Virus TI, Komplete, Keyboard, Maschine

[IanT]

NI is having a sale. Essentially if you buy a keyboard or Maschine you get 50% off a crossgrade to Komplete 10 or Komplete 10 Ultimate:

http://www.native-instruments.com/en...ng-into-sound/

Very tempting. But haven't explored my TI yet

I'm more keyboard than pad, but never tried pads so I'm wondering if this is a good time to jump in.

So, some Qs....

Does anyone use the Virus as a controller for Komplete - or as a controller in general? How does it fare? Any idea how it compares to the NI S series?

It seems a shame to get (yet) another keyboard but the S series looks cool and seems to offer good control over Komplete in particular. And it has an Arp button which would be useful live. (Should I ever get that far.)

Anyone any experience of Maschine? Some reviews say to forget the Mikro and get the middle one (Groove). Again, it seems useful for live use but some people say it's a beatmaker rather than a DAW so I'm not sure how it would work live. My idea of 'live' would be to play some sort of pre-recorded tracks, maybe loop some sections (play till ready - can it do that?) and play beats and effects over the top.

Any thoughts or opinions would be welcome.

Ian
Yep, proper confused now...