NI Goes Abbey Road

[Frodo]

I'm miles from home and stupid-busy for the next few weeks, but felt this was worth posting while I had the chance.

NI collaborates with Abbey Road for products to be announced/released next month.


http://www.native-instruments.com/en/sp ... operation/

[wurliuchi]

Whoa, I can hardly wait! Thanks for such good news.

[mhschmieder]

Yeah, I've seen several of these announcements so far, and none really give any clues. I doubt it's an NI repackaging of Brilliance Pack etc. Hard to know if it's effects plug-ins or VI's or sample libraries or what.

[Frodo]

I doubt it's an NI repackaging of Brilliance Pack etc. Hard to know if it's effects plug-ins or VI's or sample libraries or what.

My guess is that because it's NI (Native INSTRUMENTS) that it will be VIs and not dedicated effects. It could be VIs with some effects incorporated, but by and large I'm thinking instruments first and foremost. Just a guess.

[Splinter]

Yeah, but I thought NI was streamlining their product line to be more synth oriented. Doesn't seem like after their recent move (dumping B4, Akoustik, Elektrik Keys, etc...) that they would create a bunch of vintage instruments. Maybe they're just creating new sound libraries for Kontakt.

[David Polich]

Yeah, but I thought NI was streamlining their product line to be more synth oriented. Doesn't seem like after their recent move (dumping B4, Akoustik, Elektrik Keys, etc...) that they would create a bunch of vintage instruments. Maybe they're just creating new sound libraries for Kontakt.

Agree.

Then again, I thought the Cleveland Browns might end their losing streak
this year.

[Splinter]

Yeah, but I thought NI was streamlining their product line to be more synth oriented. Doesn't seem like after their recent move (dumping B4, Akoustik, Elektrik Keys, etc...) that they would create a bunch of vintage instruments. Maybe they're just creating new sound libraries for Kontakt.

Agree.

Then again, I thought the Cleveland Browns might end their losing streak
this year.

True, true. In fact that may be why they dumped their vintage and acoustic instruments. But that basically means they lied to us. Here's the rhetoric they sent me when I requested they not discontinue B4:

Native Instruments has discontinued Akoustik Piano, B4 II, Bandstand, Elektrik
Piano and Pro-53 as individual products on September 1st.

This allows Native Instruments to further concentrate its resources on those
products and technologies that are of primary relevance for today's music
production environments, and offer a focused product portfolio with minimal
overlap. Technical support for users of discontinued products continues to be
available.

Existing owners of Akoustik Piano, Bandstand and Elektrik Piano can use the
content of these instruments with the free Kontakt Player as a powerful
replacement. The Kontakt Player offers full-featured playback capabilities for
these Kontakt-based instruments, as well as future-proof compatibility with
the latest versions of relevant operating systems and plugin hosts.

Users can find alternatives to the discontinued instruments in the current
product portfolio. Native Instruments is offering the content of Akoustik
Piano as individual instruments for download purchase. The samples contained
within Elektrik Piano are part of the Kontakt 4 factory library. As an
alternative to the B4 II, the '57 Drawbar Organ instrument continues to be
available.

I'm just tired of getting jerked around by NI. I'm pretty much done buying their products as much as I like them. I love Akoustik and B4. I also got shafted with Komplete 2. The whole Abbey Road thing sounds compelling, but I just don't think I'll jump again with NI. It's too big a risk.

[mhschmieder]

Just don't waste your money on '57 Drawbar. I'm going to read their fine print, when I finally have some room to breathe, to see if those can be resold. I can't even run it without a computer freeze-up, much less start selecting presets or modifying them to suit my tastes. Some replacement for B4 II, eh? And well, I did get it to work ONCE, long enough to make my own custom drawbar setting, and it sounded less organic than the B3 organ samples in the regular Kontakt library. Who are they trying to fool?

But yes, I still love NI products in general, and don't fault them for moving on, as long as they provide alternatives. The B4 is really one of the rare cases, other than for the canceled plug-in effects (somewhat compensated in Guitar Rig but not completely), where they have left us stranded completely. I have Komplete 6 sitting in a box waiting to install when I get a compatible computer (soon now).

I think we need to be fair and acknowledge the good with the bad. Kore and everything related to it is a disaster from a usability and operational point of view. If I'd fully realized (my fault, I know) that '57 Drawbar is NOT a sample library one can ALSO load into Kontakt, I would have skipped it.

Kontakt itself keeps improving, and I am increasingly shying away from vendors that move away from that platform to their own untested and immature platform. That even includes Spectrasonics, for the short term (but I plan to hop aboard the Steam Engine once it is more mature).

I am looking forward to finding out what the new version of Absynth does for that synth engine, once I can try it out. I almost thought they would abandon Absynth in favour of massive, but there's really no comparison. I think it's nice that the company is continuing to develop three separate synth engines (massive, Absynth, and Reaktor) vs. consolidating them into one product that pleases nobody.

My bigger concern now is whether Battery will continue. It sounds like crap, but I still depend on it for special effect stuff such as DJ Scratches and Reverse Cymbal. I love its interface, so would rather they bring its audio engine up to snuff that fold it into Kontakt via KSP-based GUI specialization. But I suspect the latter will be its fate.

[Splinter]

I have to confess, I forgot about Kontakt. It is quite a monster that I use pretty much all the time. Now that Akoustik and Elektrik Keys can run in Kontakt, it does solve that problem, but just a year ago, I bought Klassic Keys and now B4 and Pro53 are broken. I just feel like NI keeps throwing great products at us and then turns around and abandons them on us. It's like they have no road map for their company. Their marketing and upgrade path seems very poorly thought out. If they were smart, they would dump all the sampling products except for Kontakt, which is pretty much the industry standard, and improve its UI. Granted, Kontakt has got much better over the years, but why is everything so dang small and cryptic?

I will continue to hang on to Kontakt and use it as my primary sampler, but I just can't "buy in" to any other products!

[mhschmieder]

The Native Instruments collaboration with Abbey Road has become clearer with the announcement of the first joint product, which is a drum kit:

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/ ... ntent=1115

I can't listen to the audio demo until I get home. My guess is it is a Beatles song.

Note that this pack/library requires Kontakt 4 (and hence Intel).

P.S.: I re-found this topic using the search feature, and am confused why it is filed under the new "troubleshooting" category -- especially as a quick scan of the topics and the forum rules does not indicate that general plug-in discussion is now supposed to go in this new forum?

[zed]

The Native Instruments collaboration with Abbey Road has become clearer with the announcement of the first joint product, which is a drum kit:

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/ ... ntent=1115

More than a drum kit! It is two drum kits! And early 60s drum kit recorded and mixed through a REDD desk, and a late 60s drum kit recorded through an EMI TG mixer, which included Tea Towel toms and snares.

Fabulous product! I had to order and download immediately. I just couldn't help myself. It sounds really good and will now be my go-to drum kits.

29,000 samples (and 14 GB+ when uncompressed). And that is just for 2 different drum kits with lots of articulations, hand claps, tambourines and a lot of control over all the sounds by using both mono and stereo overhead mics.

It also has randomize controls so that you can randomize volume, velocity, time, pitch and EQ to really create authentic variation in the drum hits.

And the mixing board and all the knobs are fashioned after vintage Abbey Road gear. I wish that DP could have faders and knobs like this!!

Great purchase for a very reasonable cost! While I listened to the audio demos I was thinking that they would be asking at least $249 for this product. Instead they beat that price by more than half!

I'm a happy camper right now.

[mhschmieder]

Zed, that's great feedback! I didn't realise it is available for immediate consumption!

[zed]

Zed, that's great feedback! I didn't realise it is available for immediate consumption!

And some more detail here Sir Schmieder: http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 46#p334146" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I apologize for not yet getting back to you with a review of the North India Kore Pack. I've been meaning to do so. There are a few drawbacks with it, but I really do like it, and think it is the best Sitar instrument I have ever come across. I shall find that thread and tell you a few things about it...

[Dan Worley]

The Native Instruments collaboration with Abbey Road has become clearer with the announcement of the first joint product, which is a drum kit:

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/ ... ntent=1115

More than a drum kit! It is two drum kits! And early 60s drum kit recorded and mixed through a REDD desk, and a late 60s drum kit recorded through an EMI TG mixer, which included Tea Towel toms and snares.

Fabulous product! I had to order and download immediately. I just couldn't help myself. It sounds really good and will now be my go-to drum kits.

29,000 samples (and 14 GB+ when uncompressed). And that is just for 2 different drum kits with lots of articulations, hand claps, tambourines and a lot of control over all the sounds by using both mono and stereo overhead mics.

It also has randomize controls so that you can randomize volume, velocity, time, pitch and EQ to really create authentic variation in the drum hits.

And the mixing board and all the knobs are fashioned after vintage Abbey Road gear. I wish that DP could have faders and knobs like this!!

Great purchase for a very reasonable cost! While I listened to the audio demos I was thinking that they would be asking at least $249 for this product. Instead they beat that price by more than half!

I'm a happy camper right now.

I am quite taken by the sound of these drums as well. They did an outstanding job. Most definitely the sounds I grew up listening to. I was pleasantly surprised by the affordable price, too. I was expecting twice that amount.

c-ya,

Dan Worley

[Armageddon]

I'm still stymied as to why NI discontinued B4, which many, many professionals still swear by as the de facto virtual tonewheel organ. It's an amazing VI! For that matter, I can't imagine why they'd discontinue Pro-53, which, for my money, was a much better Prophet-5 emulation than Arturia's. Bandstand, Acoustik Piano and Electrik Piano, on the other hand, I can kind of see. A GM-based VI probably doesn't have a lot of place in today's "everybody has a million VIs" environment, and Acoustik Piano probably faces a dearth of competition from higher-end piano VIs, same goes for Electrik. I still don't see why they can't just fold those into the Kontakt library proper, or at least keep them around as part of the "Komplete" package, which would increase the package's value immeasurably. And while I love FM8, it's obvious they abandoned its original purpose as a virtual DX-7 and are just pushing it as a more-generic FM synth ala Rob Papen's synths. By abandoning the vintage emulation aesthetic, it winds up comparing somewhat unfavorably to the higher-end (or even the more bargain-rate) soft synths out there. For arpeggiated synth sounds, any one of the three Papen synths just blow it away.