Hardware and software need to be ported into iPadOS
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There is a way to do imports of Maschine kits into iOS alternatives, like Beatmaker, iMPC, EG Pulse, and Nanostudio - it's called Kit Maker: https://www.kit-maker.com/
Obviously, this is not an option for iMaschine, but if NI has decided not to develop it any further, these alternatives are quite capable.
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Getting an M1 MacBook Pro now is the best move for anyone looking forward to an iPad based ecosystem due for release in a few years. Any device with any generation of M1 onward will be part of the party.
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Part of what I'm getting from this thread is that development resources at NI are severely constrained, and mainly devoted to maintaining the existing "platforms" - Kontakt and Maschine. Most new instruments or sounds in these categories come from third-party developers. That's why I'm interested in focusing on existing assets that could be ported with minimal effort, or ways to leverage third-party developers that have invested in iOS.
A few years back, NI converted a Reaktor Player ensemble, Super 8, into a VST/AU. Perhaps this could be done with some of the other greatest hits, like Razor, and then from there to AUv3 on iOS.
A longstanding problem on iOS is the pricing model; buyer expectations are $10 or less, and even $20 is considered "premium." That's just not attractive for most desktop developers. However, some developers like IK Multimedia are releasing apps with a $70-$100 price point, and this may be a way forward. If we are serious about the iPad Pro as a professional music-making environment, we must be willing to pay desktop prices, or close to it, for professional-grade plugins.
However, effects and synths that don't really bring in any new money now (or are given away as part of Komplete Start), could potentially be released on iOS as teasers to get casual musicians to buy into the ecosystem. Rather than "Maschine for iOS" or "Kontakt for iOS", it may be better to focus on instruments and effects that benefit from M1 processing power without having to deal with the file system. That's why I'm thinking of starting with stuff like Super 8 or Replika, priced at a premium level ($20-30).
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Current "Core" technologies of AS will be safe for a decade. Pun intended.
Will some future features be dependent on future tech advances?
Certainly, but there will be a plenty of creative usability in current generation gear along the way.
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I suspect just the opposite. The bulk of recent capital investment is perhaps being channeled to the teams developing this next generation ecosystem. And the slowish development of exiting platforms is a due to this shift. It is almost an existential thing when viewed from where NI needs to be in a few years to remain competitive.
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My 5 cents (a personal opinion out of my mind within reality of today, may change tomorrow)…
I think the direction to standalone is better than all-round apple support. Don’t get me wrong, I am apple user myself and I have no Windows, nor Android. However, the I find myself using maschine software only to import from M+ and fibe tune things. Then I export stems or patterns as WAV and use then in another DAW for mixing and mastering, sometimes even full arrangement.
So, having native support of Apple Silicon is must. iPad, could be a good bonus to have maschine on this gadget, but standalone is more valuable. I believe there are kore apple mac and standalone users, than iPad users, who own maschine, though not sure. That may dictate priorities.
In the end of the day, maschine is just an instrument. If you want to use it with an iPad, you can always hook an iPad DAW to an external audio interface, input sounds from maschine, record, arrange and mix. Maschine is just a module in this scenario.
Don’t stick to a module, open up possibilities of your gadget with it’s potential today. Don’t wait for an update, just create music and have fun.
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Nice to have some constructive thoughts shared.
This future ecosystem for all intents and purposes could function as a standalone with regards to how you physically interact with it.
With an iPad securely docked into a "dumb Maschine control surface", it provides the display and brains.
Hunker down and create with this combo package as you would a current standalone product. Get your motor skills honed to this rig and enjoy the power and untethered freedom.
Another tweak would be for these future "dumb controllers" to at least have a display. The iPad would wirelessly connect to these controllers much like Apple CarPlay.
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In this use case, the iPad would not be just touch targets. Information density would shift with the function taking place.
And have no fears of latency and battery drain.
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Second this! Here’s another believer in standalone, untethered musical instruments.
No neuroscience evidence yet AFAIK but the time between the urgency of acting a musical intuition and the moment where you actually start acting on it is a crucial metric to me.
Take Synthstrom Deluge for example: 2 seconds boot time, 3 hours on battery, a formidable workflow rooted on ears and muscle memory. You can sketch a full original high quality track in less than 10 minutes on it.
The need for a power wallet creates a tiny friction.
30 seconds to boot is a friction: you can easily loose the momentum or intuition in that time.
Having to navigate a general purpose operative system to open your musical software toolset is a big friction: your locus of attention has to move around for a while before focusing on your already dying musical intuition. Not to mention the constant calls for attention of super powerful general purpose operative systems and of the diverse non music related softwares running on it.
A setting with more than one device creates huge friction: are batteries all charged? where’s the connection wire? or why is wireless pairing not happening yet? A two parts system is magnitudes more complex and frictionfull than a single part system. Please note that a computer or tablet based setting is a 3+ parts system: hardware vs operative system (potentially many issues), operative system vs user space software components (potentially many more issues).
Being an elder computer scientist (and experiencing a near death by COVID-19 last year) gives me extreme clarity on one fact: the only richness we can ever have is time, therefore a device, any technological device serving me should silently… serve me by protecting my time before everything else.
NI journey in standalone untethered musical instruments is a good strategic move in my opinion.
Being in control and responsible for the full tech stack, including hardware, is the only safe way to deliver exceptional quality. They are still learning, but they have high quality in their dna and eventually they’ll bring us beautiful musical instruments that will contribute shaping the market.
Sorry for not being able to express this with fewer words, and thank You for taking the Time to read my thoughts.
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Excellent thoughts on all these cumulative friction points and I am keenly aware of each one and agree with you. They are the same concerns that smart developers are continuously striving to diminish across many use cases for the mobile device marketplace. And having a mass market wanting theses immediate, frictionless devices will bring them into existence more rapidly.
Think about the health care industry, or virtual reality entertainment.. those use cases want an ecosystem with the same frictionless goals for the points you brought up.
Music device companies will piggyback on the friction-free quest of those larger markets.
There is no way for a company like NI to keep up without using the same building blocks, shifted to the needs of music makers.
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Thank you for your reply, and for keeping this thread intellectually intense.
That’s curious you mentioned the healthcare domain, since I’ve spent the main part of my tech career there. This brings a couple of thoughts that perhaps are worth sharing (I hope so).
The first digitalization wave (late nineties) brought little value to clinicians, and often plagued the care delivery processes with delays and tech induced new clinical risks (think for example of the potential dramatic consequences of an ethernet failure in an emergency situation where patient’s medical record is digital only).
In the second wave (first 2000 decade) we experienced a strange phenomenon: our clinicians users had spent so much cognitive effort to adapt to previous generation mediocre electronic health records (not to mention the countless process workarounds they developed spontaneously in order to be able to deliver good care to their patients DESPITE their “supporting” digital tech), that we had serious difficulties in changing these bad systems with good ones: they felt lost without their clumsy, buggy, awful DOS or windows 98 medical records.
As a commodore grown nerd (where by coding in assembler you were in full control of almost every aspect of the computer, such as the screen raster happening 25 times every second or the audio chip code being executed and wanting an 8 bit number to play 9600 times every seconds) I saw how much since the nineties the technology stratification eased the job of software engineers but weakened their ability to control the full tech stack and so the quality of the overall system.
I hated how much doctors and nurses had to use workarounds to save people lives because of mediocre technology. In order to work on my teams my software engineers had to spend at least one week every 6 months in wards to live first hand how their user’s daily operations were affected by the code they wrote. Some of them even left me because they couldn’t face this reality 😕.
The only way to deliver high quality (without having your meticolous job vanified by nasty microsoft or android operative system code) is to control all the tech stack, such as makers of life-critical clinical devices (for example heart monitors or infusion pump makers) or Elektron do (I’ve had devices from them that never failed in thousand of hours).
With Apple product you can attenuate the external nastiness a bit, but as a developer you’re still hostage of a company that could break in the future your product that is working flawlessly today.
Users adapt to mediocre technology and adaptation tend to lower expectations or expectation quality.
In my opinion a quality company like Native Instruments has everything is needed to actually drive the market by building end-to-end technology of exceptional quality and by shaping musicians expectations instead of fighting the music software crowded arena.
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I agree, Apple consumes many of NI resources. The wisest would be not to dive more into Apple ecosystem, not speaking about iPad world, but leave it and be happy.
I know considerable amount of revenues comes from Apple users, but maybe focusing on standalone and leaving Apple would bring more revenues for less effort.
There is Rosetta every few years, not speaking about perpetual incompatibilies with every subtle change of iOS.
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More excellent thoughts to stimulate worthwhile discussion.
This is the critical point that NI finds itself on. Either direction is a gamble.
I believe that continuing on their current path will result in them becoming a smaller and smaller niche company.
Another big factor in making this gamble is the prediction on the future of user engagement.
How will music makers commit hours of their daily life in either the most fruitful professional manner and/or the most enjoyable hobby manner?
Emerging arenas of engagement might be the determining factor on the safer bet.
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