Sad state of Native Instruments

[dune_rave]

why people don't like massiveX ?
I can tell you why I don't use it:
i admit it sounds good, but for me other synths has better gui, and better workflow. and i don't like its voice patching part. plus other developers update their "flagship" more frequently. So i rather use some u-he synth, or synths like avenger.

[fmr]

For those that question it , Reaktor was 100 percent build in house by the original N.I. founders stephan Schmidt ( who left and started non linear labs ) and Volker Hinz , it was called generator and required a hardware accelerated dsp card .

Generator NEVER required a hardware accelerator DSP card (yes, I am a user since BACK THEN). I remember having a talk with Daniel Haver at the very beginning (when NI was "just" Generator), and he emphatically pointed me to the "Native" word in their name to tell me they would NEVER use anything else than the native resources.

It was a challenge to use Generator with just the native processing power.

[gentleclockdivider]

Lot's of talk about a dsp card for the first version of generator , pre beta perhaps ?
I stand corrected then , I 've been a user since reaktor 2.0
https://www.native-instruments.com/foru ... ion.17961/

[PieBerger]

why people don't like massiveX ?
I can tell you why I don't use it:
i admit it sounds good, but for me other synths has better gui, and better workflow. and i don't like its voice patching part. plus other developers update their "flagship" more frequently. So i rather use some u-he synth, or synths like avenger.

For me personally, it's not a case of "not liking it" but rather, in today's (gloriously) saturated market, there are other options that are a bit friendlier/nicer to use, while also sounding great. With it's embarrassingly poorly implemented browser, it's not as useful as it could be for a preset surfing machine even.

I'm happy to have it as part of Komplete and I do enjoy firing it up every now and then, but until the browser has sub folder support, I'm not inclined to use more than I currently do.

[Klinke]

Lot's of talk about a dsp card for the first version of generator , pre beta perhaps ?

The very first Generator version was shipped with its own audio interface, as this was the only way to get a relatively latency-free audio signal on a Windows machine (ASIO didn't exist at that time). But the card didn't have any dsp processor.

[gentleclockdivider]

That must be it

[Lind0n]

Arturia should come out with a sampler that will attract 3rd party developers. It feels like they are the only ones that could do it properly.

Another proprietary sampler/player? No thanks!

How about an opensource solution? To me the only real way forward. I don't want to invest in more of the same only to see it abandoned one day too.

There already is an open-source alternative that is attracting 3rd-party developers....HISE

[mi-os]

Arturia should come out with a sampler that will attract 3rd party developers. It feels like they are the only ones that could do it properly.

Another proprietary sampler/player? No thanks!

How about an opensource solution? To me the only real way forward. I don't want to invest in more of the same only to see it abandoned one day too.

There already is an open-source alternative that is attracting 3rd-party developers....HISE

I know, but this is not like Kontakt, right? HISE seems to compile plugins out of samples. This is something i'd never use or buy. I want an opensource sampler plugin (like Kontakt) and then buy patches/samples for it. I also want the feedom to modify samples and patches.

[zerocrossing]

How long until we get chat gpt for music?

It’s already here. I listed to an episode of On The Media yesterday and they played some soundtrack type thing that was generated using AI. The entire episode was about AI. I’m not sure if its true, but someone I know posted a letter where a client was firing an illustrator after openly admitting that “due to budget cuts” the rest of the project would be handled with AI. It wasn’t stated, but inferred that they trained the AI to work in the style of the person getting fired. I’ve had similar things happen to me, but replace AI with cheap overseas labor. Once an employer fired me because he said he hated everything I did (weeks had gone by with positive feedback) and then stupidly hadn’t done screen shots of the files I was showing him. (I always used Flash so it couldn’t be easily swiped off my site) A few hours after firing me, they emailed to ask where the images were that they were refusing to pay for. I did confirm with an employee of that company who I was friends with that he found out that the plan was to have an intern take my comps and turn them into websites.

I think we’re heading into a very weird time. Definitely a scary time for artists who earn a living doing art. I’m not sure how it’s going to shake out. I can say that one time my employer tried to use cheap S. Korean illustrators for background images, I spent as much time fixing what they sent (which wasn’t great) as I would have had I just done the images myself. I’m doing less visual art and more sound and music, and I know that some AI could probably do some of what I’m doing, but there are technical aspects of it that I don’t think could be done correctly. This sets up some odd situation where I might be relegated to crappy production work while computers get to do the fun stuff. It’s not going to just be artists, either. I’m sure someone is working on AI that can manage teams. What happens to an economy when nearly every job can be done more cheaply by AI? You can’t sling soft serve at your local Dairy Queen when no one in the town can afford a Blizzard® because the only jobs available are fast food service jobs.

Will be go back to subsistence farming? Serfs to lords like Elon Musk? I thought about Diamond Age, but even the Viccies who designed nanotech would be replaced by AI in our current trajectory. What happens to humans when all meaningful work, and most menial work, can be done by technology? Can a successful government come up with some sort of UBI scheme and use the fruits of AI to pay people for social good deeds and TicTok videos? There’s no doubt in my mind that capitalism will die, and it might be very soon.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

That's definitely an interesting topic, would deserve it's own thread! I find it very interesting to read your take on it!

I'm not as pessimistic about the future, though: We've had at least similar situations in the past, e.g. when the photo camera was invented the painters working on realism style got displaced quite heavily. But as a reaction, artists soon came up with modern art, impressionism, expressionism, etc. When recorded music came up, I'm also pretty sure that many thought that that would put many musicians out of business is.

Thing is, it's really hard to see the future on this. I just know that once one niche disappears from us humans, we can become very creative in finding something new and redefining what we think of art and music. We may not see and know what this will be with the displacement through AI.

Although I'm aware that AI has a new character as displacement. Even if we come up with something new, how long will it take until AI can replicate it as well? For sure, we need to rethink our values and our society big time in the next 10-20 years.

Right, but if you look at the trend, there are fewer and fewer places where humans can beat a machine, and the curve is getting steeper all the time. I think that it could become a thing where actually having hand done art could become the next big thing, just like fine art is, but on a larger scale.

[pdxindy]

why people don't like massiveX ?
I can tell you why I don't use it:
i admit it sounds good, but for me other synths has better gui, and better workflow. and i don't like its voice patching part. plus other developers update their "flagship" more frequently. So i rather use some u-he synth, or synths like avenger.

I like the sound of Massive X fine... I uninstalled it cause it is too weak elsewhere. For user presets, it basically doesn't even have a browser. No direct parameter automation so I cannot directly use Bitwig's modulations system with it nor can you just draw in automation for a specific parameter. No midi learn so if I want to directly control a knob from my midi controller cannot do that. Too much tabbing and lots of tiny menus, no mousewheel or arrow key support. Doesn't support MPE, PolyAT (there are lots of polyAT controllers now) or Microtuning. Doesn't have MSEG's, and the LFO's are weak. And 3 years after it was released none of the important weaknesses have been addressed. The original Massive was a much better developed synth. In many regards, MX went backwards, which describes the state of NI (unfortunately).

I have plenty of excellent sounding synths that also sound very good and don't have all the weaknesses and which are better supported. There is no reason for me to put up with poor workflow and limited utility for my needs.

[awol9000]

Lot's of talk about a dsp card for the first version of generator , pre beta perhaps ?

The very first Generator version was shipped with its own audio interface, as this was the only way to get a relatively latency-free audio signal on a Windows machine (ASIO didn't exist at that time). But the card didn't have any dsp processor.

Do you remember how much it cost? It must have been $$$. When I got into music (2010) Reaktor 5 was $499 iirc.

[masterhiggins]

Yup. That was back in the day when it was the norm to charge hardware prices for software.

[Klinke]

The very first Generator version was shipped with its own audio interface, as this was the only way to get a relatively latency-free audio signal on a Windows machine (ASIO didn't exist at that time). But the card didn't have any dsp processor.

Do you remember how much it cost? It must have been $$$. When I got into music (2010) Reaktor 5 was $499 iirc.

NI sold Generator with mono and stereo cards, and if I remember correctly, I bought a B-Stock mono card (including Generator) for about 650 "Deutsche Mark", which is about 330 Euro. Which was much lower than the normal prices, but still a lot for me at that time (as I was a student). And it was a good investment, two years later I was an employee of NI (until 2007), and being one of the first (and really active) users was a help for the application.

[gentleclockdivider]

Yup. That was back in the day when it was the norm to charge hardware prices for software.

For certain pieces of software like reaktor and max msp 400-500 dollar-euro was no exception .
People can say what they want but the current price of 200 for reaktor is ridiculously low for what you get , compared to the price that pulsar modular is still using

[SamDi]

... it was called generator and required a hardware accelerated dsp card .

I don´t know what version this was but I used the early versions of Generator (and how was called the other product??) natively without any additional hardware on my old early Pentium CPU...

Edit just found a quote:

Generator (from Berlin‑based Native Instruments) is a software synth that will run on any Pentium PC (100MHz or better).

No way, there ever was a DSP card needed not even offered. The idea to run a SW-synth natively on a PC without any DSP card was the USP at these times and even manifested in the company's name