Good Bye Reaktor, good bye NI synths

[Musical Gym]

...but at the end of the day I felt it wasn't my creation, I prefer more hands on methods I guess.

+1

[Effectsworks]

For years NI were highly innovative and had an unmatched product portfolio. Sadly they're just a shadow of their former glory.

I used to update my Ultimate version regularly, not any more.

Yeah, they were brilliant back in the day but they have been stagnating for a few years now.

I've not updated my Komplete for several years and I rarely use it these days tbh.

[Atlatnesiti]

What a drama (not)…
Next..

[concon]

While I do wish NI would introduce some more new and innovative products, Reaktor's Razor, Kontour, and Form continue to be go-tos for me.

[BONES]

NI abbandoned B4, PRO-53.
They didn't updated Absynth and FM8.

Why would they need to? B4, Pro53 and FM8 are all emulations of classic instruments from decades ago, I don't see where there is room for updating them once you've got 'em right. More to the point, NI aren't charging you money to keep them around so why would you care? If they worked for you last week or last month, last year or last Century, why wouldn't they keep working for you into the future?

So what can NI offer in its synth line : only Massive X.

And Super 8 and TRK-01 and Form and Kontour. Add in all the stuff you already mentioned and it's a bloody impressive line-up. Also, if you don't get how much deeper Reaktor goes than any modular synth, you're not thinking too hard about anything. I mean, seriously, which Modular can make anything to compete with Monark, Rounds, Prism or Spark? There is also Battery, which you don't have a problem with.

I've answered the question for each synth in orange, inside your quote -

Can you compete with synths like:
-Vital Audio Vital MASSIVE X
-UVI Falcon MASSIVE X
-Spectrasonics Omnisphere KONTAKT
-Kilohearts Phase Plant REAKTOR
-Refx Nexus MASSIVE X or KONTAKT
-Gforce Imposcar
-VPS Avenger MASSIVE X
-U-he synths MASSIVE X or SUPER 8
-Xfer Serum MASSIVE X
-Lennardigital Sylenth any old piece of shit
-Tone2 synths MASSIVE X or SUPER 8
-Korg Collection synths KOMPLETE
-Arturia Pigments MASSIVE X
-Arturia V Collection 8 synths KOMPLETE
- Rob Papen Predator MASSIVE X

Notice that I didn't have to mention TRK-01 at all because none of the synths you listed can do what it does.

Honestly, I don't quite understand the point of your post. You are going to keep using several NI instruments, so how is that different to any other developer? Do you own all of Rob Papen's synths? Or Tone 2's? Or U-He's? Or Arturia's? Why pick on NI? You use the things that work for you and you don't bother with the rest. And to be clear, I am pretty much in the same boat as you. Although I find myself using Battery less and less, it is still an important part of our work, as are TRK-01, Kontakt and Super 8. However, just as I don't care about any of the U-He or Arturia or Tone 2 synths I don't own, I don't care about the rest of NI's synths, either. But I don't feel the need to complain about it because it's no different to any other copany/developer.

[MitchK1989]

Personally I find Arturia and NI both guilty of the "look a this huge bundle" sales pitch followed by the "please don't ask how many of these plugins are actually capable of resizable GUIs for 4k monitors, run natively on your m1 macbook, and which ones support modern tuning standards and MPE controllers"

[midi_transmission]

When you're looking for a fm8 replacement, this one is the best dx7 plugin so far soundwise https://www.plogue.com/products/chipsynth-ops7.html

[jarnold]

Arturia has updated their collection to resizable GUIs and all are now M1 native.

[eluherlu]

I only use kontakt, monark and sometimes the old massive (for sub bass). Btw, NI's fx are great.

[kvotchin]

I don’t use any NI stuff any more, simply because there’s other stuff I prefer.

I do think they’ve stagnated for a long time though, yes. But then, that applies to other software companies too.

[zerocrossing]

First I’ll say that Massive X sounds as good as anything, including some expensive hardware. Vital sounds great but doesn’t have the routing flexibility. Monark and Super 8 sound great, as do many Reaktor based synths. I was just playing with Molekular today. Brilliant. All the new effects are really nice, and Guitar Rig is still a super fun modular effects environment.

I am also disappointed that they’ve abandoned their older synths. I’m disappointed that they don’t support polyphonic aftertouch and MPE. I thought to myself that maybe I should abandon them, but then I started to think about how much I’d need to spend to replace the things that I still use and it didn’t make much sense. I hope they go back to being a more innovative company, but that’s not going to get me to stop using their stuff that I find good.

[mholloway]

When you're looking for a fm8 replacement, this one is the best dx7 plugin so far soundwise https://www.plogue.com/products/chipsynth-ops7.html

That is so freaking far from an 'FM8 replacement' though. I get that it's a DX7 and so was FM7, originally.... but FM8 does so much more than a strict DX7 emulation does. It would be impossible to replicate 90% of FM8's patches with this synth.

[ATS]

I read the first sentence the op post. That was all that was needed. Waste of time to read the rest.

[mholloway]

To the folks proclaiming that the entire NI product line can be replaced by superior other products, please tell me --

What other, supposedly superior product can replace Kontakt -- and don't just name some other Sampler product, because to actually replace Kontakt adequately, it must have the same range of third party library support.

[nightjar]

I only use kontakt, monark and sometimes the old massive (for sub bass). Btw, NI's fx are great.

And NI is showing some signs of speeding up development in recent weeks...

And the front edge of resizable GUI's just happened with Replika and Replica XT.

Expect more in the near term....