NCW Encryption

[cocoazenith]

Hello,

I am using Ableton Sampler instead of Kontakt Player as an alternative to the costly full version of Kontakt.
I've only purchased the August 1st Special and downloaded the freebies but Live freezes when trying to import
the NKIs. I assume this happens because of the samples' NCW encryption instead of WAV, which is a sample
file format that causes it to crash upon reading.

Guess I'm stuck with Kontakt Player until Ableton updates Sampler...

[EvilDragon]

Even if they update their sampler it will most likely not support NCW. One can uncompress the patches back to WAV, but you need full version of Kontakt to do that.

[cocoazenith]

Native Instruments is abusing monopoly. That's not good.

[whyterabbyt]

Native Instruments is abusing monopoly.

How, by creating an unenforced and entirely optional sound format for their own instrument? Your theory is cock.

[EvilDragon]

whyterabbyt said it. NCW is used for lower hard drive space usage and, consequentially, faster downloading of libraries. Anyone with full version of Kontakt can convert the samples back to WAV. No monopoly exploiting here.

[paulbreeze]

Native Instruments is abusing ...

NCW is not an encryption...

[EvilDragon]

Also - if Live was coded properly it would never crash on bumping into an unknown file format - it is supposed to either throw an error about incompatible file format, or do nothing. Preferably former.

[cocoazenith]

NCW is a NI proprietary compressed lossless format. That's what I wanted to say...I just used encryption to cut the long story short.

I know they did this for the sake of hard-disk space but they should make it more "open source" if they are really so
not into monopolizing stuff. I bet that they ask a whole lot of money from third-party companies for getting the ins and outs of dealing with NCW. One more thing is that you can only uncompress NCW by using the 400 Eur Kontakt.

If that's not the case, and if i am wrong then i don't see any reason Ableton Sampler shouldn't be updated for dealing with this kind of files.

[EvilDragon]

I bet that they ask a whole lot of money from third-party companies for getting the ins and outs of dealing with NCW.

They do not.


Also, NI does stuff to sell, not to open source. So does Ableton. It's a commercial world, get used to it.


ALSO, if you have a friend who has full version of Kontakt, convert what you want there, if you're not inclined to actually own a full version of Kontakt.

[cocoazenith]

I bet that they ask a whole lot of money from third-party companies for getting the ins and outs of dealing with NCW.

They do not.

If this is the case, then my hopes are that Ableton will update Sampler.

[hollowsun]

they should make it more "open source" if they are really so not into monopolizing stuff.

Why should they? They have a business to run, staff to employ, premises to pay for, a massive R&D department and budget and so on - they're not a charity organisation pandering to the whims of people who use their competitors' products because they can't be bothered to or won't buy Kontakt.

I bet that they ask a whole lot of money from third-party companies for getting the ins and outs of dealing with NCW.

No they don't - it's a standard function in Kontakt that anyone can use... if you have the full version of it.

One more thing is that you can only uncompress NCW by using the 400 Eur Kontakt.

And rightly so.

Have you ever ploughed $hundreds of thousands ... actually, maybe $millions ... into a product's development? No - thought not. If you did, I am fairly sure you would want to protect that investment as much as you could. It's not a monopoly. NI are not an 'Open Source' bunch of developers working from their spare room - they are a large company.

The fault here lies with Ableton, not with your perception of NI's so-called 'monopoly'. It's up to Ableton to sort out conversion from Kontakt to their format. And I wish them well with that - converting the NCWs to WAV should be fairly painless in the hands of a decent softwarist but you ain't going to get the scripted Kontakt GUIs which are, in many cases, as much of the heart of my stuff - and others' - as the actual samples.

This whole argument of yours smacks of "I have a Ford XYZ - why can't I put a Skoda carburettor in it?". Simple - because they are incompatible. To then moan about Ford having some kind of monopoly is just silly and fatuous.

If that's not the case, and if i am wrong then i don't see any reason Ableton Sampler shouldn't be updated for dealing with this kind of files.

Maybe they will, maybe they won't ... maybe they might. But it's really not as simple as you're making it out to be and/or maybe not worth Ableton's while - software development is very expensive (believe me - I know ... been doing it for 30 years with various manufacturers and software houses). Contrary to popular belief, it's not 'just software' that can be rustled up in a lunch hour and rather than take issue with me and my Kontakt products, perhaps you should maybe be addressing Ableton about this... because I can't do anything about it!


Stephen

[chroma]

...converting the NCWs to WAV should be fairly painless in the hands of a decent softwarist but you ain't going to get the scripted Kontakt GUIs which are, in many cases, as much of the heart of my stuff - and others' - as the actual samples.

just wanted to reiterate this... i love sampler for quick work with one-shots and (simple) multisamples. however, nearly every kontakt library i use most of the time would be useless without at least the scripting, and usually the GUI too. i can see why ableton hasn't bothered much to update the format... really, there is very little released in kontakt format that would make sense to import anymore.

there are some (such as some of the sampleism instruments) that are simple enough to be worthwhile, but usually I get the raw wave files and sometimes even different instruments (sfz or exs usually) which i can either pull into sampler myself, or use in one of the free sfz players...

[cocoazenith]

as a matter of fact i got in touch with ableton and they say they might update it to work.

-----

what bothers me is that i only want to play presets. i don't want the full kontakt experience.
i don't want to chop samples, i don't want to mash stuff, i don't want to map things myself etcetera
i just want to play some mutisampled presets, tweak them a bit so that i can make music.

HollowSun, don't you realize that this is cutting down your chances of having more sales? why so defensive
of NI?

i don't know...maybe they should make a commercial version of kontakt player for a fraction of the cost.

[EvilDragon]

HollowSun, don't you realize that this is cutting down your chances of having more sales? why so defensive of NI?

Kontakt IS the most widespread sampler out there and it DOES promise the greatest possible amount of sales because it has the biggest userbase. Don't forget that. Ableton's sampler is a lot less featured and believe me, if Steve saw any viability apropos sales for the things he's doing with Hollow Sun, he'd support multiple formats. And he did that some years ago, and it proved to be not lucrative at all. Hence, going Kontakt-only it is. And I can completely understand and support that point.

what bothers me is that i only want to play presets. i don't want the full kontakt experience.
i don't want to chop samples, i don't want to mash stuff, i don't want to map things myself etcetera
i just want to play some mutisampled presets, tweak them a bit so that i can make music.

You don't have to chop samples with Kontakt (but you can), you don't have to mash stuff in Kontakt (but you can), you can only play instruments from various libraries (hundreds of them - no other sampler has this much 3rd party content) - and that's exactly what Hollow Sun instruments are about, playing them! Sure you can tweak them as well, that's why the scripted GUI is there, but you don't necessarily HAVE to.

Either way, it's your call.

i don't know...maybe they should make a commercial version of kontakt player for a fraction of the cost.

NI is not interested in that at all. They have Kontakt for 3rd party libraries and Kontakt Player for licenced libraries and that's it. The situation is already confusing as it is with those two existing, a third version would make things even worse.

[cocoazenith]

Anyways...I would buy his packs with or without GUI
for me it's all about the actual sound.