Sad state of Native Instruments

[dayjob]

From that road map or sales pitch or whatever I wonder if they're planning to add Reaktor features to Kontakt. Maybe port the Core layer for DSP. I can't say that this wouldn't make me interested in Kontakt again.

maybe they'll add synthesis functions like UVI Falcon.. take chunks of reaktor and turn them in to drag and drop macro level stuff for kontakt.

porting the core layer of Reaktor to Kontakt seems unlikely based on what NI are up to these days. Making a product more complex and deeper to appeal to a handful of people seems a long shot.. unless they are banking on some reaktor user library type development for kontakt synths. seems a much bigger project than updating reaktor and adding features.

they seem more interested in big libraries for plug and play type use without "bogging down" the masses with complexity.

it would probably be easier to add extensive sampling library support to reaktor.. lols.. maybe not. anyway.. speculation.. everything is silly. what will they do? who knows. i think they will do less instead of more.

[noiseboyuk]

One reason why NI might go for something like that is not so much for their own products, but they're VERY big into supporting the NKS standard these days from third parties. If Kontakt X had tools for complex synthesis baked into it, NI might be hoping for an explosion of new high quality Kontakt synths to add to the ecosystem.

On other small thing - I can't remember when it happened, but it's now possible to load Kontakt instruments with no sidebar, no navigator, not headers, nothing - just the instrument itself. You can forget it's Kontakt at all. And devs can now have much bigger UIs. All that would be good for synths and drum machines.

[LFO8]

On other small thing - I can't remember when it happened, but it's now possible to load Kontakt instruments with no sidebar, no navigator, not headers, nothing - just the instrument itself. You can forget it's Kontakt at all. And devs can now have much bigger UIs. All that would be good for synths and drum machines.

Can you post a screenshot?

[Bombadil]

My Komplete Kontrol mk2 61 has me wanting to throw it out the window.
Tried to set up 2 recommended expression pedals, neither worked. Now the mod/pitch wheels don't work. Mod wheel = on/off. Pitch wheel, nada. There's no way to reset any of it that I've found. Have I mentioned I'm pissed off?

[noiseboyuk]

On other small thing - I can't remember when it happened, but it's now possible to load Kontakt instruments with no sidebar, no navigator, not headers, nothing - just the instrument itself. You can forget it's Kontakt at all. And devs can now have much bigger UIs. All that would be good for synths and drum machines.

Can you post a screenshot?

I forgot you do keep the top menu (I guess you could never change anything otherwise), but everything else is gone.



EDIT - of course if there is a Kontakt X it won't look like this. But it's interesting they are moving in that stripped-down direction.

[Scoops]

I remember when many of the top execs from Motorola took jobs at Moto's competition.
Many other companies, like Google, came in, chewed em up, and spit em out.
Moto is just a shell of what it used to be.

Sound familiar?

[Ficciones]

porting the core layer of Reaktor to Kontakt seems unlikely based on what NI are up to these days. Making a product more complex and deeper to appeal to a handful of people seems a long shot.. unless they are banking on some reaktor user library type development for kontakt synths. seems a much bigger project than updating reaktor and adding features.

Core is the best part of Reaktor that isn't already covered by programming facilities in Kontakt, which is itself a behemoth of complexity for instrument developers. But in neither case does the end user have to wade into that complexity. The developers do so, at their choosing.

And Core in Kontakt would begin with a huge head start, as there's already a large library of filters, oscillators, effects, envelopes, resonators etc. created by NI in Core. If developers want to work on that level, great, and if not, also great, they can use the factory library.

Core plus KSP plus Kontakt's built in sampling would be a hell of a playground for instrument developers.

[ericj23]

porting the core layer of Reaktor to Kontakt seems unlikely based on what NI are up to these days. Making a product more complex and deeper to appeal to a handful of people seems a long shot.. unless they are banking on some reaktor user library type development for kontakt synths. seems a much bigger project than updating reaktor and adding features.

Core is the best part of Reaktor that isn't already covered by programming facilities in Kontakt, which is itself a behemoth of complexity for instrument developers. But in neither case does the end user have to wade into that complexity. The developers do so, at their choosing.

And Core in Kontakt would begin with a huge head start, as there's already a large library of filters, oscillators, effects, envelopes, resonators etc. created by NI in Core. If developers want to work on that level, great, and if not, also great, they can use the factory library.

Core plus KSP plus Kontakt's built in sampling would be a hell of a playground for instrument developers.

Core in Guitar rig would also be pretty awesome!

[IvyBirds]

Core is the best part of Reaktor that isn't already covered by programming facilities in Kontakt, which is itself a behemoth of complexity for instrument developers. But in neither case does the end user have to wade into that complexity. The developers do so, at their choosing.

I don't think that many if any developers will spend any significant resources at this point in 2024 and onward to be stuck in a NI ecosystem

As is evidenced in this thread and many like it elsewhere on the web, many users are finding NI to be a shell of what it used to be and for many users NI has burned to many bridges and we have moved on

I own Komplete and several libraries/instruments for Kontact but I haven't spent a dime on anything NI related for several years now, and don't see that changing any time soon.

The title of this thread about the sad state of NI says it all

[dayjob]

porting the core layer of Reaktor to Kontakt seems unlikely based on what NI are up to these days. Making a product more complex and deeper to appeal to a handful of people seems a long shot.. unless they are banking on some reaktor user library type development for kontakt synths. seems a much bigger project than updating reaktor and adding features.

Core is the best part of Reaktor that isn't already covered by programming facilities in Kontakt, which is itself a behemoth of complexity for instrument developers. But in neither case does the end user have to wade into that complexity. The developers do so, at their choosing.

And Core in Kontakt would begin with a huge head start, as there's already a large library of filters, oscillators, effects, envelopes, resonators etc. created by NI in Core. If developers want to work on that level, great, and if not, also great, they can use the factory library.

Core plus KSP plus Kontakt's built in sampling would be a hell of a playground for instrument developers.

I agree it would be cool and useful but I don’t see NI doing it. Why would they? They don’t want to spend money on teams of people to do things.

[noiseboyuk]

I agree it would be cool and useful but I don’t see NI doing it. Why would they? They don’t want to spend money on teams of people to do things.

Well that would be the very reason to do it. They would rationalise everything into a single engine.

I've no idea on the feasibility of moving Core to a different host.

[Ficciones]

I agree it would be cool and useful but I don’t see NI doing it. Why would they? They don’t want to spend money on teams of people to do things.

I foresee them still investing *some* dev time in their kash kow, Kontakt, and since they have an existing capital investment in Core, plus the dev who created it... well, depends on how much work it takes to integrate. Also depends on how hard they're getting squeezed by private equity.

[Ficciones]

I've no idea on the feasibility of moving Core to a different host.

It did run on its own as Sync Modular back in the day, so there's precedent for jumping hosts.

edit: well damn, it still does run on its own!

https://www.sync-modular.org/

[noiseboyuk]

I foresee them still investing *some* dev time in their kash kow, Kontakt, and since they have an existing capital investment in Core, plus the dev who created it... well, depends on how much work it takes to integrate.

I didn't know that developer was still around, that does make it more plausible. Maybe it's still told old and large to convert wholesale, but that is interesting Ficciones.

In general, the more I think about Kontakt X, the more sense it makes for NI. They get to jettison all that creaky code once and for all, and rationalise their two main platforms into one. IMO Kontakt 7 and Reaktor 6.5 will be the end of the line for the old model, and Kontakt X will be the shiny new start for everything going forward.

[machinesworking]

So today for absolutely no reason I open a song I was working on just an hour ago and Kontakt 7 is unauthorized, Native Access thinks about 20% of k13 Ultimate and the upgrade to k14 Standard are now "demos". Waited on their website chat system for a human for about an hour, then they bumped it to email.

This is probably my final straw. Time to start weening myself off NI software. It's obvious that Native Access is responsible, and it's not reliable.