Battery 4 development

iNate

The fact that DMD is a summing track stack that uses Quick Samplers behind the scenes is exactly what makes the workflow so good.

It means you can pitch high hats, 808s, etc. without having to take it out of Battery 4 and put it in an external sampler on its own track. You just expand the stack, create a MIDI Clip on the HiHat Track, and record/pencil in your MIDI to play that sample melodically. This is impossible with Battery 4 (no, setting key ranges is not a workaround for this).

I will always prefer to do my mixing/processing in the DAW mixer over the internal mixer of a sampler plug-in, because it's far superior for resource management and I have better plug-ins available as AudioUnits than what's inside Battery 4. That's just me, though.

The way DMD works in Logic is very similar to the way Groups are handled in Maschine software.

BIF

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/203380#Comment_203380

All points well made. Any disagreements I might have are minor.

And you're right about how the "old guard products" are being updated. I saw 3 or 4 more hit my Native Access queue earlier this week.

I just wish Absynth could be included in that list. If Absynth could be made VST3 and 64 bit, and just fix the worst bug or two, then it might be possible that Absynth could be good for the next 50 years or more under Mac and PC. I'd be happy with the stance that "this the last of it; after this, if Absynth breaks, we'll let you have both parts. But we're not fixing it anymore." AND THEN PUBLISH THAT.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/203394#Comment_203394

Thank you for your comment about preferring the DAW mixer over other "internal" mixers. I appreciate hearing that kind of usage information from other users.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/203393#Comment_203393

Yes. Because THAT is exactly how people use the word "cope" in conversation and communications. You call it "projection" (another leap?), but I call it "observation". I've OBSERVED that people use the word "cope" as a noun. Way more often than not, when used as a noun, it's just a way to shame or denigrate the person who is ostensibly "coping".

So without any other information about your thinking, what am I (or any other reader) left to assume…that your use would be any different than what's common?

Come on, you can't kid a kidder. You did use the word in a way to shame the people you were referring to, maybe not personally/individually…but certainly as a group. "People with cope". That was shaming…at least a li'l bit. Yeah, you did. 😏

And I go back to my original point. Even a perfectly reasonable person can feel that Battery still has some juice left. Even a perfectly reasonable person can feel that Absynth, with a little work, can be made to remain relevant for decades to come.

Examples abound, but I promised myself I'd "touch grass" today. Have a great Saturday!

Vocalpoint

@BIF

"I just wish Absynth could be included in that list."

You seem to be a well informed NI user - but have you actually read up on the AbSynth backstory?

This was not (and is not) one of the "old guard". It has a very complicated history - one that was not easily overcome by any of the parties involved.

I still maintain we should feel lucky we can still even install it at all.

VP

SaschaFranck

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/203394#Comment_203394

The fact that DMD is a summing track stack that uses Quick Samplers behind the scenes is exactly what makes the workflow so good.

Doesn't change anything with the fact that I can't duplicate the track without duplicating the entire summing stack. Which is what I'm doing all the time with Battery. If that was easily possible, I'd likely be using DMD all the time. But it's not.

I will always prefer to do my mixing/processing in the DAW mixer over the internal mixer of a sampler plug-in,

Can be done with Battery as well. Just load it as a multiout instance.

As said, I'd be using DMD all over the place if it was finally possible to treat it as a "plain" instrument. Which it isn't.

SaschaFranck

@BIF

But remember, Steinberg is owned by Yamaha. Just like Native Instruments is owned by Francisco Partners. And like how Gibson Guitars is owned by KKR (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts), and how Servco owns Fender.

There's a HUGE difference here in Yamaha having a very solid standing in the music history. For Steinberg, that acquisition has possibly been the best deal ever as Yamaha has a genuine interest in musical things whereas all the other "partners" are just interested in profit.

Vocalpoint

"There's a HUGE difference here in Yamaha having a very solid standing in the music history. For Steinberg, that acquisition has possibly been the best deal ever as Yamaha has a genuine interest in musical things whereas all the other "partners" are just interested in profit."

Nailed it.

I wish that every single forum user - that continually yearns (or complains or rants or demands) about the NI of yesteryear - would come right to this post. Read it. Absorb it. And know it.

VP

Tom Collins

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/203332#Comment_203332

Exactly, people in here are all over you if you are not a disillusioned as them

SaschaFranck

Fwiw, I have no idea why NI couldn't at least provide some smaller updates to Battery 4 during the last years. There's some things that'd made it sooo much more enjoyable to work with it.
Because there's been that update, I was fooling around with it a bit again, so I instantly noticed why I was using Battery 3 as long as I could (until I bought a new Macbook last April, that is).

The 2 absolutely most annoying things for me (especially compared to B3):
1) When you close and reopen the UI, the upmost cell in the left collumn is selected whereas the last manually selected cell should be the selected one.
2) When previewing samples in context, the sample is instantly replaced permanently, there's no cancel or undo option. With Battery 3, "in kit preview" was a temporary process and in case you wanted to actually load the sample (or cell preset), you'd have to explicitely confirm things. Which is what things should be like.

Changing these two behaviours should be a pretty trivial process for a decent programmer. And these two are among those being complained about a lot when people were updating from 3 to 4 over 10 years ago already. In fact, these (and quite some others) should've already been tackled at least during betatesting. I mean, why would you actually even release something that'd do several things way worse than its predecessor? That's just making absolutely no sense, others than that you really don't care much.

And yes, I'm absolutely aware that these things will never be adressed anymore - but playing around with it for a while instantly reminded my of the frustrating experience Battery 4 has been all throughout.
If they had really improved Battery 3, we'd possibly have a hybrid of Battery, XO, Groove Agent and Speedrum by now, possibly ruling them all (we'd have a slicer, an onboard sequencer, a great file handling system and what not - all that with Battery's excellent individual cell tweaking options).
Instead we may one day see a similar thing in Kontakt, but I doubt it'll ever really touch Battery 3 or the competition.