Synthesia Kontrol Guide

Use Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol MK1 and MK2 light guide in Synthesia to learn keyboard.

This is a project for my son, which you may find useful.

This program listens to light events from Synthesia sent to a virtual LoopBe1 midi port and lights the keys on Komplete Kontrol keyboard accordingly.

Install

Pre-requisites

• Install LoopBe1 virtual midi port driver.

  💡 On Mac, you can use the built in "IAC Driver" - open "Audio midi setup" to create a device named "LoopBe" as explained by D-One

  🆕New: Since January 2023, check out KompleteSynthesia: a MAC native project from @tillt

• In Synthesia:

  • Go to settings/Music Devices
  • Select "LoopBe Internal MIDI" from "Music Output"
  • In Keylight section of that output, select "Finger-based channel" (the last mode after 'channel 16')

SynthesiaKontrol

Windows

• Download the Windows package locally on your PC from releases
• Extract in a new folder
• Run SynthesiaKontrol

Linux, MAC

Use the Developer method.

Developer

If you want to contribute to the project, you need to setup your Python environment.

⚠ SynthesiaKontrol only works with Python3. One of the symptom when using Python2 is that you will get an error message saying that the keyboard is not supported yet.

SynthesiaKontrol

• Install Python's module:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

• Run the program:

python3 SynthesiaKontrol.py

• Build executable (Windows)

  • Install cx_Freeze: pip3 install cx_Freeze
  • Run build

    python3 setup.py build
    

  • Result is in build directory.

Status

• Proof of concept: light keys from Komplete Kontrol MK2 S61
• Figure out all the possible colors - see color_scan.py
• Python app to listen to midi events from Synthesia and light keys - see SynthesiaKontrol.py
• Leverage finger based channel light mode from Synthesia, introduced in r4376 to show left and right hands on KK
• Address issue where notes are turned off too quickly (Forum post here)
• Package as simple executable
• All notes off
• Customizable note colors
• Rainbow mode: when playing a note, make a rainbow on that note
• Simpler / better instructions
• Support all Komplete Kontrol MK2 keyboard sizes (currently only S61)
• Support Komplete Kontrol MK1 keyboards
• Use different colors per channel

Getting help

I prefer GitHub issues. Otherwise, there is a Synthesia forum thread here.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to

• Nicholas Piegdon for his dedication to Synthesia, and the great help he provides for his user community
• AnykeyNL to figure out an initial scheme for Komplete Kontrol MK1 USB protocol as well as the structure of an app
• Jason Bret to have figured out the MK2 version, and the 0x81 endpoint which I use.
• a1vv for the fork, and figuring out the changes for MK1 - which allowed me to create a version with support of MK1 and MK2
• Nabume for the S88 MK2 info.
• KompleteSynthesia: a MAC native project from @tillt