Sad state of Native Instruments

[DrGonzo]

Here are some quotes by the Reaktor team from the 6.5 annoucement:

"NI is not in a position to invest major resources in this product, which has not been news for some time."

"Our team is aware that the lack of more features will lead to frustration. But at this stage, we as a team will not be able to change this situation."

NI seem to sink further and further down into their own hard navigated bureaucratic bog. I would guess they have more "project managers" now than actual coders and developers. Their interest in releasing preset packs and sample libraries for Maschine seem also to have quieten down as of late.

It makes me happy though. Not that NI are in the state they are - that is a constant heartache for me - but it leaves the field wide open for new hungry developers.

/C

[ghettosynth]

Curious about the relationship of 'blocks' as a source of new capability for Reaktor users.
Can coders outside of NI get a blocks sdk, without paying a fortune, and create new blocks
for sale to, or for sharing with, the public?

Toybox Modular offer excellent 3rd party blocks, so it's possible.

But they're the only commercial developer I know. So Reaktor/Blocks hasn't exactly caught on with 3rd party devs, which might another reason for NI not to prioritize it. In comparison, NI must make a lot of money from 3rd party Kontakt licensing.

They make it hard. You have to be committed and I believe that there's an upfront licensing fee that isn't just pocket money. I only went so far as to enquire about the costs and process. It starts with you signing an NDA. I feel like I talked to them, but maybe not. I didn't respond to that email.

My gut sense was that the encoding and setup was non-trivial and/or perhaps their automation was in the stone-age. I could be completely wrong on that, but they want money from the dev for the privilege of releasing on their platform. It strikes me that if they were to setup an Apple-Store style shop that allowed cheap/free signup for devs with minimal outlay, ala, Cherry Audio, that the community of Reaktor devs might want to participate. Allow me to lock the ensemble and make 70 cents on the dollar and I'd release interesting weird things that ten or a hundred people might buy for $5.

Maybe one of the members that's close to NI can elaborate on why this doesn't make sense for them?

[martiu]

The only thing keeping Reaktor alive is that they have ensembles to sell for it that are popular and easy to use (like Razor for example), if Reaktor was just modular synth (like having just Blocks and thats it) they will send it to the drain just like they did with Absynth

[donkey tugger]

well that's bullshit. im only awake for a maximum of 14 hours a day.

more to the point, if im the one with no life, why are you so miserable?
look deep within yourself, you may find true happiness.

Are you sure you're ok after being mauled by the random arsewit poundshop Bones? Like being savaged by a dead sheep. Must be terrible.

[noiseboyuk]

The only thing keeping Reaktor alive is that they have ensembles to sell for it that are popular and easy to use (like Razor for example), if Reaktor was just modular synth (like having just Blocks and thats it) they will send it to the drain just like they did with Absynth

Indeed. But that being the case, I'm still puzzled why NI doesn't just slap it's poor but better-than-nothing browser into it. For 99% of users, Reaktor is just a host for ensembles. I'm sure more people use Kontakt for actual sampling than use Reaktor for building their own ensembles. Yet it lacks a browser. If NI is going to keep the thing alive - because it hosts a ton of its products - it may as well graft on a semi-functioning browser and let us use them more sensibly.

Obviously its too much to hope that they might actually make their browser properly functional like the one in Massive they had 20 years ago, but there we are.

[NeverKnewTheName]

it's sad to see that NI is taking amazing and motivated 3rd party devs down with them. must suck to put in so much effort and time to learn a platform like reaktor and then see the platform being neglected and drift into oblivion.

[vurt]

well that's bullshit. im only awake for a maximum of 14 hours a day.

more to the point, if im the one with no life, why are you so miserable?
look deep within yourself, you may find true happiness.

Are you sure you're ok after being mauled by the random arsewit poundshop Bones? Like being savaged by a dead sheep. Must be terrible.

at my age, im flattered by any attention
bit whiny for my tastes, but take it where i can get it.

[Greybox Audio]

Curious about the relationship of 'blocks' as a source of new capability for Reaktor users.
Can coders outside of NI get a blocks sdk, without paying a fortune, and create new blocks
for sale to, or for sharing with, the public?

I don't know if there's a special SDK, but you can simply use the full version of Reaktor to create new Blocks. I would have actually been very interested in licensing my Blocks for the free Reaktor Player, but the up front licensing costs are insane. A completely free product would set you back 3.500€. And even if you decided to make it commercial and sell it at the lowest possible price of $19, the up front costs would be around 1.200€.
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/s ... licensing/
I'd rather take that money to buy a JUCE license and sell my stuff on Patreon or Gumroad lol

The best way would have been imo to allow player users unlimited access to all rack-compatible blocks from the user library. This might have kept Reaktor & the Blocks ecosystem relevant. But apparently the middle management had different ideas.

[gentleclockdivider]

Vst3 and arm support was needed for reaktor to get future updates and improvements .

Here are some quotes by the Reaktor team from the 6.5 annoucement:

"NI is not in a position to invest major resources in this product, which has not been news for some time."

"Our team is aware that the lack of more features will lead to frustration. But at this stage, we as a team will not be able to change this situation."

https://community.native-instruments.co ... ment_48110

Again, I wouldn't hold my breath up.

Reaktor needs a major overhaul and it's obvious NI is not very interested in that. Maybe they don't have the cash or maybe most NI users are not using Reaktor enough to justify the investment.

God only knows what they did with the 50M Euros they got from Francisco partners a couple of years ago.

Am I verry well aware of that , been on the reaktor forum for +10 years
Sure , VST3 and ARM is underwhelming to call it an update but IT WAS NEEDED for reaktor to get additional features .
Whether they will happen in a long distant future or not doesn't matter .
I think everyone know that Reaktor is severely neglected by the ' whoever calls the cards ' but I am just happy it's kept alive .

[gentleclockdivider]

Curious about the relationship of 'blocks' as a source of new capability for Reaktor users.
Can coders outside of NI get a blocks sdk, without paying a fortune, and create new blocks
for sale to, or for sharing with, the public?

There is NO blocks sdk , blocks are done with reaktor core ( if you adhere the block standard which you should if you want max.audio and mod.resolution) .
ONce you've created your block you can ask N.I. to lock certain core macro's ( which will cost you some)

[ghettosynth]

Curious about the relationship of 'blocks' as a source of new capability for Reaktor users.
Can coders outside of NI get a blocks sdk, without paying a fortune, and create new blocks
for sale to, or for sharing with, the public?

I don't know if there's a special SDK, but you can simply use the full version of Reaktor to create new Blocks. I would have actually been very interested in licensing my Blocks for the free Reaktor Player, but the up front licensing costs are insane. A completely free product would set you back 3.500€. And even if you decided to make it commercial and sell it at the lowest possible price of $19, the up front costs would be around 1.200€.
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/s ... licensing/
I'd rather take that money to buy a JUCE license and sell my stuff on Patreon or Gumroad lol

The best way would have been imo to allow player users unlimited access to all rack-compatible blocks from the user library. This might have kept Reaktor & the Blocks ecosystem relevant. But apparently the middle management had different ideas.

Ah, they have put it all on a web page. That's in line with what I remember the costs being. I must have either had a conversation with them or got similar estimates from someone else. That web site didn't exist when I asked. At any rate, I am in agreement. I can at least see their point from some perspective, that is, you should make sure your product is really worth something to the end user. They are probably trying to avoid having to deal with support for weak ensembles. There are certainly more than a few in the library.

My sense of this is that the reason they don't want to make this cheaper is that it is profitable to sell pickaxes to miners. I suspect, given all the junk that shows up on the various audiodeals sites is that they are making a good chunk of change from license fees and up-front license sales to gamblers who may or may not have a tough time selling all of those (mostly Kontakt player) licenses. From my POV, this doesn't always generate interesting content, just glossy content.

I'm not going to give them a few thousand dollars to sell something for $19 that might take years to sell through 100 licenses just for the opportunity to make a few hundred dollars. Ok, fine, maybe that's what they want, but the world isn't standing still along the way. I don't see people making new blocks at anywhere near the rate that VCV and Cherry Audio devs are creating new modules. I could be wrong, but that's my perception.

[spacepluk]

Luckily since there are some many people that know how to run a company better than NI, they’ll all start making amazing things with perfect execution and everything will be fine

[martiu]

You tiny thing.

[ghettosynth]

I think everyone know that Reaktor is severely neglected by the ' whoever calls the cards ' but I am just happy it's kept alive .

Yeah, at least the AS update means that it won't die any time soon. I do get the sense that they thought Blocks was going to take a bigger chunk of the "modularz" mindshare.

[gentleclockdivider]

I do get the sense that they thought Blocks was going to take a bigger chunk of the "modularz" mindshare.

Yep , but then along came VCV with a vastly superior user interface .
Reaktor achilles heel is the outdated gui system and the limited primary gui elements .
Last update for the poly-multidisplay was antialised lines .