About Native Instruments

[innesireinar]

I bought Battery 1 some years ago, then updated to v2, then to v3. Since Leopard, Battery owners can't run it in PT.
Some NI plugs are compatible with Leopard/PT since some months and some months ago I've asked to NI to change my product with one that I can use into my rig, like Absynth or B4 II. They told me that compatible updates were just around the corner, but still in beta testing. Now other months are passed and NI seems to ignore users who had bought their product and their site still says that they are in beta testing without giving us any date of the release. I wonder if we, PT users, have the rights for getting the change given that we can't use what we bought or otherwise our money back.
I think that they spend more time for developing protections for they products than for the updates.
I'm wondering what users in my same situation think about it.
Never seen something like this.

[Rubicon]

Happens all the time...

Digi includes products very similar to NI's already bundled with PT8. (DB-33) NI obviously can't keep up with the changes digi is making to PT. NI's time has passed. Enjoy the fact you were able to use some of their instruments. There is no NI in my future...

Rubicon

[Chris Many]

They've just put out a public Beta on Kontakt 3.5. Here's the notice:

We have now completed the beta version of our update for Kontakt 3 to make it
fully compatible with Pro Tools 7.4-8 and have released it online as Kontakt
3.5.

In addition to Pro Tools compatibility, the forthcoming Kontakt 3.5 update
brings a host of other technological improvements including a revised sampling
engine and DFD streaming technology, as well as 64-bit memory adressing under
Mac OS X and Windows Vista 64.

For this reason, the Kontakt team has decided to set up a public beta test for
Kontakt 3.5. This means that, starting immediately, registered Kontakt 3
owners can download a fully functional 3.5 beta version, and submit eventual
bug findings to the Kontakt team over a special "bug tracker" web page.

It looks like we're finally going to get some NI functionality.

Chris

[Howardk]

Originally Posted by innesireinar

I bought Battery 1 some years ago, then updated to v2, then to v3. Since Leopard, Battery owners can't run it in PT.
Some NI plugs are compatible with Leopard/PT since some months and some months ago I've asked to NI to change my product with one that I can use into my rig, like Absynth or B4 II. They told me that compatible updates were just around the corner, but still in beta testing. Now other months are passed and NI seems to ignore users who had bought their product and their site still says that they are in beta testing without giving us any date of the release. I wonder if we, PT users, have the rights for getting the change given that we can't use what we bought or otherwise our money back.
I think that they spend more time for developing protections for they products than for the updates.
I'm wondering what users in my same situation think about it.
Never seen something like this.

It is really unfortunate how poorly NI's products operate in RTAS/ProTools. It has been like this for as long as I can remember and is just another reason many composers are on other tools such as Logic, Cubase, or. . . many decent libraries rely on NI products for playback. I really like the features of the NI product line and own Komplete and can run most of the Plugins on PT 7.4 with moderate performance (not great). I keep hoping these 2 companies will start to work together to make things right, but it seems RTAS itself is a huge hurdle. Digidesign's acquisition of Wizoo and release of the AIR line of products probably doesn't help 3rd party developers put energy into RTAS Virtual Instrument products, so anything Digidesign can do to encourage and make it easier would be helpful. While a good move to provide more with the base package, AIR products tend to be closed, while most of us are looking for things to be more open, and not many 3rd party sound developers will put their energy into working with a single use player (RTAS) when more universal technology exists (ie. VST).

On aside, I am hearing of many professional musicians, that were using ProTools LE, moving to Logic due to the MainStage bundled product. This allows a Mac with a Digidesign, MOTU, or any decent interface, to become a very powerful keyboard sound station and guitar amp simulator. That is a lot of power for the touring musician. I don't know what the sales numbers look like these days, but it seems Digidesign is loosing ground every where I look.

[innesireinar]

Originally Posted by Rubicon

Happens all the time...

Digi includes products very similar to NI's already bundled with PT8. (DB-33) NI obviously can't keep up with the changes digi is making to PT. NI's time has passed. Enjoy the fact you were able to use some of their instruments. There is no NI in my future...

Rubicon

There is no NI in my future either... and sure, I can live without Battery...
But that's not the point. I want to be able to use what I paid for otherwise they should give us our money back given that they are not able to release compatible updates.

Chris, it would be nice if they'd do the same thing with Battery

[innesireinar]

Originally Posted by Howardk

It is really unfortunate how poorly NI's products operate in RTAS/ProTools. It has been like this for as long as I can remember and is just another reason many composers are on other tools such as Logic, Cubase, or. . . many decent libraries rely on NI products for playback. I really like the features of the NI product line and own Komplete and can run most of the Plugins on PT 7.4 with moderate performance (not great). I keep hoping these 2 companies will start to work together to make things right, but it seems RTAS itself is a huge hurdle. Digidesign's acquisition of Wizoo and release of the AIR line of products probably doesn't help 3rd party developers put energy into RTAS Virtual Instrument products, so anything Digidesign can do to encourage and make it easier would be helpful. While a good move to provide more with the base package, AIR products tend to be closed, while most of us are looking for things to be more open, and not many 3rd party sound developers will put their energy into working with a single use player (RTAS) when more universal technology exists (ie. VST).

On aside, I am hearing of many professional musicians, that were using ProTools LE, moving to Logic due to the MainStage bundled product. This allows a Mac with a Digidesign, MOTU, or any decent interface, to become a very powerful keyboard sound station and guitar amp simulator. That is a lot of power for the touring musician. I don't know what the sales numbers look like these days, but it seems Digidesign is loosing ground every where I look.

I don't want to start a debate between AU-VST vs RTAS.
I notice that NI is the only company that has not yet released compatible version of their products, at least speaking about what I own. All other co, someone earlier, someone later have done this. Arturia, BFD, LinPlug, Reason, u-he, Stylus... etc.

[TCDet]

Not to talk about beta but with K3.5 beta testing, as a sidebar note: Battery-3 in RTAS is working....
I'll try Akoustik Piano next...
PT's 8cs2. PPC Mac.

On NI site they've indicated sometime up to July for tentative release.
Yes the are slow but it seems their now getting to the sample based NI modules.

Bidule is also a working alternative via rewire.

Ditched and back....

[aux]

There's something to say about RTAS in general, but that still does not mean that a company like NI should take 1,5 years to come up with an update. Leopard was released in october 2007 and we're living in april 2009 right now. In the meantime they develop a new product (Maschine) instead of putting all effort in making sure everything else works.

I cannot do without NI, we have 8 years of sessions with NI plugins that we need to be able to open and edit. And I've always been very happy with their products, until we needed to upgrade to Leopard.

[andreªs]

I gave up on NI. Simply too absurd.

Opening old session is truly an issue. We keep our former 10.4.11 boot disk for retrieving and converting old sessions. But that's a real PITA.

[PeterB]

Yup.

I own Battery 2 and Battery 3 along with B4 II and Komplete synths. [and B4 1 and Dynamo which they just plain forgot about...]

I've given up using Komplete or B4 on my Mac, and run them on a dedicated PC streaming into my HD rig via TDif. They were too unstable on the Mac.

However, I continued to run Battery inside Protools for obvious reasons.
Each upgrade of Battery has been a huge PITA re. older sessions.
I have a huge number of projects from composing for film, TV and commercials and I need backwards compatibility. Also, I've created a huge library of kits in Battery format, that I'd still like to be able to use.

I can't move to PT8 because of the incompatibility of leopard and PT8 with Native instruments, because I have unfortunately made Battery 3 my everyday go to drum module.

Long term I guess I will need to find an alternative, but I can't write off all those older projects done with Battery that I need to revisit.

Also, I don't want to re-create lots of my drum kits [AGAIN]


Come ON native instruments, how about some technical support and some compatibility upgrades. You've had my money, over and over....