The future of Reaktor

[Ah_Dziz]

In the future, I will continue to use reaktor. Maybe they will do something useful with it's development. It currently does most of what I want it to do though.

[dayjob]

*remind me in 5 years to check this thread.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Either maintain it or open source it. The open source community would figure out how to improve it. Just letting die, with such an amazing library, would be just wrong.

I sometimes wonder if it just nostalgia for me, but then I go and listen to it again, all those rhythmic beat chopping gems just in the factory library lie vectory or step shifter, or effects like lurker (such great comb filtering in so many ensembles), and they all just sound so great still.

Massives zoom works great and doesn’t look blurry to me (not using a Cinema Display) so if they could do that it would be awesome.

Also if they could take a huge amount of the modules from classic ensembles and make a Reaktor modular new thing that would be ok too.

[sunthief01]

Honestly Zoom / font resize is enough to improve user experience.

Other QOL issues to address might be a right - click to replace module and/or some browser improvements. Both would just be enhancements - I font think anybody is asking for a radical rewrite or reorganization of the current structure - racks, ensembles // core, primary

I really prefer the sound and flow of Reaktor but have been pivoting to PlugData over Core because of the smallness of the text and UI.

Re: Open Source being off the table even if development is fully abandoned, which parts of Reaktor are the IP concern? Core and Primary themselves?

If so, then it aeems like its worth maintaining the environment even just for compatibility. and continued usability!

[Super Piano Hater 64]

Again, if NI coders start using AI to clean up old code, then it's possibly shorter than 5 years.

Sure, if you don't care whether it works at all, let alone on the variety of OS+host+hardware combinations NI has to support. Just use one of the agents that wipes all your files, and it won't even take 5 minutes!

[Broken]

Again, if NI coders start using AI to clean up old code, then it's possibly shorter than 5 years.

Sure, if you don't care whether it works at all, let alone on the variety of OS+host+hardware combinations NI has to support. Just use one of the agents that wipes all your files, and it won't even take 5 minutes!

No experienced developer is using AI that incompetently. Large projects get divided into many small projects, with competent humans overseeing and testing throughout.

[Super Piano Hater 64]

(...) with competent humans overseeing and testing throughout.

Yes, that's the part that consumes five years of work on a project like this. If anything I think that's a low estimate (if the team has literally any other responsibilities whatsoever).

I'm neither a hardcore AI skeptic nor an NI fan/apologist. It's just, this is a cross platform UI toolkit we're talking about, and they're supposed to "simply" make it resolution independent?

Those who have not visited hell are the quickest to recommend it for its warmth.

[masterhiggins]

That "just" would take half a decade. A complete redesign is not going to happen. What might happen is adding zoom in the same way it was added to Massive, which would make things blurry but at least it would scale.

There is anther thing everyone should be aware of, and that is Komplete UI. It's not tech that was only meant for Kontakt.

Again, if NI coders start using AI to clean up old code, then it's possibly shorter than 5 years.

You're insinuating that Reaktor could live on in a Komplete UI? I mean I get it in terms of NI using Reaktor to make PLAY style instruments with limited interaction etc. with Reaktor internals, but that just makes Reaktor an internal development environment to a degree which it was anyway wasn't it? Doesn't do much for the third party people making ensembles except give them a modern interface to code for.

AI is getting really scary good. Grok is already capable of doing some incredible coding cleanup and extremely complex problem-solving. I wouldn't see why they wouldn't use something like that to maintain or even add new scaling capabilities to Reaktor.

[Broken]

(...) with competent humans overseeing and testing throughout.

Yes, that's the part that consumes five years of work on a project like this. If anything I think that's a low estimate (if the team has literally any other responsibilities whatsoever).

I'm neither a hardcore AI skeptic nor an NI fan/apologist. It's just, this is a cross platform UI toolkit we're talking about, and they're supposed to "simply" make it resolution independent?

Those who have not visited hell are the quickest to recommend it for its warmth.

You're arguing with your own assumption.

EvilDragon has been very clear that updating Reaktor is very difficult and not currently viable, for a number of reasons. I don't see anyone suggesting that if an update was attempted it would be simple or fast, only that AI might one day make the update viable.

[oobesan]

According to Benn Jordan, NI isn't owned by Francisco Partners any more. He says they defaulted on the loan, and the bank who loaned them the money packaged it up along with a bunch of other trash and sold it off for pennies on the dollar to yet another private equity group not named. So, if he is right, NI is a bit adrift at the moment...

[rACatkvr]

According to Benn Jordan, NI isn't owned by Francisco Partners any more. He says they defaulted on the loan, and the bank who loaned them the money packaged it up along with a bunch of other trash and sold it off for pennies on the dollar to yet another private equity group not named. So, if he is right, NI is a bit adrift at the moment...

Curious… I wonder what is going to happen next if this is correct.

[machinesworking]

(...) with competent humans overseeing and testing throughout.

Yes, that's the part that consumes five years of work on a project like this. If anything I think that's a low estimate (if the team has literally any other responsibilities whatsoever).

I'm neither a hardcore AI skeptic nor an NI fan/apologist. It's just, this is a cross platform UI toolkit we're talking about, and they're supposed to "simply" make it resolution independent?

Those who have not visited hell are the quickest to recommend it for its warmth.

You're arguing with your own assumption.

EvilDragon has been very clear that updating Reaktor is very difficult and not currently viable, for a number of reasons. I don't see anyone suggesting that if an update was attempted it would be simple or fast, only that AI might one day make the update viable.

It would speed up the process, arguing against that is illogical but here we are.

I literally cannot think of a better application for AI than examining crash reports, compiling the basics of a new UI, outlining blueprints for a small project etc. that can be then expanded into the final product.

I don't need it to play bass on my next project I just need it to help developers find bugs in their code, or compile cross platform modern UI's that don't cause issues.

[EvilDragon]

Surely this is easy and not asking too much

It's not asking too much, but it's far from easy. Not unachievable, certainly.

[noiseboyuk]

EvilDragon has been very clear that updating Reaktor is very difficult and not currently viable, for a number of reasons. I don't see anyone suggesting that if an update was attempted it would be simple or fast, only that AI might one day make the update viable.

Well the specifics were "updating the UI to be modern", not ANY update. I personally think an update without a full-on UI rework could be valuable. As a platform it is a terrible experience currently, it can't even read its own preset tags. That's ridiculous. Giving a browser front end would stop short of a UI rework, and I'd have thought could borrow code from their other products. Much as the modern NI generic browser is quite deeply flawed, it is considerably better than what Reaktor currently has.

Al that said, I totally see the argument for NI to use AI in coding for a new complete UI. I know nothing about the reality, but as an outsider it sounds like a plausible way to turn 5 years into 5 months.

[EvilDragon]

You're insinuating that Reaktor could live on in a Komplete UI? I mean I get it in terms of NI using Reaktor to make PLAY style instruments with limited interaction etc. with Reaktor internals, but that just makes Reaktor an internal development environment to a degree which it was anyway wasn't it? Doesn't do much for the third party people making ensembles except give them a modern interface to code for.

Yes, KUI would be used to give ensembles a HiDPI supported look and feel. Which is a pretty big deal in and of itself really, since it tackles the biggest end user usability pain point basically.