Sad state of Native Instruments

[swilow11]

OS related hassles aside, I actually find Native Access to work flawlessly and the ease of use is one reason I like to buy through NI over other developers. Never had a problem.

OTOH, Replika is one of the few plugins that often crash Cubase. Replika XT is fine and better so I just use that.

[machinesworking]

Get on over to Windows 10 and the most recent Native Access (3.8.0 released today) and I can almost guarantee smooth sailing.

VP

Of course I realize "working" is not the same as "supported", but in practise every other plugin, program, downloader or installer I use works fine for me (I have a lot of software installed). Only the latest Native Access fails to install and run. I don't really want the hassle of installing a new OS just to run 4 or 5 NI plugins ...

I think even for Windows at some point older OS’s become as much of a hassle as jumping on a new OS within the first few months. IMO if you’re more than a year or two behind, then at some point this sort of thing will bite you. NI I guess are equally bad at keeping older OSs going as they are at keeping up with new OSs. Makes sense considering their deprecation record.

Windows ten is what three or four years old now right? [edit] lol Windows ten is 8 years old, no wonder some things don’t work, but people run Mojave??

[BBFG#]

I actually read they admitted Access had a problem and it effected enough people that they decided they'd better fix it. If only it didn't take a secret threshold of complaints to get them to do that.
BTW, the article explaining this also said that last version of Access had to be completely removed before installing the corrected version. I did that and it is the first version that worked without issue in the last two years. Probably a little too late to regain my trust, but I do have to acknowledge they did something (finally).

At least on Win 10
I haven't checked yet if it will work on Win 7. Edit/update: still won't install on Win 7.

[Double Tap]

The “MacOS updates break everything” is overhyped I think. Everything I have seems to work fine o Sonoma, even some pretty old stuff.

Well - I have been trying my darnest to help some folks on the NI forums latety - and almost all of them made the mistake of moving to Sonoma too fast and chaos ensued.

Some however - seem to be immune to this - which is even more odd. You think that Apple controls the hardware AND the OS - that alone would put everyone who uses a Mac on a even footing and everyone would either be good - or not good.

Guess it comes down to exactly what software you are using.

VP

Yeah it’s also possible that I just haven’t noticed some of the smaller bugs in stuff I never use and there’s plenty in Komplete Kontrol that I don’t.

[Vocalpoint Studios]

I don't really want the hassle of installing a new OS just to run 4 or 5 NI plugins ...

Then you really do not want any chance of running those plugins and should probably stop complaining and move on.

Or - is there some "expectation" that the rules do not apply to you and NI should drop what they are doing (while leaving us "supported" users hanging) while they get cracking on making your retired OS work with Native Access 3.8.0?

Just want to make sure I am clear on this.

VP

[Teksonik]

"Intrusive" is relative and subjective,

I define intrusive as installing running processes or items that want to run at startup:

Your web browser is intrusive then. It installs a background task to look for and install updates. Which even (how intrusive) writes itself into the task scheduler.

That's irrelevant to the point but also why I haven't installed any third party browsers or AV on my studio system.

Not all plugin or DAW developers feel the need to spew crap all over our systems just to make things easier for them (looking at you Melda). Some developers actually do respect the security, efficiency, and stability of our studio systems.

Again N.I. is certainly not the worst culprit but developers have to understand that they don't operate in isolation. If every developer takes it upon themselves to install anything they wish then eventually that accumulated bloat will have some impact on performance and stability.

Native Access, the running processes and start up item, IK's Product Manager, Authorizer, and Custom Shop, Waves Central and the Waves network thing that wants to load at startup, Arturia's ASC, UAD Connect, and so on and on and on. Don't even get me started on iLok and CodeMeter.

It has become a cause célèbre and a pet peeve for me that developers seem to think that buying a plugin from them automatically gives them permission to do anything they wish with our most important computers.

[chk071]

"Intrusive" is relative and subjective,

I define intrusive as installing running processes or items that want to run at startup:

Your web browser is intrusive then. It installs a background task to look for and install updates. Which even (how intrusive) writes itself into the task scheduler.

That's irrelevant to the point but also why I haven't installed any third party browsers or AV on my studio system.

Not that Windows built in browser or AV do anything else.

I don't want to bash on your point, and, what you do is your business, but, I just want to say that what you say is "intrusive" is in fact something that a lot of software does. Yes, also the built in ones (or, rather, especially those).

[Orourkekings]

I was under the impression that I wasn't installing Native Instruments the correct way after about 6 attempts over the last year. The last three times I tried to install Komplete Kontrol, a lot of the 3rd party plugins that are NKS ready wouldn't load. On one attempt they loaded but the thumbnails and controls of the plugins wouldn't appear. The last time I tried it, Native Access kept attempting to reinstall itself. The "at startup" of your pc features is something I don't like from any developer.

I went and attempted a deep dive into my macbook to delete ANY reference to Native Instruments. Anytime I see a third party developer saying " Kontakt Player required", its a immediate pass and I move on. I wanted one of them S series keyboards but Novation does the same thing with their light guide and they have a nice screen enough screen to see some of your DAW track parameter adjustments.

[Orourkekings]

So when someone says they’re done with NI, I don’t doubt they might consider what they own from them, not worth the trouble.

Of course, it's his decision. But, that's what support is there for.

Seems a bit early to bury your head in the sand.

I'm so glad I don't have any of their hardware. Making a clean break like I did was seamless for that reason,lmao. I had no children with them, lmao

[PAK]

Regarding the Mac, anyone proclaiming equivalence between AU and VST is talking nonsense. Historically AU causes far more problems, and I have VST’s from 2006(ish? ) (including FM7 and the Powercore DSP plugins) as proof, since they continued to function on Mac OS (with the help of 32-Lives) right up until they dropped 32-bit support in Catalina in 2019.

Re - Sonoma. There’s good reasons for anyone, using Apple Silicon, not to hold off on updating. It features improvements to the CPU core management (IE So an app knows when to use Efficiency cores or Performance). Though it will still depend on your DAW on how well it uses these (Logic presently sticks to performance cores regardless of what you set, where Cubase and Reaper use both P and E core types and are generally higher performing as a result). But Sonoma should mean, overall, there are less issues relating to audio apps and crackles etc. It should also be noted it also means some of these issues were down to Apple and NOT the devs.

Regarding NI - On a clean Sonoma install, their Native Access installer failed to add correct user permissions for the account installing, which showed as a directory error in Native Access. Provided a user knows how to add account permissions, to a directory, it’s an easy fix. But basic errors like these still suggests NI’s QC / Testing, on the Mac side of things, is “poor”.

Also, if you’re going to force these ugly installers on people, which then require constantly running start-up apps just to function, then at least provide a basic uninstaller. Right now NI’s “solution” is to link to an article which contains a list of the files for you, to manually delete yourself, if you want to uninstall anything from Native Access on Mac.

[Vocalpoint Studios]

Regarding NI - On a clean Sonoma install, their Native Access installer failed to add correct user permissions for the account installing, which showed as a directory error in Native Access.

Only Native Access v 3.8.0 (released less than 24 hrs ago) - has actually been certified for Sonoma.

Any other version is not (and was never) supported - so chaos is very likely.

VP

[PAK]

Only Native Access v 3.8.0 (released less than 24 hrs ago) - has actually been certified for Sonoma. Any other version is not (and was never) supported - so chaos is very likely.

Fair enough, though nothing like that is mentioned in the change log (unless it's been put under "added Sonoma support"). Won't be much chaos here though, since about the only NI product I'm using, at this point, is Kontakt.

[mabian]

... and for who says that Apple seldom breaks things...



Firewire is being disabled on newer Apple OSes, say goodbye to your perfectly working Firewire Audio card.
Unbelievable.

- Mario

[Vocalpoint Studios]

Fair enough, though nothing like that is mentioned in the change log (unless it's been put under "added Sonoma support").

Never trust NI to update any sort of notes correctly or logically.

I mean this app is officially known as "Native Access 2" but has a current version of = v3.8.0

These guys could mess up a cup of coffee.

VP

[BBFG#]

I don't really want the hassle of installing a new OS just to run 4 or 5 NI plugins ...

Then you really do not want any chance of running those plugins and should probably stop complaining and move on.

Or - is there some "expectation" that the rules do not apply to you and NI should drop what they are doing (while leaving us "supported" users hanging) while they get cracking on making your retired OS work with Native Access 3.8.0?

Just want to make sure I am clear on this.

VP

There is a difference between "no longer supporting" an older OS and creating a rampart to kill it though. And that's what the latest version of Access has done to me.

Because I have NFR sample libraries, I will continue to use the free Kontakt Player that those can run on and only on the one computer. Which isn't my studio computer. Other libraries are a loss. But the full Kontakt has had trouble with those since the update to K6 anyway. So I've already gotten use to their pernicious nature and avoid any future involvement