Improvements for next release: wish list for feature requests

I would go even one step further: For me Komplete in the name means, that I should be able to configure custom Native Maps for every instrument. There's a long thread here in the forum, where we did that to the Reaktor user ensemble JP-4c ... all panel knobs are now mapped to the keyboard.

In my opinion this is the most urgent missing feature besides third party VST support. There are so many examples ... the most obvious with unsufficient knob mappings is Rounds.

 

Can we have nine drawbars, please? Vintage organs would love them. We can also map them to various parameters in different plug-ins.

In the mean time, what do the keys feel like?

 

Create Emotive Brass, Emotive Woodwinds, Emotive Percussion...bundle it with Emotive Strings and release as Orkestral Komplete.... Or call it Orkestral Brass, Orkestral Woodwinds, Orkestral Percussion and Bundle it with Emotive Strings and release ax Orkestral Komplete Bundle...I'd pay 500 to 600 for it.

 

The new World of composing, huh? Where nobody has to write a single thing of their own! Haha! I'll pass on this but hope you get what you want.

 

Remember 'Painting by Numbers'? This is the musical equivalent. "Step this way, folks. Create masterpieces. No skill or imagination required."

 

Like Kore, you mean? NI seem to be getting into the same mess that they did with Kore. I wonder how long it is before they drop support for VSTs. Or KK.

 

In times of music piracy the genres film, game and advertising music are the main ways to earn money with compositions.

So it doesn't astonish me, that there is a high demand for an orchestral instrument bundle.

 

Yes, there is a massive demand for instrument bundles. I own many 3rd party Libraries whereby they are just libraries and I have to write Music with them. I was making an observation that with the emotive series because you don't have to write anything as it is just a selection of pre recorded phrases. A selection Recorded for people who have no idea how to write Orchestral Music and that doesn't matter in the long run because anyone that uses that type of thing will end up all sounding the same. As Generic as today's Pop Music. I'm glad it exists, believe me, I am, and if it get's someone into Orchestral "Composing" then brilliant, but let's not pretend that this Emotive series is something it's not. A selection of pre recorded phrases that somebody without any skill can just select, plop into their DAW and pretend they wrote haha!

 

I see that a bit different, because pre-recorded phrases sound more realistic, than MIDI created phrases.

That depends on the creativity or convenience of the composer

Let's compare to covers ... some sound extremely different to the original, e.g. Big Black's Kraftwerk cover of The Model:

 

Big +1

 

Interesting replies to my suggestion that NI continue on with its "Emotive" sound library strategy and consider offering an orchestral bundle, should the application work with orchestra sections other than strings.

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WHY?
***
I was asking for an orchestral-pack because I liked how they addressed and uncovered the DNA of legato string orchestration: musical subtext and variations in "Emotive Strings". It was about creating moods based upon how the pros have done it. I wanted to see if the DNA for emotive expressions in other orchestra sections could also be unveiled.

It was educational and enlightening in a way that allowed for experimenting with instant instrument feedback, and spurred me to learn more and want to experiment more with musical phrasing.

I wondered how "emotives", as they applied them, which is extracting melody from chord and playing them simultaneously with the aid of an 'animator', might apply to other sections of the orchestra as their research would show from analyzing orchestral works in the same way as
they did with strings...from an "emotive" pov. While I understand melodic extraction is not new, I wondered how they would implemented it
using the light-guide in the KK as well as their out-of-key-note-elimination methodology. Would the presentation lead to more creative uses
of musical composing at a phrase level as opposed to the note level?

Emotive phrasing is meant as a 'discovery tool' where you don't really start out with an idea...the idea comes from experimenting with their given phrasings and the myriad of combinations and treatments using an intricate mix of variables that serves to evolve the basic phrase-combos presentation.

Initially I was interested in it more for quality-of-sound as in how they sampled/recorded string phrases as if it was
a new type of instrument, as opposed to the built-in phrasing, theme/phrase selection, dynamic major/minor, arpeggiator usage etc,

But now after re-examining it, rethinking it, studying it, reading the manuals, watching videos, listening to demos,
(and then breaking down and actually buying it and using it so I wasn't merely talking out of my ***) I am actually more respectful of the 'phrase-type' offerings and am totally on board. I 'get it'. If you look deeper, its impact is way more than 'paint-by-numbers' or a 'self-writing-composition' as implied by the comments.

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USE-CASE EXAMPLE
***
Here is a link to an orchestral composition using Emotive Strings.


And here is the same composition with lower-quality sound but with accompanying video with some
editorial overlays:

It (Emotive Strings) seems to have its place in the above-mentioned piece, not dominating per se, not overly intricate, nor does it need to be.
I wouldn't have known this was done via an animator. Knowing that it is does not take away from the piece. If anything, its inspirational as to what can be done and how it was intended to be used and how subtle and well laid in the mix it is. To deny this person credit as "composer" of the overall work because some of the notes were animator-generated seems ludicrous and disingenuous and would border on professional envy. And he just used the factory theme-phrases straight. here is a case of "less is more". Emotive is meant to be part of a larger puzzle without screaming out "look at me".

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Emotive Strings Defined
***
EMOTIVE STRINGS is a cinematic string library which focuses on the emotional, melodic and suspense aspects of a composition.

By employing full legato phrases, arpeggios and ostinati, the results are highly realistic. You can select different phrases and trigger them at the required pitch from your MIDI keyboard in sync with your host project for real time orchestration.

What does the NI Emotive Strngs offer?

Essentially 4 phrase types.

You have a choice of:
1) Single-Pitch
- offers straight and triplet patterns
- automatic pitch division among the instruments in the section
- Ostinatos

2) Melodic - major/minor selectable via velocity;

3) Emotive - construct realistic legato melodies and runs in real-time out of phrases
which were played legato during recording.
- In addition to Major and Minor Modes, you can play most Emotives as either ascending or descending phrases.

4) Arpeggio - can play in 1st and 2nd chord inversions.

The mod wheel can be used to control expression dynamically. There are also some fx offerings.

****
MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE - Day One
****
1 - Themes vs Phrases - How to get to Phrases
Select SLOT 6-10 - then click on the page...I had a time figuring that out)
(only Phrases seem to have velocity sensitive major/minor key changing)

2 - While you can hold down a key to play a whole "melodic" phrase you can also change notes before the phrase finishes and it will re-trigger and you get a whole new sound. Trust me if you want unique, you have total uniqueness there...played a way in which it probably wasn't intended but it works. And this is just with single notes. Using 1-3 chords but changing half-way thru a phrase gives a whole new emotion again. Of course you could enhance with 1-3-5 chords.

Now you can change the key-switch between slots 6-10 which are user-selected phrases as you change the 1-3 chords and you get yet another type of emotion in combination with changing the played notes half way (or less/or more) thru the phrase....now add to that velocity and your 1-3 changes from major to minor on top of changing the play and the phrase.

3 - I realized I was in an exercise of creating various moods and emotions with simple notes, chords, and phrasings...not trying to write an original hit melody.

4 - Trust me, there is no automatic perfect-section-writing. You still have to put in the work of experimentation and learning and making wise selections and combinations. Its easy to make bad sounding combinations. But its so new that there are no rules other than your ear and trying to satisfy the wanted emotion. But talk about something that is the TOTAL OPPOSITE of painting-by-numbers...this certainly is it. More so than anything else I've encountered in a long time.

5 - I found out that you can mix the base phrase of the 'theme '(lowest red key-switch note C0) with your custom phrases meaning that you get a standard basic theme phrase but then you key-switch to an emotive (F0 thru A0). So when C0- is the key switch you can improvise and play. Oh and you can have C#0 - E playing other theme-phrases (factory phrases that work together) then trigger an emotive on F0 - A0 using your user-defined family of phrases. Amazing combinations.

6 - Another cool thing...based upon velocity, your arpeggiated blue-keys will change direction so you have even more flexibility (up to down or down to up). Discovered that by accident (UPDATE: Later found it documented in the manual as I reread it). Then the green *middle) lights come on and you get blue-notes restricted to a chord played with the green notes (only single key required) but based upon red-note phrase selection. Very nice contrasts.

7 - Changing the scale type changes the available (blue/right-hand) keys.

8 - The lit blue keys I could see being a boon to those who want to learn scales as well as reinforcing scales to those who are rusty. Knowing your scales helps you anticipate what notes you can play in the right hand when you change the key on your green keys.

9 - Finally I started making note of what combinations created which emotions in me so I could repeat them.

10 - First you start off just playing random stuff, having fun discovering... but after a while you start making intentional combinations as you 'discover' what can be done and what works with what.

11 - Enter the K.K. Scale, Chord Mode, and Chord Type; and they take your creations up to a whole nother level, compounding the musical outcomes exponentially.

12 - And do I dare say the process was/is just plain FUN! I love fun?

13 - Ok then I got crazy and opened up an instance of Kontakt 5 to accompany my Komplete Kontrol and played Emotive Strings in both instances. Just messing around having fun "painting-by-the-numbers". And OMG! The combinations exploded exponentially..I can't even fathom all the possibilities but it was mind blowing from the get-go. First off I have double the number of phrases to dynamically choose from..from 10 to 20 (with a caveat). Second, I can play an emotive in KK while playing a standard theme phrase in K5 using the same key-switch. Boggles the mind. While I could and did open up multiple instances of E.S. in K5, it seemed that only KK gave me the light guide so I was cool with the fact that I needed at least one KK instance.

14 - I discovered that with multiple instances, it was easy to see what might work in combination with what via playing a repeated line in one instance while 'auditioning' new phrases in another instance. I could hear them together. You can also have different reverb settings for example or different mic settings or overall velocity settings to name just a few differences you can layer between instances..

15 - Another cool discovery was that I found an interesting new combination-pattern by changing back and forth between the KK arpeggiator and the E.S. arpeggiator. They are remarkable and interestingly different. especially contrasted to each other.

It is essentially an exercise in experimenting and selecting musical content and context using your ear as your main guide.

And all this was in the 1st 2 hours of day #1.

***
TOO EASY? - ARPEGGIO
***
Suggesting that it is becoming too easy? That with just this one string library a person without any other musical acumen could write a full-on orchestral composition without generating enough other original offerings to earn title of composer is a far-reach of the imagination to say the least. There is just so much more to a work than a few re-jumbled, reworked, well-timed, phrases.

I always thought arpeggiators were musical-shortcut-cheats but nobody seemed to be taking that technical innovation to task. But now I don't knock them and now with how they are used in the "Emotive" offerings and other NI sound AI-type libraries, I fully embrace them.

Modern technology is making things once accessible to an elite few, now available to a mass public thru innovation and technological advances. That more can participate is a good thing even though it can seem exasperating for those who feel they need to 'constantly compete' in order to be validated. Not to fear...stand-outs will always find a way to stand-out. Those with chops, experience, schooling, lessons, training, a background in musical theory, will always have a leg-up when using these new technologies, if having-a-leg-up is what you are mostly concerned about.

But in making artistic disciplines more widely available, easier to use, accessible, and manageable, new talent will be discovered that
might never would have been given the chance. They might not ever have known about what was available to them or given the opportunity to explore. And new discovery often has value only to the discoverer...and that is ok.

I suspect the fact that they (NI) give you phrases to jump-start the uninitiated was a put-off to many because it has hard-coded musical expressions.

But...I see them more as either suggestive to larger ideas or supplying low-lying orchestral fundamentals whose variation or need to
be 'works in themselves' is not that critical to the big picture as far as 'identifying' the composition. But for the purist, one can always examine them then take them apart, model off them and do one's own thing if/when the need arises, and not use any of it in its original form.

***
PAINTING-BY-THE-NUMBERS
***

A comment was also made that it is also like 'painting-by-the-numbers'?

Art is 'painting-by-numbers'. Its all about rules and following them. What rules to follow to be musical and tonal. Staying in key. What chords can follow other chords in jazz progressions. How and when to use altered/extended chords, passing chords, chord substitutions. Rules on how to improvise. How to play the left-hand. On-and-on.

In classical its all about the rules used to develop a motif. The musical colors you must choose to 'paint inside' a set of lines in the form of 'musical constructs'. Rules for First Species Counterpoint...Rules for Second Species Counterpoint.

The same seemed to happen when I studied jazz harmonies. Rules for chord-progressions, when to flat, sharp, augment, diminish,
when to omit, when to use extensions, rules for chord-substitutions and passing chords. Rules upon rules. Dizzying but still 'rules'...essentially composing-by-numbers.

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LEGISLATING
***
I don't want to legislate what is good for others based upon what is good for me nor do I want to pretend I know how someone else might make use of technology. I won't assume that they will blindly use this new offering as is, at its most basic level without any innovation to speak of, although that is their option, and the example given did just that without taking away from the overall quality of the piece as noteworthy.

At a talk given by Henry Mancini, the only that stuck in my mind...what I came away with was: "Less is more". So maybe not everything must be super-original and sophisticated? Or maybe one might start out using it (Emotives) as is as and then evolve and learn to create their own variation(s). I want to allow me/them/us that freedom to grow from ground zero and find our own ways.

It is quite possible that not everyone the NI is targeting has inspirations of 'creating hit records', or 'sounding very unique', or 'performing live', or 'producing artists', or becoming a 'financial success', or even trying for a 'pop sound'. Not everyone has lofty nor traditional goals for personal satisfaction.

It is not beyond imagination that there are those who:

1) create for their own enjoyment
2) are not looking to be unique
3) may want to fast-track an underlying dramatic score but don't know where to start...
4) the application might be for a:
4a) student-film,
4b) family-travel-video,
4c) friends wedding,
4d) a parent's children's sports video assembly,
4e) background music for family photo montage
or who knows?
4f) create in order to teach

I like that in this new arena, there is less elitism in that there appears to be a little something for everyone...especially tne ;new' everyones.

PrimeTime

 

1. Multi's (16 channels of instruments at least) pathetic without it, yet I support you guys because I know you can do it well.
2. Save any kind of file, monolith whatever, make it happen..
3. 3rd party Vst support

 

I would like to have split keyboard capability. I currently do this now through use of MainStage on my Apple Mac Book but lose the light control.

 

Has anyone requested a setlist feature yet? I.e. arranging selected presets into a list for easy sequential access? Instances do work for that but it would be nice to keep it all within one instance.

 

This purely a Feature Improvement Requests

Please do not posts here unless it is about Improvement/Feature Requests.

Posts about other subjects WILL BE DELETED

sowari

 

Right Click, add to favorites.. seriously, how hard is this one to implement? Please add that too

 

+1000 This is a no brainer for me...............

 

Double tap encoders to reset to default.
Custom settings for the mod strip with triggers on the mod strip, say pattern/action 1 when tap very top 2 in mid top, centre default, 3 centre bottom and 4 bottom.

 

I would like to be able to search for anything within Komplete 10U. For example, I was writing some Music and really needed an Anvil sound. Now, obviously I thought "Action Strikes surely will have an Anvil sound" (and it does) but took me a while to find where it is. I would just love to be able to type in a word/Instrument name within Kontrol, and Kontrol do a search. It would possibly lead to finding many treasures I don't know about yet. Kontrol is cool but it's not good enough yet. I would also like, within Kontrol, to be able to search for things through 3rd Party Libraries as well. It would speed up workflow no end!

 

To be honest, it is kind of bizarre that this isn't the case already, but it could be a side effect of the hardware features not working with other VSTis...If they 'open' it up for their own VSTis standalone, then they will likely have to open it up for all VSTis.

I am not sure why they wouldn't allow this, as all it does is create even more incentive for people to buy their hardware and software. It doesn't take away from it at all.