Komplete Kontrol M32 review: Not just for pros On the plus side, when the main control knobs aren’t being used for changing the effect of a sound, they can also be used to raise and lower the volumes of individual tracks in your DAW so you could feasibly mix the volumes of an eight-track song directly from the keyboard. According to the manual, you should be able to assign the knobs to most elements of a third-party virtual instrument but the instructions are so confusing you may start frothing at the mouth. However, this high level of out-of-the-box intuitive integration only applies to Native Instruments’ own package of Komplete Kontrol sounds and not those sound samples your DAW may have come shipped with. These knobs mirror those on the computer screen so you can effortlessly adjust effects like delay, reverb, oscillation and modulation directly from the keyboard rather like a full-sized synthesizer. The big knob on the right is assigned to tasks like sound patch and plug-in browsing or scanning to a specific section of a song, while the row of eight rotary knobs positioned top centre of the keyboard are used to control parameters of your chosen Native Instruments sound sample.

Instead of using a mouse to start and stop recording or change the tempo, you simply tap the respective buttons on the keyboard. The top left cluster of buttons is devoted to transport parameters like playback and record, plus metronome, tempo, loop, arpeggiator and quantize selection.

These are your new friends and you’ll come to appreciate their presence. Look at the entire top half of the keyboard and you’ll see an assemblage of knobs and buttons that mirror the main controls of your DAW’s interface. This is a major bonus if your mouse is a stretch away or you have the keyboard on your lap.

Whereas most keyboard controllers provide only the piano keys and a pair of thumb control wheels, the M32 also lets the user control most parameters of a recording directly from the keyboard.

Native instruments komplete kontrol 32