Request - please make nki's backwards-compatible

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idfpower wrote:('cause otherwise it would have been done already)
This is true. NI won't make Kontakt forwards compatible. Ever.

And most library developers are always keen to utilize the improvements that came with Kontakt's later versions. K3 is DEAD. Forget it, time to let it go. 99% of Kontakt libraries produced today are either K4.2.4 or K5.

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Just be glad the evil Microsoft doesn't follow NI's forced-upgrade philosophy. Imagine if it was impossible to save a Word document created under Office 2014 in a format that users of previous versions could open. Imagine the consumer revolt if we were all coerced into re-buying Microsoft Office every year just so we could exchange documents. Imagine the DOJ lawsuit if compatibility was broken with every minor dot release like Kontakt has done.

How is it that Microsoft can offer such functionality and NI cannot? Are Office document formats less-complex than NKI's? I don't think so. Does Microsoft benefit financially from maintaining forward and backward compatibility, even though it doesn't mandate regular updates? Yup.

NI's policy of disallowing the saving of instruments in previous formats is short-sighted and not just consumer-unfriendly but developer-unfriendly as well. EvilDragon, you are being disingenuous when you blithely declare that "K3 is dead, get over it". Be honest; the policy serves your own career needs, too.

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There are some really showstopping things that make forwards compatibility for Kontakt impossible.

Case in point: until Kontakt 4, maximum number of zones in an instrument was 4096 (K2) or 8192 (K3), this was raised to 32768 in Kontakt 4. So, what would happen with instruments that have more than 4096/8192 zones? They would be rightfully FUBARd in an attempt to make them forwards compatible.

Same goes with K4's AET filter - there isn't anything like it in previous versions of Kontakt, so replacing it with something else wouldn't quite cut it. And just removing it would make the instrument not sound like it was intended to sound AT ALL. So why would anyone want to do that?

Same goes with all the various KSP commands that were introduced as they were needed, in minor and major updates of Kontakt. This would not work at all. Performance view height also changed between versions - this would all not work at all when going back.

Oh, and NKI format itself changed since K4.2 onward. Previously it was packed XML, now it's binary - for faster loading. Converting between the two is not quite possible.

So it is much easier to just not offer forwards compatibility, instead of trying (and failing miserably) to cover every possible corner case when trying to save in a previous version. Totally understandable decision by NI here.
bbaggins wrote:Are Office document formats less-complex than NKI's? I don't think so.
They are. Because they contain text and formatting data. There's always something to fall back to (in worst case scenario, plain text only). Kontakt is an entirely different thing. You cannot revert to something as basic as raw samples, when the behaviour of the instrument might rely very closely to specific filter types, effects, or even script commands! I can't believe this is that hard to understand.
Last edited by EvilDragon on Wed Apr 23, 2014 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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FWIW: happy Kontakt5 and Open Office user here! :)
Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.

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bbaggins wrote:Just be glad the evil Microsoft doesn't follow NI's forced-upgrade philosophy. Imagine if it was impossible to save a Word document created under Office 2014 in a format that users of previous versions could open. Imagine the consumer revolt if we were all coerced into re-buying Microsoft Office every year just so we could exchange documents. Imagine the DOJ lawsuit if compatibility was broken with every minor dot release like Kontakt has done.

How is it that Microsoft can offer such functionality and NI cannot? Are Office document formats less-complex than NKI's? I don't think so. Does Microsoft benefit financially from maintaining forward and backward compatibility, even though it doesn't mandate regular updates? Yup.
Indeed. That's why the folks using Windows XP are now f*** - 'cause Windows doesn't force you to upgrade :) And it also doesn't allow you to downgrade btw: years back a family member bought a HP laptop with Windows Vista on. I preffered Windows XP and since the unit was still in warranty I took it to the local HP dealer and asked them to install it on the laptop - of course, willing to pay for the licence. Surprise: they told me they can't do it because Microsoft doesn't allow them to install older versions of their software (Vista was the latest version back then).

Now with Windows 7 on, if I change a number of components in my computer I need a new license, 'cause "it's a new computer" - and someone at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to issue the licenses per unit, not per user...

All this aside, the reason why you can save in a format all versions of Word can read is very simple: THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE - AND FREE (Open Office). So if they still want to sell their payware version, the least they can do is make sure the versions are compatible :) They wouldn't put anything more than needed unless they're forced to. That's how any big company acts - it would be pointless to allocate resources (no matter how small) for something that is not mandatory.


There are (some) alternatives to Kontakt, but nothing close to it. There's a reason why it's so popular nowadays. And until someone else manages to come up with a better option (plugin), they won't probably change their compatibility policy...
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idfpower wrote:That's why the folks using Windows XP are now f*** - 'cause Windows doesn't force you to upgrade :)
I'm not f*** by MS and I'm not forced to upgrade. You can still activate XP, it's just not being patched. If NI followed this scheme they should stop improving Kontakt 1, sometime this year.

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bbaggins wrote:Just be glad the evil Microsoft doesn't follow NI's forced-upgrade philosophy. Imagine if it was impossible to save a Word document created under Office 2014 in a format that users of previous versions could open. Imagine the consumer revolt if we were all coerced into re-buying Microsoft Office every year just so we could exchange documents. Imagine the DOJ lawsuit if compatibility was broken with every minor dot release like Kontakt has done.

How is it that Microsoft can offer such functionality and NI cannot? Are Office document formats less-complex than NKI's?
There was a big change in Word doc formats to XML a while back, but other than that, the format hasn't changed too much. But no, you would not be able to open Word 2014 documents in Word 2000 or before (same with Excel etc). In some cases, Microsoft made individual installable translaters than added older versions the ability to load newer format docs, but the point is not that it's "impossible" just that it requires significant commitment to do so, and imposes some constraints on what developers can do. Office document loaded compatibility is *critical* for MS, and they work very very hard to make this possible, but even they haven't been able to do this for Office all the time.

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Hi metamorphosis,

all my NI Kontakt libraries are working with Kontakt 3, even the very latest Heliosphere. I agree that pushing musicians to upgrade/update sampleplayers isn't a good idea at all.

It's correct that many developers are only supporting latest Kontakt versions, even with a different GUI per product. I am not. Learning each product is bs, one sample player GUI is enough to explore all the trillions of features. If an extra GUI seems to be necessary it means, that the general purpose GUI of the player is not planned very well. It's the music that matters, nothing else.
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I can only say that you're missing out on a lot of great filters if you're not doing a Kontakt 5 library... :)

The sound matters. If it can't be done with an older version of Kontakt, why should developer use it then? It's just common sense - use the features you need for the version that offers that. Case closed, pretty much.
kpr wrote:even with a different GUI per product. I am not. Learning each product is bs, one sample player GUI is enough to explore all the trillions of features. If an extra GUI seems to be necessary it means, that the general purpose GUI of the player is not planned very well.
You cannot be more wrong. So a vintage synth Kontakt library and a string orchestra library should have the same GUI? That's preposterous.

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I guess I am alone then in still making every Anomaly soundset for Kontakt V2 and up.... And always providing .SFZ/.WAV files so that even if NI broke (in the future) the ability to open previous version .nki/.nkm files in later versions people could still utilize the .wav files in whatever version of Kontakt they own.....

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Some devs are not forward compatible :), sorry, I had to.

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Sampleconstruct wrote:Some devs are not forward compatible :), sorry, I had to.
Touché! :tu:

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I think it is just a difference in the approach of things....

I realized a while ago that not everyone updates to the latest and greatest versions all of the time. So I have gone out of my way to include legacy support for the NI versions of my soundsets.

The Anomaly series still supports Absynth V3 and Kontakt V2, but that does not stop people who own later versions of those instruments from taking advantage of newer features in later versions themselves. It just makes me keep things simpler as far as presets go. Which are, to me, basically just starting points anyway....

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dnekm wrote:I think it is just a difference in the approach of things....

I realized a while ago that not everyone updates to the latest and greatest versions all of the time. So I have gone out of my way to include legacy support for the NI versions of my soundsets.

The Anomaly series still supports Absynth V3 and Kontakt V2, but that does not stop people who own later versions of those instruments from taking advantage of newer features in later versions themselves. It just makes me keep things simpler as far as presets go. Which are, to me, basically just starting points anyway....
Well, there is absolutely nothing wrong with your approach, if it works for you, it works. I can't even imagine going back to K2 to develop new libraries in there, concerning Absynth, version 5 is a different synth, it brought so much new stuff to the table, not making use of these features is a pity, I would say.

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More than 90% of Kontakt users are using Kontakt 5 or 4 - with Kontakt 5 in majority. There were lots of Komplete 8 sales, so a lot of people jumped on it.

NIs numbers, not mine.

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