Battery 4 development

Well - if it's a true bug - should I not get it too?

VP

The most obvious is Groove Agent 5, and it's a lot better (and more flexible) than Battery 4, at this point.

Beyond that, the need for Battery 4 is very low, overall, because so many DAWs have such good drum samplers built into the software.

The only reason to care about it, is access to the Kits in the NI Expansion Ecosystem, which IMO carry the product. However, you get better access to those from Maschine, so take that for what it's worth…

Every plug-in has "iritating things" going on with it, so this is not remarkable or even noteworthy. Everyone can find reason to complain about everything.

Honestly, that's cope.

There is no battery patch with "whole bunch of things" in it that cannot be replicated in DMD or Groove Agent. All Battery does is load audio samples. It isn't like Maschine software, where you can have Synth Patches, etc. in Groups.

You are projecting a level of complexity that simply does not exist in this software.

Groove Agent's layout is what it is for the same reason Maschine uses the same layout.

What matters is which software is better and which has a brighter future.

Every NI Expansion Kit can be moved over to GA or DMD by simply dragging and dropping the samples over. It takes only a minute or two (none of them have FX, etc. enabled in the Battery Kits by default). Even the Patterns from Maschine Expansions can be moved over to Groove Agent 5 (or Logic Pro's Live Loops). All theoretical FX Processing can be approximated - and often replicated - in them. GA5 and Logic have better FX than Battery 4.

The workflow in their respective first-party DAWs (Cubase and Logic, respectively) is light years ahead of Battery 4 - especially in the case of Logic Pro's DMD.

IMO, NI should have created a Maschine Sampler plug-in that included the Drum Sampler with full groups capability that allowed people to load Expansion Groups from a better browser with full playback capability for a better user experience than loading the entire maschine software as a plug-in. That's really all they needed to do.

People who cope for Battery will always cope for it, and they will always find a reason to justify its eternal existence. At some people, companies have to start ignoring these people and give them an ultumatum. Not all customers are worth keeping, after all.

Call me crazy, but I will load an instance of Battery into a DMD cell just to use the Articulation on a snare for a drum roll. Basically, I switch between Maschine, Battery, and DMD depending on my use case. I haven't really settled on one. 🤪

Yep. Francisco Partners is into TONS of different technologies. Their portfolio is, as you say, massive, very diversified, and probably less "customer centric" than many of us would like to see. They could probably just shutter Native Instruments one day without even a tremble in their financials. And FP is not publicly traded, so they wouldn't even incur any wrath from the market (that they're not part of).

"There is never anything good to see back there…"

Well, except for Absynth. But other than that one, we have so many instrument and effect options available to us, I'm sure the near future fortunes for music-making are pretty good indeed.

This is just background. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you.

Groove Agent is fine. I like the complexity settings. But it doesn't nave any lifespan superpowers. Groove Agent will likely be around for exactly as long as Steinberg can continue to make and sell the sound expansions for it. 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.

And like how Roland used to own Cakewalk/Sonar until they let them go. The drama there is something to behold.

Anyhow, Steinberg and its products are here because their owner wants them to be.

It doesn't matter which company you buy from, as long as the instrument works for you. Just be aware that no software is eternal. If the owner wants it gone, then it will be gone.

The good news is that Halion, also from Steinberg, can do drums and percussion, just like Kontakt can. After all, they're just samplers when it comes down to it. There are lots of library makers who support Halion. And some who support both Halion and Kontakt.

For now, we still have choices. But who knows, it might all change by the time Monday rolls around.

Well Tom, you're NOT wrong. If you poll 2,000 people on whether or not they like strawberry bubblegum, you're going to get pretty much the same percentages of answers as you would had you polled 4,000 people. Or just 1,000. So why would you poll 4,000 if 1,000 can get you an acceptable factor of confidence, while being less expensive to do?

50% is 50%, and it doesn't give you any greater "level of confidence" once you get past a certain minimum level. Increasing your polling might just be increasing your costs after that minimum point. NI insists that they're not below that minimum level, so I am not sure what can be believed.

It's quite possible that NI's claims are correct and that their polling is right on target. It's also possible that it's way off-target, especially given the vocal disagreements in these forums over the inclusion of / removal of certain features in Komplete Kontrol. Again, I don't know which to believe.

This is why I think that companies need to also TALK WITH THEIR USERS. NI would have found out about all of this had they offered some sort of opportunity for power users to be able to provide input. And I don't mean by Simon NI having a bi-monthly forum thread on things that NI has already decided they were going to do anyway…or stop doing. The information still only flows one way in Simon's threads, so we're not really being listened to; not as much as we could be.

Personally, I don't think telemetry can do it all. But like I said above. If "enough is enough", then you have to make some decisions so you can move on. Or lose market share. There's risk in everything, even in sleeping in an iron bathtub. It might be bulletproof, but there are still lots of ways you can lose that bet.

People who cope for Battery will always cope for it, and they will always find a reason to justify its eternal existence. At some people, companies have to start ignoring these people and give them an ultumatum. Not all customers are worth keeping, after all.

I don't like the word "cope". All too often, it's used as a way to overtly insult people who disagree for some reason or another, and the person throwing the word around is now able to avoid having a real conversation, with actual disagreements and a good faith back-and-forth exchange of ideas.

I do agree with you that sometimes we need to move on, just for the good of greater society. That's why we don't use horses for transportation, and our surgeons use soap before they perform an operation.

But let's not be crazy about it. A person here SHOULD be able to have a positive opinion about Battery not being ready for the trash heap just yet, and not have to be insulted as having cope.

You're projecting your own interpretation of a term I have used onto my post to insinuate that I use the term to intentionally insult someone?