Legacy Products: Absynth, Vokator, Spectral Delay
Answers
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So,
Whatever the NI sez, your best bet is to copy off whatever you need, and take the machine off line. Save the machine.
NI will do their best to make sure products offered in the past are not offered again.
NI is totally f'd, so protect your investment.
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Repeat,
NI is F'd up.
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The EULA does not matter if the software is incompatible due to:
- OS Updates
- Architectural Incompatibility (VST2 will NEVER be ARM Native, for neither macOS nor Windows)
- DAW Updates
That's ignoring certain things like how unusable many of NI's Instruments and FX are on HiDPI displays (without scaling up the entire display, defeatuing the purpose of getting one at all).
You can still install and run the software where it will install and run. The issue with depending on Dead Software/Abandonware is that there is no chance that issues will be rectified when they pop up.
And once that happens, you will have tons of projects rendered [partially] incompatible due to your continued and ill-advised use of that plug-in.
The only material utility Absynth 5 retains at this moment is its ability to still be loaded so that you can stem out those projects and avoid a catastrophe later on.
I don't know about you, but I have better things to do than clutter my space up with legacy machines whose only purpose is loading projects due to the use of now-incompatible plug-ins.
When a plug-in is discontinued, it comes off of my system and I cease using it. Fortunately, stemming out projects is and has been a standard part of my archival/backup process for years… for these exact reasons.
I don't know why people are still debating this on these forums. We've had these discussions dozens of time. It's time to let it go. If you want to keep polluting your projects with Absynth, then do so. But understand what the status of that project is, live with it, and don't come here for help when it blows up in your face.
Activate those old products with an old version of Native Access, if possible. But I think things like Vokator and Spectral Delay are so old that you really are far past the opportune time to "move on." I can barely muster up any sympathy for that situation.
Have a good day.
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Absynth will run on Win for a decade or two on without problems. And the same for VST2. In the worst case one may use VST3 wrapper. And there is no real advantage to use ARM on Win, maybe for lighweight tablet, that is not usable for music production, anyway.
Absynth is EOL, but it does not mean, it cannot be usable for decade or even more on.
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Reading EULA before purchase is to protect customer, not company. And it is not that difficult to proove one has read it before purchase. Do not be affraid.
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Appreciate all your time for replies.
If Im here for another 10 or 15 years before I move on (leave the planet)…then a couple of legacy mini pcs stacked up of no consequence. Dante seem to work ok but Ill have to check for a while, then its no diff to my old hardware, wavestation AD, MS20 polysix, D60/70 etc.
The only newer tech that is slightly important is probably mix plugs…in fact if there was a proper tape one with some new stuff that would do the job…all this compression and saturation was native to tape. Im actually pretty happy with SX for just making music and recording bands/project groups…its so solid and fast and has the MBand compressor. Really would have loved to keep Kore going
There are decades of sounds still to be discovered on what I have…I really dont want to waste any more time on mucking around with new stuff…like I said, they use to have fx teleport so I could plug over to old dsp like powercore but most of its native now anyway…so the discussions have helped me a lot thanks and I found some cracked stuff which I hate using but it seems to cover the missing bits"NI is F'd up."
I dont actually agree…they were pretty amazing the first 20 years…I would hazard a guess that very few work there now. The lack of innovation and dumbing down to the bedroom crowd…jettison of real gems that are still years ahead of their time…just released without proper training eg kore.
From the perspective over here…the company doesnt even look German anymore…Komplete Kontrol is testament to that…pre school toys with a strong marketing team.Thanks to all
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I do not understand the "modern" approach, "it is old, get rid of it".
I use 100 years old plates and cups. They are much better quality than 99% of current ones. I use 20 years old Eventide H8000. It is still better than most of current "toys". And also almost 20 years old audio interface Fireface 400 made by RME still outperforms many of current junk boxes….
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No real advantage is blatantly lying.
I'm sure the only real advantage to ARM for Apple was in iPads, right?
You do realize that Windows can benefit the same way from ARM that macOS can, right? macOS isn't special. It's just another operating system. ARM has already proven itself viable in desktops.
Unless gaming is a goal, I don't see why anyone would opt for x64 Laptops for Productivity or Creativity (assuming apps are ported), these days. The only limiting factor is application support. That's it. But in-support, in-development products will make the transition.
The only reason you're coping so hard and trying to make this argument is because you're talking about Absynth 5 - a product that will NEVER make the transition because it's out-of-support and discontinued. Convenient…
Resolve Studio and Cubase are already going to ARM. More will follow.
Native Instruments is always slow with these transitions, which is why I have put myself in a position where I do not depend on their products - pretty much at all. We all learned that lesson with the move to Apple Silicon.
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We're talking about software.
Bringing in hardware and trying to use that as a cope argument is intellectually dishonest and bad faith argument.
Your hardware FX will not stop working simply because you upgraded your OS, moved to an ARM Machine, or your DAW decided to stop supporting VST2. It stops working when the hardware breaks down, at which point you may or may not be able to simply repair it and continue using it.
Again, Audio Interfaces (Class Compliant), Hardware Effects, MIDI Controllers (Class Compliant), Drum Machines, etc. are not comparable to a software synth like Absynth 5.
And Class Compliant is parenthesized because if you depend on hardware drivers then they run the exact same risk as any other software application. Your Fireface 400 isn't going to perform that great if the driver falls out of compatibility and they discontinue it and refuse to update it - unless it functions as a class compliant device (e.g. normal on macOS, less so on Windows).
Same with Komplete Kontrol Controllers, Maschine Controllers (Depend on NIHardware services, Controller Editor, etc.) and other peripherals with similar "handicaps."
Are you even thinking about what you're writing?
Any "hardware" that depends on software/middleware is at the mercy of the developers' willingness to continue to support the software that device depends on.
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No support is needed and nobody asks for support concerning EOL SW. Asking just for single "simple" thing. Not to break licence agreement by SW developer.
- Licence is granted perpetual.
- NI has promissed to provide SW authorisation or if not possible anymore to provide universal activation key.
Simple as that.
I do not about Mac, I would not use it even if I get it for free. And who cares about ARM on Win? ARM does not bring much to Win world, except problems with incompabilities and so on. Beside, ARM on Win is not suited for music production, so far.
Maybe that ARM will make it to Win on third trial, but the penetration will be very slow. And for music production one needs strong CPU and not toy for early adopters.
And tell me, what is the benefit of ARM. The only is that it is slightly, but really SLIGHTLY, more energy effective than well designed x86. By well designed I do not mean Intels of current few years. x86 is RISC internally, as well as ARM is RISC. So, the difference is mainly in front end that is little more complicated for x86. But it has backward compatibility decades back.
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Well I have some disagreements.
…certain things like how unusable many of NI's Instruments and FX are on HiDPI displays (without scaling up the entire display, defeatuing the purpose of getting one at all).
Well that's a good point. The world still has too much software with hard-to-read interfaces.
You can still install and run the software where it will install and run. The issue with depending on Dead Software/Abandonware is that there is no chance that issues will be rectified when they pop up.
And once that happens, you will have tons of projects rendered [partially] incompatible due to your continued and ill-advised use of that plug-in.
The only material utility Absynth 5 retains at this moment is its ability to still be loaded so that you can stem out those projects and avoid a catastrophe later on.
I'll grant you that we should "stem-out" any mildly useful Absynth 5 tracks, including any new tracks that anybody might be making still.
But that's not the "only" material utility that Absynth 5 has. It is still a VERY usable and exceedingly MUSICAL instrument, and as such, I recently reinstalled it and have put a copy of the VST2 DLL file into its own folder so that I can use it in Cubase, Maschine, Live, and any other host that can still access VST2 plugins.
I don't know about you, but I have better things to do than clutter my space up with legacy machines whose only purpose is loading projects due to the use of now-incompatible plug-ins.
I don't wholly disagree with you, but…
When a plug-in is discontinued, it comes off of my system and I cease using it. Fortunately, stemming out projects is and has been a standard part of my archival/backup process for years… for these exact reasons.
…I won't "immediately" remove a discontinued plugin. Especially if it still retains some level of musical value, and if it doesn't cause problems on a given machine. Everybody should have a stemming process, yes. That's a good "best practice" that everybody should have.
I don't know why people are still debating this on these forums. We've had these discussions dozens of time. It's time to let it go. If you want to keep polluting your projects with Absynth, then do so. But understand what the status of that project is, live with it, and don't come here for help when it blows up in your face.
Well, we need to debate. We're humans, and that's what we've been doing for millennia. And it's unfair to refer to Absynth as "pollution" for projects. Especially not since the original author has made comments that he would be open to future development of Absynth, to bring it up to date. The story here is not over with, and it doesn't really matter what you think about people carrying on the debate without you, because if we want to debate, well we will, thank you very much.
Activate those old products with an old version of Native Access, if possible. But I think things like Vokator and Spectral Delay are so old that you really are far past the opportune time to "move on." I can barely muster up any sympathy for that situation.
The version of NA doesn't matter. Everybody should be on the most current version of NA.
Some of NI's products are so old that you can't activate them with ANY version of NA…so for those products, you'd need to employ a copy of the old "Service Center" utility. This is why I've retained all of my DVD versions of older Komplete products. But I haven't had to install anything from them for years now, plus the old activation infrastructure is no longer functional anyhow, so I will probably discard them sometime in the next couple of years.
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You could always learn to code and use Reaper as your DAW and program your own plugins?
I've been considering this heavily as of late…
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Yeah this is the core of this whole post
Tools vs toys. Tools are timeless, toys wane and fade.
I no longer have a VC10 but wow, the ensemble on that thing never aged and to think that many great fx originally came from (in my experience) guitar pedals and eg old Mirano tape echos…no diff to the art of hip hop where you didnt have money to buy the latest but expounded the undiscovered eg Beats/Machines
I guess its where its all headed…instant gratification…easy come easy go but to say that its a hardware dependency and we are waiting for the next big thing is the seed of a consumerist society and thats what I left behind a long time ago
INTENT: CONTEXT: CONTENT
These tenets are untied to tech or hardware (or preset surfing) ie when a vision forms first and is looking for an artful expression with some random flow along the way.
Im turning 60 next year…I feel about 23 and I only just feel, after 43 years, that this is all converging and becoming such a fluid language not only in the making of music but in the connection of people; where the real magic is and more importantly in the listening…understanding even the acoustic space for listening both in the creation (now I use a soundstage global space using old tools) and the physical space (hybrid QRD/helmholz to tune the space to a transparent reality)Kore just by itself is many decades of discovery…the hallmark of genius; pity those guys are long gone.
BTW, while we are chatting, does anyone have links of their work? Im always up for listening to the art than talk :-)0 -
Ive coded most of my life, its time to just create
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Do you use Reaper?
And I totally understand the sentiment. Why code when you can create!!
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