Lite version? [was: What a $$$!]

This is aimed at NI by the way and not my fellow victims who have bought this product.

This is just dreadful in terms of the sound that it produces. I cannot believe I have been so daft as to buy a second NI product in the space of a month - I have had loads of problems with Guitar Rig 2 - but at least that sounds good on the rare occasion I can get it to work. And no I have not downloaded the new version because the download facility does not work either!!

Incidentally, I can produce much better arrangements of the MIDI files I tried out in Bandstand in just few minutes myself using free plug-ins and a free sequencer. I do have paid for products but I'm just making a point. Also, Roland VSC softsynth (which I got free as well) and is not even sample based honestly does a vastly better job. How can you possibly say that 'it establishes a new benchmark far beyond conventional GM modules' - its absurd!. And incidently I have a really top quality audio interface (Onyx 400) so that is not an excuse either.

I think many of your comments below along the lines of 'thanks for the really good feedback - we'll get on to it right away' are very patronising. You should not have released a product in this state in the first place.

Before you go on holiday, if that is what 'limited forum support' means, could you please write us all a cheque first to give us our money back - as the shops certainly won't.

From a very disgruntled, recent, puchaser of this product.

To fellow victims, of which there are clearly a few judging from the other posts, please add to this if you agree to get the point home to NI. Cheers.

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

While I can understand your frustration. I will say once the bugs are ironed out, this will be a very good tool. I was hoping to use it live out of the box but I can't. But I have been using it in the studio for radio jingles and with good results. Markus is very quick to respond to our comments and more importantly our suggestions. When he gets back I'm sure he will to yours as well.

Colin

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

Colin,

Thanks for your reply. When you say you wanted to use it live out of the box but couldn't what did you mean?

I also take your point about the potential for it to be a good tool in future. But at the same time I do think it is unfair that the consumer should have suffer from the teething problems. It would be fairer to do more beta testing on it first before it starts being sold at the full price.

mark

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

Mark,

I was hoping to use it live at gigs straight out of the box. So I was disappionted when I couldn't. I'm using it in the studio here at the moment and with fairly good results. But I totally understand and agree with you.

Colin

PS: I'm still showing as a guest

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

AFAIK, there is seperate registration processes for the software and for the forum (ie: not linked)

Try registering for the forum....

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

Hi Kramda,

I am sorry that you are not satisfied with your NI product.
But we think the product is worth the money especially including the 1.0.1 update.
Extensive sound and performance improvements have been made within this version.
We definitely recommend using the update.

Could you please tell us in detail where you see problems while using Bandstand? If I knew more about your problems we could give you more hints.

Thanks and regards,
tom

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

Hi Folks,

in agree with the opinion Bandstand is really - even since ths 1.0.1 Update - a waste of money. Sorry NI but YOU say, that this is a live tool and it ISN´T in fact! You don´t want REALLY to start a song twice, so that the sounds are loaded to play the whole song!?
Sorry, but what did you do with the 2 GB of samples?? 128 instruments which are not as good as on my PA1X Pro with much less RAM and many more sounds to cover.
I don´t want to make an 1 hour change to any midifile i have. I want to buy one and that should sound ok. I KNOW that midifiles aren´t always good programmed, but they sound on my hardware better, right from the start.

I own the xpress keys and owned NIcomplete and these ARE really great software!! But Bandstand?

Hey, take the test: Buy a file, put it into Bandstand and HEAR what it does, are you REALLY satified??? If so, ok but I hope not.

Normally I don´t post these things, but NI you should bring BS from a late beta to the promised software on your homepage.

I´ll stay tuned.



PS: Did you read the test in keyboards (german), that one is not as good as the one in keys (i think these guys even didn´t install it.

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

Very strange. Personal sound preferences play a large part in this area, but I also have the Roland VSC and it sounds like a child's toy music box. Bandstand's sounds (most of them) can pass as the real thing and are a quantum leap compared to the VSC. It's not a perfect product, (although I give it top marks for the user interface) and things need fixing, e.g. the very poor manual, some sounds need to be improved and samples need to load a lot quicker.

I've not bought a NI product before so I'm waiting to see how good they are at releasing substantive updates. It's very much in their interest to do so, as I think there is a very large market for this product, as long as they get it right asap.

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

I bought a product that was advertised as a live General Midi Sample based product. If true this would have been the first product of its kind and certainly the best. Unfortunately, as others have stated here, Live is the last place one would ever use this product in its current state. Perhaps as a standalone player it could be reliable enough to use, but the standalone player is not designed to be used as a live playback app-lication. NI needs to bring forth a version which can be used as a VST or DXi plugin with applications that are used for Live perfoming or else announce a refund policy. In its current state Bandstand is completely useless for this purpose.

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

As for as I can tell, I am registered for the forum. Unless you can't have the same username for both the registration and forum?

The more I think about the above the more I tend to agree.

Colin

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

I agree that every one has a different view of what a good sounding software can be. But I think there are people using older Roland Software Synth like virtual sound canvas and think it souds fantastic BUT there are also people like me, who use expensive sound modules to play theyre MIDI Files on stage or on studio and are used to have top quality sounds. I really believe that Bandstand is not supposed to be used by us but can be a very good replacement for the virtual sound canvas. So please NI, why you don't rename it to Bandstand Light and Create a Bandstand professional version for professionals? Oh yes, this idea about getting back money is really very very good...

Everytime I try and use this module again it ends up in a big frustration. What I was expecting out of bandstand is the follwing. Go onece to a WEB site called www.mabusoft.com. This is an italian producer of high quality MIDI files. They also produce an MP3 Version of this files. I was expecting that my MIDI Files would sound more like this MP3 version than worse than the demo midi on this site. You remember the old advertisement of Esso? Es gibt viel zu tun, packt es an!!!

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

Good point about the midifile being programmed properly first.
Even the best sound modules won't make a poorly programmed midi sound good. Also on the other hand the sound module shouldn't make a good file sound bad.

Colin

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

Hi there,

I own the Roland VSC and yes it sounds poor but it´s only 69€. I own the Roland HQ-Canvas too, and this sounds much better as the VSC.

OK, my points:
1. BS sounds good but needs adjusting
2. Live its horrible, unusable instead of ...
"The Quick Edit bar ensures manipulating sounds is effortless. Support of all standard plug-in formats equips BANDSTAND for sequencer-based production work while the stand-alone mode lends itself to live performances."
... which is said on the homepage. IT´S fact Live NO GOOD. Hello NI!?
If they wanted to make a studio use software, they should tell us!
3. Perhaps install a display to show lyrics in Midis.


I wanted to use it as the ultimate "start-the-midi-and be happy" midi player for karaoke, but I didn´t use the software 10 Minutes after Insallation :-(

To NI:
I don´t want to bring you down, but I think you should keep the postings in mind and please don´t say that the software is for live. Till now it isn´t.

Achim

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

I use Bandstand & kontakt for live performances every day. It has some hiccups but I can work around them, e.g., it takes a little to long to load instruments, etc. The overall quality of the sound is very good especially for accompaniment. For lead or melody voices I use kontakt and very high quality samples. I couldn't be happier. Once all the issues are addressed there is no doubt that NI will have no competition in the marketplace....NONE!!!!

Keep up the good work and look forward to the next update.

Thank you

Frank L. Rosenthal

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

I can't agree more. Ni should advise buyers that this product can't be used on serious projects & is not aimed at professional user. I can live with all the bugs, actually the thing behave all right on may Mac but I can't “Stand” the sound. This is an really TOY story. The worst given money of the year. I want may money back, thank you.

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

Tom,

I appreciate your interest. I realise that lots of people must have worked very hard to launch this product but given all the negative feedback long before my own post, it is hard not to conclude that it was too immature to be released.

My demands are really quite modest compared to many of my fellow BS owners who are clearly serious, professional users so I doubt I can add much too what has already been said. But I'll do my best to explain my disappointment anyway.

I use good quality, pre-prepared MIDI files as backing tracks to improvise over. The sense that I was comparing Roland VSC favourably to BS was in the way VSC will playback a balanced mix of the instruments without a single adjustment to it. Although I still think VSC is remarkably good value, I agree that it can sound a bit cheesy at times which was why I was looking for something better.

Despite being a novice with DAWs, I had got significantly better results using a few PlugSound modules and simple adjustments to the mix in just a few minutes. But even that small effort I still found tedious.

I was really attracted to BS therefore by the marketing claims of its ease of use and sound quality, backed up by the demo on the website. However, I could not believe what came out when I played the first MIDI file. Genuinely, worse than what I produced myself (including with the upgrade), particularly the bass which is really flabby no matter what setting I pick. Some of the instruments sound quite good when selected from the Browser section but others are just as cheesy as Roland. Maybe, after twiddling the knobs for an hour or so some improvements can be achieved but that is exactly what I do not want to do and I can see that others agree with that. I haven't touched it since the day after I bought it.

Lastly, just to put my frustration in context, I have spent 500 UK pounds recently on BS and also NI Guitar Rig2 and I estimate I have got about 200 pounds worth of value. While the software bit of GR2 is undoubtedly an excellent product, the Rig Kontroller (seems to be about 150 pounds judging from the upgrade paths to GR2) is a really badly thought out product which does not work properly and I never intend to use again (see the GR2 user forum for full details). At least with BS, the concept is good, esp. the user interface and I'll look out for updates in the longer term. In the light of that, hopefully you will forgive my initial outburst.

mark.

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

Mark, these are three demos I've done using only Bandstand -do you really think the sounds are that bad?
http://www.moviepostercollector.tsohost.co.uk/skyline/Ashant1_Bandstand.mp3
http://www.moviepostercollector.tsohost.co.uk/skyline/LA_PBAL_Bandstand.mp3
http://www.moviepostercollector.tsohost.co.uk/skyline/ABRA_Bandstand.mp3

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

had the chance to play four hours with bandstand.

drums are really poor, the brush section makes me laugh.brushes sound like that? guitars are a joke.overall sound has nothing to do with pro....
compared to hypercanvas i must say:
hypercanvas plays the midis correct and is in most cases much better balanced soundwise.
every second midifile i've loaded into bandstand plays wrong...
listen to michael bubles-home....nice midifile..
http://home.arcor.de/tomatoe/MichaelBubleHome.mid
http://home.arcor.de/tomatoe/home-bandstand1.mp3
http://home.arcor.de/tomatoe/home-hypercanvas1.mp3

a dedicated midifileplayer should play the midis correct...

why not offering a sample library that sounds really good and pro?i have no problem with 10-30GB if the sounds are pleasing...make a light version and a pro one.
why not open the bandstandplayer for other sounds, so that i can use my sample library?
why no GM2 & XG compatibility?

regards


tom

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

tom, even in your example I would pick Bandstand. The sounds are fuller and more realistic. The Hypercanvas example does not use a brush kit.....if it does it certainly is very strange sounding indeed. Sound is a very subjective thing and in addition I have always adjusted the effects and volumes whenever I changed wavetables. So I am certain if you optimized the setting in Bandstand if would be significantly better than your Hyper Canvas. By the way I have Hypercanvas and never use it. I would perfer many of the soundfonts over Hypercanvas, e.g., SGM180, sYnerGi GS , Titanic 200 and so on.

However, I agree with you that:

NI should provide a high qualtiy professional wavetable with Bandstand plus a lite version.
NI should in addition allow us to use a wavetable of our choice.

 

Re: What a waste of money!!!!!

Hi 'skyline',
Thanks very much for these - very interesting. I tried them out on the PC and as I have a decent Hi-fi system I tried them out on that as well. You've clearly had more success with BS than me!
However, for me personally, I still think the bass is flabby/boomy although could be a matter of taste and while many instruments sound good I did not think the horn and what I thought was meant to be a violin (but was not sure) were very convincing.

A key criticism of BS is that it does not seem to want to play a balanced mix from a MIDI file straight off. Important to me because I am lazy but also to others it seems for playing live etc. Did you create these MP3s without any tweaking in BS or if there was some how long did you spend? Would it be possible for you to post the source MIDI files so that I can try them out on my other MIDI players. It is just purely for interest - I have said my piece already about BS so I promise I will not come back and try to score points.

All the best.

mark