done by Naktar only). Other 2 are more open for third party developers and so Sonar integration is feasible. Still some parts of DAW integration (like NI Kontrol) can be done by corresponding producers only.

That's a game-changer, thanks.

Personally, quite fond of my Kontrol S49 and Nektar Panorama 61.

Any opinions on the Arturia Keylab? There seems to be plenty of demo/review vidios but these concentrate more on the Keylab software. I have the V Collection so I know all about that! How is it as a universal MIDI controler.
 
The NI S61 has my attention I would prefer a few more sliders/knobs (Like the Akai Advance) but I really like the idea of the light guide for key switches, the downside being It looks like you have to run the VSTi inside the Komplet Kontrol shell to use the keyswitch light guide.

If you make heavy use of Komplete, it's almost a no-brainer (browsing patches, light guides, etc).
Keybed is better than most...
Takes a while to get comfortable with the pitch/mod ribbon controllers (if you haven't used them).
Build quality is pretty decent.  Much better than many lower-cost MIDI controllers.
 
I've got the 61-key version.
Would like to get the 88-key version at some point.

I have been playing around with the Komplete Kontrol software today and watching a few videos. Once you start digging deeper into the software you can get some idea of the control you will get from the keyboard. Its clear that some of my preceived reservations are not valid.
 
It seems unfortunate that output from the chord, scale and arpeggiator modes cannot be captured as MIDI in a DAW, I am not sure I would use those features that often but messing around with the chord mode was kind of intresting.
 
(Of course you could always freeze the track and use Melodyne to extract the MIDI )

Well after playing aroud with the software, which gives you a pretty good idea of what the keyboard will do I decided to order a S61. Nothing has all the features I would like but Komplete Kontrol comes closest. The touch strip mod and pitch bend controlers are my biggest doubt, but I am sure I will get used to them.