NI Battery 4.2 update is out!

[iPlogger]

I also wondered about importing WAV files, but figured that can't be what they mean. WAV isn't really 3rd-Party, but I still questioned what they were really trying to say. I remember when they made a similar announcement with Kontakt 6, so figured it was along those same lines, but thank you for clearing things up and filling us in.

[Tj Shredder]

Just for 3rd party import would it make sense to keep Kontakt 5…?

[soroc sosta]

Hello Guys and Gals! Please tell me I missed the update in that list about locking the sample to the cell.
Find it so fustrating to use this program when a sound gets exchange or moved unintentionally ....
....Ok .... at least an undo function...PLEASE!

[Danno]

I look forward to updating later today. I would use Battery more except it's unusably slow for me.

I have KompleteUlt/Collectors or whatever it's called. With all the Maschine expansions, there are hundreds of kits.. and Battery will usually take 2-3 minutes to open up.

[sacer]

Just for 3rd party import would it make sense to keep Kontakt 5…?

Yes you can import with Kontakt 5 and export this again in NI Format to open in Kontakt 6

[machinesworking]

Consider the sheer amount of products that have to be updated. It is far from a simple and quick job.

Yep took Waves, Arturia, and AAS forever to port all their plug ins to M1, VST3.

[machinesworking]

However, as per usual, great majority of people are happy to use Rosetta versions, and there are a few loud voices on forums...

Nobody is happy to use Rosetta versions, people are relieved they can use Rosetta versions. It accrues a 10% or more CPU debt compared to native people are reporting.

[digitalboytn]

Consider the sheer amount of products that have to be updated. It is far from a simple and quick job.

The bean counters are trying to learn to code like crazy, but they are finding that it requires some serious skills and it's not just a case of simple arithmetic...

Native Instruments have brought these problems upon themselves and the issues are quite fundamental...

They fired the wrong people

[EvilDragon]

Consider the sheer amount of products that have to be updated. It is far from a simple and quick job.

Yep took Waves, Arturia, and AAS forever to port all their plug ins to M1, VST3.

Very very different codebase structures. It's very obvious Waves are using one framework only for all their stuff. Likewise Arturia. At NI there's like a dozen different things, which makes things that much more complicated.

[SLiC]

Arturia went from being the whipping boy of KVR to one of the very best and most highly regarded developers in music tech....shows the difference good manage can make.

I hope NI can turn it around, but as you say, they have a lot to do addressing the fundamental framework issues with core products whist trying to make enough money to be viable as a business.

[DJ Warmonger]

Consider the sheer amount of products that have to be updated. It is far from a simple and quick job.

Yep took Waves, Arturia, and AAS forever to port all their plug ins to M1, VST3.

Very very different codebase structures. It's very obvious Waves are using one framework only for all their stuff. Likewise Arturia. At NI there's like a dozen different things, which makes things that much more complicated.

I get it, but there's no one to blame but NI ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This is the technological dept which happends when one does never refactor the code, reuse codebase or keep the projects up to date.

Now NI is left with its aging platforms and can only dish out tons of copy-paste sample-based instruments.

[EvilDragon]

Sure, they brought it upon themselves. However it's untrue that the code was never optimized or refactored.

They're working on it. It's a huge investment both time-wise and financially. Newer products are using up to date frameworks (and they are not just sample-based, or have you missed Mod/Crush Pack, Raum, etc). For older products, it's going to take a lot more time but it is happening.

Also, there's nothing copy-paste about (for example) Noire vs Straylight vs Play Series vs Orchestral Series. They are all very very different structurally, and just nothing about them is copy-paste. Sure, there are series that share some code (i.e. Play Series or the -light trilogy), but there's still some real work involved in getting a product out even if the script is largely the same. But it also usually isn't - for each subsequent -light series library, the script was updated with new features and stuff. Real work.

[machinesworking]

Consider the sheer amount of products that have to be updated. It is far from a simple and quick job.

Yep took Waves, Arturia, and AAS forever to port all their plug ins to M1, VST3.

Very very different codebase structures. It's very obvious Waves are using one framework only for all their stuff. Likewise Arturia. At NI there's like a dozen different things, which makes things that much more complicated.

Excuses are cool. Waves aren't even arguably an older company than NI, they kept their codebase up to date, in fact all three companies are just as old as NI, and all three did the work to port to VST3 and now a framework that works with modern architectures like M1. Let's be straight here, you cannot know if Waves or the others had as much or less work to do, all that can be known is they did the work. We can know that Arturia flatly started the work before the M1 transition, they ported to VST3, and resizable GUIs years ago.

I've used NI for over 15 years now, and they're absolutely always last in line when it comes to any sort of maintenance of their code base, the bean counters are far too in control of how they manage their time. They did the exact same thing with Codewarrior, ignored Apples years of warning about switching to Xcode, (related of course to their pending port from PPC to x86), then acted like they were blindsided, when flatly, they weren't.

From the outside it looks like NI suffer from developers being subject to marketing calling the shots, and now that they're subject to investment companies, which again doesn't scream maintain your code base. I wish it wasn't so, Kontakt is absolutely an industry standard, Reaktor is still amazing, but as was mentioned in another thread, NI have been bad at porting their code to new architecture since pretty much the beginning, Absynth ran bad on PC for years, Reaktor was next to useless on mac until about version 4, they have the most apocalyptic warnings about updating to new OS's of any plug in company I use.

It's just sad that's all, and it's frankly something that they should change, but my guess is they won't, the fixes they need to do to get M1, VST3 and resizable GUI's will not be done with the future in mind, and the next update to Mac for instance will break some hotfix they did, and in traditional fashion they will blame Apple for it.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

NI has farmed out a lot of work over the years and it seems like instead of saying, "we're going to use one framework for everything, and when we farm out DSP, we're going to take that code and work with whomever to bring that into our unified framework" (like Arturia), they took more of a Wild West approach.

If I were an NI developer in Germany, I'd be emailing my resume/CV to U-he!

[machinesworking]

NI has farmed out a lot of work over the years and it seems like instead of saying, "we're going to use one framework for everything, and when we farm out DSP, we're going to take that code and work with whomever to bring that into our unified framework" (like Arturia), they took more of a Wild West approach.

If I were an NI developer in Germany, I'd be emailing my resume/CV to U-he!

I would guess you're partially right, but for all my dismal evaluations of where NI have been and are in terms of maintaining code base, I really hope they get it together this time, stop blaming everyone but themselves and continue great plug ins like Konakt and Reaktor far into the future. It's just that they've done this all before, it's what makes it so frustrating that they have good code buried IMO in technological debt, because of the far reaching influence of I would guess accounting and marketing at NI.

Sort of like how when Ives had Jobs in rapture at Apple and they would sometimes override engineering, making some pretty dumb aesthetic decisions, like an antenna that lost reception when you held the iphone like most people hold a dammed phone, because it would make it a half a mm thicker if it was done properly!