Native Instruments file for insolvency...

[Sascha Franck]

Fwiw, I think a *much* more interesting way of dealing with sampled instruments is this here:
https://ultra.audio/

Combine that with traditional sampling and pretty much everyone will be very happy.
Just imagine that Ultra Audio engine embedded into, say, Koda (which I think looks extremely promising as well).

[sellyoursoul]

again...where is the evidence of this?...structure, independence, goliath, muse all exist...they come with 30-70gb of instruments...as much or more than kontakt...none of them are popular now nor have ever been on kvr...sampletank has 250gb of instruments and it only started moving when ikm started blowing it out for dirt cheap in sales and group buys...and based on reviews of all those people that got it, its still not popular...you can even get a sampler for free with 16gb of instruments in UAD shape...and its not popular on kvr or the internets

that's why all the fuss is bizarre...cause kvr dominant demographic are not samplists and aint building instruments anyway...they are just gonna use samplers as players for libraries anyway...so what difference does it make whether it's kontakt or any of the many formidable and suitable alternatives

Count in GB's doesn't say anything about the quality and usefulness of a library. I would grade IK's library overall as mediocre at best, for example, despite being the biggest in GB's by far, which also lacks sample compression, unnecessarily eating up hard drive space. You also have to factor in aspects of the samplers themselves, such as usability and performance issues. Also, UAD Shape is locked into Luna, which is too bad, since I think quite a few people might have liked it as a light-weight rompler, if priced appropriately.

NI have left a bad taste in a lot of customers mouths by not updating existing products to make them usable again (hi res, for example), while also pumping out new things that many people don't want. And licensing and usability aren't favorable to developers, which likely passes down to customers of their libraries through prices and end quality of libraries, if the libraries get made at all. And those aspects are tied to NI's financial state and uncertainty for the future. At the same time glimpses of Koda give the impression that those aspects of Kontakt won't be issues for Koda. In other words, the current state of things has many people wanting a better alternative to NI/Kontakt, while a product has appeared that looks like it could be that alternative.

[mixyguy2]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

Unlike many people, I have no problem with that My opinion is just that, no more, no less.

It's not a bunch of unique instruments. It's just different sample collections under the guise as unique instruments.

Agree to disagree there too.

Mind you I'm as critical of NI as anyone, but try to look at things objectively and give credit where due as well. When I started browsing Kontakt Factory, for example, I expected a lot of OKish stuff at most. I was surprised how much really good stuff was there.

[mixyguy2]

You obviously didnt even watch that video

No, because I'm not stupid enough to automatically buy into some goober on YT having "the truth." (Let me guess, the guy in the video is you)

Welcome to my foes - list btw.

LOL

That's about the level of intelligence and maturity I expected you were at. Oh no, how will I sleep at night now

[bermudagold]

NI have left a bad taste in a lot of customers mouths by not updating existing products to make them usable again (hi res, for example), while also pumping out new things that many people don't want. And licensing and usability aren't favorable to developers, which likely passes down to customers of their libraries through prices and end quality of libraries, if the libraries get made at all. And those aspects are tied to NI's financial state and uncertainty for the future. At the same time glimpses of Koda give the impression that those aspects of Kontakt won't be issues for Koda. In other words, the current state of things has many people wanting a better alternative to NI/Kontakt, while a product has appeared that looks like it could be that alternative.

yeah I get all that but that really is not a reflection on kontakt, its performance, or functionality...there have been multiple suitable alternatives for years and none have caught fire...they all have business models and licensing policies...only developers can determine which licensing arrangements are more favorable for their particular needs...people have NO idea whether theses things listed will be issues for Koda...that's why you see developers asking those questions on youtube and vi-control...nothing is settled, transparent, or guaranteed...and if the main developer left soundpaint for koda, whose to say the same thing couldn't happen again...there's a lil of that hyperbolic hype machine of the hivemind thing that kvr does for everything new and shiny

[bermudagold]

Fwiw, I think a *much* more interesting way of dealing with sampled instruments is this here:
https://ultra.audio/

Combine that with traditional sampling and pretty much everyone will be very happy.
Just imagine that Ultra Audio engine embedded into, say, Koda (which I think looks extremely promising as well).

not to me...that is simply another additive resynthesis...ton of those already existed...even the best ones are usually too timbre reductive for me compared to sampling...and every flagship hybrid has it already...the wrinkle is that it allows you to keymap and velocity map wavetables like samples...you could have done that 10+ yrs ago with ppg wavemapper...wolfgang palm coined it "multitabling" when he did it...you could have also done that again 5 yrs or so ago with tomafon...kvr just romanticizes everything new and shiny and falls for every industry buzzword...that's not shade at ultrawave btw...its a very well executed product...whoever has a need for it will probably be very happy with it

[Sascha Franck]

not to me...that is simply another additive resynthesis...

Did you listen to the examples? And if so, can you point me to other things doing it like that?

[bermudagold]

not to me...that is simply another additive resynthesis...

Did you listen to the examples? And if so, can you point me to other things doing it like that?

i heard the clarinet from the developer and a cello and violin from Simon Stockhausen...i gave "multi-tabling" examples above...as far as quality of resynthesis, best I've heard is probably icarus...people seem to rate harmor and sumu/myth are supposed to be the current cutting edge...even though sumu is based on loris which has been around a while...even old generation ones like metasynth, vertigo, and cube/poseidon still hold up...and again all the hybrid flagships...ultra has refined the workflow...Karplus strong can also give interesting "faux real" instruments especially when using pcm as exciter...check out yuli yolo faux real patches for vital

[Sascha Franck]

i gave "multi-tabling" examples above...

Err - I can see no links to actual video or sound examples.

[machinesworking]

A solid summary of what seems to have happened at VI-Control:

https://vi-control.net/community/thread ... st-5830863

[Sascha Franck]

A solid summary of what seems to have happened at VI-Control:

https://vi-control.net/community/thread ... st-5830863

Well, dunno. To me, it's still NI's fault to a large degree. I mean, why would they sell out to Francisco Partners in the first place, if they were doing well?

Fact is, they actually weren't, at least not really.

In 2017, NI received a financial injection of €50.000.000 from a company named EMH Partners (located in Munich). And that they have "Partners" in their name, just as the Francisco guys, isn't just a coincidence. They're an investment company, just the same private equity thing.
And apparently that kinda huge amount of money didn't help NI, so they had to give in to FP just 4 years later. Another 4 years later and the next (apparently flopped) deal was around the corner in December.

So, no, a company going for the same stunt 3 times can't be considered healthy in my book.

[VitaminD]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

Unlike many people, I have no problem with that My opinion is just that, no more, no less.

It's not a bunch of unique instruments. It's just different sample collections under the guise as unique instruments.

Agree to disagree there too.

Mind you I'm as critical of NI as anyone, but try to look at things objectively and give credit where due as well. When I started browsing Kontakt Factory, for example, I expected a lot of OKish stuff at most. I was surprised how much really good stuff was there.

You're actually reasonable. A rarity for KVR.

And, yes, I agree there ARE a lot of decent sounds in the bundle. I just see the templated sample 'instruments' (not the sound sets but the products listed as sample instruments with an A and B sample section that can be mixed) as marketing gimmickry. They could have easily made a single instrument and built in the themed sample sets into it. Instead they split it up into almost two dozen individual products to pad the Instrument count. When they could have given us proper unique instruments.. again like an FM9 or Absynth all these years.

But oh well.. It's not a big deal. I just don't upgrade Komplete nearly as often as I used to because of it.

[bermudagold]

i gave "multi-tabling" examples above...

Err - I can see no links to actual video or sound examples.

ok u lazy bugger lol

[Sascha Franck]

ok u lazy bugger lol

These are completely different from what Utrawave does. They're basically taking samples to create whatever "organic" patches out of them. Fine. I'm aware of some methods doing so.
But the Ultra Audio thing is using just a handful of instrument samples to actually extract the essence of the source instrument and builds a patch very close (apparently quite indistinguishly close at least in some situations).
The goal of the others isn't to sound like the real deal.

[bermudagold]

ok u lazy bugger lol

These are completely different from what Utrawave does. They're basically taking samples to create whatever "organic" patches out of them. Fine. I'm aware of some methods doing so.
But the Ultra Audio thing is using just a handful of instrument samples to actually extract the essence of the source instrument and builds a patch very close (apparently quite indistinguishly close at least in some situations).
The goal of the others isn't to sound like the real deal.

nah man....then you don't understand what ultra is doing nor watched those videos...what tomafon and wavemapper do is the same thing with similar workflows...making wavetables from samples by waveform section deterministically and key/velocity mapping the resynthesized results...as Palm coined "multitabling"...ur the perfect candidate for marketing and GAS...good luck