Sad state of Native Instruments

[mi-os]

Never heard or seen of a Generator DSP card either. Maybe he meant the Creamware/Scope platform?

[whyterabbyt]

No way, there ever was a DSP card needed not even offered.

Im unclear if this was actually doing DSP or was just a dedicated audio card, (there are definitely indications of the former though), but NI absolutely shipped hardware with the original version of Generator, the product that became Reaktor.

https://www.native-instruments.com/foru ... board.456/

edit : turned out this was already addressed, and ignored.

[mi-os]

https://www.native-instruments.com/foru ... board.456/

Ok, so there was a dedicated ISA card for Generator 1. Probably very rare since i never heard of it and know all the others available at the time.

[Lind0n]

Arturia should come out with a sampler that will attract 3rd party developers. It feels like they are the only ones that could do it properly.

Another proprietary sampler/player? No thanks!

How about an opensource solution? To me the only real way forward. I don't want to invest in more of the same only to see it abandoned one day too.

There already is an open-source alternative that is attracting 3rd-party developers....HISE

I know, but this is not like Kontakt, right? HISE seems to compile plugins out of samples. This is something i'd never use or buy. I want an opensource sampler plugin (like Kontakt) and then buy patches/samples for it. I also want the feedom to modify samples and patches.

You are right - its not an end user tool - its a developer/library owner tool, attracting a growing number of them, but what would be the business model for the open source product you are proposing - someone builds a free product for you, and the library developer community to use? Where is the incentive to the builder of this open source sampler?

On the other hand (given this free sampler is not available) HISE offers 3rd-party library owners a path away from Kontakt-dependence to the wider market of VST/AU land. Sure, as said here, Kontakt will never really die even if NI as we know it does/has, but the problem for 3rd-party developers is this level of dependence on NI via Kontakt. HISE offers them a way out. Again agreed this is not them offering you "a free sampler" but it is them offering you a VST/AU of their product - how much you can modify the samples is really up to the 3rd-party developer to include in their product.

[whyterabbyt]

but what would be the business model for the open source product you are proposing

why would it need a 'business model?'

Where is the incentive to the builder of this open source sampler?

Open source software isnt built on the basis of 'incentives', its built on the basis of making open source software.
Might as well ask, what's the incentive for all those people making music they dont get paid for.

[mi-os]

... Where is the incentive to the builder of this open source sampler? ...

I already responded to the same question by another member here: viewtopic.php?p=8599375#p8599375

I wrote:

Maybe ask the Hise dev?

I'm not really involved in opensource software, but it seems possible for opensource developers to later offer paid premium services for business users.

But it's probably mostly based on enthusiasm and the will to have a free decentralized solution available. Also independence of c/r copy protection servers which are always at risk to go down and never come back.

[dune_rave]

congratulations to arturia! Ni discontinued Pro53, arturia went the other way, now they have an improved prophet. and the whole synth department is getting better!

[spacepluk]

In practice though, most successful opensource projects are funded by big companies. So the chances that a small team of volunteers without funding will come up with something that can compete with Kontakt are very low imho.

[dangayle]

I mean, there _is_ an open standard for multisamples called SFZ. Many developers have written wrappers around it, and it's natively supported in many DAWs like Logic. The issue isn't that there isn't the technology available, the issue is the user base. If you're wanting to sell a fancy multi sampler instrument, you either roll your own or you use Kontact or UVI or whoever because they already have the user base.

[mi-os]

I mean, there _is_ an open standard for multisamples called SFZ. Many developers have written wrappers around it, and it's natively supported in many DAWs like Logic. The issue isn't that there isn't the technology available, the issue is the user base. If you're wanting to sell a fancy multi sampler instrument, you either roll your own or you use Kontact or UVI or whoever because they already have the user base.

Maybe i'm missing something but the problem with SFZ seems there is no attractive and full fledged sampler around for it. It's sort of a chicken-egg dilemma. I think with a really cool sampler + tools the adaption would be much better and people would start to asking for SFZ versions.

[susquash]

Does anyone know if you can sell your NI software purchases. I am not happy with the two items I purchased from them and hope to sell the playbox and the monark.

[CrystalWizard]

... it was called generator and required a hardware accelerated dsp card .

I don´t know what version this was but I used the early versions of Generator (and how was called the other product??) natively without any additional hardware on my old early Pentium CPU...

Edit just found a quote:

Generator (from Berlin‑based Native Instruments) is a software synth that will run on any Pentium PC (100MHz or better).

No way, there ever was a DSP card needed not even offered. The idea to run a SW-synth natively on a PC without any DSP card was the USP at these times and even manifested in the company's name

That's an illegal use of a comma guess it needs to be said "i am not a notzi i just like decently written comments, they are easier to understand." It's been posted that the card wasn't a DSP card but an audio output card, there is a poster on this page that says they bought one.
I couldn't find the info on this interesting page:
https://blog.native-instruments.com/25-years-reaktor/
but i did on this one (less reliable imo but good enough for this sort of thing):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaktor

[glokraw]

I mean, there _is_ an open standard for multisamples called SFZ. Many developers have written wrappers around it, and it's natively supported in many DAWs like Logic. The issue isn't that there isn't the technology available, the issue is the user base. If you're wanting to sell a fancy multi sampler instrument, you either roll your own or you use Kontact or UVI or whoever because they already have the user base.

Maybe i'm missing something but the problem with SFZ seems there is no attractive and full fledged sampler around for it. It's sort of a chicken-egg dilemma. I think with a really cool sampler + tools the adaption would be much better and people would start to asking for SFZ versions.

Bandlab By Cakewalk presumably are still sitting on the code for Dimension Pro, barring some fine-print ownership legality with Rene'. Dimension Pro supports SFZ, and if it were open-sourced and picked up by a team as good as the Surge XT coders, and made 64bit, could have a nice impact in the sampler market.

[awol9000]

I was thinking Dimension Pro as well. I wish I hadn't sold it back in the day. It was the first piece of software I bought.

[psycho45039]

Also VSL went there own way. The Kontakt factory library had VSL samples included in it at one point in time.

VSL are nobody to look at for clean code though, they're in pretty much exactly the same boat as NI, in fact far behind with maybe one product ported to Apple Silicon. VST3 is still not hosted in the VEP server etc. etc. IMO that fiasco is one of the biggest product misses in the game, had they simply ported the plug in version to Apple Silicon they could have made bank off of new customers using it as a ways to host incompatible plug ins on an old Mac or PC.

I Can't speak on the Apple Silicon support as I don't have one but I just checked and I can load VST3's in VEP 7 on my Mac Pro 5,1 connected to VE in a Live session on my Mac Pro 6,1. I used to exactly what you describe. I used VEP 5 on a Power Mac G5 to run Kore 2, Vokator and Spectral Delay. Unfortunately the hard drive in the G5 crashed about a year ago and I didn't have a BU of it and there was no way to authorize the old software anymore. This is the main reason I've since started buying hardware synths and FX again. A computer upgrade or OS update doesn't break hardware.