Native Instruments Supersaw synth

[jamcat]

Stop being so melodramatic. There is no tailspin. Nott anymore. InMusic already provided a soft landing, just in case.

[zerocrossing]

I just don't see anything interesting about it, so why develop it?

While I agree with the price being too high, this take is a bit crazy. There's plugins coming out every day that I personally don't find interesting but I can still see how others might.

Like someone else said this is just another one in a long series of NI making small mini synths that don't do anything revolutionary but serve to fill a specific aesthetic niche, help to pad out a new Komplete, and don't really hurt anyone. Not sure why we are supposed to be outraged now when they have been doing them for a decade or more.

Tell me what this thing does that's not a subset of a dozen other synths, including freeware.

[machinesworking]

Anyway, back on topic, I watched the walk-through and I can't see a single reason to buy this, especially at that price. Aren't we all swimming in great super-saw synths, at this point? I just don't see anything interesting about it, so why develop it?

Again I think that once you're in NI's Komplete ecosystem, a synth like this that's useful but somewhat limited to a certain sound fits right in to a reason to upgrade.

Absynth has Poly AT, and it's of course useful in Kontakt percussion libraries that use aftertouch for different things. Remember when Live didn't support it? That was a weird period when the industry decided it wasn't necessary.

I just hope NI thrive with InMusic, Akai do, but some companies in InMusics umbrella seem to have been bought and abandoned. That's why I was saying it's a mixed result earlier, I would guess that NI get the Moog/Akai treatment from InMusic, but they could get the Sonivox/BFD treatment, or... very likely the Air treatment, old plugins are kinda abandoned and most of the new ones are MPC ready and decent enough.

[machinesworking]

Kontakt is still the format of choice for sample based instruments.

I don’t think that really holds anymore, and perhaps hasn’t for a very long time. Eastwest broke away like twenty years ago, which was a major blow. Then Spectrsonics and UVI followed. Toontrack DFH started on Kontakt, but they soon came out with Superior. More recently, Spitfire became a major player, and then they came out with Spitfire LABS. VSL moved anway from KONTAKT with Vienna Synchron Player. Orchestral Tools has SINE. And then of course there is UJAM. It seems that every sample house has their own player. KONTAKT may be the “universal” platform, but at this point, it’s mostly just Native Instruments and some smaller sampling outfits that are supporting it.

I own KONTAKT, but I only use it on one song, for a sitar. And I could have just as easily used SampleTank for that. Eventually I will get an electric sitar and replace the sample altogether.

You're naming some random sample libraries here. Spitfire LABS still isn't being used for any of their huge orchestral libraries. It's only recently with Opus that East West are solid again, PLAY was a buggy POS. For every big name orchestral library that's made their own sample player there are a dozen that use Kontakt. No one is using Halion, UVI, Spectrasonics to the degree that Kontakt is used.

FFS East West stopped using Kontakt over 15 years ago from what I recall, same with VSL, but there are dozens that do.

[zerocrossing]

Kontakt is still the format of choice for sample based instruments.

I don’t think that really holds anymore, and perhaps hasn’t for a very long time. Eastwest broke away like twenty years ago, which was a major blow. Then Spectrsonics and UVI followed. Toontrack DFH started on Kontakt, but they soon came out with Superior. More recently, Spitfire became a major player, and then they came out with Spitfire LABS. VSL moved anway from KONTAKT with Vienna Synchron Player. Orchestral Tools has SINE. And then of course there is UJAM. It seems that every sample house has their own player. KONTAKT may be the “universal” platform, but at this point, it’s mostly just Native Instruments and some smaller sampling outfits that are supporting it.

I own KONTAKT, but I only use it on one song, for a sitar. And I could have just as easily used SampleTank for that. Eventually I will get an electric sitar and replace the sample altogether.

Well, maybe I'm not deep in that world, but it seems like everyone still is making sample libraries in the Kontakt format, but maybe that's just what I can see from my little keyhole. I know there are others, there always has been, but they seem to be less popular. I use Kontakt pretty much exclusively, as I like the integration with Kontrol, including the S61. It was also pretty cheap as part of Komplete. But I'm not scoring film for Christopher Nolan. (Chris, if you're reading this, PM me, I'm cheap)

In all honesty, I'm even wondering if I'd be better off using ACE Studio to turn synth parts into orchestral type instruments. Dealing with key articulations is such a slog. I'd love to use more SWAM instruments, but they're so damn expensive.

I also have an electric sitar, if you want me to lay down a part for you. Not an OG Coral, but the Rogue copy. It's kind of cool. Warning: the electric sitars are really just guitars with a buzzy bridge and sympathetic strings that I'm not sure really do anything. When I want a realistic sitar, I'm using Equator 2 and my Rise, because I can do bends that are much more like what you'd hear from an actual sitar. I think I'm using it in this track. The tanpura is Kontakt, though.

[zerocrossing]

Anyway, back on topic, I watched the walk-through and I can't see a single reason to buy this, especially at that price. Aren't we all swimming in great super-saw synths, at this point? I just don't see anything interesting about it, so why develop it?

Again I think that once you're in NI's Komplete ecosystem, a synth like this that's useful but somewhat limited to a certain sound fits right in to a reason to upgrade.

I guess so... I just have so many synths that seem to do what that synth does, except for maybe the morphing, but even that's really just setting up a macro and can even be done in most DAWs.

Absynth has Poly AT, and it's of course useful in Kontakt percussion libraries that use aftertouch for different things. Remember when Live didn't support it? That was a weird period when the industry decided it wasn't necessary.

Thank Brian for making that happen for Absynth, but they should have kept him on payroll to help them bring the rest of their catalog up to speed. Can you imagine if they had that kind of vision in NI?

I do remember when Live didn't have it, which was especially weird because Push actually spit it out. It's like they were going out of their way to not have it. It didn't bother me, because for a long time I didn't have a controller with it, but as soon as I did, I jumped ship to Bitwig. Live is now probably a better DAW for my needs, but I'm too lazy to switch, and I'm just fast in Bitwig and it does nearly everything I want.

I just hope NI thrive with InMusic, Akai do, but some companies in InMusics umbrella seem to have been bought and abandoned. That's why I was saying it's a mixed result earlier, I would guess that NI get the Moog/Akai treatment from InMusic, but they could get the Sonivox/BFD treatment, or... very likely the Air treatment, old plugins are kinda abandoned and most of the new ones are MPC ready and decent enough.

Yeah, I hope NI does come back. Absynth 6 was a nice move in a direction that I like. I think if Massive X had MPE, it would probably be my favorite wavetable software instrument. I think it sounds fantastic, and above the competition in many ways. I guess I get pissed off at a synth like their new one because I think those features should have just become part of Massive X 2.

[glokraw]

The demo wasted valuable minutes flailing at controls on a horrid noise, and having no effect on it. Thud

I fired up Superwave P8, and much preferred it's sounds to most of what was in the demo. The new synth will need to ship with a few hundred fine musical sounds to be of interest, not the oft resorted to detuned preset monstrosities that will be filler that never is used. While I suspect it will be versatile in patient competant hands, I am neither, and have not checked the intro price. Too many tragedies in the world atm that need some support.

[pdxindy]

They should focus on keeping their released products updated and maybe improve some of them where it is needed

Totally agree.
Beginning by having Native Access (NTKDaemon) not asking for Rosetta on M chip equipped Mac.
It’s years now since Apple Silicon appeared and Rosetta won’t even be available on the next macOS update just around the corner!

Native Access still requires Rosetta?

[pdxindy]

I think if Massive X had MPE, it would probably be my favorite wavetable software instrument.

I read that MX has MPE support now. Is that not true?

[machinesworking]

Thank Brian for making that happen for Absynth, but they should have kept him on payroll to help them bring the rest of their catalog up to speed. Can you imagine if they had that kind of vision in NI?

I think this is heavily misunderstood by most od us on forums.

Older plugins from larger companies like NI, IK, Air etc. are likely coded by developers that do not work for the company anymore. That complicates things.

There is an exponential amount of extra work that goes into taking a pile of code and fixing the GUI, Poly AT, MPE etc. etc. It's often more work than coding an entirely new plugin, that will actually get new customers.

You can see this clearly with Absynth 6, new GUI, MPE support, new browser. Even with Brian on board there was a lot of work to do, and because it was a paid upgrade for modern features people lost their minds here.

[chk071]

I think if Massive X had MPE, it would probably be my favorite wavetable software instrument.

I read that MX has MPE support now. Is that not true?

Doesn't look like it.

No, Native Instruments Massive X does not support MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression). [1, 2]
Despite receiving several updates, including the major version 1.7 update, Native Instruments has not implemented per-note MIDI expression or native polyphonic aftertouch capabilities into the synthesizer. [1, 3, 4]
## Current Limitations & Workarounds

* Global MIDI Only: Massive X processes modulations like pitch bend, aftertouch, and CC data globally across all playing notes instead of individually per note. [5]
* The DAW Multi-Channel Workaround: You can trick the synth into pseudo-MPE behavior by hosting multiple instances of Massive X on separate MIDI tracks inside your DAW, routing each MPE voice channel to a separate instance.
* Native Alternatives: If you need true, out-of-the-box MPE capabilities, competitive wavetable synthesizers like Vital or Xfer Serum natively support MPE mapping. [1]

If you are trying to configure a specific controller, let me know which MPE controller you are using and which DAW you host Massive X in so I can provide the exact steps for the multi-channel workaround.

[1] [https://www.kvraudio.com](viewtopic.php?t=599364)
[2] [https://community.native-instruments.com](https://community.native-instruments.co ... maschine-2)
[3] [https://rekkerd.org](https://rekkerd.org/native-instruments- ... r-to-v1-7/)
[4] [https://www.amazona.de](https://www.amazona.de/top-news-native- ... oft-synth/)
[5] [https://www.facebook.com](https://www.facebook.com/AvidProTools/v ... 590175755/)

I don't find anything regarding MPE in the release notes of past versions either.

[chk071]

By the way: https://community.native-instruments.co ... ent_265884

In fact, Super*Saw is the first product built with a new platform update to Reaktor, that will eventually open to all builders. It empowers Reaktor builders to create discrete, standalone plug-ins running the Reaktor engine under the hood, with high resolution user interfaces, dedicated authorization, distribution and installation mechanisms.

[jamcat]

So NI has reinvented SynthEdit?

[chk071]

Rather, they added a feature which SynthEdit also happens to have, I guess.

The big deal for most will surely be that they keep on developing Reaktor, which some have claimed that they wouldn't. Ongoing creation of NI's synth for the Reaktor platform also shows its importance to them.

[IvyBirds]

By the way: https://community.native-instruments.co ... ent_265884

In fact, Super*Saw is the first product built with a new platform update to Reaktor, that will eventually open to all builders. It empowers Reaktor builders to create discrete, standalone plug-ins running the Reaktor engine under the hood, with high resolution user interfaces, dedicated authorization, distribution and installation mechanisms.

If you read the whole post it goes on to say that "A.G. Cook and friends were creating and using the patches that became this product long before they became this product."

So the new system is just a GUI wrapper for Reaktor patches That's awesome but then the $99 pricetag seems somehow way way worse. This should be like $20-$30 at most since it has pretty much zero development costs for NI/inMusic or A.G. Cook

You take the patches A.G. Cook already made, you get an AI to design the GUI and you spend a few hours at most making it a plugin That's it

Somehow NI continues to lose even more faith and trust every day