NKS 1.5

NKS 1.5 is a major update to the tagging that is applied to NKS files. The aim of the update is to provide more detailed tagging while also cleaning up some redundant tagging and making the overall process of filtering for sounds more intuitive..... Well, that is what appears to be the aim and for the most part, it's a brilliant update. 

Firstly, the biggest change to notice is the "Modes" tag section is now called "Characters". Most of the old Mode tags are still there but now many sub tags that are common between different sound types are a "character" tag. Character now tries to describe the "character" of a sound which can be subjective at times but offers a flexible second level of tagging which makes filtering much easier. 

For instance, with Drums we use to have "Analog Kit, Digital Kit, Urban Kit" as well as your single shot sounds "Kick, Snare, Closed Hi-Hat) etc. This has now changed so all the kits are now just tagged as "Kits" and Character tags now select the type of kit "Analog, Digital, Hip Hop / Urban". 

Tagging has also been cleaned up so redundant labels have been shortened. Example in the Bass category the sub tages were labelled as "Fingered Bass, Fretless Bass, Muted Bass" which has now been shortened to just "Fingered, Fretless, Muted".

There have also been a lot of additional tags added into the mix which are very welcomed. For example, in Drums we use to have a single option for "Snare Drum" which would have to cover rolls, rims, brush etc. Now the options "Snare, Snare Roll, Snare Brush, Snare Rim, Snare Side Stick" are available. Similarly for Cymbal and Hi-Hats too. 

There are some cases tho where we use to be able to just select a type then sub type to filter sounds where now we also need to select the Character (such as with drum kits) This does introduce an extra step which on keyboards such as the A series and M series adds extra time since you have such a small display to see your results. Also, I am still testing but it seems the speed of the browser appears much slower when scrolling results so this is something that needs to be monitored and reported to NI if it is the case since as more and more features are added, the slower Komplete Kontrol appears to run.

So What's Changed? 

Quite simply, everything. 

Firstly, I needed to put together a complete table that used my current known tags (official and unofficial) and the re-mapped new tagging. I then needed to decide what needed to be moved/merged and what new tags I would need to add to the system. I wanted to try and keep as close to the official tagging as possible because I have plans to migrate my libraries with the factory libraries to have it all in the one browser area. 

If you are interested to migrate your user libraries to the factory library area you can read up on how to do this Here

I put together a full database of all the tagging which you can download Here

It took a week to update all tagging and check over things and tho I am certain I have overlooked a few things I have cleaned up a lot of tagging and consolidated tags to make the tagging much leaner but just as detailed. Check out the tagging document if you want to also make changes to your own custom NKS files to fit in with the official tagging as it is all covered. 

How Can I Update?

For FreelanceSoundlabs users, all libraries have been updated and you can download your libraries as a Free update.

Simply login and visit My Downloads

All NKS libraries have been updated to version 2.5 and you can find out the version you have installed by selecting an instrument, selecting one of the presets then opening the tag edit section and checking Properties. 

You will see the version of the library you have and the date it was last updated. New libraries should say Version 2.5.0 and were updated May 11 2019.

To Update all you need to do is download the libraries, delete the existing NKS Preset files on your computer and copy the new ones in place. It is recommended to first delete the old ones (just the ones for each library) then copy the new ones just in case a path was changed to avoid duplicating things. If you are worried at all, simply move your old files to a temp folder as a backup then recopy the newly downloaded ones in place. 

You do not need to re-install the image or database files for this update, just the preset files. 

Once you have copied the new files simply do a library scan to update the new tagging.

Optionally: If you prefer to not download and re-copy the files you can download the tagging database document mentioned above and manually make the changes yourself but this is a lot of work, we have done all of this for you. 

What If I Don't Want to Update?

There is no issue really, it's optional, but you may end up with quite a messy library if you happen to add new NKS libraries to your installation as developers and users are now using the new 1.5 tagging standard so it is a good time to get your library back up to spec. Additionally, if you have any interest to migrate your user library into the factory library at some stage, you want to make sure the tagging is as clean and efficient as possible to avoid slow performance. 

If you have any issues or questions about the update, feel free to Contact Me.