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Kontakt Updates (current version: 7.8.0)

EvilDragon said:
Many users don't share this sentiment. But I guess they are not on this forum. :)
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I would love nothing more than an effective browser, but I think we both know this is way, way off that.

Anway, we've been down this road many times. As long is it doesn't kludge anything else it doesn't matter that it's useless because we still have quickload. Point is to figure out a way to stop it kludging so many systems by hook or by crook. Then - finally - K7 is good for general pro use.
 
robgb said:
Why all the Kontakt hate? I don't get it. Kontakt is one of the most amazing pieces of software I've ever used, and 99% of what I do would be impossible without it.
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I like Kontakt. But new features seem to be added at a really glacial pace.

The UI is hideous; most of us like it because it's the very similar to how it was 10 years ago, and we're already familiar with it. But you couldn't launch a product looking like that in 2024. The text is difficult to read, the new browser is rather bad, and you still can't place non-plyer libraries in the old rack.

You still can't ship a library with optional mic positions, or program instruments in a standard language (like Lua, which other samplers sometimes support now). And subjectively it does seem like the loading times are a bit slower in 7 than they used to be.

I think that when users are paying for the software, and devs are paying to launch player libraries, it's really insulting for them to put advertisements into the software.

But for all those complains, Kontakt is still most powerful and most universal sampler. I'd probably prefer if all my libraries were Kontakt libraries, just so that I could focus on 1 sampler and stop having to deal with like 5 different VSTs. So I definitely don't hate Kontakt, but it's pretty easy to see why some others do.
 
robgb said:
Why all the Kontakt hate? I don't get it. Kontakt is one of the most amazing pieces of software I've ever used, and 99% of what I do would be impossible without it.
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probably related to the universal phenomena of disliking change.
Kontakt, for many years, felt like Kontakt. Regardless of the changes, updates, improvements, etc. From kontakt 3 or so right up to the latest kontakt 6, it still felt like Kontakt. Once you've spent a decade using the same program, relying on it, and loving it, it feels a bit like home, and we get a little protective of it.
Well, now we have Kontakt 7, and there's an overtone of "change", and suddenly Kontakt doesn't feel like home anymore. It looks different, and in some cases it behaves different. Gradually we become detached and no longer use Kontakt as the default loaded plugin.
Development and workflow choices are being made based on "majority rules" analytics instead of being able to recognise what's actually a good idea. It's effectively dismissing (or more likely, not actually seeking) the opinions of professionals in favour of the majority - amateurs.
It's one of those forms of logic that only really makes sense to programmers, where data > critical thought.
Anyway, I hope for NI's sake that the 1% of users they push away aren't the ones influencing the rest of the market.
 
Jdiggity1 said:
Development and workflow choices are being made based on "majority rules" analytics instead of being able to recognise what's actually a good idea.
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A number of things added to K7 was in direct response to some of the longest standing feature requests, like zoomable interface, multi instance purge, faster browsing through patches (instead of being asked if you want to save the patch every so often), direct connection to mk3 keyboards instead of requiring KK, etc. etc. So, this is not quite true.
Jdiggity1 said:
It's effectively dismissing (or more likely, not actually seeking) the opinions of professionals in favour of the majority - amateurs.
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Again not quite true as exemplified in the previous paragraph.

However, there is nothing wrong in appealing to the majority. Especially when professionals are anyways generally always late in upgrading to the latest versions (so even if they might have the most buying potential, it doesn't necessarily show as much in practice), and they are generally the ones who also disable usage data analytics feature. And then we get statement like this quoted one. You ARE being asked, but you disable the feature that is doing that (the general you, not you personally).
Jdiggity1 said:
It's one of those forms of logic that only really makes sense to programmers, where data > critical thought.
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Programmers are not the ones making these decisions. And there is plenty of critical thought being applied to all the changes you're seeing in Kontakt.
 
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robgb said:
Why all the Kontakt hate? I don't get it. Kontakt is one of the most amazing pieces of software I've ever used, and 99% of what I do would be impossible without it.
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Just to point out the difference between hate and cricitism...

We've seen twice in the past couple of months NI row back on a forced change that had negative impacts for some customers. Credit where its due - they are belatedly listening to valid criticism. But it suggests that the collective NI decision-making of late has not been stellar - why are they making these decisions in the first place? Are they completely out of touch with their pro customers?

I think most of us are pragamtists. We don't "hate" Kontakt - it's a core tool for most of us that mostly works very well. But it does mean that if our experience or performance is compromised, it will provoke a reaction.

Hope that helps.

BTW, one bit of praise for Kontakt that I'm not sure I've seen mentioned - since K6 there seems to be some kind of centralised way that the order of libraries in the library pane appears. I am stupidly obsessive about keeping a certain order so I can find stuff quickly, and you used to have to set that up for each version separately, and that was a pain (indeed a pane pain). Now I see that when I make a change in K7, it is reflected in K6 (but not K5). That's GREAT, and thank you NI.
 
Guy Rowland said:
since K6 there seems to be some kind of centralised way that the order of libraries in the library pane appears. I am stupidly obsessive about keeping a certain order so I can find stuff quickly, and you used to have to set that up for each version separately, and that was a pain (indeed a pane pain). Now I see that when I make a change in K7, it is reflected in K6 (but not K5). That's GREAT, and thank you NI.
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Hmmmm curious. Nothing changed in this area in the recent times as far as I can remember (apart from not showing a library in there if its minimum Kontakt version requirement is not met, for example you won't see Choir Omnia listed in K6 or K5 - I think this was done since Kontakt 5.6.8 onwards, when Service Center underpinnings were removed from Kontakt). One thing that I did notice is, if you change the order of library tabs in an earlier version of Kontakt, it will get messed up in the latter versions (say if you edit the order in K5, expect mess in K6 and K7).

The order of libraries is stored in registry/plist, there's an entry for this per library. This didn't change since Kontakt 2 times.
 
EvilDragon said:
A number of things added to K7 was in direct response to some of the longest standing feature requests, like zoomable interface, multi instance purge, faster browsing through patches (instead of being asked if you want to save the patch every so often), direct connection to mk3 keyboards instead of requiring KK, etc. etc. So, this is not quite true.

Again not quite true as exemplified in the previous paragraph.

Howvwer, there is nothing wrong in appealing to the majority. Especially when professionals are anyways generally always late in upgrading to the latest versions (so even if they might have the most buying potential, it doesn't necessarily show as much in practice), and they are generally the ones who also disable usage data analytics feature. And then we get statement like this quoted one. You ARE being asked, but you disable the feature that is doing that (the general you, not you personally).

Programmers are not the ones making these decisions. And there is plenty of critical thought being applied to all the changes you're seeing in Kontakt.
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That's fair.
Admittedly what I said was unfair by making it sound like all choices were being made based on the usage analytics, when really it's only been a couple things here and there where "the data shows...." was used as the justification. I could have specified "some choices".

For the sake of argument though, if you don't know the opinion (usage data) came from a professional, then it's not really the same as seeking a professional's opinion, where the response might hold more weight.
By the way is that actually true that most professionals disable usage data submission? Or is it just an educated guess. Because my impression is that the era of "I keep my machine offline" isn't as much of a thing these days?
 
EvilDragon said:
Hmmmm curious. Nothing changed in this area in the recent times as far as I can remember (apart from not showing a library in there if its minimum Kontakt version requirement is not met, for example you won't see Choir Omnia listed in K6 or K5 - I think this was done since Kontakt 5.6.8 onwards, when Service Center underpinnings were removed from Kontakt). One thing that I did notice is, if you change the order of library tabs in an earlier version of Kontakt, it will get messed up in the latter versions (say if you edit the order in K5, expect mess in K6 and K7).

The order of libraries is stored in registry/plist, there's an entry for this per library. This didn't change since Kontakt 2 times.
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Curious indeed. Try it now - for me if I just swap two libraries in 7, it is reflected in 6 on next launch. A happy accident perhaps then, but am very grateful for it. And thanks for the tip - I'll be sure to not move stuff about in 5. That won't be an issue, I only use 5 in my legacy VE Pro stuff and I don't browse there.

And yes, if it's a K7-only library it is missing in K6, but that's to be expected of course.
 
I only recently installed the latest Kontakt update and did some rough testing with Nore in my DAW of choice: REAPER. I programmed rather extreme tempo changes and ramps that would probably crash my system before (despite its rather high specs) and cause terrible audio glitches. I'm happy that this is now fully fixed. :)
 
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QuiteAlright said:
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The UI is hideous; most of us like it because it's the very similar to how it was 10 years ago, and we're already familiar with it. But you couldn't launch a product looking like that in 2024. The text is difficult to read, the new browser is rather bad, and you still can't place non-plyer libraries in the old rack.

....
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I think that is what puts them between a rock and a hard place. Whenever they try to change the UI, there are some beta testers, one for instance whose name rhymes with penx, who reminds them that some of us have been using it for decades and rely on muscle memory and the consistent workflow.
rsp
 
Keith Cocker said:
What's a "Pro" - very arrogant attitude in my opinion.
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Since I also used the term - there have been some battle lines drawn here. Whenever long-standing users say "you've broken something again", the reply has been that this only affects a small number of users - the implication being the business is being driven now by newer users who have different requirements.

It feels like a lot of the changes have been driven for people who want to only use Kontakt in single view mode (a slight tangent - I saw someone query if the new ProjectSAM percussion libary was even Kontakt at all as all the videos just showed their inteface with their own keyboard at the bottom). That feels like the direction of travel, and that will increasingly affect some pro users too. Someone else tried to tell me recently that using the rack in Kontakt was old fashioned and we don't need to do things like that any more, didn't you know?

The Pro label is imperfect, I'm not sure what's better - power users? I think we're gonna see this divide more and more, with Kontakt being used as a clean host for single libraries by some, and in the traditional way by others.
 
Power user is IMO definitely a better description than "pro". A bedroom producer can also be a power user. Hell, they can even sometimes turn out to be pros!

Guy Rowland said:
the implication being the business is being driven now by newer users who have different requirements.
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That is only a part of it. The other, more important part, is that Kontakt's overall user experience is very complicated for a new user, and so an easier entry point is being created.

To that end, y'all saw things change in recent times. The main intent behind "New instruments for you" feature (for example) was indeed to serve the needs of a fresh new user, who might not even know anything about Kontakt ecosystem or where one can get content for it (you would not believe how not insignificant the amount of such people is!). For you folks, you can disable that now. Could this have been done better? For sure. Platforms like Steam and Spotify show how this divide between "work" and "get content" can be done in less intrusive ways. We will get there.

Further still, Kontakt will now also detect if you don't have ANY libraries installed and show an appropriate message (this was done in 7.7.x cycle). You lot will never see this message because you have your stuff. That's great - many don't!
 
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QuiteAlright said:
The text is difficult to read, the new browser is rather bad, and you still can't place non-plyer libraries in the old rack.
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There are ways to do it—people demo it all over YouTube, and I believe someone even created a small app to do it for you—but it probably violates the EULA. But let's face it, Quick Load is efficient and easy to use, and there's always the new Library page, where third-party libraries can be added. It's not as if Kontakt leaves you in a lurch in that regard.
 
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