NI K3 Price Strangeness

[Frodo]

Is anybody running the new Gigastudio 4 on their Mac?

http://www.tascam.com/details;8,7,1055.html

I was never fancy enough to run a extra PC just for GS, but I saw my friend's rig and it seemed pretty ultimate for orchestra mockups... K2 is a more versatile program but I assume that GS4 will blow it out of the water performance-wise... any thoughts?

GVI really looks like a nice interface. I'm always interested in how developers are endeavoring to bridge the GUI gap in ways that make musical sense. The cool thing about GVI4 is that there is a vast array of GS libraries out there. If you have M5 or Kontakt, then GVI might seem redundant. I'm personally rather fond of things that are fairly native to the interface where delicate mapping is concerned.

Now, if we are actually at the point where things are truly 100% universal where sample libraries and various interfaces are concerned, then GVI4 would be little more than the Johnny-come-lately VI. However:

Press release:
When hosted in GigaStudio 4, virtual instruments based on Tascam's GVI gain the advantages of kernel-level processing, offering lower latency than other host applications.

How GVI cooperates in terms of latency and engine efficiency is something that has to be closely monitored. Sometimes the press release blubs are based more on the results on Windows than on a Mac where "better results" may refer to GVI4 compared to GVI3 or GS. How it compares to MachFive under MAS (which is pretty efficient, imho), and K2 (where EW compatiblity is still joined at the hip in advance of everything moving smoothly to their PLAY engine) remains to be seen.

I've been scouring the web for specific info on GVI4 on the Mac and more specifically with DP-- a whole other kettle of fish. Little or nothing worth mentioning has been found so far. So much depends on how lean the Carbon framework is built, and since this is Tascam's first venture with a Giga host I'll give it a "yellow light"-- (procede with caution).

Tascam has yet to put up much info in the way of compatibility, and their spec sheet is quite scant with little more than a price list.

But I get the sense that GVI4 is geared towards a slightly different user than the M5 gang. It may be a clear choice for those who don't have M5 or K2. I don't know if it will sway M5/K2 users very much.

What GVI4 may have going for it is how Leopard-savvy it might be. Again, these frameworks can make or break a VI, and when these VIs start out on Windows and migrate to Mac it's dangerous to assume too much too soon.

[billf]

I gather that NI views us as ATM machines.

What vendor doesn't?

That depends on the level of customer service. So I contact NI about a technical problem I am having, with products that are supposed to work on my system per their technical specs. Their response: spend another $200 on an upgrade to K3. Okay fine, $200 isn't going to kill me, and some might find NI's stance acceptable, but I think it is a horrible response.

Contrast this with Apple. My dual 2.7 G5 started having problems in September. Apple walked me through several levels of support, often contacting me to follow up and see how things were progressing. After two months of being unable to eliminate the problem, they offered to ship me a brand new replacement machine. Total cost to me: $0.00.

Or let's take MOTU. My brother had his 828mk II go south on him. I had him call MOTU tech support. They replaced his broken one free of charge. Downtime: two days from the start of the problem. Not bad.

As a result I am much more likely to continue to buy from both Apple and MOTU, and to recommend them to others. That's how business should work. I'm not so cynical to write off every vendor as trying to milk me for all my cash. Some truly do seem to care about their customers. So far I can't say that NI does. Perhaps it is mis-management on their part, and not greed. I can't say. But I do know good customer support versus poor support, and NI doesn't rate high in the former in my experience.

[guyreilly]

its funny to me that GS isn't used by more DP folk because I see DP as the sequencer of choice for the film/TV scoring set, and GS as historically the best/only way to make gigantic orchestra mockups. I love K2 because of the sound manipulation tools, flexibility, scripting, and everything else it offers, but I imagine that a big PC GS farm would be incredibly useful it I needed all my samples at once all the time. When I have some orchestral work I have just had to be creative with my resources...

[williemyers]

guys, I'm pretty sure that GS4 (GigaStudio 4) is a PC only. GVI4 (Giga Virtual Instrument 4) on the other hand, is *touted* to be Mac & PC. As for why you've not found many reports on it/them, they're not out yet. Word is, Sweetwater's taking orders and promising Jan. 08 shipping for GS4. No word yet on GVI4.

But yes, there are quite a few of us orch. types that have a PC just to run Gigastudio along side our DP running Macs.

Now *IF* (and I think that's a *huge* "if") TASCAM can get GVI4 to play happily, not just with Mac, but Leopard Mac(!), that'll be some accomplishment. My experience with loading Giga instruments (Garritan orch Strings) was disappointing with M5V2 and "useable but not everwhelming" with Kontakt 2. I haven't jumped for K3 yet, as I, like many others, are holding out hope that GVI4 will truly be Mac happy.

but we'll see....