20 years Native Instruments

[sharke]

Polyplex you're restricted by what type of sounds you can layer. I take it you can load your own samples with this, right? Well in that case why not just use instrument rack in Ableton? that way you get more than a handful of pads to play around with.

I quite like Polyplex but from reading the manual I got the impression that they really wanted to promote it's randomize feature as a major selling point. The last thing I want is to spend my valuable music making time sitting hitting a randomize button on the off chance something amazing occurs.

[funky lime]

If Kontakt was the only product NI ever made, I think they'd still be pretty damn successful. Look at how many people rely on Kontakt as a platform for their own businesses. I'd imagine creating a programming environment is quite a feat in itself. And they've done it twice (Reaktor)

(yes, I understand their other DSP makes its way into the Kontakt engine, but I think the point still stands)

Hell, Kontakt is pretty much the only VSTi I use in 90% of my projects. And I know a lot of people who do music for film/tv/games rely on it pretty heavily as well.

[sharke]

One thing NI is missing is a fully featured drum machine VST like Geist. I think they could probably get away with adding a pattern sequencer to Battery.

[Kinh]

My take on Native Instruments is that their recent synth offerings have been more like convoluted science projects than usable instruments. You really do need advanced knowledge of DSP and synthesis to fully understand them. Their earlier synths - FM8, Massive and the like - really were fantastic, intuitive, well designed synths with great workflows and very user friendly. With some of their more recent plugin offerings - Spark, Kontour, Prism, the Molekular effects etc - it's very difficult to achieve a deep understanding of how they work unless you have a background in physics or engineering. I consider myself to be fairly intelligent and even when I can't understand something immediately, am usually confident that a careful study of the manual will bring me up to scratch. Will these recent NI synths though, I can read the manuals from front to back multiple times and I'm still none the wiser. Can anyone here truly say they understand how Prism works? You ever notice how there's never been a video course tutorial for Prism on Groove3? That's because nobody understands the thing! The best you can ever hope for is tweaking the presets.

There's few videos on Prism because people just dont bother with with it. It's actually quite easy to understand but it just doesn't do enough. As for Molekular it's fairly easy too but the problem with it is it reeks of redundancy. There's too much going on in an attempt to impress the prospective customer instead of providing something practical that can work in a real (and nonrandom) scenario.

The interfaces aren't so well designed these days either. Now Rounds is one synth where I do understand what's going on (mostly). It's also one of the best sounding synth out there, in terms of how unique the sounds you can make with it are. You can make some truly beautiful sounds with Rounds, which sound like multiple synths playing together. I love it. But man, the workflow is a pain in the ass. It could have been designed so much better.

Exactly, its a layering plugin. There are many ways to layer sounds and play them together so if there's a plugin to do it then shouldn't it be user friendly? Just a crazy idea.

[.jon]

You do realize how much this depends on the type of music a person makes?

No I dont because these are tools. A hammer is good for driving nails into timber but it's also good for other things. All kinds of tradesmen have hammers.

No, they are musical instruments, not hammers. Not everyone musician or composition uses an upright bass, church organ or accordion.

[Kinh]

You do realize how much this depends on the type of music a person makes?

No I dont because these are tools. A hammer is good for driving nails into timber but it's also good for other things. All kinds of tradesmen have hammers.

No, they are musical instruments, not hammers. Not everyone musician or composition uses an upright bass, church organ or accordion.

They aren't they're just bloody hammers!
An upright bass can only do one thing, whereas a hammer can do many.

[bungle]

One thing NI is missing is a fully featured drum machine VST like Geist. I think they could probably get away with adding a pattern sequencer to Battery.

Was this mean't as sarcasm because of the poor updates ?
NI has one of the best drum sequencers ever created, Maschine.

[waltercruz]

One thing NI is missing is a fully featured drum machine VST like Geist. I think they could probably get away with adding a pattern sequencer to Battery.

I only have Geist 1, would love to see a Geist-like drum machine with the usual NI GUI.

[.jon]

An upright bass can only do one thing, whereas a hammer can do many.

Enjoy making music with your hammer then

[stacev]

Overall there is slowdown in music software industry, most tools and concepts are already developed. NI is just part of it.

[.jon]

There's few videos on Prism because people just dont bother with with it. It's actually quite easy to understand but it just doesn't do enough.

It's pretty highly regarded tbh, and for a reason, it's one of the few original and inspiring VSTis released in the past 5 years or so. It seems that your taste is limited to certain type of sounds, and you try to expand this to everyone and everything.

[mumpcake]

if I look at the latest additions Reaktor 6, Una Corda, India, Replika, Strummed Acoustic, Kinetic Metal, literally everything screams Ambient producer/TV Composer. So, I know it's not for me, but I wouldn't say these are bad products or that it's a bad offer. .

I don't see how Strummed Acoustic screams anything like Ambient producer. To me it screams person who want's to write folk/pop songs but either can't play guitar or doesn't like the sound of their acoustic guitar.

Replika is great on electric guitar.

The new Reaktor 6 stuff seems way more EDM than Ambient.

[ghettosynth]

There's few videos on Prism because people just dont bother with with it. It's actually quite easy to understand but it just doesn't do enough.

It's pretty highly regarded tbh, and for a reason, it's one of the few original and inspiring VSTis released in the past 5 years or so. It seems that your taste is limited to certain type of sounds, and you try to expand this to everyone and everything.

+1

[ew]

There's few videos on Prism because people just dont bother with with it. It's actually quite easy to understand but it just doesn't do enough.

It's pretty highly regarded tbh, and for a reason, it's one of the few original and inspiring VSTis released in the past 5 years or so. It seems that your taste is limited to certain type of sounds, and you try to expand this to everyone and everything.

+1

+1

ew

[ghettosynth]

if I look at the latest additions Reaktor 6, Una Corda, India, Replika, Strummed Acoustic, Kinetic Metal, literally everything screams Ambient producer/TV Composer. So, I know it's not for me, but I wouldn't say these are bad products or that it's a bad offer.

Yeah that's exactly what I thought when I heard things like Kinetic Metal and the like. They're churning out a ton of stuff aimed at the movie/videogame sound design market. The other day I figured I needed some kind of riser effect for a track so I thought what the heck, let's fire up Riser and see what that baby has to offer. I bored pretty quickly when it dawned on me that all of the sounds were generic TV/movie sound effects.

Are you talking about "Rise and Hit", The Riser is an Air Product and it's aimed at EDM and friends, not movie/videogames.