Open sourcing the Kontakt 7 nks2 implementation

ffx

The new mk3 models and nks 2.0 are available since almost a year… Wouldn't it be wise to focus development completely on very soon releasing an open source version of the NKS 2.0 implementation of Kontakt 7?

Then NI would sooner benefit from the efforts of other developers… What is the status of this project? I also wonder if a daw actually would be a better place to implement that, not each single plugin.

It would be very nice, if one day we could get rid of the NI Kontrol VST wrapper, and have the whole thing integrated into the daws. But this will only happen, if you completely open source it.

The whole concept is indeed very inspiring to use, and makes working with vsts a lot more enjoyable. But I would like to outline some disadvantages of the current concept:

- Requiring separate nks presets. In an ideal concept, the system would reuse the plugins presets, or at least auto convert those.
- The whole VST wrapper idea. Has a lot of disadvantages, leads to additional problems, restrictions and debbuging work
- No clap support, due to VST3 support. So no very modern features like per-voice-modulation via clap.

So as I see it (also being a dev), the best way would be:
- Open source NKS 2.1 standard (i.e. Kontakt7 implementation)
- Make it integratable for DAW vendors
- Make it attractive for DAW vendors
- Getting rid of the VST3 wrapper
- Getting rid of NKS presets (if not required anymore), adding auto sync to NKS 2.1

What do you think about it? Are you working on such an open source implementation? Thanks for any kind of status or insight. 😀

DunedinDragon

That's very idealistic and not very practical not to mention the loss of wider integration within the industry due specifically to the VST3 wrapper. Since there's no comprehensive central source code control system, who exactly do you turn to for support and upgrades?

Open Source = Write once, debug everywhere.

ffx

I think you got me wrong. I mean just to open source the NKS implementation of Kontakt 7. Of course NI still would have to develop this further. See CLAP format for a very positive example of open source and collaborative work: An extremely flexible, lightweight and easy to understand plugin format, which already exceeds VST3 in its possibilities, e.g. per-voice-modulation from outside.

This is not about open source a whole project, just a connection standard.

And yes, the VST3 container wrapper is a total workaround. Exactly what the wrapper does, wrapping the plugin communication to the keyboard standard, could be better done inside the daw.

Also by opening the NKS standard, other keyboard vendors could also implement NKS into their devices.

Maybe the same would be possible, if Native Instruments would fully implement MIDI 2.0 and property exchange, which then could alsao work without any VST3 wrapper.

In the end, only the open standards will survive. It would be a pity and also a desaster for the environment, if in some years NI would publish the MK4 line, not backwards compatible again. In my opinion, the master keyboard industry sucks so much, because there is no defacto standard, and most nowadays devices are produced already for the trash, too low quality, vendor lock-in. This should not happen in 2024 anymore.