With all the attention I have given to setting up my Kontakt third party libraries for Komplete Kontrol I had not checked how well the knob twiddeling would be captured in Sonar. Promped by a question on the NI forums where someone was having problems getting it to work in Acid I thought I had better give it a go.
 
No issues. Just enable write automation in the Komplet Kontrol VST header and twiddle away. Seems to work a treat. as long as you remember to enable read automation on playback

I took a rest form my Kontakt instruments today and made a template for Rapture Pro. There are so many parameters I was initally at a loss. In the end I decided to go the minimalist route and Just map the 8 macros that get displayed on the instrument page.
 
My reasoning, Cakewalk has already assigned the most useful parameters for any given patch to these macros so they are the ones you are most likley to want to alter during a preformance. It seems to work.
 
Detaled sound design is probably best done on the PC screen.
 
I will not be saving the patches as this will have to be done manually, one by one, and there are hunderds of them. I may decide to save some of my favourites at a later stage but in the meantime I will use Rapture Pro's browser.
 
I also made a template for the Novation Bass Station VSti. This was straight forward, I just renamed the parameters for clarity. I am far more likley to use this synth now.

Thanks Glyn for all this helpful information, and for the PM's that answered my questions about its MIDI mode and using a regular midi keyboard controller with traditional mod wheels to expand the KK.

cecelius2
Thanks Glyn for all this helpful information, and for the PM's that answered my questions about its MIDI mode and using a regular midi keyboard controller with traditional mod wheels to expand the KK.

For the benefit of others here is more info before I get around to updating the main post. The question was “could the modulation and pitch bend wheels on a second (non-NI) keyboard be used in place of the touch strips?” The answer is yes, I connected my old A-Pro up and I was able to use the mod and pitch-bend without issue.
 
 
I was dubious about the touch strips but in practice I have found them to be perfectly functional. The modulation strip overcomes that age old quandary, sprung or un-sprung. It can work in either mode and do a few more things besides! (But I still like the Roland style combined pitch-bend and modulation leaver on the A-Pro for faux guitar solos!)
 
After testing this I decided to try Vintage Organs with the two keyboard as two manuals. I set the S61 to MIDI channel 1 and the A-Pro to channel 2. With VO in MIDI split mode (you need to switch the MIDI in to OMNI too) I have the upper manual on the S61 and the lower on the A-Pro. Pre-set key switches are the lower octave of the S61 and the drawbars (for both manuals) and other controls can be controlled from the S61 encoders. Not as good as real drawbars but still pretty handy.
 
The swell pedal is connected into the S61 and works as intended. The sustain pedal is assigned to the rotary speed. It’s all very playable.
 
This is splitting hairs but it did reveal one slight issue in the way NI have it set up. On the M3 the key colour coding on the S61 does not follow the actual upper manual notes, the low octave is still lit even though it’s not relevant to the upper manual, only the lower. On the C3 and B3 organs this does not happen because the range of the two manuals is the same.
 

Glyn, allow me to thank you for all you're doing here. Highly appreciated.

I'm really liking this keyboard!!
 
This thread makes it even more awesome!

Just got a new S61 from GC. I am elated.  I had been watching to see if GC or anyone ever discounted it, but sadly I never found the Komplete Kontrol keyboards ever discounted.  Even when GC sent 15% off discount coupons in the past, the NI products were always "excluded."  So this weekend GC sent a coupon for trade-in/trade-ups, and I saw the NI products were not excluded.  I dug out an old used Korg microkey that I used with a laptop now and then (only paid $25 for it on craigslist); I took it to GC expecting them to say "no".  To my surprise they gave me 15% off and a few extra dollars.  I now own a S61 and got it for under $595!!
 
Now I am reviewing this great thread that Glyn has posted and will use it as a guide to get the S61 up and running.

Yeah, it's a fantastic keyboard for recording purposes and just for the sheer fun of playing.

I've really valued what Glyn has taken the time to experiment with and share with us. I have this thread bookmarked for repeat reading.

Thanks for the kind comments and apologies for those waiting for my promised re-write / consolidation. I still plan to do so.
 
It’s unfortunate that Rapture Pro’s and other non NKS VSTi's pre-sets can’t be read and displayed in Komplete Kontrol. There is no way around this short of saving each pre-set manually in Komplete Kontrol which would be madness, so it’s back to the mouse and screen to use the Rapture Pro browser. One could however save ones favourite patches, or a “playlist” of patches one could scroll through from the keyboard in a performance.
 
Making a playlist should be reasonably straight forward. I will be trying this soon. Save a preset for each sound (can be from any VSTi or Kontakt library). Prefix the preset name wit 001, 002 etc. so they appear in order. Make a tag in "Modes" with a name for the playlist so you can filter just the playlist. One should then be able to move through the sounds from the keyboard.

Just found a way to print the actual chord notes on the piano roll in the midi track when in chord mode and using chord presets.  If you "enable midi out" when inserting the Komplete Kontrol (vst track) in Sonar, when you play single note chords on the keyboard and use the chord presets, it actually prints all of the actual chords in the midi track that is driving the Kompete Kontrol software (assuming that one uses a separate midi track option as well).  So, I then double checked to see if it would print the actual chord notes if I did not enable midi out, but it only printed the individual note actually played on the midi track.  
 
So, if you want to edit the chords in chord mode after you have recorded them, you can first "enable midi out" when inserting the Komplete Kontrol software, and it will print the various chord notes in the piano roll for midi editing.
 
[Edit:  Let me add that "enabling midi out" also allows the arpeggiator notes from  KK to be displayed/printed on the midi track/piano roll.]