Tracking Apple Silicon Native Hosts, Plugins, Effects

[jamcat]

I'll give IK the win for a clear reason though, resizable GUI's, older NI plug ins are not getting any of that.

That’s a VST3 thing, though. IK got VST3 done a decade ago. Nothing to do with M1.

Still being stuck on VST2 is a whole other level of lame.

[traveller1969]

Anyone here have any idea about when Kush audio and Box Digital Labs are going Native?

[nordickvr]

Anyone here have any idea about when Kush audio and Box Digital Labs are going Native?

Wrote to them the other day.
Her’s an excerpt from them response:
“…do not have any sort of ETA on when that might happen.”

edit: this applies to Kush.

[traveller1969]

Well I haven't been using them (deleted) and TBH I don't really need them anymore. Time to move on..

[machinesworking]

I'll give IK the win for a clear reason though, resizable GUI's, older NI plug ins are not getting any of that.

That’s a VST3 thing, though. IK got VST3 done a decade ago. Nothing to do with M1.

Still being stuck on VST2 is a whole other level of lame.

Tell that to NI, Massive and Kontakt 7, both M1 and VST3 without resizable GUIs. Plus there are plenty of VST 2 plug ins with resizable GUI's, it might be the only thing easier in VST 3 though.

[jamcat]

The point is IK has had resizable GUIs since going to VST3, long before M1 was even a thing. I don't see that as related to the issue of M1 ports in any way. Not having resizable GUIs is definitely a strike against NI, but not in the M1 column.

As for this or that being harder or easier for developers in VST3, I really don't care. I'm their customer, not their advocate. I'm paying them to do the hard work, not to whine. That's what makes them professionals.

[kidslow]

Anyone here have any idea about when Kush audio and Box Digital Labs are going Native?

You mean Boz? Boz has been slowly updating. Not sure he'll be done by end of year. https://www.bozdigitallabs.com/the-grea ... e-of-2022/

[machinesworking]

The point is IK has had resizable GUIs since going to VST3, long before M1 was even a thing. I don't see that as related to the issue of M1 ports in any way. Not having resizable GUIs is definitely a strike against NI, but not in the M1 column.

As for this or that being harder or easier for developers in VST3, I really don't care. I'm their customer, not their advocate. I'm paying them to do the hard work, not to whine. That's what makes them professionals.

They all relate to the GUI, that’s the connection, or more succinctly resizable GUIs and Apple Silicon support can go hand in hand, because both require modern GUI code, which NI do not have, and it’s probably the same reasons that IK are dragging with T-Racks since some of the plugs are from 15 year or more ago, i.e. legacy GUI code.

The actual code that makes a compressor a compressor probably has no difference at all regardless of platform, it’s the GUI that needs porting. NI are being lazy with their GUIs stitching it together for Massive IMO

[darkinners]

The point is IK has had resizable GUIs since going to VST3, long before M1 was even a thing. I don't see that as related to the issue of M1 ports in any way. Not having resizable GUIs is definitely a strike against NI, but not in the M1 column.

As for this or that being harder or easier for developers in VST3, I really don't care. I'm their customer, not their advocate. I'm paying them to do the hard work, not to whine. That's what makes them professionals.

They all relate to the GUI, that’s the connection, or more succinctly resizable GUIs and Apple Silicon support can go hand in hand, because both require modern GUI code, which NI do not have, and it’s probably the same reasons that IK are dragging with T-Racks since some of the plugs are from 15 year or more ago, i.e. legacy GUI code.

The actual code that makes a compressor a compressor probably has no difference at all regardless of platform, it’s the GUI that needs porting. NI are being lazy with their GUIs stitching it together for Massive IMO

I forgot where I read this but someone pointed out NI being this slow for Mac, it's because their code is really old but I am not a programmer I don't know and cannot determine how much of those is true.

Basically said over the years when Apple releases new SDK or new Application requirements, NI instead of updating their code accordingly compliant to the new requirement, just employs a workaround bandaid and calls it a day.
Said that NI to this day still uses the PowerPC era CodeWarrior codes in their applications/plugins.
Now up to a point where to solve this NI basically have to REWRITE everything from the ground up
resource and investment is one thing, the other thing is if they can make the new Kontakt to compatible to the existing thousands of 3rd party sample libraries, some of those libraries companies don't even exist anymore.

To be real, Kontakt is the only thing that matters, everything else NI has now is replaceable. They can't F'up and piss off the existing big clients who use Kontakt for a living or NI is done.

[machinesworking]

I forgot where I read this but someone pointed out NI being this slow for Mac, it's because their code is really old but I am not a programmer I don't know and cannot determine how much of those is true.

Basically said over the years when Apple releases new SDK or new Application requirements, NI instead of updating their code accordingly compliant to the new requirement, just employs a workaround bandaid and calls it a day.
Said that NI to this day still uses the PowerPC era CodeWarrior codes in their applications/plugins.
Now up to a point where to solve this NI basically have to REWRITE everything from the ground up

I'm not a programer either, but I've paid attention to their explanations over the years. NI flatly admitted to having multiple GUI frameworks for their products with code dating back 15 years. So to a degree they must have patched things together over the years especially recently with all the Catalina and Big Sur requirements that were supposedly there to prepare for Apple Silicon.

resource and investment is one thing, the other thing is if they can make the new Kontakt to compatible to the existing thousands of 3rd party sample libraries, some of those libraries companies don't even exist anymore.

To be real, Kontakt is the only thing that matters, everything else NI has now is replaceable. They can't F'up and piss off the existing big clients who use Kontakt for a living or NI is done.

I haven't pushed it, but Kontakt 7 on the M1 Air here seems to work just fine, my bigger libraries are on an old Mac Pro, but Cinesamples and others open up natively without GUI issues.

Maschine and Traktor also matter. Kontakt might be their biggest draw for professional and aspiring film and TV composers, but there are probably thousands more people wanting to be DJ's and producers. Reaktor is also still relevant, NI aren't going anywhere.

[kidslow]

Codewarrior lol. Old Metroworks was acquired by Motorola like 25 years ago? I was a shareholder at the time. Had friends who worked for them. Clearly NI has some refactoring to do and a lot of, as they say in the software business, "technical debt" and I wouldn't be shocked if some of their code dates back that long, but only their programming team would really know, or someone with access to the source code. Seems like something easily made up on the Interwebs.

[machinesworking]

Codewarrior lol. Old Metroworks was acquired by Motorola like 25 years ago? I was a shareholder at the time. Had friends who worked for them. Clearly NI has some refactoring to do and a lot of, as they say in the software business, "technical debt" and I wouldn't be shocked if some of their code dates back that long, but only their programming team would really know, or someone with access to the source code. Seems like something easily made up on the Interwebs.

I'm an elephant about this stuff. Codewarrior was used by NI past it's due date back when Apple switched to Intel chips from PPC, so that's what hung them up back then, I'm certain that is has nothing to do with the current situation. On the other hand someone who works for NI posted here that their multiple GUI frameworks were up to 15 years old, so patching it for OS updates has been a thing. That covers the current glacial pace they've had with AS.

[kidslow]

I'm an elephant about this stuff. Codewarrior was used by NI past it's due date back when Apple switched to Intel chips from PPC, so that's what hung them up back then, I'm certain that is has nothing to do with the current situation. On the other hand someone who works for NI posted here that their multiple GUI frameworks were up to 15 years old, so patching it for OS updates has been a thing. That covers the current glacial pace they've had with AS.

I had to look it up. Motorola bought Metrowerks in 1999 and apparently Motorola sold the Metrowerks pieces off in time, and some ended up at Freescale. Basically CodeWarrior as a development framework for Mac was EOLed about 15 years ago. Didn't make the switch from Carbon to Cocoa framework for UI. There is a distinct "carbon-ness" to some of NI's UI, so it's plausible that some of that code remained/remains. It does speak to neglect if not negligence on behalf of management at NI. Product managers hate technical debt, especially when weighing refactoring vs new features, but that attitude is always very short-sighted and clearly is biting them in the ass today. I bet none of those product managers remain with the company and long ago collected their bonuses for all the fancy new features they added.

[spacepluk]

well, that's inevitable if you've been in business for so long.

[kidslow]

Why is it inevitable? It suggests short-sighted management practices. I can't speak to what went on at NI particularly, but I've seen it enough that the incentives are placed on features over future-proofing the codebase, and a future product team ends up digging out of a hole that past management made.