Care to fill me in on the last 15 years of software development?

[chagzuki]

I had a break from music... you could say. Quite a long time. For some reason I've felt an urge to get back into it, and I've been trying to recover files from old hard drives and computers... and figure out what synths I was using back in around 2005.

I've just searched NI Battery to see what iteration it's on and it appears to be 4... and I'm pretty sure it was 3.5 back in 2005. Is it no longer actively developed? I guess it was a mature product... but perhaps there are better competitors now? Has it been superseded?

Looking at an old Tracktion project I see Z3ta, Vanguard, Beast, SFZ+ and lots of energyXT routing... I don't seem to have a sampler. Was the sampler from Orion ever released as a standalone? My brain is perhaps inventing a memory of me using the Orion sampler as a standalone product within Tracktion..?

I see that there are now many competing products like Falcon, Rapid and Phaseplant which are either comprehensive synthesis solutions or approaching that... quite a complex landscape to try to digest.

I had a go with the Serum demo and it's probably the thing I needed back in 2005 in order to make the sort of tracks I had in mind! However, there are lots of similar options and I'm aware it's longer in the tooth than many of the competitors.

I'm getting the impression that the business model generally adopted within the industry is to try to lure you in to a product with a stripped-down version so that you commit, then the fully-fledged versions are quite a big chunk of change.

[Jkist]

Serum is still a household name, and being actively used in many productions as we speak. It might be aging, but its aging well, and its just as capable as any other synth really, although I do get annoyed at the lack of an arpeggiator.

Battery 4 hasn't had many updates, but it is still an awesome tool that still sees use in my studio all the time. I haven't really found better, but I haven't really looked. It does everything I need it to.

As far as other big synths, yes there is a plethora of options at the moment, we as consumers are a bit spoiled lately. Rapid really isn't very complex once you start playing with it. Never messed with Falcon or Phaseplant, but Phaseplant looks really fun and intuitive.

Other synths to take a look at are Dune3 (Has an oldschool look and workflow, but sounds huge), Hive 2 (Spectacular all around, go get the demo), and I've personally been enjoying Thorn (much more aggressive sound, but due to it's unique character, I think it offers unique value).

Anyways, as far as the business model thing, that hasn't necessarily been my experience. I mostly see it as us as consumers winning again. For example, I just grabbed Melodyne Essentials. Melodyne is offered in several levels, with Essentials being the lowest tier. It only costs 100 bucks, while their flagship version costs like 800. I only needed basic pitch cleaning and correction, so for my use case, Essentials saved me BIG money. If they didn't offer anything like this, I wouldn't have purchased at all.

[chagzuki]

Yeah, the workflow in Battery was clean, to my memory.

Cheers, I'll check out Thorn. I've been giving the Dune demo a spin, it's nice for sure.

I haven't figured out yet what to do with old 32bit vst files; I've just seen some software which converts them... more to investigate. I've no idea which of the products I had will have free 64bit upgrades and which would need paid upgrades/repurchasing.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Analog modelling went crazy and suddenly everyone was releasing a compressor.
I find this amusing as so many people dont really understand what a compressor is doing or how it works but there are more compressors than any other type of processor.

We went from the darling synthesis methods slipping from circuitmodelled synths to digital wavetables coming back into fashion, probably thanks to dubstep.

Naturally AI and machine learning is creeping into the scene now.

[chagzuki]

AI? I know AI innovation is about to cause shockwaves in most areas of life but please, fill me in on how it's being applied in the audio domain.

[THE INTRANCER]

U-HE came to the floor and started releasing a range of advanced cutting edge VST synths and effect devices, as well as porting the suite of VST effects as RE's for Propellerheads Reason at 15 Euro a pop on release. Free cut down but fully functional versions of his synths are on his site and vie UK and German based magazines and are able to be reskinned by the user if they wish. Zebra 2, Hive 2, Diva and RePro synths are some of the commercial offerings available. Hive which initially came out in 2014, was updated with its release in 2019 with Hive 2 which brought the most significant update to any of the synths he and his team has made in past 5 years.

Bazille CM - Magazine - Around £7.50 in store.
https://u-he.com/products/bazillecm/

https://u-he.com/products/

[pough]

It took me a long time but I finally got jBridge for the old 32-bit plugins and it works great, for the most part. I also have a bunch of old projects that I'm trying to revive. There are some old plugins I love that have never really been updated or replaced like Angelina, ZD6, Muon's plugins, NuBi, the oddball stuff from ConcreteFX...

I never upgraded to Battery 4 from 3.5 and this video makes me feel pretty good about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxcf5oMhNlA

[V0RT3X]

Zero delay feedback filters are the latest in analog sounding filter simulations.

Circuit modelling is becoming more available due to more powerful CPUS

Many plugins now have the option to take advantage of multiple cores.

Ai being used in plugins like Izotope Neuron which "helps" you make better mixing choices. It is also used in plugins like XLN XO for sample library organization.

Waves has been discounting their products quit heavily now probably so they can sell their WUP.



I'll add more as i think of it

[pierb]

I never upgraded to Battery 4 from 3.5 and this video makes me feel pretty good about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxcf5oMhNlA

Battery 4 is by far the worst version.

My guess is that with the shift to Ableton Live most people ended up using Drum Rack and so NI stopped investing into Battery.

OTOH Kontakt is super popular among the media composer crowd but it seems to have been frozen in time for the past 10 or so years.

Personally I gave up on NI a long time ago.

[Jkist]

I never upgraded to Battery 4 from 3.5 and this video makes me feel pretty good about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxcf5oMhNlA

Battery 4 is by far the worst version.

My guess is that with the shift to Ableton Live most people ended up using Drum Rack and so NI stopped investing into Battery.

OTOH Kontakt is super popular among the media composer crowd but it seems to have been frozen in time for the past 10 or so years.

Personally I gave up on NI a long time ago.

Yeah seems like most people would agree that Battery 3 was the best iteration.

I'm messing with XO as a potential alternative. You can only load 8 sounds into a "kit", which is far more limited than the tons of pads you can use in Battery. But with so many samples on my HDD, the experimental and explorative nature of XO makes it fun to find cool drum kits for projects. That alone almost makes it worth the price of admission. They need to implement something like this in omnisphere

[pierb]

I'm messing with XO as a potential alternative. You can only load 8 sounds into a "kit", which is far more limited than the tons of pads you can use in Battery. But with so many samples on my HDD, the experimental and explorative nature of XO makes it fun to find cool drum kits for projects. That alone almost makes it worth the price of admission. They need to implement something like this in omnisphere

XO looks really cool but it solves a problem I don't have. I guess it makes sense if you have millions of unorganized samples. Personally I know what library/plugin will give me the sound I'm looking for.

If I want acoustic drums I go for Addictive Drums. That's it. There's plenty of choice and it's easy to find what you're looking for (given you own a couple of their libraries).

For electronic drums it's either one of the D16 emulations (808, 909) which are fantastic in terms of sound, Wave Alchemy, or Gold Baby. For example if I want raw analog sounds I use SYS 100 drums by WA which is one of the best drum sample libraries I've owned. I also own tons of Samples From Mars and other stuff, but I never use those. It's just a waste of time for me.

For electronic kicks I just use Kick 2 by Sonic Academy. I own plenty of kick samples, emulations, even other dedicated plugins like Punchbox, but Kick 2 is simply the best.

[Jkist]

Electronic drums is where I struggle the most. If its acoustic stuff, SSD5 or GGD libraries are my go-to. But electronic, there is such a range of different styles and flavors, I struggle to hone in on something specific sometimes. XO is a nice way to browse through, but I can definitely see the limited value if you already have your stuff really organized.

As for Kick 2, I've heard lots of good things, maybe its time I finally gave it a look!

[layzer]

not much really, music still sounds the same today as it did 15 years ago

[revvy]

not much really, music still sounds the same today as it did 15 years ago

Especially if you use the same synths/computer/style now you did then.

[nirm123]

not much really, music still sounds the same today as it did 15 years ago

Especially if you use the same synths/computer/style now you did then.