Petition for Kore Database Exporter, Detailed MIDI Specifications

I think the second part of the petition is a separate issue tbh and they probably shouldn't have been tied together - the first part really makes sense though and is something we have asked for a long time. We need a way of backing up ratings (and anything else that is stored in the database but not in ksd's). Although attributes and user notes are stored in the ksd itself ratings in particular are not and as a result it is quite hard to transfer them to a new computer or restore them if the database gets corrupted or needed replacing (something that has happened at least once to many seasoned Kore users). I have posted workarounds but the ideal solution would be a simple open format readable backup like in csv or xml format.

As to other programmes, well first of all it needs to be something that can be imported back into Kore (say on a new installation) - the only other programme I can think of that may be able to use it would be Big Tick Zen but at the moment that is hypothetical. The main thing is people are frustrated by losing ratings in particular on a fairly frequent basis - it is time consuming to create them but there is no way of retrieving them at the moment.

 

Replies to Thomas

(1) Big Tick Zen will eventually be a drop-in replacement for Kore, I suspect. If that doesn't happen, I will write a program that replaces the library functions myself (I'm an IT PhD). I want to echo the other users and say that the goal here is to preserve our hard work on categorizing patches going forward. The best way to do this since Kore is being discontinued is to take the library out of Kore and put it into a format we can back up and manipulate. This is a huge deal, because we were sold on a product that would be a 'universal librarian' for the foreseeable future. I know I have racked up hundreds of hours rating and commenting on patches for specific uses. Giving us a way to get this work out of the now discontinued program takes a bit of the sting away. This benefits any Kore user who has ever rated a patch. I would say that percentage wise, that probably includes ALL of your users, because that is one of the primary purposes of the program.

(2) Kore software has a lot of interactivity with Kore hardware that will be lost in the future. My concern is to have a meaningful way of communicating with the hardware back and forth. You could address this by:
(A) Giving us the specs of the relevant protocols so we could communicate with the Kore controller ourselves (write our own drivers).
(B) If you were feeling generous, you could open source the drivers used for communication.
(C) If you were constrained by IP concerns, you could give us closed source DLLs to link to from our own applications, that can call the relevant communication functions.
(D) Alternately, you could simply alter the Kore driver to use Midi to communicate back and forth instead of a proprietary protocol. That might be too much work, but it would make the controller hardware much more accessible.

Does this make sense? Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

Desert Eagle pretty much summed it up as good as it gets... Please pass this on, Thomas, these are sound, reasonable points...

 

I agree. I will be using Kore 2, hardware and software, as long as possible.

In my opinion, it would already be great if we had a couple of new modules in Reaktor that communicate with the Kore Controller, or an add-on to Reaktor to make parameters controllable and learnable similar to how it works when Reaktor is within Kore 2.

 

+1 for Reaktor usage...

 

Give up the Sauce...

I am an IT nothing but it sounds perfectly logical and reasonable to me...

How about we promote you to head of Kore development - NI can give you all of the source code and we'll all chip in and pay you for your services

The're too busy banging away on Maschine and riding around on the Traktor to be bothered with Kore..

It isn't revelant as part of the NI "development roadmap"...

Well it wasn't so long ago that the Kore browser was touted as the saviour of the Kompete universe...

I'm very interested to see what the KSD replacement is in NI's "new frontier"

The KSD system was pretty damn good and if it ain't broke - why fix it ?

Many people in this world seem to have a more komplete understanding of "The Future of Sound"

So give up the sauce NI

 

In my best Yoda voice:

The Acrobat Reader Adobe has. Free it is! Money they make on other software.

Why are specs already not published? Bad planning, this is. Bad blood it is. Always two. Who is the other?

Make own lightsaber and Jedi will Eagle be!

 

Im the same with my MBP, a few months old... and then this whole future Inkomplete drama. The whole point of buying into NI was to have this perfect system. So Ill have to stay in 2011-2012 and just not upgrade. However if something comes along which allows my kore to continue to work and komplet8 upgrade can rest on the HD with my komplete 7 staying kore friendly.. Then I will start supporting NI with buying their products.. but until then why would I pay to break something that keeps my workflow perfect.

Personally I dont care about the controller.. just the software. This whole database keeping kore alive like a zombie is what I want to hear. I love zombies..

If I just want to jam a bunch of VSTs together without any NI synths... Then there are MUCH better alternatives. But I like the idea of all the NI stuff in komplete and expansion packs plus other VSTs.

In essense NI has jumped out of a plane to skydive... the main parachute will not open because it was poorly packed(when kore stops to work)... now with this petition, NI has a chance to pull the reserve parachute(letting people who will keep kore alive have the SDK or whatever) and no harm will be done.

Same thing a parent tells their child when they fall down.. "nichts passiert" alles gut.... oder oh nein mein Kind einfach brach sich das Genick

please do the right thing NI

 

Ruff Translation...

Sorry my German is a little rusty,but I'll translate this to the best of my ability

"When the BIG company decides to stop development of a very important piece of software with almost no notice,don't just be a passive pussie and let them shaft you"

"Stand up like a man and demand the source code so that you can keep the engine running...."

 

lol, great translation..!

Actually what I was saying.. is that if kore can live on because NI allows this then its all good..

the thing I wrote in german you hear from parents who drop their child or when the child stumbles and hits the floor. Normally a child will scream because it wants attention.
When this happens a parent says ...its ok.. its all good.. no one hurt.. nothing happened... and life goes on... child is fine.. no crying or some memory that will last with the child . this is the ideal outcome

but what if your child stumbles... and then sits up with some scissors in its eye socket, or through the railing and 20 stories below creating a kick drum sound as the baby hits the concrete... this is bad.. this is a nightmare... this is wrong. you dont want this outcome.

NI by dropping and potentially screwing with peoples accepted tool/workflow has the chance to make this whole KORE thing a minor issue...
or
NI can create a situation where someones invested time(couldbe 5 hours, 30 hours, 100 hours, 1000s of hours of time spent with the database and kore software) is just dropped... oh well.. good bye ..please buy maschine now because its the superior product that we say it is. Everyone will react differently.. some are pacified by the 3 vouchers... others are indifferent.. and some people will boycott ever trusting NI again.. and start investing their money in new products and mabey even carry some venom in their spit to anyone who is a fanboy of NI... like a mac and pc user 10 years ago arguing.

 

Yes, very true; we have seen it all thus far since the announcement in early June.

I decided to take the vouchers and make a couple of purchases in addition, but this is not a "pacifying" thing for me. I decided to get the packs based on their merits and my feeling that I could make them work well for me and make use of them for as long as my controller continues to work.

Going forward from here, I have decided to forge ahead with this knowledge that whenever sales for any of their products slows down, Native Instruments will drop it and immediately remove all related packs and plugins from the store, potentially burning many bridges with their customer base as well as any 3rd party contributors, too.

We have also learned that Native Instruments has to be basically badgered to the four corners of the earth before they'll do anything right by the customer. It took more than a month for NI to establish a pricing policy and a special ordering page for the sound packs. This was badly handled.

And finally, no word from the owners regarding the decision? No persoanl appearance or email from these two? What are they doing all day? This whole thing was very badly handled, and it is evidence to me that they don't really care about us. It's all BS. If they were musicians, they would show more interest in the entire segment of the customer base that they just tossed into the dumpster!

Having said that, I have not completely sworn off NI software. But the above experiences and knowledge will always be factored in whenever I consider future purchases. Simply put, recent behavior from NI will make it harder for Native Instruments to make money off of me.

To me, this is the only reasonable course of action for me to take, because the current state of affairs is what Native Instruments has wrought!

Native Instruments has lost out on some sales from me already. I have already purchased a slew of instruments from other vendors, so now I have little need for certain Native Instruments products, such as Massive packs, the pro strings pack, more bass sounds, or more drums.

The end result is that I have diversified my own purchasing habits solely due to Native Instruments' recent practices, and I will continue to do so into the future. It may also be possible that due to my recent "not NI" purchases, I may be able to skip the next couple of Komplete upgrades. I do not think of it as "getting back at" NI for bad decisions, but I do think of it as a little bit of a comeuppance.

No evil intent here. I will just make each decision on its own merits, and I will continue to be open to good software from other vendors. And I am on the lookout for the day that Maschine and/or Traktor sales eventually slow down (as they will once everybody who wants one has one) and NI announces that they now have to terminate those products.

 

Sadly I fear there is a large portion of people who are happy in their kore world but not regulars to the forums or use different emails and are not aware of this petition.. There really needs to be more people voting on this.. Even maschine owners who have crossed over should help out.. How upset do you think Maschine users would be if Maschine was dropped, not supported, and stopped working.
If you believe that this could never happen, because maschine is so perfect.. then your naive and will be as suprized as we are with kore being discontinued.

As far as future purchases... I also have migrated my purchases to other vendors... I would have gotten the strings and african instruments by now... instead I invested in Numerology 3 pro and Alchemy. Next stop it will be audio mulch and at some point ethnoworld 5

 

The Kore database is just a MetaKit database, so one could write an exporter just by figuring out the table layout and spitting it out in whatever format is useful.

 

All the more reason for the layout to be released. Good information to have, btw, thank you.

 

Just to give a wee bit more info there, this code snippet prints out all of the sounds and their string properties, e.g.


URL: Erik:Library:Application Support:Native Instruments:Shared Content:Sounds:FM7:Yed Prior.ksd
Name: Yed Prior
Vendor: NI
Author: Peter Krischker
Bank: FM7-Sounds Vol.1 Bank 1
Color: White
Inputs: s
Outputs: s
URL: Erik:Library:Application Support:Native Instruments:Shared Content:Sounds:FM7:Zivago.ksd
Name: Zivago
Author: Eric Young
Bank: Factory Presets Bank 1
Color: White
Inputs: s
Outputs: s
[...]

Though I agree with one of the earlier NI posters that I'm not sure what you'd actually want said data for since you still won't be able to load the KSDs in anything other than Kore. As such, additional info is left as an exercise for the more interested reader...

 

Thanks for the hint. How did you find out?

 

Wow Bif, I think that's the most sensible post you've ever made!
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And for the record I would love for NI to do this, but I bet they're all laughing when they read this thread. No way it's ever gonna happen.

 

This is the most useful piece of information I've read in a long time.
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The Maschine database file extension is mk2.

 

Well, now that we know what type of database it is, it might just be a matter of a bit of labor to figure out the layout of the tables and columns.

So is guessing at the data relationships in direct violation of the software commandment "Thou shalt not reverse engineer"? Not so sure. But it's possible that that commandment was written on a 7 inch floppy disk instead of a stone tablet.

And maybe after all I can have my KORE's display banner actually changed to "BIF!" It would be awsome to have my Mackie controllers display "BIF Rawks!" during their bootup sequence, too!

 

The question of who owns the data is relevant. I license the software and NI owns that. But presets I make, sounds I make, and I feel, the database, etc. are my property.

These are OUTPUTs of the program I license, not inputs. So they are mine and unique to my system. No one else has the data in their database that I have in mine.