Should I trust NI now?

I am pondering buying a ton of the stuff on sale at eastwest (Colossus, Gold Symphony, Choirs, Stormdrum, RA, Vapor...). This would form the core of my compositional life. It's a phenomonal deal right now, up until the end of the year. My challenge is they all use the NI player.

I used to be a happy NI customer, with Battery, B4, and Pro52. However, the horrible delays in updates, incredible bugs, lack of NI suppport, and finicky system dependencies turned me off to the NI stuff, and I haven't been back.

I am about to buy a maxed out MacPro, running Logic. I will obviously need Kontakt 2 because the bundled player won't work on Intel. NI has so far been true to form, first promising UB Kontakt in Q2, then Q3, then moving it to "sometime" in October (which is Q4). I would expect further delays into November or December, or even 2007. I just flat out don't trust their development dates. I would also expect the UB version to be almost unusably buggy, thus causing further waits into Q1 or Q2 2007 before it's actually usable.

Maybe I'm just a grump, and NI has their act together better now. I'd actually *really* like to hear that, because as musical instruments their stuff is compelling. I'd actually really like to go whole hog and just buy Komplete, because Kontakt + Reaktor + Absynth is almost all the way there anyway.

So: what's the current experience with NI now? If you're on a Mactel, would you make the jump, particularly putting most of your compositional eggs into their basket?

 

Nope !

STILL two sandwiches shy of a picnic.

You stated it all in your second paragraph.

Peace,

Dave

 

I wouldnt get the macintel
QuadCore is overkill!!!:O

 

Quoid: if all I were doing was music, you'd be right -- four cores would be underutilized (at least until Leapord). However, I'm also doing video, fractals, raytracing, etc which will max out the machine from day 1.

Gramarye: uff, that's not a heartening first response. I'm already starting to look at standard exs24 and giga libraries in case there's a string of "no way!" responses like yours. Thanks for the feedback.

 

I'm a PC user (since Kontakt 1.0) and for updates and support it has been pretty much the same story... I remember the days of K1 when the DFD was unusable and it took soo long to get an update. NI has been always late on their delivery dates. They ship updates very rarely which gets annoying.
But in the end, I can't live without Kontakt 2. The features are stunning, from realistic large librairies to creative sampling. Although there are still glitches here and there, I know K2 enough and I have workarounds. All the versions of K2 I had (since the 2.0) have been very usable, I'd be surprised that they release something if it really not usable.

Erik.

 

At least they should get their support-people out here answering why this and that, because the total absense of them makes it even more annoying. The only thing one notice from them is the frequently updated page where they announce the further delays (without making any noise of it).

I bought the EastWest platinum library and it have been left unused too long, and counting I bought also the MacPro to be able to use it to it´s full (and the only reason I bought the MacPro and not a lightweight computer is to be able to use the Library relatively free).

So my few months as a NI costumer hasn´t been very pleasant. Up until a few weeks I waited to see, but since the´d change there delays to monthly calculations I thought the upgrade was around the corner and hooked the Kontakt 2 crossgrade, but seemingly not.

So trustworthy isn´t really the suffix, but it could be if feedback came from them.... I guess.

 

Greets, Biff -

I may have been a little too harsh (by some peoples' standards) in my reply. I have ongoing issues with NI so I probably can't offer an unbiased opinion. However, I had perused some of the forums dating back a couple of years and it appears from the posts that practices haven't changed much over time. I had no problems with NI until the Kore/Komplete Care 2006/NIversary Specials 'time slice' which was fraught with misinformation, discrimination and basically shabby treatment of existing customers (and it continues on today).

In any event, you had dealt with NI before so you aren't going in blind. You know how awesome their software is so the determination is if it's worth the BS they call customer service to have the stuff. I look at it like buying a new car - there's a lot of senseless drama involved in the purchase but once you're off the lot and cruisin' you don't have to deal with the dealership for a while.

Sorry to give such a negative impression, but in my eyes it's deserved.

Peace,

Dave

 

Well... lets see now.
NI has until Tuesday to get K2 UB update ready.

After that they have broke their promise 3rd time.

I understand very well that NI staff does not post in this thread. It must be very embarassing to them.

 

they're sales support team seems like they don't want to be there. the custome service is the same.. They're all blaaahhhhh.. Maybe some coffee will help? THey sound soooo boreeed

 

Yes, you will get UB - in case you pay money again:

The seven most recently announced Native Instruments products are already compatible with Intel-based Macs: KORE, AUDIO KONTROL 1 hardware, TRAKTOR 3 LE, MASSIVE, FM8, BATTERY 3 und ABSYNTH 4. Universal Binary updates for virtually all other Native Instruments products are scheduled for release in the coming months, and the "Universal Binary Grace Period" began on September 12th, 2006. Anyone activating one of the listed products for the first time after this date will be able to download the update for free as soon as it becomes available. Other registered users will be able to purchase and download the updates from the NI Online Shop for € 25 / $ 29.

 

Don't be so hard on yourself Dave. By my standards your response was practically warm & fuzzy. Considering my last 'spirited' post over at Komplete & Essentials.

I think you can trust NI. I do think they are trying. Just don't try to hold them to ANY timetable and you won't be dissapointed. Eventually, they DO get it right. It's just never right when the money changes hands. It's been proven over and over and over again. For better or worse, right or wrong, this is the way they do things.

;-)

 

Greets, K of N ! -

I'm beginning to see the 'big picture' with NI. The more time passes the more ludicrous things become. At least there's no two-drink minimum and the cover charge is just what you pay for the product. It's difficult to detrmine which part of the circus to watch first - the juggler in ring 1, the dog and pony show in ring 2 or the clowns in ring 3.

In any case, K4 delivery is supposedly happening so what could be bad......right? GigaStudio ran for 2 1/2 hours last night WITHOUT a crash and the weekend's comin'. Whoopee!! All's right with the world.

Chips & beer sounds pretty good right about now. Think I'll go for it. Have a GREAT weekend !!!!

Peace,

Dave

 

It sure depends on your needs, it´s also overkill having more than one string on your guitar if you can´t use it.

 

True. I was just generalizing; In his case, doing audio and video work, quadcore is probally a good route to take, but for most the cpu will over power the HDz, you'll be bottlenecking before your even close to toppin off your cpu.

 

I really hope they get these UB releases out, so I can at least use Kontakt & Reaktor on my Macintel from my Komplete 3 purchase while waiting around for Komplete 4. It will make the wait a little more bearable.

That said, I'm not holding my breath. 4 days and they're going to release 4 UB products?

I will say that I'm starting to kick myself over the K3 - to - K4 thing. I went ahead and just got Komplete 3 in Sept. since K4 was supposedly shipping out relatively soon. Now I wished I had waitied, since people have had the K4 retail box for weeks now. (Although I do get the Intakt & Kompakt libraries as a small plus).

Here's hoping.

 

Just a small question regarding the compatibility issues.
As a Komplete 2 owner is it wise to buy a MacPro machine right now or stay on the pc? To be more concrete. I use Kontakt 2 and Reaktor 5 a lot. Will I be able to just install and work with these apps. on the new Intel Macs or not?

Cheers,

daduk

 

No you shouldn't.

I've recently returned to music production after a long time out and have been slowly building a home studio from scratch using products from various software vendors.

In addition to having been a professional musician during various periods in my life I also have around 30 years experience of working in IT, can program in 5 languages (including C++ - rather pertinent to the discussion of the merits/demerits of audio software applications). I'm currently a systems programmer/ database administrator with a major insurance company. I also have responsibility for training staff, assessing corporate software (feasibility studies, writing manuals etc).

My professional opinion of NI is that they conform to that well known IT acronym 'C.R.A.P'. Although their applications are quite imaginative in many respects, they are crawling with bugs - mainly of the type that results from employing programmers who don't know how to manage pointers correctly. These basic mistakes come from sloppy design and make it into the released products because of inadequate confidence testing. They tend to result in unpredictable and erratic application behavior - crashing, memory leaks, incompatibility with products from other vendors etc.

Indeed bugs in programs written in object oriented languages can be notoriously difficult to trace (even if you know what you are doing). If you don't know what you're doing or are maybe devoting limited man power to developing yet more buggy products to release onto the market as quickly as possible then, naturally, you will be very slow to fix the bugs in existing products.

If I had had to assess NI's products along side those of other companies at work - say if they produced a multi-platform program scheduler (a feasibility study I carried out recently) then NI would be laughed at and told to go away. Thank God they do not produce applications for corporate use. If they did (and enough companies were naive enough to trust their bug ridden software) then the results would be truly disastrous.

Although the programs from other companies I have (Steinberg for example) are not perfect, they are vastly more stable than NI's. The manuals are also better written - support quicker etc.

In short, NI's products are the worst I have ever experienced and they are playing a very dangerous game with their customers. I would be very surprised if they are still around in 10 years time unless they raise their game substantially.

Good Luck!!

 

I've been going back and forth with NI for a week trying to get them to support their products. They keep referring me to a "support form" which I've screenshot at http://www.matthewfields.net/NI/NI.jpg --the page says the form proper will show after I've logged in, and I'm logged in.

I'm giving them a little while to wake up and actually support their products and tell me their strategy for fixing the reverberator that ships with Kontakt Player Gold (it reverberates core oscillators rather than instrument outputs, so the MIDI loudness controller [07] only controls wet-dry mix on their player rather than loudness).

I've been quite patient with them, and I'm going to be a bit more patient for a few days. If they don't get their act together, I'll have to report the end result on my web site, and it won't be pretty. If they get their act together, I'll be able to write a more favorable article.

 

ushumeo -

Precisely which NI products are you familiar with? Although your insight to bad software programming seems flawless (I'm not smart and wouldn't know the difference) you seem rather vague as to which instruments fall into the "C.R.A.P." catagory. Do you own or use any NI products? Also, as I'm not an IT expert, would you define the acronym for me plese? - Just curious.

In my humble personal experience I've had infinitely less problems from NI software than any from Steinberg. I've used Cubase since VST32 (now SX3) and it is considerable less stable than any of my other DAW's save GigaStudio.

Assuming your assertations are correct, the lack of quality of NI's software coupled with their established customer service policies, the company shouldn't be able to survive 2006, much less the next ten years.

Peace

 

Hi Gramarye

I have Guitar Rig 2, Kontakt and Express Keyboards.

I bought Guitar Rig on the advice of someone I met in a shop in Denmark Street (dumb, I know, but I was rather tired that day). The sounds are pretty good (though not as good as real gear in my opinion). However, the bugs are too numerous to mention. They range from the silly (deselect all doesn't work from the menu - not attaching a function to the menu item probably/maybe - 30 min's work to fix) - to the sort of bug I was talking about earlier. E.g. causing Cubase to crash with an access violation error if you try to use it as a Direct X plug-in. Although I cannot say for certain, the Cubase diagnostic file blames Guitar Rig not releasing its objects - bad pointer management I'd say. Of course, I would need NI's source files to be sure. Other problems with Guitar Rig include the Rig Control losing patches when used as a VST, controls not working etc (even in standalone mode).

With Kontakt I was initially encouraged because I had few problems. But as I've started to delve deeper and use more of the features I've found that it's a similar story. The latest example being marker points for beat slices moving even after they've been locked.

I bought Kontakt on the recommendation of a guy who really knows his stuff about digital recording. He said he preferred Kontakt over Halion and other soft samplers because it was more intuitive, but he also warned me about the bugs and agreed with most of the sentiments I've seen expressed by others in this thread. It is a powerful product but it's also HASSLE. And that is the last thing I want when I'm working.

Express Keyboards actually aint so bad for what it is but there've still been niggly problems such as the B4 pan settings not being remembered.

Of course, to be fair to NI I've tried to make absolutely sure that it's not my inexperience as a new user that's been to blame. On occasions it has been. But I've found the forum to be much more useful than NI support in all regards.

It's weird though. I've had no trouble with Cubase at all, and Steinberg support have usually bent over backwards to help me when I've rung with various queries about it. But I guess it depends on which features you use at the end of the day and other things come into play as well - your O/S, soundcard, machine etc etc.

Even the Kontakt tutorial (though comprehensive enough) is unreliable. I can't even get rid of the damned thing when it's finished as Exit doesn't work. You have to do the three fingered salute and kill it!

Still. The next step for me is a soft synth. Will I be going for Absynth? Not on your life! There is nothing more dispiriting than having to struggle with SW issues when you want to get on. I'm also thinking of trying out Waves GTR (or whatever it’s called). I've heard it knocks Guitar Rig into a cocked hat - but I'm going to be a bit more careful this time.

Alternatively I could dust the Marshall Stack off and risk the wrath of my neighbors.

I use the C.R.A.P acronym when training etc. It means 'Continually Risible Attempts at Programming'.

This is a great shame because the NI products are innovative in some respects.

Hang Loose!