Kore 2 BLOWS at organization.

OK, how many years has Kore been out now? Yeah...

NI, get your act together with regard to user files. As a preface, I have bought Komplete 5, 6, 7, Maschine, and Kore 2, and I'm never at all surprised by the utter hassle it is to get NI stuff working as intended, especially if user presets are in order.

NI needs ONE CENTRALIZED DIRECTORY for everything that can be arbitrarily assigned. It should contain all sample data, presets. You say you have that now? Oh no.. you don't.

What you have is an in-house convention that works great for you guys. Everything should be in asdklfjlasjdlfkajsld\Native Instruments, but you facilitate it in a user directory, and a factory directory, and if you are on Window 7 64-bit, this is where the fun REALLY starts.

I have 3 places where files can be on this computer, without changing any of the defaults.

Usersname\Native Instruments\

Program Files\Native Instruments\

Program Files (x86)\Native Instruments\

We already have a problem. Why are there two factory directories with overlapping data for both 32-bit and 64-bit apps and plugs?

Oh yeah, and MOST F@#KING PEOPLE PUT THEIR SAMPLES SOMEWHERE ELSE!

So there's Sample Drive\NI Factory Samples, which has a crap ton of content. Battery 3, Abbey Road 60s Drums, Kontakt 4, etc. Now we are up to 4 directories.

4 Directories on Windows 7 for the most common REAL WORLD scenario. This is too much. On top of that, god forbid you don't back up your undocumented Kore 2 database if you intend on keeping your preset ratings across reinstalls and system migrations.

Maschine basically repeats all these worst practices... don't get me started on how it likes to pick up on where samples are located. Seriously... how hard is it to do a checksum on the files, check the filesize, and the filename without the path. In most cases, 3 of 3 will be a match, and you assume safely that you found your sample.

NI is terrible at organization... I can't believe I'm accusing anyone else of that. Ableton has ONE USER LIBRARY and it can be migrated easily. It can fix broken samples fairly easily too, no matter where move them. Borrow this functionality and TimeStretch from those guys ASAP. This is really amazing that it's not a priority.

- One directory that I can put anywhere. "Native Instruments Libraries"
- Sample lookup by MD5 checksum, filename, and filesize with a 2 of 3 automatch.
- NO MORE DUPLICATE PRESETS IN KORE THAT POINT TO THE EXACT SAME FSCKING FILE!

I'm sorry. I just reinstalled Windows 7, and nothing is a bigger cluster**** than installing NI and it's libraries. Nothing. I feel like I'm setting up a bunch of open source software 10 years ago to get a web server going, and there are no useful howtos.
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http://co.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=113963

I followed everything in this thread, and I STILL have duplicate instruments point to the same file, even though I have NO DATABASE DIRECTORY after moving it (so no ratings, keywords, etc. either.)

 

1) Factory content's treated as write protected, hence the user vs factory directories. As for content in both Program Files and Program Files (x86), you aren't going to see a change there until Kore itself is 64 bit- your 32 bit apps can't access the Program Files folder. They need the Program Files (x86) directory.
2) You can put your sample content wherever you want, or change the path after the fact and correct it in Kore's file menu.

ew

 

The user vs factory directory I get. As you say, you can install the content elsewhere, yes, but when you do, you run into a world of hurt because you broke the convention. What about Kore 2 having two entries for the same file? I've rebooted, consolidated everything into Program Files (x86) with wreckless abandon out of frustration. Everything still launches. I can copy the DBCache directory back and get my tags back, but I get duplicate entries still, either way.

The programs seem to all run fine. They just have trouble resyncing what they know with their content? And as an aside, since this isn't the Kontakt forum, but it IS related to this "the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing" thing that happens when you break convention, but why can't I just specify a "Libraries" directory? I had to load every one of the libraries that came with Komplete 7 manually. This seems needlessly tedious.

On top of all that, I mentioned a plethora of other things that have been long standing issues, like databases losing ratings because the ratings are stored in a file that isn't meant to be portable. Combine all of these into the fact that I've had to reinstall twice, NI could keep my serials tied to my account. The customer experience as a whole, while not the worst by any means, has a few glaring problems that have existed for YEARS at this point.

 

Having just gone through a lot of these issues myself, I can sympathize, and I do agree that there is some disarray in the Kore structure, particularly with Absynth presets, Guitar Rig 4 locations, the handling of duplicates, not being able to export colors (or rename them) and no export of ratings, poor handling of Favorites (an alias?), some problems with some presets named with strange fonts, and the lack of regard for keeping things consistent between PC and Mac installations.

This is not always a Kore issue, it may be more of a Komplete or Kontakt issue, but it's related.

For example, the Scarbee Kontakt libraries go to a default place called 'Scarbee XXX' on the PC, but 'Scarbee XXX Library' on the Mac. It's a small thing, but it shows that there are two separate installs made instead of one thing that outputs two installs. That's twice as much work and many more chances for error.

Why have a place called "...\Kore 2 Sample Content\KoreSound Packs' and not put all the KoreSound samples there by default?

I hope that Kore 3 gets into Komplete 8 and this gets sorted out by some neutral test engineers at NI.

But I would hardly hold Ableton's Library management up as an example. It is far, far worse in sample management, refusing to accept samples that it finds. Don't get me going on that... I once tried to make a 1500 sample package for Live 8 (which, if anyone wants may be found at: http://www.arachnaut.net/audio/Live/PhysMod-Sampler.alp).

 

i can sympathize as well. if Kore exists, all NI stuff should interact seamlessly with it. if i star and color a preset in Kore, it should automatically star and color that preset in its synth (i.e. Massive, etc). after i got so sick of seeing all the duplicates in my Kore library, i spent the majority of 2-3 weeks of my studio time putting stars and colors on probably 75% of my 16000 or so presets in Kore (worthwhile time, i might add). so now whenever i want a 5-star monophonic distorted analog lead, i have 50 to choose from instead of however many . . . but it would be nice to have the library features of all NI products more integrated

 

Unfortunately, that effort may get lost when you upgrade to Kore 3 unless there's a way to port the database or export info. I don't get it, comments are saved in the KSD, why not colors and ratings?

 

i would be deeply deeply saddened by NI if they did that to me!

 

If there is a Kore 3. I'm sure hoping.

Kore doesn't save the colors and ratings because in theory, these are personal settings and they shouldn't be transfered onto another computer, because, it has it's own personal settings. So the two would clash when transfering .ksds around. That's the reasoning behind it anyway.

 

Then what about comments? Do mine override yours?

There has to be a way to accommodate this.

On a personal level, everything I do to my own database should be preserved on updates.

There is a point-of-view aspect: Are Kore attributes universal (or controlled by NI), or are at least some owned or controlled by the individual?

I prefer to feel that I own the attributes and I can inherit or override other influences.

 

As far as "meant to not be overridden" that literally chains up anything from being portable. When I get a new Mac, every folder has a factory default .ds_store hidden file in it, but the CAN and DO get changed. You can do the EXACT SAME THING with NI.

In .NI_STORE you have:

- Filenames, what type of file they are (ensemble, kore sound, sample, maschine kit, maschine pattern, maschine song, konakt preset, kontakt library, etc.), and checksums for each of the files. This makes locating the files easier if they become decoupled somehow.

- Tags, colors, and ratings

- Predefined icons and metadata for the folder as a distributable package itself.

From that file, you pull all the data into a cache that is used universally by EVERY NI PRODUCT! Why have a database if you are going to leverage it in as many logical places as possible?

I honestly have FEARED spending any real time developing my database because I _KNOW_ how proprietary and non-portable, it is. The .db files should just be used for a cache. That's it. Data should NEVER EVER exist solely in the DB except for index tables. It is so hard to compartmentalize and transport an NI setup and depend on it working on another computer because of all this. I seriously doubt Reason has these problems with portability. I'm just saying. (As mentioned before, I don't like that you need a proprietary program to make Refills either. A folder and hidden file will work perfect.