Should Kontakt retire ?

aka · 2024-01-01T05:58:35+00:00

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I wonder how many people have already asked NI to develop a new product to replace KONTAKT and KK ?

I used to be a (non-musical) software developer for 30+ yrs and find that these to flagship products are as obsolete as tube radios. It is time to abandon this super old and ineffective, cumbersome technology. Kontakt should have died along with Windows-XP. Time to say goodbye. I think the more people ask for a new product the sooner this happens.

I am glad I can now partially siwtch to other products like UVI workstation or Musio, and hoping that their competition brings a wake up call to NI. They have not even implemented ZOOM feature in KK , but they ask people to buy they keyboards and use KK software which is absolute trash in every aspect. I still keep KK keyboard, simply because of the LED feature, but everything else is useless for me.

I wonder how many people share the same opinion and would be willing to message NI about this. ?

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Maciej Repetowski

I’m not a programmer, but I think that rewriting Kontakt from scratch and basing it on modern framework would be the best.

I think however, that maintaining compatibility with all old libraries would be next to impossible in that case, so I doubt it will happen.

mykejb

KK has just been rewritten, and it didn't go down too well.

What would you like updating in Kontakt?

-- Mike

PoorFellow

I don't see Kontakt being 'retired' any time soon, updated ? yes ! , having interface rewritten from scratch ? possibly ! But retired ? No !

Vagus

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/20737/should-kontakt-retire

Kontakt has a zoom feature as of 2023, which we make older libraries more usable, and translates to KK. Individual plugins should be able to manage their own scaling, and for the most part, KK takaes care of that.

I wouldn't say it's Native Instrument's job to deal with plugin scaling on behalf of developers.

Keith Cocker

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/20737/should-kontakt-retire

9 Posts and he's an expert.

Maciej Repetowski

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/121449#Comment_121449

Not sure it was directed to me or OP, but Kontakt hasn’t been rewritten. They’ve made new GUI framework and browser which talk to old code still present underneath.

mykejb

KK was a reasonable rewrite from what I was told during the beta

-- Mike

Maciej Repetowski

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/121503#Comment_121503

The thread was about Kontakt and that’s what I’ve been referring to. KK might as well been rewritten from scratch, it certainly looks like this, judging from amount of problems people have with it.

Kontakt had just a bit of GUI refresh and browser transplant for now, AFAIK.

mykejb

I wonder how many people have already asked NI to develop a new product to replace KONTAKT and KK ?

-- Mike

Maciej Repetowski

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/121561#Comment_121561

No worries, mate. Got it now :)

BIF

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/20737/should-kontakt-retire

UVI Workstation, Musio, Halion, Opus, and VSP (I think it's called?); those all are the same thing as Kontakt. They just don't use the NKS standard. But still, they are multi-channel samplers, and they perform the same functions for the instruments and effects that their respective companies make and sell.

To say that Kontakt should be abandoned is like saying ALL samplers should be abandoned.

So to answer your question? Exactly ZERO people have asked NI to develop a new product to replace Kontakt and KK. Unless you've asked them, in which case that number would be exactly 1.

aka

I should have not made this thread as question, because the answer is obvious.

Saying "UVI Workstation, Musio, Halion, Opus, and VSP (I think it's called?); those all are the same thing as Kontakt." in general is true, they serve similar purpose but the way they do is is very different. KONTAKT is the most oudated sampler that I am aware of and uses super ancient techonology (read libraries and design).

As far as KK I see no improvement at all, it does not even have a Zoom feature so in order to zoom in one has to open Kontakt inside KK, but in order Kontakt in KK one has to select some patch, then switch to EDIT view, the open Kontakt menu then selec zoom scalling. Doing this hole long procedure seems completely insane (waste of time and energy).

Scaling the library interface might help but not many developers are doing it and those who do simply rescale the graphic while loosing the crispiness and readability. I have Berling Orchestral libs which even zoomed into 150% looks super tiny and unreadable.

Kontakt needs entire GUI redesigned. PERIOD

Simchris

I use multiple applications depending on mood and project. I don't see any need to 'replace' KONTAKT as I have huge libraries and licenses from the past decade, and most not available for stuff like UVI, EastWest, etc. I also have thousands of samples of my old vintage synths I sold 6 years ago to buy house, optimized for Kontakt, and no easy way to move to Falcon, for example.

I don't see Kontakt being 'retired' -- anymore than the Macbook Pro, or Toyota Camry going away.

Feel free to stop using it, doesn't impact most of us :)

aka

Simchris - new product replacing Kontakt (or new KONTAKT completely redesigned) doesn't have to be incompatible with our LIBs. Libs are simply sound fieles with some assosiated config files and database tables (records). The whole idea is to use modern development libraries, which are robust and can interact with other tools.

When I use word "libraries" I mean software development libraries (used to build software - not the sample libraries). Moreover KONTAKT GUI was OK about 20 years ago, in Windows-XP era, but now it is missing to many options, features and overal design is super ancient. Even the fact that none of the GUI parts is using Vector Fonts OR/AND Vector graphis makes this product super hard to scale.

New Zoom feature is simply like putting a band-aid on a bleading wound. The scaling is unproportional, images are super blurry, fonts are not vlear and the entire interface is very hard to read AND manage on hi resolution screens.

I just puchased UVI subscription and while their UVI-WORKSTATION is not perfect the GUI experience is waaaayyy much better. I also installed MUSIO and while it is still missing lots of features, the developers at least listen to the user comments and suggestions and make appropriate changes. I cannot say the same about NI.

In KONTAKT7 the only 2 features which have some value for me is the Zoom and multi-thread processor management. Everything else they added was either waste of time or became worse (ie. removing DATABASE tab with its options).

By using term "Kontakt retired" I do not mean Kontakt disappearing completely but rather being rebuild from ground up. Especially using different scripting language for building extensions. Great example of that is UVI - using LUA scripting language which is much better suited for programing than NI proprietary script.

Most likely for me recent upgrade was the last one and I will not spend my dollars on super obsolete software anymore. Luckily there are new products on th horizon and will bring more competition to Kontakt.

BIF

Goodbye and good luck then! I agree with your feeling that this is your best decision. We wouldn't want you to be "spending dollars on super obsolete software anymore" anyway. You would just be really really unhappy.

And nobody wants that!

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