Native Instruments Pro-53 is back as an open-source project (Cmajor port)

[Caine123]

this is what NI doesn, take down software you cannot legally authorize anymore, they rip you off, you paid for a product and then they just steal it from you . hilarious.
imagine you buy a car and the company just comes to you and steals your key lol.

all those f*cking excuses about ni. they should give out offline installers/watermarked installers or whatever so you can still install and activate your f*cking legally bought software. no one expects them to support these old vsts but to let you activate.

people just move on and forget, this is the sad status. but yeah online is so great, cloud is so practical, yeah.

[Chris-S]

How does us non coding normal musos get this working as a vst?

This was described already some posts above:
You download and install the (Windows64) binaries. Copy the DLL to your VST folder.
Start your DAW and drop a .cmajorpatch file into the plugin-window.

[Chris-S]

Some more (small) issues:

* The GUI shows (BPF) on the filter mode button, but it's a high pass, not band pass.
* Pitch bend range is fixed to 2 semitones? Original hardware did a fifth (7 semi) concerning the user manual

[seafire]

How does this compare with U-he Repro? I can't imagine it being better than what I've already got.

It isn't. No idea why anyone would want it when there are much better options.

[chk071]

The filter sounds pretty decent for my specific taste. It sounds more 3D than many newer softsynths with "good" and supposedly "accurate" filters. It kinda sounds like a really good version of "bad" but quirky old VA synth, before filters all started sounding similar.

Although the filter resonance can get real loud.

Typical thing with older digital filters: The resonance "explodes" at some point.

How does this compare with U-he Repro? I can't imagine it being better than what I've already got.

Try it in the browser. Bit fiddly with these small controls though, and, I have no idea how to fine tune the parameters.

[chk071]

How does this compare with U-he Repro? I can't imagine it being better than what I've already got.

It isn't. No idea why anyone would want it when there are much better options.

I guess it's more of a showcase for the programming language and what's possible in a web app.

[cesare]

Some more (small) issues:

* The GUI shows (BPF) on the filter mode button, but it's a high pass, not band pass.
* Pitch bend range is fixed to 2 semitones? Original hardware did a fifth (7 semi) concerning the user manual

I've pushed an update for that with a new panel gui, should be available in an hour or so when CI completes.

As for the pitch bend range, Pro54.cmajor line 1281 sets the bend range. Change it to:

state.pitchBend = 14.0f * (value - 0.5f); // -7 to 7

I've not seen reference to the bend range in the pdf of the manual i've got. I do have a copy of Pro52 from back in the day, so I'll fire that up and see how it responds and make sure they match (presuming the Pro53 didn't change this)

[ZonderP]

How does us non coding normal musos get this working as a vst?

This was described already some posts above:
You download and install the (Windows64) binaries. Copy the DLL to your VST folder.
Start your DAW and drop a .cmajorpatch file into the plugin-window.

When I download and install the newest binaries, then I get besides example patches exactly one executable (cmaj.exe - command line exe) and one .dll file (CmajPerformer.dll) installed.
If this CmajPerformer.dll should be the VST plugin, then that doesn't work for me neither in SaviHost nor EXT64.
Is CmajPerformer.dll the CMajor Plugin you are referring to?

[Chris-S]

EDIT: deleted on request (too confusing).

[Chris-S]

As for the pitch bend range, Pro54.cmajor line 1281 sets the bend range. Change it to:
state.pitchBend = 14.0f * (value - 0.5f); // -7 to 7

Thanks, it works.
I also patched the background to show the HPF label:

background.zip

[EvilDragon]

Some more (small) issues:

* The GUI shows (BPF) on the filter mode button, but it's a high pass, not band pass.

I fixed that and made a pull request.

[EvilDragon]

Vokator next???

Nope.

[vulpes777]

Vokator next???

Nope.

How about Spektral Delay?

--
Marco

[audiojunkie]

this is what NI doesn, take down software you cannot legally authorize anymore, they rip you off, you paid for a product and then they just steal it from you . hilarious.
imagine you buy a car and the company just comes to you and steals your key lol.

all those f*cking excuses about ni. they should give out offline installers/watermarked installers or whatever so you can still install and activate your f*cking legally bought software. no one expects them to support these old vsts but to let you activate.

people just move on and forget, this is the sad status. but yeah online is so great, cloud is so practical, yeah.

Getting mad won't change anything. The best you can do is keep long term usage in mind when choosing what to buy in the future. I know that there are a lot of people that say that these experiences (of not being able to authorize apps/plugins) don't happen anymore--or are so infrequent that it doesn't really count. Well, it matters to some, even if others disagree. I have always recommended people never buy an application that uses challenge response. The only copy protection that really lasts is a serial (or keyfile) that doesn't tie itself to anything (ex. hardware), and doesn't call home (to the company) for any reason. A customer should be able to pull out a USB storage drive with the program and the serial archived (stored) on it. They should be able to get things running, even if the company has ceased to exist. There are several great examples of companies that do this. U-he and TAL-Software come to mind as two of my favorites. Anything other than this punishes the honest customer that actually pays, more than the dishonest pirates. Vote with your wallet--buy form those that support you.

That said, one needs to be aware that even with that, there is no long term guarantee. For example, I moved to using a laptop with a 14 inch 4k (high resolution) screen. Although I still have 20+ years of music software still sitting around, I only enjoy using plugins that support scaling up by 200%, since I run my system scaled like HiDPI. Except for the extreme cases, I don't use much of my old software anymore.

So chalk this problem up to being a valuable learning experience, and only buy with long term usage in mind--including not buying any aps that don't scale up for higher resolutions, proper copy protection, buy samplers that support unencrypted or open formats, etc.

Even with all of that said, if I wanted to, I could use WINE on my Linux machine and an external monitor that is running at a lower resolution and be able to make use of all of my Windows apps. I keep thinking about doing it, but so far I've been doing fine with native-only apps. Who knows what the future will bring?

[audiojunkie]

The filter sounds pretty decent for my specific taste. It sounds more 3D than many newer softsynths with "good" and supposedly "accurate" filters. It kinda sounds like a really good version of "bad" but quirky old VA synth, before filters all started sounding similar.

Although the filter resonance can get real loud.

Typical thing with older digital filters: The resonance "explodes" at some point.

How does this compare with U-he Repro? I can't imagine it being better than what I've already got.

Try it in the browser. Bit fiddly with these small controls though, and, I have no idea how to fine tune the parameters.

I don't think I'll bother, to be honest. I hate small fiddly controls, and Repro has a long-time reputation of being the best sounding Prophet 5 clone out there. It's got great controls and is very usable. It supports Linux natively too. I don't suspect I'll be more impressed with it than Repro. But I do like to keep an eye out for anything that might be better than what I currently use.

Best!