Kontact is a F**kin' BUGGY software!!!!!

For those of us who...

OK, for those of us who recently spent too much money already(MAC G5 dual 1.8, gig of ram, Logic, Kontact, sample tank 2, moinitor, etc) and can't afford to get anything else, I'm going to have TO BUG THE S#@T OUT OF NI UNTIL THEY GET THIS FIXED!!!!!!

Now, what I'm saying is that I think all of us who have this problem (and those who don't have this prob, but want to help) should do something proactive until NI fixes the problem. I thought about it and all we can basically do is e-mail NI *EVERYDAY* until something happens... like they fix the problem or give us an approx. date of the fixes.

I also thought this may piss them off a bit, but OH WELL! I PAID MONEY FOR A PRODUCT THAT DOESN'T WORK 90% of the time!!! I get paid for my music and I have projects due yesterday that requires a sampler most of the time! I will start this today and I'll e-mail them from a different address until I get some positive results. What do you guys think?


J

 

Here's what my girlfriend suggests. As many of us are trying to use this useless product to MAKE $$$, she said that we should contact the Better Business Bureau. She's already working on a letter for me. (Damn I love fiesty girls like that!) She figures that the more people the BBB hears from regarding NI, the more they'll point their lens in that direction. I guess flooding NI with email isn't a bad idea either, but why do I get the feeling that they have a special circular file for just such correspondance. I'd like to be able to boycot the damn product, but that's not going to happen...

 

i agree with all of this, sadly.

A year has past since I jumped into KONTAKT, and followed these boards way too often hoping that we would see a stable product for MAC, but it never happened. I don't understand how REASON can work really pretty flawlessly compared to KONTAKT? I work with a TDM ProTools system and REASON is fine. For mock-up orchestral work, I am thinking of just hooking up my setup circa 1988 which was a KURZEIL and a midi interface! Solid, and if it is for pre-production than who cares if the midi strings are cheesy. On the other hand, the whole point of KONTAKT and Streaming it to do mock-orchestral work that can actually air, for TV music usage, which I am thinking KONTAKT is falling short.

I am currently rendering everything as an audio track immediately after recording with KONTAKT for fear of CRASHES! TOO many problems to list here. Just totally unprofessional.

 

...

I think its time for us to take a closer look at Mach 5? I like the better
business B idea, You cannot say a product can do this and that, and not have it
work. Please keep us posted on sending our problem with NI to the Better
Business Bureau. NI has not put the proper resources into this product, and I know
we have been more then patient with waiting for "the next version" . For
those of you who have Kontakt working-thats good ( we are in envy I think) but
from what I can tell, your the minority, not majority, that is the essence of
what is wrong here. Just food for thought about where we go from here.

Ray and Josh Music & Sound Designs
RNARDE@AOL.COM
773-866-1950-Studio
773-294-5970-Cell
4143 N. Whipple #2
Chicago IL, 60618

 

That's a good point.
MOTU's Mach Five is looking very enticing. However, I'm not going to make the same mistake I made when buying NI's piece of junk. Forewarned is forearmed as they used to say. (They also used to say "fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me")
I'm lucky enough to have a mutual friend at MOTU, so I've sent him a querry re. M5's specs: disk streaming, Mac compatibility etc. When I get a response, I'll paste it here.
I'd rather not feel that it's absolutely *necessary* to buy a PC for Gigastudio if there's still an alternative!

 

Hi all, I know that a lot of us are angry and that is understandable. I've done my share of bitchin' too but I don't think letters to the BBB or undue harrassment will attain the goal of functioning software in OSX. Sure, let 'em know you're unhappy but I'm positive nobody wants it to work more than NI.

Think about it, it's not some conspiracy, they've grown too fast and are probably understaffed. Maybe they're a little mystified by OSX. So am I.

Maybe there is a way we can all pull together and help. Here's what I suggest. NI starts answering all these emails personally to find out exactly what's going on. They spend a little time on the phone with us and try to help with our individual issues.

 

Here's what the MOTU folks sent me regarding Mach 5, and, for that matter, streaming from HD in general. It's a very informative reply:

Mach Five is currently RAM based. We expect to ship an update that will include disk streaming sometime in the next month or so. The update will be free.
My understanding is that the streaming technology used by Kontact and Gigasampler is the same basic technology. I have not seen the streaming version of Mach Five, but it's possible that the same technology will also be used in Mach Five.
What I have seen and what I have been told in technical circles is that streaming is very CPU intensive. My understanding is that if a computer is streaming samples and also playing audio tracks, that will affect the overall efficiency of the system. Gigasampler is recommended to be run on a dedicated computer and that does make sense. To make a fair comparison between Gigasampler and another streaming sampler, you'd have to run the other sampler on it's own dedicated computer. It's possible that your EMac is overall not a good choice for streaming samples and playing audio tracks simultaneously. When the streaming update for Mach Five is close to release we'll be able to give more specific bench mark tests. My comments are based on my general understanding of the technology. Certainly more RAM in the computer would be a more efficient way of working as opposed to streaming from disk. If you have to run sample libraries that exceed available RAM, you may want consider working Gigasampler-style and get a dedicated computer for the streaming sampler.

 

(continued)

They get a clearer idea of what's going on. They compile a list of best versions of OSX, Logic, dp etc., current issues, best hardware configs... just like digi publishes approved stuff.

A lot of work, yes? But look what you get.

Now NI is utilizing all these guys as beta testers in an aboveboard way. We know what works and what doesn't work in the real world. Invaluable, no? Also, your customers love you because they know you are doing everything possible (and you're doing it visibly too) And as a gesture of appreciation to these beta testers, you can offer one of your other products at a significant savings. win - win

 

OT - Today is Grey Tuesday

Today only for those who have not heard - the Gray Album - hip hop remix of
Jay Z"s "Black Album" and The Beatles "White Album"

Tuesday, February 24 will be a day of coordinated civil disobedience:
websites will post Danger Mouse"s Grey Album on their site for 24 hours in
protest of EMI"s attempts to censor this work.

DJ Danger Mouse created a remix of Jay-Z"s the Black Album and the Beatles
White Album, and called it the Grey Album. Jay-Z"s record label,
Roc-A-Fella, released an a capella version of his Black Album specifically
to encourage remixes like this one. But despite praise from music fans and
major media outlets like Rolling Stone ("an ingenious hip-hop record that
sounds oddly ahead of its time") and the Boston Globe (which called it the
"most creatively captivating" album of the year), EMI has sent cease and
desist letters demanding that stores destroy their copies of the album and
websites remove them from their site. EMI claims copyright control of the
Beatles 1968 White Album.

Danger Mouse"s album is one of the most "respectful" and undeniably positive
examples of sampling; it honors both the Beatles and Jay-Z. Yet the lawyers
and bureaucrats at EMI have shown zero flexibility and not a glimmer of
interest in the artistic significance of this work. And without a clearly
defined right to sample (e.g. compulsory licensing), the five major record
labels will continue to use copyright in a reactionary and narrowly
self-interested manner that limits and erodes creativity. Their actions are
also self-defeating: good new music is being created that people want to
buy, but the major labels are so obsessed with hoarding their copyrights
that they are literally turning customers away.


http://www.greytuesday.org/


EMI OUTLAWS "GREY ALBUM" On February 10, EMI sent cease and desist letters
to DJ Danger Mouse and the handful of stores carrying his new release, the
Grey Album, claiming copyright infringment. They Grey Album has garnered
critical acclaim in Rolling Stone ("an ingenious hip-hop record that sounds
oddly ahead of its time"), the New Yorker, the Boston Globe (the "most
creatively captivating" album of the year), but EMI wants it destroyed

 

re: Mach 5

Well one issue that has not been discussed is that there are no developers releasing libraries in Mach 5 format. Even though it is touted as a "universal" sampler it is far from clear as to what you'll be giving up when importing samples from another format.

This alone makes it a dicey proposition for the next little while.

Kontakt is being widely adopted by developers and so it's a much better idea IMO to just get Kontakt working if possible.

regards

 

This has all become insane anymore. I'm not even going to get into it, but Technology is great but really x 2 seems to be taken away from doing what were all here to do "play and write music". I have at times said to my self "what the @&^$# am I doing with this computer recording and the BS that comes with it", but yet PC, Mac recording is really great and flexible when things arn't so buggy. So I as one get really frustrated when it comes to spending big bucks on software that just doesn't seem to work, update after update. I really don't know anymore. All I can say is STABILITY is the main concern here. Just my 2 cents, Im outa here.

 

I was reading all the replies to this interesting thread and I noticed that a lot of the users of Kontakt and Reaktor also use Propellorhead's Reason. Frustrated with Reaktor's incompatibility with DP and Kontakt's quirks, I went and bought myself a copy of Reason. What a bitchin' piece of software! I have no problem working with Reason until NI gets things working better.

 

Reason works and is to the point.
I think all NI products are great ideas but not all work well in logic.

 

The don't work *at all* on a Mac platform, regardless of the sequencer.

 

Core Audio might have something...

"...regardless of the sequencer."

OK, I'm still pretty new to my MAC and the software world of music production, but something happened yesterday that makes me wonder. I have a MOTU 828 MK II firewire soundcard on my G5.

When I go and start up my sequencer (logic) I'm required to have the MOTU on first or Logic won't work correctly. Well, I had forgetten and fired up Logic w/o having the MOTU on and got the message about not finding the Core Audio device, blah, blah, blah *BUT* here's the thing, everything came up fine and my autoload logic file actually worked correctly.

What I'm saying is that the problems that I was having w/ Logic after I installed Kontact were NOT present when my soundcard was off. The lag inside of logic and the autoload problem was fine, but I can't really do much w/o the soundcard on.

I apologize if this is an obvious statement, but I do believe that Core Audio and Kontact may be the problem. As Septimus said, "...regardless of the sequencer."

J