NI, the future and transparency

Kaldosh

@Murat Kayi Thanks for the tip. I've been through all the workarounds. It remains fun to use in Maschine anyway. I understand the possible reasons but don't vouch for it ☺️. It just doesn't make too much sense knowing that all was rewritten from the ground up not that long ago and was not implemented. It is a bit like the way we constantly talk about renewable energy, sustainable economy with a lot of class and inspiration but in reality it is simply not affordable. I am writing my third album with less and less time, knowing that I could never achieve 1st and 2nd for constant technical issues, breakdowns etc etc. Maybe one day we might be worthy and finish the job, who knows. Regarding NI tutorials, they are great, I personally invested the minimum required to start my own stuff and have few ideas, but you know, whoever we are, how do we manage to fund ourselves ? A lot of hard work, that doesn't pay and with faith we keep going on step by step until one day it kicks in and all of a sudden it can all go very fast. I am afraid if I assume that my surroundings might reflect an average situation in the world, well it is not very positive. Lots of strikes, time wasted, expensive everything when it should be as simple as trusting each other. Believe it or not but we all hope for the best but we don't all understand what is the best way because we all have our own and I'll always respect that as long as long as my success don't depend on busting someone else ass for free . Thanks NI for your amazing ecosystem, it made my small world so much better

Trevor Meier

Nice to see a bit of a change in posture with the recent post on what’s coming for Maschine: https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/768/coming-up-next-for-maschine-and-maschine

Cretin Dilettante

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/1812#Comment_1812

The saddest part is that Reaktor is actually the superior DSP environment, compared to Max/MSP. I attended a lecture/presentation at university with one of the dudes who works on it, and he straight up admitted that it's a "jack of all trades, master of none" when I brought up all the performance issues Max 7 has/had with both audio and video. I can't make anything complex in Max/MSP that won't crash or be unstable, whereas Reaktor has been incredibly CPU efficient and has never crashed while I was using a self-created ensemble. VCV Rack absolutely obliterates Blocks as far as usability goes, though. NI have a tendency to get really insecure over other companies' innovations, rush a product or update to the market, and then force us to just deal with bugs, incomplete implementation of or otherwise missing features...Maschine Jam, for example, felt like their answer to Akai & Ableton Live's innovations with clip launching; Blocks felt like they were rushing to compete with the likes of Cherry Audio, Reason, and VCV; and now Maschine+ feels like a rushed answer to the new MPCs. I am enjoying mine, but the MSRP is off-putting when you consider the things it lacks compared to the competition. I wouldn't recommend the Maschine+ to anybody unless they were already a huge fan of NI Products, if I'm honest.

Trevor Meier

I agree, it feels like there’s been a lot of wasted potential the last half-dozen years at NI. There’s some absolutely brilliant ideas that just don’t seem to get fully brought to realization.

On the flip-side, I think their execution on the instrument front has been exceptional. If they could bring that level of thinking and polished execution to their platforms (like Reaktor & Maschine) they would be unstoppable.

ShelLuser

Didn't pay much attention to this thread but... sorry, with all due respect but this made me laugh out loud:

@Cretin Dilettante

The saddest part is that Reaktor is actually the superior DSP environment, compared to Max/MSP.

Utter nonsense.

So, one guy from a "university" said something and thus that's the truth? You can't make one patch in Max that doesn't crash? That's saying something about your patches / coding, not Max. Dare I ask (I know I'm late): using javascript by any chance?

Sorry, but this is just not true, it's just utterly stupid. The underlying issue which I suspect to have crept in here is that Max is a full fledged (visual) programing environment whereas Reaktor is a do it yourself instrument. And some people just gloss over it. Please let this sink in? Programming environment? When I come up with "amazing" code for Visual Studio, NetBeans, IntelliJ, or maybe CLion which makes the IDE crash... is that really a sign that the IDE is bad or could it be that my code simply sucks? Yes, I can confirm that this can be made to happen for VS & NetBeans.

Don't shoot the messenger anyone?

The real issue here is that you cannot compare these environments. It's just... dumb I think. Because they're nothing alike. YES, you can actually come up with code (js is notorious for this) which can make Max crash. It's true! But the very same thing holds true for most professional coding IDE's. Because programming is not the same as building up an instrument or audio effect in an already protected environment.

The fact that you seem unable to grasp this makes me convinced that... yah... one isn't better than the other, only tools blame their tools from my point of view.

(edit)

when I brought up all the performance issues Max 7 has/had with both audio and video

Oh dear... glossed over this one. Just wondering, you DO realize that Max 7 is... 4 - 5 years old? So you're blaming a severely outdated environment for not being able to cope with current standards? And that's supposed to be proof that Reaktor is better? omg.... I'd expect something like that coming from a 'modern' university, just saying. FYI: we're at Max 8.2 now. If you want to compare products you should at least focus on current versions for the both of them. Otherwise it's just a dumb joke.

ShelLuser

Now, this needs a double post because my previous post is focused on your (IMO I suppose?) nonsense regarding Max/MSP and what I consider to be your inability to grasp the differences between a programming language/environment and a protected "build it yourself" setup.

Let's get into your NI parts here, just so we don't lose track.

NI have a tendency to get really insecure over other companies' innovations, rush a product or update to the market, and then force us to just deal with bugs, incomplete implementation of or otherwise missing features...Maschine Jam, for example, felt like their answer to Akai & Ableton Live's innovations with clip launching;

So... for context sakes... I actually consider myself an Ableton fanboy first and foremost, that's what my home studio is all about. Lessee... So I bought myself Live 8 suite + the Akai APC40 around December 2010. APC40 was amazing in its own right, becaus of its full control over the session view. It's whole focus was on launching clips.

Lessee... Maschine Jam. From what Wikipedia tells me (here) that got released in 2016. 6 years later? How on earth is that a rushed product in answer to Ableton? Wait... could this be about Push? Because that was game changing for pretty much every Live user. Hmm... A very reliable source tells me that the first Push released with Live 9 in... 2013? THAT was a gamechanger, and 3 years later we get Maschine JAM and that's supposed to be a rushed answer? Puhlease.

and now Maschine+ feels like a rushed answer to the new MPCs.

That brings back fond memories of my awesome Akai MPD24. Maschine blows it out of the water IMO, but nothing bad about MPD24 coming from me. For me Maschine is a better fit, yet I know of a guy who makes better beats with his actual drum rack/setup. So I suppose a drumrack is now better than Maschine per definition? Even if you don't have a clue on how to play it? 😏

But yah, I was once an Akai fanboy too, and when that happens I try to learn as much as I can about the product or brand. So lessee...

See... I actually remember this. The very first Akai MPC, or: the very first stand-alone drum machine got released around 1990. I'm not going to pretend that I know a lot here (I don't) but what I DO know is that around 2k the MPC was a well given FACT. I've seen one around that time in a music class.

... not to mention the fact that I actually considered buying an MPC around 2010 as addition to my home studio but eventually "cut the knot" and decided to go all out for soft-synths. Ergo I got the MPD24 backed by Live's drumrack and some years after that Reason's awesome Kong drum designer.

Now in full fairness: you did say "new MPC's".

But it still doesn't make any sense to me, how could this be rushed considering that the concept in itself already existed for over 20 years?

Each to their own, but from my POV you're just spouting off a lot of varies things and hope that they'll click. I still stand by my opinion that your comment about Max/MSP was utterly stupid. And if I take that into account for the rest of your remarks, then add that up to your comments about Live which... seem kinda off... yeah... 🤔

You wanna know the worst part?

To some extend I actually agree with you. I think NI lost their guts way back in 2018. Because hardly anything new came in. From my perspective NI have fully utilized their reputation with Komplete and hardly added anything new. I mean, most of their recent stuff is sample based it seems, there's that. Some is definitely impressive, but ... I also noticed that they focussed a lot more on resellers too (good on them, thanks to NI I discovered the SoundIron vocal suite, and that was a game changer for me!).

Now to get to my point....

So here we were, NI making moves with the iZotope joint venture and some people are still focusing on the past? "Because they did some stuff..", some of which I can easily debunk?

That's the part that kinda rubs me, being a bit of a fanboy (not in the extreme/negative sense mind you). They're making efforts, things are changing and then people still feel the need to complain.

Come on here.... at least get your history straight. Or give 'm a fair chance to prove their new ways.

Murat Kayi

tl;dr.....

afrogrit

The best strategy I have seen is for one to remain in their lane. NI is NI because its NI ~ trying to be someone else would lead to disastrous results.

Which company is transparent?

. . . I'll go hide behind the curtain now

Cretin Dilettante

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/13642#Comment_13642

Damn, you're absolutely butt-blasted. My point was: If you want to do something involving sound, you'd use reaktor because the naming conventions and general workflow of the application is more focused on DSP than Max, which is more general in its applications.

Milos

In my opinion, the future depends on them when it comes to plugins in general.

If they improve their products and community support, future will be fantastic.

Only if they have the strong will to upgrade, then we will indeed have the bright future!

I am sure they will.