Disappointed with Kontakt 7

Wiseguy2006

I need to post this - NI deserves it.

Like many were echoing at the time - I was quite disappointed with the Kontakt 7 product. I let it be known that NI appeared to be making little to no effort to listen to their customer base.

Over the past 6 months - NI have made countless efforts in the are of requesting customer insight. I actually do believe that the company is truly trying to listen more and make better decisions going forward on where to invest their time and development. I really do look forward to the results of this.

Vocalpoint

Well - I echo this with a caveat - it is one thing to "request" customer insight/feedback and it is quite another to act upon it and make an actual impact in the real world.

Regardless of what NI asks for - it is on them to deliver some real world value when it comes to Kontakt, Komplete Kontrol or whatever part of the (waning) NI world needs help at any given moment.

There is also a lot of chatter on other forums that NI has already "checked" out - ranging from the head scratching Soundwide collaboration to the clearly obvious fact that they have lost the plot with many of the things that made them great. The sunsetting of Absynth. The clock ticking on Reactor. The ions of time that have passed waiting for Battery 5.

And Kontakt 7 let's face it - is abysmal for what you get (compared to v6). I could not imagine anyone actually paying for that in full and saying they feel good about it.

For me tho - is the truly painful wait to see if anything fresh will ever come to the Komplete platform (S Series MKII keys, Komplete Kontrol). I keep wondering why their hardware NEVER gets so much as a basic firmware update OR any meaningful updates to the KK software to make it faster, more workflow friendly - something, anything instead just sitting there being the circa 2017 thing that it always is. So much promise here and yet - no action.

NI (unfortunately for me) has become a follower rather than the leader they once were and seem to rely 100% now on things like Komplete bundles and Play Series instruments to give the impression they matter.

I do love the NI tools I do have and hope that some good things are still to come - but it's getting harder to wait as each day/week/year passes by.

VP