Good Bye Reaktor, good bye NI synths

[CinningBao]

It's a set of questions asked by an NI journo, it's biased and deliberately evasive.
It means nothing (regardless of his warming statements earlier in the interview), it's just hand-waving.

[Kypresso]

Nick Williams is a life-long musician, and a passionate fan of Native Instruments for 25 years. Today, as our CEO, he is looking to the future with a simple belief: creators deserve the best. In this conversation, Nick shares how his personal journey shapes his leadership, what he has already learned from listening to the community, and his plans for the next chapter of NI.

He maybe a musician who cares deeply about Reaktor and N.I but his bosses are vulture capitalists who have employed him to maximise the income from N.I's decomposing corpse for as long as possible before they sell on the remains to another group of vultures.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Nick Williams is a life-long musician, and a passionate fan of Native Instruments for 25 years. Today, as our CEO, he is looking to the future with a simple belief: creators deserve the best. In this conversation, Nick shares how his personal journey shapes his leadership, what he has already learned from listening to the community, and his plans for the next chapter of NI.

I’ve been a keyboard player since I was 7, and played in bands for many years. At university, I lived across the street from Thom Yorke and have followed his creative journey. When Radiohead’s Kid A came out, I was fascinated by the sounds on that record – and discovered that Reaktor was a key part of the sonic palette. That was my introduction to Native Instruments back in 2000.

Reaktor will always have a special place with me – it’s where the journey began for NI in many ways, as well as for me. It represents our roots in deep synthesis and experimental sound design.

That said, the most fun I’ve had recently is using the Master Assistant in Ozone. I use it on all of the music I produce, and it still amazes me – the way it lifts and unveils a track in an instant is magical.

I’m a piano player at heart. When I joined the team and came to the Berlin office, the first thing I did was sit down with the S88 MK3 and play Alicia’s Keys. I’ll never forget it, that was one of those moments where everything just feels right.

https://blog.native-instruments.com/meet-nick-williams

So "Reaktor was cool in it's day, but the future of NI is Izotope mastering plugins and sampled instruments like Alicia's Keys!"

Does that sum it up?

[martiu]

Nick Williams is a life-long musician, and a passionate fan of Native Instruments for 25 years. Today, as our CEO, he is looking to the future with a simple belief: creators deserve the best. In this conversation, Nick shares how his personal journey shapes his leadership, what he has already learned from listening to the community, and his plans for the next chapter of NI.

I’ve been a keyboard player since I was 7, and played in bands for many years. At university, I lived across the street from Thom Yorke and have followed his creative journey. When Radiohead’s Kid A came out, I was fascinated by the sounds on that record – and discovered that Reaktor was a key part of the sonic palette. That was my introduction to Native Instruments back in 2000.

Reaktor will always have a special place with me – it’s where the journey began for NI in many ways, as well as for me. It represents our roots in deep synthesis and experimental sound design.

That said, the most fun I’ve had recently is using the Master Assistant in Ozone. I use it on all of the music I produce, and it still amazes me – the way it lifts and unveils a track in an instant is magical.

I’m a piano player at heart. When I joined the team and came to the Berlin office, the first thing I did was sit down with the S88 MK3 and play Alicia’s Keys. I’ll never forget it, that was one of those moments where everything just feels right.

https://blog.native-instruments.com/meet-nick-williams

So "Reaktor was cool in it's day, but the future of NI is Izotope mastering plugins and sampled instruments like Alicia's Keys!"

Does that sum it up?

seems about right

[El°HYM]

.............................................................................


Now, we can only hope for u-he.

[dune_rave]

Today Gforce, Korg, u-he, Arturia, etc just to name a few, have better synth bundle than NI.
Reaktor was good in the past, but nowadays you can use modular pluginz like VCV Rack or Cardinal that have better gui/user experience. Also a new generation of monster synths (Avenger2, Nexus5, Falcon3, Halion7, Omnisphere2. Phase Plant, Current v2, Pigments6, Serum2, etc +maybe this year Zebra3) seem to be better choice than anything from NI.

[El°HYM]

Today Gforce, Korg, u-he, Arturia, etc just to name a few, have better synth bundle than NI.
Reaktor was good in the past, but nowadays you can use modular pluginz like VCV Rack or Cardinal that have better gui/user experience. Also a new generation of monster synths (Avenger2, Nexus5, Falcon3, Halion7, Omnisphere2. Phase Plant, Current v2, Pigments6, Serum2, etc +maybe this year Zebra3) seem to be better choice than anything from NI.

Blasphemous.

[omac]

I'm waiting for 2025 Summer of Sound to upgrade from Komplete 15 Select to the Standard version for Reaktor primarily. I would buy Reaktor by itself, but I might be able to get the upgrade to Standard for the same price. It may not be the most modern development system, but there's enough good Reaktor synth material that I can mess around with for my own purposes that I still see a lot of value in it.

[dune_rave]

Today Gforce, Korg, u-he, Arturia, etc just to name a few, have better synth bundle than NI.
Reaktor was good in the past, but nowadays you can use modular pluginz like VCV Rack or Cardinal that have better gui/user experience. Also a new generation of monster synths (Avenger2, Nexus5, Falcon3, Halion7, Omnisphere2. Phase Plant, Current v2, Pigments6, Serum2, etc +maybe this year Zebra3) seem to be better choice than anything from NI.

Blasphemous.

Forgot to mention VITAL
Vital alone beats the entire NI synth lineup!

[glokraw]

I'm waiting for 2025 Summer of Sound to upgrade from Komplete 15 Select to the Standard version for Reaktor primarily. I would buy Reaktor by itself, but I might be able to get the upgrade to Standard for the same price. It may not be the most modern development system, but there's enough good Reaktor synth material that I can mess around with for my own purposes that I still see a lot of value in it.

There are still active ensemble creators, I downloaded four masterpieces today, will try them this evening. The Reaktor future, from an instrument and effect users standpoint, is still in the hands of those exploring and creating with the current system. Hopefully the core system will be improved, and also include some new commercial ensembles, but the CEO has a metric tonne of past failures to overcome with actual products that bare no fluff. Time will tell. Dweebs will sell.

[Tj Shredder]

Reaktor was good in the past, but nowadays you can use modular pluginz like VCV Rack or Cardinal that have better gui/user experience.

You must be joking…
I guess you never got into it ever…

[Rastkovic]

That's the problem, some people never dig into Reaktor, but they leave their comment here anyway. Of course, NI is abandoning Reaktor, but that doesn't change anything. It's still powerful, a joy to use, with a few mouse clicks you can customize the GUI, or value ranges. I can't think of any other modular software synth that allows this.

Compared to Reaktor, VCV Rack feels like the 1990s. Emulating and using the disadvantages of hardware in software, is funny to a certain point, but not if you just want to realize your sound and musical ideas. Sure, there are some few notable exceptions in the VCV library.

And besides that, as VCV Pro user since day one I can say, that the VST2 and VST3 in Ableton Live was/is always a nightmare. Never had so many problems with any other plugin, ever!

[dune_rave]

Reaktor was good in the past, but nowadays you can use modular pluginz like VCV Rack or Cardinal that have better gui/user experience.

You must be joking…
I guess you never got into it ever…

You're wrong.
I was trying hard to edit reaktor stuff, but its not my cup of tea.
Of course you can like the way it is,but I don't.
The fact is: Reaktor was built to give the opportunity to other developers to create 3rd party instruments.
Not for an ordinary user to build a synth. Ofcourse they have tried this blocks concept, but that was already late.

[whyterabbyt]

The fact is: Reaktor was built to give the opportunity to other developers to create 3rd party instruments.

Sorry, but that's not a fact.

Not for an ordinary user to build a synth.

But it was. Not for every 'ordinary user' but definitely for those prepared to work at a deeper, more technical level, as many are.

[El°HYM]

Reaktor is basically alien technology, so some of the humanoid slaves might not be able to properly use it.