NKS - Details
This page contains technical details of the Native Kontrol Standard. As a legal disclaimer, I do not have access to the specification from Native Instruments and all the information is based on my own research.
What is NKS?
I assume you already know about NKS, the Native Kontrol Standard. If not, I recommend you look at a brief overview on the Native Instruments Website.
Details about NKS
NKS consists of several parts:
A preset file (.nksf for Instruments, .nksfx for Effects)
A directory structure where the preset files and metadata information are stored
Several metadata files
A central database where favourites are stored and preset names/banks are cached
NKS Preset Files
NKS preset files are RIFF files with 4 sections:
A Summary Information Section, which contains data like the preset author, comments, bank information, types, modes and vendor name
A Controller Assignments Section, where the controller pages are stored
A Plugin ID section, where the plugin ID is stored to the software can load the correct plugin
A Plugin Chunk section, where the plugin specific preset information is stored
Directory Structure
The user content directory contains sub-directories which specify the plugin name. Each plugin directory has one sub-directory per bank. Finally, in each bank directory, the NKS files are stored.
If the bank contains instruments, it might contain audio previews in an additional subdirectory named .previews. Audio Previews are stored in the .ogg format, consisting of the full NKS filename appended with .ogg.
To my knowledge, audio previews are not possible for Effects.
Metadata Files
Metadata files are plugin specific and contain information about the Plugin name displayed on the NI Hardware, image files and color settings.
These metadata files are usually stored in the public documents folder, typically found in C:\Users\Public\Documents\NI Resources.
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