Halion ,... flagship or ?

[HM]

They don't realy whant new customers it seems

... they even dont want their old customers:
i was waitin some weeks for their answer, that they reject a full documentation for halion-instruments ... there would be "too many updates" they really told me ... they believe in their politics (quality management would be a cost - for others) ...

Got another answer from support after 4 days, still it goes in circles, not solving my problem, I even provided a screendump from my original order and asked them just to solve the problem whatever it is

Still with the 50 pct from the original deal off course

But no help, just referring to that "now the deal is over", and giving another mail-address that I could use if I would follow the case any further. But it's about time that this Kafka-like procces comes to an end, and I am sure it leads nowhere.

So fact is:

1. Don't count on the deals that is offered
2. Don't count on the support helping out when their own system fails, or something got messed up
3. Don't count on support at all obviously
4. I you are "lucky" and you order is actually getting done, you can be sure to get no help from the "community" as a rookie, or what so ever level, in the long run, becourse there really is nothing going on, taking a look around on the board I feel sorry for all the unanswered posts.

On the possitive side, though I am obviously disappointed, guess I was actually lucky after all, not getting further involved and started using my time working my way into what seems to be a deadend

Guess I will put the hole sampler-choice on rest for a while, as for now I don't really see anything appealing

But still, life is good, have a nice day out there

[GRUMP]

I reactivate this topic to express my anger on NI´s Kontakt.

This so called "sampler" by the biggest VST company on the market may provide everything you might need to develop an other overdimensioned strings library, but it´s a fail when it´s about simple things like setting loop points. It´s really a shame.

Even if I would configure the loops for every sample individually it´d still have those clicks and raw transitions that Halion simply fades over with the right settings.

Looping a multisample with >30 samples usually takes 30 sec. in Halion. You don´t even have to check the loop if have some experience with it. With Kontakt it would take me an hour and I´d end up with dissatisfying results.

Another conspiracy might be that those guys don´t want us to do so, don´t they?

Haven´t read about that before and in so far just to express it.

[ghettosynth]

I know it’s just wishful thinking, but what the community needs is a free open source alternative to Kontakt which offers what something like VCV Rack brings to modular... a core application with wrappers for the main plugin formats, providing the basic sample management, a UI toolkit, Python scripting, and its own plugin architecture. Developers could create their sample library interfaces in that format, embed their own or third party plugins such as convolution reverbs, and package the whole thing up in a locked format for sale and distribution. Unlikely to ever happen, but that’s what would stand the best chance of breaking Kontakt’s hold on the market.

Yep, and the license must be compatible with commercial release of created instruments. This generally means that the devs have to be in the right state of mind and/or have the right support if they expect something like this to gain traction.

[Tj Shredder]

There is Hise, Sforzando and Decent Sampler to cover that. Hise being the most powerful in the ballpark of Kontakt/Halion. If you want to distribute your creations closed source, there is a fee, which is absolutely fair and necessary to keep development going...

[ghettosynth]

There is Hise, Sforzando and Decent Sampler to cover that. Hise being the most powerful in the ballpark of Kontakt/Halion. If you want to distribute your creations closed source, there is a fee, which is absolutely fair and necessary to keep development going...

Yeah, time will tell if it catches on. There still aren't any details on the web page for what that fee is going to be. The last time I played with it things weren't quite there. It's been a while though.

[Lind0n]

There is Hise, Sforzando and Decent Sampler to cover that. Hise being the most powerful in the ballpark of Kontakt/Halion. If you want to distribute your creations closed source, there is a fee, which is absolutely fair and necessary to keep development going...

Yeah, time will tell if it catches on. There still aren't any details on the web page for what that fee is going to be. The last time I played with it things weren't quite there. It's been a while though.

Try again ..its moved on a lot in the last 12 months, and about to move again in the next.... there's a really friendly community in the forum too:

https://forum.hise.audio/

[ghettosynth]

There is Hise, Sforzando and Decent Sampler to cover that. Hise being the most powerful in the ballpark of Kontakt/Halion. If you want to distribute your creations closed source, there is a fee, which is absolutely fair and necessary to keep development going...

Yeah, time will tell if it catches on. There still aren't any details on the web page for what that fee is going to be. The last time I played with it things weren't quite there. It's been a while though.

Try again ..its moved on a lot in the last 12 months, and about to move again in the next.... there's a really friendly community in the forum too:

https://forum.hise.audio/

Yeah definitely, I'll check out the forum as well.

However, I do think that charging all developers a fee to lock scripts will hamper adoption. You can lock/protect scripts in both Kontakt and Halion without paying a fee. Halion even allows end users to distribute libraries that work with the free Halion SE.

[Lind0n]

There is Hise, Sforzando and Decent Sampler to cover that. Hise being the most powerful in the ballpark of Kontakt/Halion. If you want to distribute your creations closed source, there is a fee, which is absolutely fair and necessary to keep development going...

Yeah, time will tell if it catches on. There still aren't any details on the web page for what that fee is going to be. The last time I played with it things weren't quite there. It's been a while though.

Try again ..its moved on a lot in the last 12 months, and about to move again in the next.... there's a really friendly community in the forum too:

https://forum.hise.audio/

Yeah definitely, I'll check out the forum as well.

However, I do think that charging all developers a fee to lock scripts will hamper adoption. You can lock/protect scripts in both Kontakt and Halion without paying a fee. Halion even allows end users to distribute libraries that work with the free Halion SE.

Sorta true...

First you dont have to pay anything if your product is open sourced..

You do have to pay a fee if your product is a commercial release.... but:

HISE itself is free, so if you were starting out your cost comparison would look like this no?:

Cost of HISE($zero) + cost of License
Cost of Kontakt + cost of License($zero)
Cost of Halion + cost of License($zero)

I'm not in a position to tell you the cost of a HISE license but it compares favourably with the cost o Kontakt or Halion

[Tj Shredder]

Try again ..its moved on a lot in the last 12 months, and about to move again in the next.... there's a really friendly community in the forum too:

https://forum.hise.audio/

The last compiled version (2.0) is from Nov 2018, the last commit of the source (2.1.0) from May 2019. Does not sound that active, or there must be another source than those from the official site...

Btw. the license cost of Kontakt is not zero if you want to have it usable in Kontakt player and be copy protected...

[ghettosynth]

Try again ..its moved on a lot in the last 12 months, and about to move again in the next.... there's a really friendly community in the forum too:

https://forum.hise.audio/

The last compiled version (2.0) is from Nov 2018, the last commit of the source (2.1.0) from May 2019. Does not sound that active, or there must be another source than those from the official site...

Btw. the license cost of Kontakt is not zero if you want to have it usable in Kontakt player and be copy protected...

Correct, but, you can distributed protected scripts without paying for a distribution license. This is the bread and butter model of a lot of small devs who don't create Kontakt Player libraries.

[Lind0n]

Try again ..its moved on a lot in the last 12 months, and about to move again in the next.... there's a really friendly community in the forum too:

https://forum.hise.audio/

The last compiled version (2.0) is from Nov 2018, the last commit of the source (2.1.0) from May 2019. Does not sound that active, or there must be another source than those from the official site...

Btw. the license cost of Kontakt is not zero if you want to have it usable in Kontakt player and be copy protected...

10 minutes in the forums will tell you we are all on the scriptnode branch of the official site - over 3,000 commits the last only 3 days ago.

[Lind0n]

Try again ..its moved on a lot in the last 12 months, and about to move again in the next.... there's a really friendly community in the forum too:

https://forum.hise.audio/

The last compiled version (2.0) is from Nov 2018, the last commit of the source (2.1.0) from May 2019. Does not sound that active, or there must be another source than those from the official site...

Btw. the license cost of Kontakt is not zero if you want to have it usable in Kontakt player and be copy protected...

Correct, but, you can distributed protected scripts without paying for a distribution license. This is the bread and butter model of a lot of small devs who don't create Kontakt Player libraries.

Please read my post above, you will see HISE is cheaper for everyone than starting out with Kontakt or Halion.

[ghettosynth]

Try again ..its moved on a lot in the last 12 months, and about to move again in the next.... there's a really friendly community in the forum too:

https://forum.hise.audio/

The last compiled version (2.0) is from Nov 2018, the last commit of the source (2.1.0) from May 2019. Does not sound that active, or there must be another source than those from the official site...

Btw. the license cost of Kontakt is not zero if you want to have it usable in Kontakt player and be copy protected...

Correct, but, you can distributed protected scripts without paying for a distribution license. This is the bread and butter model of a lot of small devs who don't create Kontakt Player libraries.

Please read my post above, you will see HISE is cheaper for everyone than starting out with Kontakt or Halion.

I did read your post, I'm sorry for not responding to you. I appreciate your input in this discussion.

This is one of those things where you have to really understand the value proposition. A small developer may already have Kontakt and while it had a non-zero cost to the developer, he may view it as a zero cost. Even if he doesn't view it as a zero cost, the calculus almost always is perceived to be much lower than retail.

Let me clarify as this is certainly true for me. I view the cost of Kontakt as roughly $10. My guess is that the majority of small devs get into making instruments because they also make music, or at least make sounds. In other words, they already have at least a small home studio and they already by software to support their interest. I would further argue that it's highly likely that most such devs get into Kontakt by way of Komplete.

When it's not on sale, Komplete is about $600. It currently comes with 68 instruments and effects and 24 expansions. Let's ignore the expansions and round 68 down to 59.9 products. Each product then costs $10. Yes I know that's not how rounding works.

Quite often, that's not even the calculus that I do. I add up all of the products that I want, I divide that number into the cost, and I decide whether or not I feel the value proposition of those products is worth that price. When I bought Komplete those products were Reaktor, Battery, Massive, FM8, Absynth, and Guitar Rig. I didn't care about Kontakt at the time. So, from my calculus at that time, Kontakt was free. Ok, yes, I value it more now and included it in my various upgrades over the years, but I didn't when I got started.

Kontkat 5 contents
KONTAKT 3, GUITAR RIG 3 software edition, MASSIVE, REAKTOR 5, ABSYNTH 4, BATTERY 3, AKOUSTIK PIANO, ELEKTRIK PIANO, B4 II, FM8, and PRO-53

Moreover, because small devs have their own studios, using the industry standard sampler brings other intrinsic benefits. Learning the standard means that I can use what I learn to work with all of the other commercial products that use that standard.

It's an uphill battle to overcome an industry standard and you can't just do some simple 1-1 comparisons and wash your hands of it. I don't think that comparing the retail price of Kontakt here is the right measurement. Most small devs that make tiny little products already have a copy before they make that decision to start selling libraries and, from a practical point of view, the cost is essentially zero to get started.

[Tj Shredder]

The main cost isn’t money, its the time you need to learn it. I bought Kontakt to get Komplete for cheap. I also got Halion which would give me the chance to distribute fully functional sets without extra fees (I never published anything yet). Especially Halion I finally gave up to learn, no useful learning resources, the worst technocratic manual imaginable etc...
It seems Hise is as powerful as the other two, but complexity comes at a cost as well. If you plan to just make simple sampler instruments, I think Decent Sampler might become a good alternative. Not too complicated to learn, and you could even publish for IOS...

[Lind0n]

/snip for brevity....

I did read your post, I'm sorry for not responding to you. I appreciate your input in this discussion.

This is one of those things where you have to really understand the value proposition. A small developer may already have Kontakt and while it had a non-zero cost to the developer, he may view it as a zero cost. Even if he doesn't view it as a zero cost, the calculus almost always is perceived to be much lower than retail.

Let me clarify as this is certainly true for me. I view the cost of Kontakt as roughly $10. My guess is that the majority of small devs get into making instruments because they also make music, or at least make sounds. In other words, they already have at least a small home studio and they already by software to support their interest. I would further argue that it's highly likely that most such devs get into Kontakt by way of Komplete.

When it's not on sale, Komplete is about $600. It currently comes with 68 instruments and effects and 24 expansions. Let's ignore the expansions and round 68 down to 59.9 products. Each product then costs $10. Yes I know that's not how rounding works.

Quite often, that's not even the calculus that I do. I add up all of the products that I want, I divide that number into the cost, and I decide whether or not I feel the value proposition of those products is worth that price. When I bought Komplete those products were Reaktor, Battery, Massive, FM8, Absynth, and Guitar Rig. I didn't care about Kontakt at the time. So, from my calculus at that time, Kontakt was free. Ok, yes, I value it more now and included it in my various upgrades over the years, but I didn't when I got started.

Kontkat 5 contents
KONTAKT 3, GUITAR RIG 3 software edition, MASSIVE, REAKTOR 5, ABSYNTH 4, BATTERY 3, AKOUSTIK PIANO, ELEKTRIK PIANO, B4 II, FM8, and PRO-53

Moreover, because small devs have their own studios, using the industry standard sampler brings other intrinsic benefits. Learning the standard means that I can use what I learn to work with all of the other commercial products that use that standard.

It's an uphill battle to overcome an industry standard and you can't just do some simple 1-1 comparisons and wash your hands of it. I don't think that comparing the retail price of Kontakt here is the right measurement. Most small devs that make tiny little products already have a copy before they make that decision to start selling libraries and, from a practical point of view, the cost is essentially zero to get started.

it's interesting you use the model of a "small developer" because that describes me pretty much exactly - I'm a one person shop, and I got into Kontakt(10+ years ago) as a by product of Komplete (v6 I think but its so long ago I cant remember). So sure lets look at me at that stage - I built my first (set of ) Kontakt-based products, I released them and made a very very very small amount of money, nowhere near enough to cover my effort at even a miserly commercial rate. It was (as they say) all downhill from there.

So no matter what we think is worth what in Komplete - at some point as a "developer/producer" we all paid what I now consider to be an outrageous price for Komplete, and that put us in a position to be able to develop and release products.

Clearly we can write off this expense as "I was doing it anyway" and then we will see that your costs of development are nett zero, of course once you've released a bunch of products you will (my experience tells me) realise that the cost of licenses and development platform are in fact only a small potion of your expenditure, the real costs (as alluded to by TJ Shredder in this topic) are mostly about effort x time.

So if you've decided that the best way forward for you to build products and sell them is to outlay as small amount as you can on the platform you use to build products, despite the platform actually being slow to build on, badly supported (by its developer), and restricting your potential audience, then yeah Kontakts for you (if you already own it), if not then Decent or similar might be more your thing. I honestly wish you luck, I've been there and learned the lessons the hard way over the last 10 years...perhaps you will be luckier and smarter than me. Go for it.