# Petition: East West migration to Kontakt



## Pedro Camacho (May 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue May 17 said:


> Further, why not at least wait until Play 3 is released?



By then Kontakt 5 is out (or even 6) and you will wish you had all the new features in K5 (or 6) on the P3. 

Best case scenario Play 3 will be similar to Kontakt 3 which is already completely outdated to me.


Another factor EW seems to forget is that the speed of improvements from NI on Kontakt are FAR faster than any competition, so it is a lost battle.


On Play 4 (similar to Kontakt 4 in a best case scenario), Kontakt will be on its version 8 or 9. I just can't even dream on how awesome Kontakt will be by then...


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## Simon Ravn (May 17, 2011)

Never gonna happen although it would be nice. I agree with Pedro 100% - the current version of PLAY will never be half as good as the current version of Kontakt. 

The current PLAY GUI still feels like a pre-2005 alpha version of Kompakt - handling and loading instruments is horrendous - still no drag'n'drop or anything for christs sake...

I didn't vote because I know it's not going to happen


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## EastWest Lurker (May 17, 2011)

Pedro Camacho @ Tue May 17 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Tue May 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Further, why not at least wait until Play 3 is released?
> ...



Just for clarity's sake, Kontakt is a sampler so the product Play is comparable to, until there is a Play Pro, is the Kontakt Player.

Regardless, all the new libraries EW has developed are coded for Play, its commitment to to Play is 100% so this is a waste of time. But it is your time so if you care to waste it, feel free 

And now I must temporarily bid you all adieu as my daughter is getting married tonight!


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## MichaelL (May 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue May 17 said:


> Why not spend your time, folks, on something constructive that might actually happen?
> Further, why not at least wait until Play 3 is released?



Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote a song based on that concept --Promises Promises. :lol: 

Michael


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## EvilDragon (May 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ 17.5.2011 said:


> Just for clarity's sake, Kontakt is a sampler so the product Play is comparable to, until there is a Play Pro, is the Kontakt Player.



Even Kontakt Player gives you full functionality of Edit mode for 15 minutes...


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## MichaelL (May 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue May 17 said:


> And now I must temporarily bid you all adieu as my daughter is getting married tonight!




Congratulations!


Michael


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## salbinti (May 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue May 17 said:


> Just for clarity's sake, Kontakt is a sampler so the product Play is comparable to, until there is a Play Pro, is the Kontakt Player.



By saying that PLAY is comparable the _Kontakt player_, you have just told the entire planet that the full-blown version of Kontakt is a far superior product to PLAY. And if you think you are going to turn around and say that PLAY Pro will be superior to Kontakt, save it.


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## reddognoyz (May 17, 2011)

PLAY is too late to update, too slow to grow I've waited too long, I've heard the same tired old song.

How long has play been on the market now??? It's just fizzled out for me. 

I've seen the sounds I LOVE, the BEST sounding VI audio on the market, stuck in a Ford Pinto, 

Kontakt is a Ferrari. Play ain't catchin' up imho.


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## salbinti (May 17, 2011)

Pedro Camacho @ Tue May 17 said:


> Best case scenario Play 3 will be similar to Kontakt 3 ...



You have proof? Where do people get off saying such things? How do you know PLAY 3 will be similiar to Kintakt3?

*Petition: East West migration to Kontakt*

Can we drop this once and for all please? I mean really - what part of "we are not going to release anything, not port anything back to Kontakt, we are not paying licensing fees to NI anymore" don't you get? Why would you think that after them saying that, and after investing all that time and money into developing PLAY, and paying people to code the sw, etc - why would you think that EW would turn around and say, "oh, there's a petition going around that alot of people signed....hmmmm, let's rethink this" - why would you think that? Do you really believe that you can make a difference here? Why would you think that?


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## Pochflyboy (May 17, 2011)

salbinti @ Tue May 17 said:


> How do you know PLAY 3 will be similiar to Kintakt3?



Good point... this is a big guess at best.



salbinti @ Tue May 17 said:


> why would you think that EW would turn around and say, "oh, there's a petition going around that alot of people signed....hmmmm, let's rethink this" - why would you think that? Do you really believe that you can make a difference here? Why would you think that?


Cause we are their customers and there is no doubt at this point that they have lost sales in the string wars and could in the brass wars should Play 3 not be a dramatic increase in performance and fix many bugs that are associated with Play.  

-Joe


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## David Story (May 17, 2011)

Remember "New Coke"?





If EW is going to stay in business, they will correct their major mistakes. 
No matter what they said before.

If Play becomes easier to use than Kontakt, bravo. Right now, it's just for people with lots of disposable time/income.


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## Studio E (May 17, 2011)

Yeah, this is sad. I dont blame EW for trying to make a go out on their own but let's face it, WE have been the ones to pay the price. I'm not complaining, it's just too bad. For instance, I own basically all of the big titles they had before PLAY such as Platinum and Gold, SD1, RA, Choirs, Colossus, etc. PLAY came out and I upgraded Platinum and bought SD2. I've used them to experiment and never got past that stage because of bugs, crashes, glitches, forgotten patches, slow loading, etc. I love their sounds but I wont be buying any of their titles in the foreseeable future. As a double threat, companies have been popping up all over the place which offer real alternatives to the EWQL libraries. They should really be looking at tring to do something major to please the unsettled masses because I really feel that they are going to lose out on a significant portion of the market to Tone Hammer, Audiobro, Cinesamples, and others. I certainly dont wish any ill will but I truly do feel this way.


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## JonFairhurst (May 17, 2011)

If PLAY had some awesome, unique features, I could see why EW would prefer it. As it is, GigaStudio 2.5 of long ago gave me more features (aside from 64-bits) than PLAY has now. 

Even on a powerful PC, rendering from PLAY one track at a time gave me dropouts. And I'm just using the Gold orchestra.

Sure, EW doesn't have to pay anybody else for a player - but developing PLAY wasn't exactly free, was it? Garritan fell into the same trap. Once he started developing his own engine, releases slowed down and his company became irrelevant.

Too bad Giga didn't abandon driver-level coding years ago, develop a simple player, and respond to developers more quickly. Things would be very different - and much better - today.


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## NYC Composer (May 17, 2011)

I'd love to see it happen. It's never going to happen. Grumble and groan and post polls the livelong day, it will not make a jot of difference, but I suppose people need catharsis sometimes.

Jay-congratulations!


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## Stephen Baysted (May 17, 2011)

Either Kontakt or preferably Vienna Player. :D

It's simply not going to happen. Software development is an incredibly difficult business to be in at the best of times and whilst I'm not enamoured with PLAY as it is at the moment, you have to admire EW for trying to build their own engine from scratch. This is a an enormous and risky enterprise. Let's hope they succeed, because there was never anything lacking from the sound quality and musicality of their libraries.


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## Danny_Owen (May 17, 2011)

I have to say, at this late stage I think it would be ridiculous to move back to Kontakt and recode everything- I don't know exactly how long it would take but I can't imagine it wouldn't be a small job.

I'm sure the guys at Eastwest are hearing our cries for PLAY development (all the way to PLAY Pro), and I expect (at least I'd hope) they are making it one of their top priorities.

I've personally not had too many problems with PLAY since version 2. I'm not a HS user yet, but I don't think there are many libraries with the same voice usage per note as HS, I don't know whether Kontakt would fare much better or not- certainly I don't get problems on the EWQLSO patches which are comparable in density to most Kontakt libraries.

I'm prepared to give EW the benefit of the doubt here... Who in their right mind would have thought EW, who's main strength is samples, would create a convolution package that could compete (if not wipe the floor clean) with the likes of Altiverb? Yet it many people's opinions they did just that. Maybe given time PLAY will start suddenly become very competitive.

Wait for PLAY 3 and we'll see... and I hope PLAY Pro gives everyone the ease of editing capabilities we're all craving, I would be surprised if they don't do something a bit special.


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## rpaillot (May 17, 2011)

Not going to happen because as soon as kontakt versions will be out, they will be uploaded on cracked torrents IMMEDIATELY as its happening with tonehammer and cinesamples libraries. I guess it will happen with CINEBRASS 1 or 2 month after the release..

This is the main reason of PLAY development. If i remember right..


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## Danny_Owen (May 17, 2011)

Very valid point.


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## Mike Connelly (May 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue May 17 said:


> Further, why not at least wait until Play 3 is released?



How long have we been waiting? We keep hearing about how wonderful 3 is going to be, so when is the public beta going to get released? And even with 3 there are still a number of features missing that Kontakt has like background loading and compressed samples.



EastWest Lurker @ Tue May 17 said:


> Just for clarity's sake, Kontakt is a sampler so the product Play is comparable to, until there is a Play Pro, is the Kontakt Player.



True, but even the Kontakt player blows away the current version of PLAY when it comes to performance issues like load times, background loading, and compressed samples.



salbinti @ Tue May 17 said:


> You have proof? Where do people get off saying such things? How do you know PLAY 3 will be similiar to Kintakt3?



We don't know about performance (which is reportedly improved) but we have been told that PLAY 3 has no new features, it's identical to PLAY 2 other than performance improvements (including the welcome 64 bit on mac). It's not like PLAY 3 is going to have any big surprises in terms of features that could bring it closer to Kontakt.



Danny_Owen @ Tue May 17 said:


> I'm not a HS user yet, but I don't think there are many libraries with the same voice usage per note as HS, I don't know whether Kontakt would fare much better or not- certainly I don't get problems on the EWQLSO patches which are comparable in density to most Kontakt libraries.



The easiest way to do a direct comparison between the two is if you have both versions of EWQLSO (or RA or another library that was released in both formats). The difference between the two becomes that much more stark when you compare loading and running an identical session with each version.



Danny_Owen @ Tue May 17 said:


> Who in their right mind would have thought EW, who's main strength is samples, would create a convolution package that could compete (if not wipe the floor clean) with the likes of Altiverb?



Good point, but is the strength of Spaces the software code or having a fantastic collection of impulse recordings?

One thing I should mention - PLAY does seem to do a good job at using very little memory for each plugin instance, at least with Logic. Kontakt is a relative pig in that department although it seems to handle more instruments per instance much better which makes that much less of an issue.


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## Pedro Camacho (May 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue May 17 said:


> And now I must temporarily bid you all adieu as my daughter is getting married tonight!



Congratulations Jay!!! This is nothing personal as you know, just personal opinions.

I have nothing against non-Kontakt libraries: Engine (based on yellow tools) works GREEAAT, VI too, etc...

About the Play Pro... Perhaps EW should first make a player (load and play samples only) that works without bugs, then go on with a full featured sampler.

Cheers friends!


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## chimuelo (May 17, 2011)

I prefer they stay where they are at.
Thanks to their competitiveness I have a great product for realtime use to replace Gigastudio.
NCW developments are popping up everywhere.
So now we have realtime choices, and great sounding long loading studio only instruments.


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## germancomponist (May 17, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Tue May 17 said:


> ... True, but even the Kontakt player blows away the current version of PLAY when it comes to performance issues like load times, background loading, and compressed samples ...


These things are all great, as many others in Kontakt, but I do not understand this discussion. 

Sure, we all love Kontakt, especially me  , but if we want to use HS, then we have to use Play! I think there is nothing to discuss.... . o/~ 

I do not know how much money EW spent into creating PLAY, but I am sure it is many thousends of dollars. I am also sure that EW are working very hard on it to solve all the problems. 

Or do you think they are sleeping? :roll: 

So, let us wait for PLAY 3. And while waiting, have this fantastic HS sound in mind! I love this sound! o-[][]-o


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## clonewar (May 17, 2011)

rpaillot @ Tue May 17 said:


> Not going to happen because as soon as kontakt versions will be out, they will be uploaded on cracked torrents IMMEDIATELY as its happening with tonehammer and cinesamples libraries. I guess it will happen with CINEBRASS 1 or 2 month after the release..
> 
> This is the main reason of PLAY development. If i remember right..



EXACTLY. Something else that doesn't get discussed much is how EW's prices have gone down dramatically since moving to PLAY. It's actually a pretty amazing feat to still be uncracked after several years on the market. And this is at the same time that just about every other iLok protected software has been cracked. 

If HS had been released in Kontakt Player format it would have probably been priced at around $3000 initially.


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## David Story (May 17, 2011)

I think EW is cutting corners on software, and always will. They use marketing to persuade people, but they don't deliver, imo. Nice recordings, yes. But this is software dependent. I weary of hyped software that takes an expert with a high end system to work properly. 
And there are folks with those resources, that say "works fine here".




Good for you.

I like more friendly libraries, engines, interfaces. Omnisphere and Symphobia come to mind.


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## José Herring (May 17, 2011)

The odds that EW pays attention to this petition are about the same as me getting married to Adriana Lima.






But I guess it's good to dream.


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## germancomponist (May 17, 2011)

David,
EW never made it a secret about the need to use SSD drives, e.t.c. . 

When you, as a real guitar player, are after a best guitar sound, for example, then you buy a great or best sounding guitar. It is no secret that you have to pay much more money.... .
I think it is wrong to think in computers, hard drives, e.t.c. . Think about the hardware time. People spent thousends of dollars to get the new EMU, Synth and something else.... .
So what?


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## Mike Connelly (May 17, 2011)

germancomponist @ Tue May 17 said:


> EW never made it a secret about the need to use SSD drives, e.t.c. .



Was SSD listed in the system requirements when HS was first released or was that added later?


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## José Herring (May 17, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Tue May 17 said:


> germancomponist @ Tue May 17 said:
> 
> 
> > EW never made it a secret about the need to use SSD drives, e.t.c. .
> ...



Yes it was listed about a week prior to release.


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## germancomponist (May 17, 2011)

So far as I know, it was.


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## TuwaSni (May 17, 2011)

Voted "Yes" - but it's very doubtful EW will pay any attention to this. They have a lot of money tied up in PLAY.
So far it's pirate-proof and Kontakt definitely isn't.

TS


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## nikolas (May 17, 2011)

You're kidding right?

Come on guys this IS waste of time (then again the pic of Adrianna was so fab, that this thread is worth it only for that).

Why on earth is EW gathering so much love/hate from users/non users? It seems to have some kind of quality that Zimmer is also gathering: A love/hate sentiment from everyone, regardless of what is their relationship with him/them/whatever!

:D


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## EvilDragon (May 17, 2011)

Thomas_J @ 17.5.2011 said:


> Up until now, PLAY has relied on XML as the instrument format but this has been switched to binary format for PLAY 3



Interesting. This is exactly the same change Kontakt did when updating from 4.1.3 to 4.2.2. :lol:


However, PLAY still doesn't have background loading. That's a shame.


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## midphase (May 17, 2011)

I have this strange issue with PLAY where sometimes clicking on a PLAY instrument in Logic will result in a loud burst of noise at top volume....anyone else ever run into this type of issue?


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## germancomponist (May 17, 2011)

EvilDragon @ Tue May 17 said:


> Thomas_J @ 17.5.2011 said:
> 
> 
> > Up until now, PLAY has relied on XML as the instrument format but this has been switched to binary format for PLAY 3
> ...


So, there is nothing wrong with this change. 


> However, PLAY still doesn't have background loading. That's a shame.


Not for professionals who want to use best sounding instruments..... . Do you know that background loading is not available in the next PLAY version?


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## noiseboyuk (May 17, 2011)

It looks like load times won't be much of an issue any more, and this alone is cause for celebration. I can chalk off 1 of the 6 things I really need Play to do! I made a non-exhaustive list here a few weeks ago - http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20870 - and others added good suggestions too. Thomas, I always appreciate your posts here and I'd be delighted if you could comment on the other things discussed in that thread as well - I hear performance generally is increased, so that in particular would be great to get some feedback on.

In a sense this is a bit of a silly thread - surely no-one believes EW will turn back the clock. But it does illustrate the mountain EW has to climb in terms of broad acceptance. Switching to Kontakt is never going to happen, so improving Play til it does what we need it to do is the only constructive way ahead. It's been a long haul to get this far, and the frequent denials of problems I've personally found the most frustrating thing. But credit where it's due, absolutely - it's great to hear that some of the biggest core problems are being addressed. I hope it's part of an ongoing commitment to get Play where it really needs to be.


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## Mike Connelly (May 17, 2011)

germancomponist @ Tue May 17 said:


> Not for professionals who want to use best sounding instruments..... . Do you know that background loading is not available in the next PLAY version?



Not sure what you mean by that first part. EW has said that there are no new features in PLAY 3, just optimizations. So that would mean no background loading. Unless by next version you meant PLAY 4?


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## germancomponist (May 17, 2011)

I think background loading is an optimizing. But if not, I think we can live without it. Yes, no?


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## Andrew Aversa (May 17, 2011)

It is indeed a shame that EW will never move back. I was a huge East West fan prior to the move to PLAY. I probably spent around $3000 on their libraries if not more, but have not to date spent even a cent on a PLAY library. Tried the free version of QLSO on my monster comp, didn't work properly, deleted promptly after. Every year I ask around and see if the state of PLAY has gotten better, but every year the answer is the same: no.

Since PLAY was developed, East West has been saying over and over that THIS new update or THIS new patch will fix it, but that never seems to happen. I obviously respect Thomas' word a great deal, but this really is the same line they have been repeating since version 1.0. I look forward to testing the new version in the hope I'll be proven wrong, of course.

Here's the bottom line: the only people I know who speak positively about PLAY are people that work for East West in some capacity. Among my circle of friends and composer acquaintances, everyone I know that owns it is very negative about it. I think that whatever resources they are using to develop PLAY should be doubled, tripled or quadrupled until it is at least as stable and efficient as Kontakt. Considering Kontakt is not customized for individual libraries there is no reason whatsoever that PLAY should be so inefficient and buggy (and don't talk about development time, it has been around for years now!)



> PLAY has its share of issues, but let's be fair here; none of them are show stoppers, and the issues that exist are primarly related to running it within a DAW as a plug-in.



Suggesting to users that the software is buggy unless you build and dedicate an entire bleeding-edge computer for the library isn't "a showstopper"? What IS a showstopper, if not that?


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## EvilDragon (May 17, 2011)

germancomponist @ 18.5.2011 said:


> True! There are many other good libs arround, but, if someone wants this awesome HS sound, .......



LASS is just fine. HS does sound great, but it's not THAT great to justify its resource munching. Not to me.



germancomponist @ 17.5.2011 said:


> Ram and background loading..., do you think this is a first criterion for a professional composer?



Perhaps not, but to those that are not yet professional composers, it might be. But, even professional composers know that TIME IS MONEY.


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## RiffWraith (May 17, 2011)

germancomponist @ Wed May 18 said:


> Ram and background loading..., do you think this is a first criterion for a professional composer?



Maybe not the _first_, but criteria for sure. Professional composers have deadlines, no?


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## Andrew Aversa (May 17, 2011)

> With respect, that is not actually true. I will be honest, and say that for a short time last year, I was part of their beta team. But I do not consider this as "working for" nor "being affiliated with" EW - at least not currently, nor for most of the time I have been an EW customer, ie, my opinions are my own, and have nothing to do with, nor are they influenced by the fact that I was in fact on their beta team for a short while.



I was only referring to fellow composers I talk with on a regular basis, but in fairness to E/W, when I asked about it on my Facebook profile a couple people said they haven't had any problems.

I guess a better way to rephrase what I said, with that in mind, is that if someone brings up the topic of PLAY with me, it's usually to complain, not to praise.


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## germancomponist (May 17, 2011)

I always get a smile into my face when I read "Time is money".


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## JohnG (May 17, 2011)

Well, I use PLAY every day and it works fine for me, on Mac and PC.

The timing of this thread surprises me, given the widely publicised and reasonably imminent release of a new version of PLAY. The new version reportedly loads a lot faster on a PC and will offer 64 bit support for Macs. Since a lot of people use Logic and, naturally, those on 64 bit Logic are using a 32 bit bridge or some other work-around for PLAY, perhaps some of the problems will be ironed out with 64 bit? PLAY works fine as a plug-in in Digital Performer, which is 32 bit, so maybe the bridge thing is part of the issue -- I don't know but anyway avoiding it has to be a relief.

Besides, a number of the comments seem really about HS, not PLAY (load times in particular, but others as well). It's true that HS, in its most demanding patches, is too big for anything but advanced computers. That's why it offers smaller patches that are -- smaller. And massively less demanding. Those are targeted at users with regular systems or those perhaps pushing a lot onto one machine.

It's the internet so everyone can say what he or she thinks, I guess. There are plenty of people having problems with Kontakt as well, judging by their forum (installation, pops and clicks, software "unusable," etc.). But in general when I have problems I figure they can be solved and they always have been with EW and NI as well. 

I don't complain (much!) about my sometimes severe and expensive disappointments with music gear that I bought over the years, including an extremely costly go-round with another manufacturer in the last six months. EW stuff sounds great to me and works fine too. Hopefully those experiencing difficulties will have some of those sorted out with PLAY 3.



(Note: I recently received a free copy of QL Spaces from EW).


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 17, 2011)

I have this ongoing issue with Play: I load the plug-in inside Logic or VE Pro, play a note on my MIDI keyboard, and music comes out my speakers.

WHEN IS EW GOING TO FIX THIS?!


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## Darryl Jackson (May 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue May 17 said:


> Why not spend your time, folks, on something constructive that might actually happen?
> 
> Further, why not at least wait until Play 3 is released?
> 
> ...



Jay, I have to say that while I honestly do respect your work and have learned a few things from reading your posts on the forum, I don't really feel as if you are doing anything good for EastWest's reputation amongst composers. If you had posted this as JayAsher, fine, but to post such a aggressive and almost rude response under EastWest's name in this circumstance only relays to me that the company has in fact not changed in regards to how they interact with their customers.

On the Kontakt issue itself I will say that I agree with waiting for Play 3 (assuming Play 3 comes out relatively soon) before trying to rally together with a petition. Like someone said earlier, switching back over certainly wouldn't be a quick and easy process, and I understand the concerns there.


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## bdr (May 17, 2011)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed May 18 said:


> I have this ongoing issue with Play: I load the plug-in inside Logic or VE Pro, play a note on my MIDI keyboard, and music comes out my speakers.
> 
> WHEN IS EW GOING TO FIX THIS?!



That's nice Nick..I load it in Sibelius, it crashes without exception and no music comes out.

Loading the exact same template in K4 is fast and flawless. I have eSATA drives, using EWQLSO with each section on it's own drive. It is never ending trouble and frustration attempting to use PLAY- crashes, doesn't release memory properly, all the stuff that's been mentioned over and over.


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## synthnut (May 17, 2011)

As long as you folks who own PLAY instruments continue to hope and pray that PLAY will finally mature , there will always be PLAY !!..... EW will continue to drop prices to lure more folks into the PLAYground ..... This stategy works, and folks continue to buy because they think they are getting a bargain .... PLAY then continues to thrive .....Sad that other folks have to hack programs , and force folks like EW to resort to making thier own engine to stop the hacking ....Evidently loosing out on some sales due to an immature engine , is resulting in better sales than if they went the Kontakt route and get hacked ..... It's a tough call all the way around .... I commend EW for coming up with their own engine, but sadly it's not working well enough for me to use efficiently , so I don't buy into the technology .....I do still have EW Gold Kontakt ....So I do have EW software ....Would buy into HS too if it were ported for Kontakt ......There's not good answer here .....Tough situation for the sellers and the buyers ......Jim


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## StrangeCat (May 17, 2011)

josejherring @ Tue May 17 said:


> The odds that EW pays attention to this petition are about the same as me getting married to Adriana Lima.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Because she is already married and has a kid.

I have no probs with PLAY but I don't own or use HS 
everything is cool.


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## NYC Composer (May 17, 2011)

Play has been okay for me since 1.2.5. It's still my most likely to crash piece of software, but even at that, it crashes pretty rarely, usually when I'm pushing things to the bleeding edge. I'm also pleased that the WB for Choirs works now and is integrated, though it was years after I bought the thing that it finally worked.

That said, didn't we used to call software that didn't presently exist "vaporware"?
Play 3? Did I miss an update over @ SOL? It's all very nice to talk about things that are in the works, but nothing exists for me until it's installed and working. YMMV.


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## james7275 (May 17, 2011)

Play has always worked pretty good for me until I bought hS Gold and then it became problematic, not because of Play, but because HS uses alot of resources. But before HS it worked like a charm. Eveyone's always praising Kontakt and how rock-solid it is but on my setup it occasionaly crashes and can cause some issues. Heck, Even using Omnisphere and trillian can be a PITA.


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## rgames (May 17, 2011)

Just thought I'd throw in the mix that I spent more than 1 year trying to get the Vienna Instruments VI to work after it first came out - MIDI quit working when I loaded more than a couple GB of samples. Supposedly the problem was with my system but somehow the problem was magically fixed with a software update...

So PLAY is not the only one with problems.

The measure of a company is not whether they get it right at the start, it's whether they get it right in the end.

Of course, the end has to occur within a reasonable amount of time...

rgames


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## muziksculp (May 17, 2011)

Hopefully PLAY3 and PLAY Pro (Whenever that gets released :lol: ) Will brighten up the dull picture PLAY seems to currently have with many EW-PLAY library users.

I think EW has chosen to go with their own player, after investing all the time, and money to develop PLAY, I think the chances are 0% they will ever go back to using Kontakt. 

EW is surely working hard to improve PLAY, and offer an alternative to Kontakt by developing (PLAY Pro). I personally don't like Kontakt's interface, maybe NI will improve it in the future. 

Oh.. and I voted : NO 

Cheers,
Muziksculp


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## Pochflyboy (May 17, 2011)

Nick Batzdorf @ Tue May 17 said:


> I have this ongoing issue with Play: I load the plug-in inside Logic or VE Pro, play a note on my MIDI keyboard, and music comes out my speakers.
> 
> WHEN IS EW GOING TO FIX THIS?!



HAHA!!! o-[][]-o 

PLAY is not perfect but for people here to say that it is unusable is also not very fair. I have delivered many projects using EW since PLAY was introduced. PLAY products still have sounds that are my gotos everytime.


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## noiseboyuk (May 18, 2011)

Really this thread is just a way to vent a very long running frustration, isn't it? Being told that there was nothing wrong with 0.83 (or whatever it was) and it was all the fault of our systems still smarts. And how many years ago was Play Pro announced, and still it seems waaaay off? I guess these are the reasons why the community gets cynical about future promises. To me the single most important thing is friendly and honest communication from EW, there's usually a feeling of attrition with customers rather than support. Jay's role is very important actually (speaking of whom - congratulations indeed, hope it was a fantastic day!) imho Jay needs to think very carefully about EW's image, and how to improve that by taking customers with them.

As many have pointed out, Kontakt towers like the Eiger above all the competition, and is every bit as intimidating, but that is the reality. By having broad third party support and huge internal resources, they've become almost a monopoly. East West is going it alone, and looking ahead to Play Pro that's tough. Kontakt 4 - full version - comes pretty cheap and with an equivalent to Goliath bundled in (I'd argue more useful too). As part of Komplete, it's a steal - it's the rough equivalent of the Complete Composers Collection, and Play Pro, all bundled together for around 500 euros. These are the commercial challenges East West has to face - alone - if they really want to take on Full Kontakt.

Personally I don't think they should bother in trying to compete as a new standard for third parties, unless it's a spectacular loss-leader and given away more or less for free. Just make Play as good as it can be, take it on the chin and roll some Play Pro features right into the basic version everyone uses. Give people control of keyswitches and other playing conditions, and some other basic things. Put in real useable under the hood tweeks like re-saving samples to new locations (searching for missing folders). Add in all the other things on the other thread, like lossless compression and more intelligent scripting. To me, that's as much as can be reasonably ever hoped for.


----------



## Ashermusic (May 18, 2011)

Darryl Jackson @ Tue May 17 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Tue May 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Why not spend your time, folks, on something constructive that might actually happen?
> ...



Daryl, I don't see what you have quoted as particularly aggressive and certainly not rude. I see it as honest and candid, which is what I pledged to be with all of you when I took the gig.

It is simply a factual statement that it is a waste of time because there is no chance it is going to happen. And it is a fact also IMHO that Play 3 is going to be considerably better, based on the betas I am seeing.

Sorry you feel that way as it is certainly not my intention but when you cannot see a person's face or hear their tone of voice, it can be perceived differently than intended.


----------



## rayinstirling (May 18, 2011)

Nick Batzdorf @ Tue May 17 said:


> I have this ongoing issue with Play: I load the plug-in inside Logic or VE Pro, play a note on my MIDI keyboard, and music comes out my speakers.
> 
> WHEN IS EW GOING TO FIX THIS?!



Exactly,

I was extremely disappointed hearing the tuning issues with the viola in HS but but but,
The instigation of this thread is simply malicious and nonsensical crap.
May I apologize for giving enough credence to even acknowledge it's existence.

The developer in question made a commercial decision in a successful business.
Those that don't like it? tough.

vote? of course I haven't.


----------



## Simon Ravn (May 18, 2011)

JohnG @ Wed May 18 said:


> Well, I use PLAY every day and it works fine for me, on Mac and PC.
> 
> The timing of this thread surprises me, given the widely publicised and reasonably imminent release of a new version of PLAY.



Release of PLAY 3 has been "imminent" for about 6 months now, if not more...



> Besides, a number of the comments seem really about HS, not PLAY (load times in particular, but others as well). It's true that HS, in its most demanding patches, is too big for anything but advanced computers.



Ah ok - I guess my 6-core 3.33Ghz Westmere Mac Pro isn't "advanced" enough then, since PLAY was crashing, eating way too much memory than it should and doing other weird things. Surprisingly enough, I can't make Kontakt crash no matter how hard I try 

I sure hope PLAY 3 will be much better, but only time will tell. As others have pointed out EastWest has been playing this "the NEXT version will be awesome" game for many years, and they still haven't delivered. The interface of PLAY also still leaves a lot to be desired.

All I really wish was for EW to be more credible and honest - admit that there are problems and they are looking into it instead of banning people, censoring their forums and denying. That would bring them a long way in terms of customer satisfaction and feeling like you're being taken seriously as a customer.

Obviously I hope that PLAY 3 will be "the one" but previous promises just doesn't make me too optimistic...


----------



## Ah_dziz (May 18, 2011)

I bought everything EW released for kontakt and probably would have continued to do so, but then came play and I just can't get behind it. It shouldn't have been released until it could run already existing libraries at least as well as kontakt and with the same level of editability. For that alone I will maintain my boycott of all things play. There are plenty of products, even non kontakt products, that work exactly as they say they will with a level of user customization that is way beyond play. I've not had one complaint about my strings sounding bad from a client and while I'm sure hollywood strings sounds great when it works I'd rather not support a company that won't devote the resources needed to put out a good platform when they had one that worked already.


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## ChrisAxia (May 18, 2011)

For anyone having performance problems with HS/Play, may I suggest increasing your RAM. Going from 14GB to 20GB on my Mac Pro has transformed it and I'm sure I will need yet more RAM as my template continues to grow...

~Chris


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## stevenson-again (May 18, 2011)

> For anyone having performance problems with HS/Play, may I suggest increasing your RAM. Going from 14GB to 20GB on my Mac Pro has transformed it and I'm sure I will need yet more RAM as my template continues to grow...



it undoubtedly helps to have more RAM, but i have 18Gb and my problems with HS was not just with PLAY. once i managed to get it going after a fashion other problems manifested. the problem with PLAY has a lot to do with the lack of customisability. For example, I would like to be able to set RAM buffers for each individual patch reflecting how i use them. That is not possible and i would be surprised if we get this in PLAY3. I would also like to reassign controllers, and be able to switch articulations using program changes.

When thomas_J talks about PLAY working, he is of course talking about the PC version. in my somewhat experienced opinion, forget about using HS on a mac (until PLAY 3 at least) unless you want to enter a world of hurt- at least in the manner in which it was intended to be used. You can of course get away with using it in a very limited fashion - but that is not what i bought it for.

It's not just that getting it going can and has been problematic for a lot of people, it's the lack of being able to fix the problems in the programming yourself. It's a big library, apart from the mistakes that are inevitably going to make it in, there are also programming quirks that i can't work around, and in reporting some of these to EW i have not heard back. at some point one has to cut ones losses.

i have autosampler kicking around somewhere. It's tempting....


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## Simon Ravn (May 18, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:


> For anyone having performance problems with HS/Play, may I suggest increasing your RAM. Going from 14GB to 20GB on my Mac Pro has transformed it and I'm sure I will need yet more RAM as my template continues to grow...
> 
> ~Chris



One instance of PLAY loaded, 1600 MB of RAM in total.... I don't think that is the issue here... 8)


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## NYC Composer (May 18, 2011)

Ah_dziz @ Wed May 18 said:


> I bought everything EW released for kontakt and probably would have continued to do so, but then came play and I just can't get behind it. It shouldn't have been released until it could run already existing libraries at least as well as kontakt and with the same level of editability. For that alone I will maintain my boycott of all things play. There are plenty of products, even non kontakt products, that work exactly as they say they will with a level of user customization that is way beyond play. I've not had one complaint about my strings sounding bad from a client and while I'm sure hollywood strings sounds great when it works I'd rather not support a company that won't devote the resources needed to put out a good platform when they had one that worked already.



Not me. From 1.2.5 on, when Play was at least working pretty consistently, I went out and bought loads more EW collections, and they run well enough on Play that I'm still quite happy I bought them. The recording and sampling, as most people acknowledge, is inspired, fine work, and the prices have certainly been fair in my view.

What I will never understand is the aggressive defensiveness of the company, the reflexive and paranoid reaction of "blame the end user", the inability to maturely take responsibility for inefficient or non-working software, blown deadlines, mis-stated minimum specs, things of this nature. I understand that there are a lot of unfair complaints from end users who are technically challenged or just buttheads, but many of EW's customers are quite savvy, do their own troubleshooting and STILL have problems with products. To me it's a confusing corporate culture, combining excellence with suspicion and mishandling of its customers.

I've said things like this before, and as much as I admire the work EW does, I'll continue to mention my feelings about this until I see a change in attitude. As a customer with thousands of dollars invested, I figure I've bought a stake-and I intend to expand my collection as things improve.


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## Pedro Camacho (May 18, 2011)

I would just like to point out that this thread was made to make a petition for EW, no matter how good or bad Play is.

The question is not "is Kontakt better than Play" it is "Do you want East West to come back to Kontakt?"


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## Stephen Baysted (May 18, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:


> For anyone having performance problems with HS/Play, may I suggest increasing your RAM. Going from 14GB to 20GB on my Mac Pro has transformed it and I'm sure I will need yet more RAM as my template continues to grow...
> 
> ~Chris



Hi Chris, hope the RS is treating you well.  

Are you able to play the legato powerful system patches in realtime without either big buffers or rice krispies?


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## ChrisAxia (May 18, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Wed May 18 said:


> ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:
> 
> 
> > For anyone having performance problems with HS/Play, may I suggest increasing your RAM. Going from 14GB to 20GB on my Mac Pro has transformed it and I'm sure I will need yet more RAM as my template continues to grow...
> ...



Simon, as we discussed on another thread, I had a 3GB RAM drop by loading an LT6 patch! It seems to me that as RAM gets 'eaten up' as Play loads, it shifts data to the hard drive to free up RAM for more patches and this is what seemingly caused me clicks & pops as my template expanded. It would be interesting to know if a similar things happens on your PC. On a fresh reboot, try loading Play and just one LT6 leg/port violin patch and let us know how much your free RAM dropped by?

Oh, regarding EW migrating to Kontakt. Like many have said, I really don't see that happening in this Universe...

~C


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## ChrisAxia (May 18, 2011)

Rousseau @ Wed May 18 said:


> ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:
> 
> 
> > For anyone having performance problems with HS/Play, may I suggest increasing your RAM. Going from 14GB to 20GB on my Mac Pro has transformed it and I'm sure I will need yet more RAM as my template continues to grow...
> ...



Hi Stephen,

Yes, the RS6 is still immense fun to drive, thanks, and I still have my licence thankfully, hehehe! 

I use the LT12/6 Leg Slur/Port RR patches now with no Rice Krispies, surprisingly. I posted this link on another thread about LASS/HS http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/2808875/lass-hs-comparison-chris-nicolaides-mp3-may-15-2011-9-50-am-3-9-meg (http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/2808875 ... am-3-9-meg). The first 30" is a LASS cue, then it's HS. The HS cue was done with NO rendering of any instruments on a single Mac Pro. This would have caused me no end of clicks & pops before upgrading the RAM. It was really driving me crazy, and I can see I will soon have a 32GB machine!!

~C


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## noiseboyuk (May 18, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:


> I can see I will soon have a 32GB machine!!



Good lord, if Play is filling up with this phantom RAM (if I understand correctly) I'd hope they fix it before you have to go to 200gb!

Lovely cues btw! The HS stuff sounds a little sweeter in the top for the violins... wonder if the low highs in the EQ in LASS needs to be dialled back a little? (I'm thinking the same for my own use...)


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## ChrisAxia (May 18, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Wed May 18 said:


> ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:
> 
> 
> > I can see I will soon have a 32GB machine!!
> ...



Indeed. I hope Play 3 addresses this memory usage issue otherwise we will need 200GB RAM! Thanks for the kind words. The LASS cue is an 'old' one from "Seven Ages of Britain" when I had just got LASS and had yet to EQ it. No matter what I do to LASS violins with EQ though, it will never sound like HS, and as I have said repeatedly, the HS cellos 'sing' in a way I have not heard with any other string library. Maybe someone here can prove me wrong?

~C


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## musicformedia (May 18, 2011)

I'm just going to chime in and say that I've barely ever had issues with Play. I use it in a lot of my cues and think they have great sounds, that work well.

I can see lots of people have issues with it, but I've got the composer collection, and recently just bought the Dark Side and HS and gotta say I love them all. 

Just thought I'd chime in as people seem to think everyone who has Play has issues with it...I must be one of the special ones who thinks its good  (o)


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## Scrianinoff (May 18, 2011)

If you are really desperate to have Eastwest's newest sample libraries in Kontakt, and you do not mind the considerable amount of work involved and are not afraid of the risks due to a severe breach of their terms and conditions (and the law), you could always have a go at it yourself with such tools as Redmatica's Autosampler. 

I am waiting for Play 3 and I hope HS will run on a Macbook Pro 2011 with 8GB and a 600GB Intel 320 SSD. If it does, I'll buy HS.


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## Simon Ravn (May 18, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Wed May 18 said:
> 
> 
> > ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:
> ...



I know what you described in that thread. But when you have more than 10GB free physical memory and you use 1600MB in PLAY, adding a terrabyte of RAM is not gonna make a difference. Mind you, I was testing this on a Mac, and pretty much everybody agrees that memory usage on Mac in PLAY is screwed up, causing crashes and what not... But of course when you get close to using the full physical memory space (as shown in Activity Monitor on Mac or Task Manager on PC), more RAM will help. If an application starts shifting data to HD, you will notice immediately as it will become very slow, so that is not the issue I and also other people are having (on Mac).


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## ChrisAxia (May 18, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Wed May 18 said:


> I know what you described in that thread. But when you have more than 10GB free physical memory and you use 1600MB in PLAY, adding a terrabyte of RAM is not gonna make a difference. Mind you, I was testing this on a Mac, and pretty much everybody agrees that memory usage on Mac in PLAY is screwed up, causing crashes and what not... But of course when you get close to using the full physical memory space (as shown in Activity Monitor on Mac or Task Manager on PC), more RAM will help. If an application starts shifting data to HD, you will notice immediately as it will become very slow, so that is not the issue I and also other people are having (on Mac).



But that's exactly my point Simon. I believed I had some 'free' RAM when I had 14GB and my template loaded up. This was clearly an 'illusion' because Play had shifted data to a 'non SSD' hard drive! You can only see if this is the case with your system also, by loading one patch at a time, and seeing how free RAM drops in Activity monitor. From what you say, it's very different on a PC, but I thought PC was the way to go with Play?

~C


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## Simon Ravn (May 18, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Wed May 18 said:
> 
> 
> > I know what you described in that thread. But when you have more than 10GB free physical memory and you use 1600MB in PLAY, adding a terrabyte of RAM is not gonna make a difference. Mind you, I was testing this on a Mac, and pretty much everybody agrees that memory usage on Mac in PLAY is screwed up, causing crashes and what not... But of course when you get close to using the full physical memory space (as shown in Activity Monitor on Mac or Task Manager on PC), more RAM will help. If an application starts shifting data to HD, you will notice immediately as it will become very slow, so that is not the issue I and also other people are having (on Mac).
> ...



OK, let me put it this way: If an application uses 1600MB of RAM while you have 10GB free, and that isn't enough for said application, there is something remarkably wrong with this application...  And I am fully aware of how to do memory readings - I did an extensive investigation in the thread I started here, founded on the memory usage problems with PLAY. However, PLAY hasn't been swapping out to my swapfile at any point - I haven't pushed it to that limit with one instance. That would also result in massive dropouts and other problems, which I didn't experience.

PC/Mac: PLAY exists for PC and Mac - so if EastWest can't make the application work on a Mac to the extent that they recommend you using it on a Mac, they shouldn't release it on Mac...


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## ChrisAxia (May 18, 2011)

Hi Simon,

OK, I'm a little confused. 1600MB RAM is the usage of Play loaded up with several HS patches or empty? And is this on your Mac, PC or both? Sorry, I think I missed your thread where this all went on. Just trying to understand what's going on with your system.

~C


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## Simon Ravn (May 18, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:


> Hi Simon,
> 
> OK, I'm a little confused. 1600MB RAM is the usage of Play loaded up with several HS patches or empty? And is this on your Mac, PC or both? Sorry, I think I missed your thread where this all went on. Just trying to understand what's going on with your system.
> 
> ~C



1600MB was with about 6 medium sized patches. No reason to go into that issue again, let me just say PLAY on Mac has serious issues with memory allocation that can cause crashes and such. In a 64-bit version it will not crash, because it won't hit the 32-bit RAM ceiling - but I also hope the whole memory allocation has been looked into.

Stability is not my only gripe with PLAY though. I just feel it is less efficient, uses more memory and has an awful GUI compared to Kontakt. Let's see what PLAY 3 brings (to both PC and Mac). Speedier loading will also be much appreciated


----------



## ChrisAxia (May 18, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Wed May 18 said:


> ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:
> 
> 
> > Hi Simon,
> ...



Clearly there is a serious memory allocation issue, which I only just discovered, and I hope this has been addressed with Play 3. I don't understand how you're only using 1600MB with 6 patches when I'm using twice that with one! Roll on Play 3!!

~C


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## Simon Ravn (May 18, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Wed May 18 said:
> 
> 
> > ChrisAxia @ Wed May 18 said:
> ...


Depends on the patches I used 1st violins legato patches that shared a lot of the samples between them.


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## zvenx (May 18, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Tue May 17 said:


> Well, I voted "yes" but I think the chances of it happening are 0%.


+1
rsp


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## Mike Connelly (May 18, 2011)

stevenson-again @ Wed May 18 said:


> When thomas_J talks about PLAY working, he is of course talking about the PC version.



This is a HUGE part of the situation. I'd love to see those insisting that nothing is wrong spend a month or two using it on a mac (with no slave machine) and see if they're still willing to make those statements. I'd also recommend that anyone posting about how well it works or doesn't work say which platform they are on - it's old news that it runs well much better on PC than mac.

And the longstanding excuse that something is wrong with macs, either hardware or OS/software (which has long been called into question by how well Kontakt and Vienna run on mac), is going to look pretty flimsy if an update to PLAY brings both platforms to a similar level. The guys over at vienna did pretty much the same thing, their story was that mac was a bad OS which caused bad load times...until they released an update that made mac load times blazing fast, particularly on SSD.


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## twinsinmind (May 18, 2011)

I agree to have kontakt as the best...

But i remember to read that kontakt wouldn't be up to the job of running all the samples going on in HS... Nick phoenix wrote that....

or am i wrong here?


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## noiseboyuk (May 18, 2011)

twinsinmind @ Wed May 18 said:


> I agree to have kontakt as the best...
> 
> But i remember to read that kontakt wouldn't be up to the job of running all the samples going on in HS... Nick phoenix wrote that....
> 
> or am i wrong here?



Yes he did. Have to be honest, that didn't endear me to EW, cos frankly I don't believe it.


----------



## Stephen Baysted (May 18, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Wed May 18 said:


> twinsinmind @ Wed May 18 said:
> 
> 
> > I agree to have kontakt as the best...
> ...



If that is true (which I doubt), then one also has to say that - where HS is concerned - PLAY isn't up to the job either.


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## Mike Connelly (May 18, 2011)

Just because someone selling a product makes a claim doesn't make it true, particularly things that aren't easy to prove either way.

In terms of polyphony, there probably aren't single instruments that go as high as HS, but in Kontakt you can layer multiple instruments until you get dozens or even hundreds of voices of polyphony with no problems. Aside from polyphony it's possible that PLAY has some custom functionality under the hood, but if there is something going on that Kontakt isn't capable of, it's not apparent from the end result.


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## synergy543 (May 18, 2011)

Its not just PLAY either. Some of the EW programs such as the EW Pianos absolutely stink! I wish I'd never bought these. And after I did, went and bought both the VSL Vienna Imperial and Synthogy Ivory II German Steinway - two lovely pianos that really play like real instruments.

Its not that the EW Piano sound bad (although I don't care for the lack of dynamics on the lowest notes - did they use compression or hi-pass filter on the mics?), but there are some terribly bad notes. Such as middle C and D on the Steinway! Why do these sound different when you press the sustain pedal down? I think the tuner may have left a tuning rag in there when they sampled these. And the Yamaha is absolutely unplayable as far as I'm concerned (the sustain notes sound like a completely different instrument - maybe the levels aren't matched but the tone sounds drastically different). Really, after all of these years, they still haven't fixed all the blooper notes? It does not play smoothly as an instrument the way Vienna Imperial and Ivory II do.

Its more than that too. The EW Piano attack times are not consistent and the vary quite a bit. This would be an easy fix - but after years no one even bothered! And the customer can't fix it - he is dependent upon EW.

But the sound isn't the problem. *The problem is that EW doesn't fix the bad notes and you can't either.* In Kontakt, it would take 30 seconds to just steal a good note from an adjacent key and be done with it. Your sample library would sound great and you'd be right back to work.

No such luck in PLAY. Wait years and the EW Pianos bad notes are still not fixed.

Does anyone at EW play their own pianos?


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## Mike Greene (May 18, 2011)

Rousseau @ Wed May 18 said:


> twinsinmind @ Wed May 18 said:
> 
> 
> > i remember to read that kontakt wouldn't be up to the job of running all the samples going on in HS... Nick phoenix wrote that....
> ...


 :mrgreen: 

In fairness to Nick, though, at the time that EW jumped ship from Kontakt, there were some limitations to the number of samples Kontakt could handle. I don't remember what the maximum was, but I know that it was a stumbling block for at least one other developer I know of, so it was real.

The main reason at the time for developing their own player, by the way, was that they didn't like the deal Native Instruments was giving them. They felt they should get a better rate (developers have to pay a per-unit fee for the use of the Player,) plus they wanted more control. (They might deny this was the reason, but I know it's true.) Other factors, like ability to handle larger numbers of samples (which is no longer an issue with Kontakt 3 and 4) and having better copy protection (iLok) were just gravy.

The iLok protection alone is reason enough that they would never consider going back to Kontakt, by the way. In fact, if the option were available, I have to admit that I would be half tempted to go with PLAY for Realivox, although I kinda doubt I would be welcomed with open arms. :mrgreen:


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## Ashermusic (May 18, 2011)

Whatever one believes I would only remind people that the Kontakt we now use and like so much is NOT the Kontakt that existed at the time EW decided to create their own sample engine. In those days Logic's own EXS24 was vastly superior in workflow efficiency and stability. (In some ways it still is, which is why guys like me and Charlie Clouser still use it a fair amount.)


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## Ashermusic (May 18, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Wed May 18 said:


> Just because someone selling a product makes a claim doesn't make it true, particularly things that aren't easy to prove either way.



Nor does it make it false :D


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## Mike Connelly (May 18, 2011)

Specific differences mentioned were that Kontakt can't handle high numbers of samples (in the range of 30k) and that it can't move sample starts in real time. I don't know if those limitations still exist, and I don't know what the latter is used for (and if it's not possible in Kontakt, I'm not sure what existing libraries are missing).


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## synergy543 (May 18, 2011)

Jay, any idea where that EW Lurker guy is? Because I really would like to hear whether or not EW ever intends to fix the pianos.

I wonder if the EW Lurker has played the pianos and what he thinks of them.


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## Pietro (May 18, 2011)

I thought I would just chime in with a thought, that if EW stayed with Kontakt, there would be no promotions like there usually are.

Kontakt player licenses (per sold product) seem relatively cheap, but if you take a CCC bundle of 7 instruments and sell them all on a hard drive for 600€ in total (man, that's less than 90€ per product), then this kind of deal would make EW close business.

- Piotr


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## Mike Connelly (May 18, 2011)

How much do Kontakt licenses run per install?


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## Pietro (May 18, 2011)

Let's just say this would definitely not be a good deal for EW .

- Piotr


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## Mike Connelly (May 18, 2011)

Another question that's a bit off topic, is there a way in Kontakt to see how many samples are loaded in a patch, either in one patch or in total?


----------



## germancomponist (May 18, 2011)

Mike Greene @ Wed May 18 said:


> In fairness to Nick, though, at the time that EW jumped ship from Kontakt, there were some limitations to the number of samples Kontakt could handle. I don't remember what the maximum was, but I know that it was a stumbling block for at least one other developer I know of, so it was real. ...


I know another company what very soon will bring out their new libraries on their new own player, because Kantakt can`t handle the things best as what they need. o-[][]-o


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## Pietro (May 18, 2011)

germancomponist @ Wed May 18 said:


> I know another company what very soon will bring out their new libraries on their new own player, because Kantakt can`t handle the things best as what they need. o-[][]-o



Lol, here we go with the trend again. Yellow Tools, Sonnivox, Best Service, Eastwest.

- Piotr


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## gsilbers (May 18, 2011)

germancomponist @ Wed May 18 said:


> Mike Greene @ Wed May 18 said:
> 
> 
> > In fairness to Nick, though, at the time that EW jumped ship from Kontakt, there were some limitations to the number of samples Kontakt could handle. I don't remember what the maximum was, but I know that it was a stumbling block for at least one other developer I know of, so it was real. ...
> ...




the only thing kontakt cant handle is piracy. all of 3rd parties libraries are hacked or easily hackBLE because they use the same challenge and response algo since it 1st came out. so hackers have "templates" for these.


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## Simon Ravn (May 18, 2011)

Ashermusic @ Wed May 18 said:


> Whatever one believes I would only remind people that the Kontakt we now use and like so much is NOT the Kontakt that existed at the time EW decided to create their own sample engine. In those days Logic's own EXS24 was vastly superior in workflow efficiency and stability. (In some ways it still is, which is why guys like me and Charlie Clouser still use it a fair amount.)



Of course not - but PLAY wasn't as good as Kontakt 5 years ago, when development started on PLAY either. Today it is more like where Kontakt was 3 years ago or so. And I don't agree that EXS was preferred at that time either. I used Kontakt back then (although sparingly, as I mostly used GigaStudio), but at least Kontakt was multitilmbral (a feature I know that you - more or less as the only person - don't regard as a must).


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## noiseboyuk (May 18, 2011)

germancomponist @ Wed May 18 said:


> I know another company what very soon will bring out their new libraries on their new own player, because Kantakt can`t handle the things best as what they need. o-[][]-o



Oh crap.


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## Mike Connelly (May 18, 2011)

germancomponist @ Wed May 18 said:


> I know another company what very soon will bring out their new libraries on their new own player, because Kantakt can`t handle the things best as what they need.



Which one do you have in mind? The one company that I can think of that probably does need a custom player is Sample Modeling, and their instruments are radically different than anything else hosted in Kontakt. Honestly I'm amazed they can do what they're doing in Kontakt as opposed to starting with a proprietary plugin from day one.

Beyond that it seems like other companies moving away from Kontakt are doing it because of licensing costs and copy protection.


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## Ah_dziz (May 18, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Wed May 18 said:


> Another question that's a bit off topic, is there a way in Kontakt to see how many samples are loaded in a patch, either in one patch or in total?



I'm pretty sure that can be done in the mapping editor under "list view"


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## Mike Connelly (May 18, 2011)

Thanks, that shows the list of all of them, is there a way to just see the number of samples?


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## Scrianinoff (May 18, 2011)

synergy543 @ Wed 18 May said:


> Its not just PLAY either. Some of the EW programs such as the EW Pianos absolutely stink! I wish I'd never bought these. And after I did, went and bought both the VSL Vienna Imperial and Synthogy Ivory II German Steinway - two lovely pianos that really play like real instruments.
> 
> Its not that the EW Piano sound bad (although I don't care for the lack of dynamics on the lowest notes - did they use compression or hi-pass filter on the mics?), but there are some terribly bad notes. Such as middle C and D on the Steinway! Why do these sound different when you press the sustain pedal down? I think the tuner may have left a tuning rag in there when they sampled these. And the Yamaha is absolutely unplayable as far as I'm concerned (the sustain notes sound like a completely different instrument - maybe the levels aren't matched but the tone sounds drastically different). Really, after all of these years, they still haven't fixed all the blooper notes? It does not play smoothly as an instrument the way Vienna Imperial and Ivory II do.
> 
> ...



Half a year ago I bought the QL Pianos in their 75% CCC deal. I was also surprised to find out the negative points you mentioned. I am primarily using it for the Steinway. I also own Ivory I & II and VGP2. Despite its shortcomings the QL Steinway is still my favorite piano. The three microphone positions are really essential for me to come close to a high quality classical piano recording. 

Some really foul notes I have eliminated by using some tricks you mentioned you would do in Kontakt. Of course you cannot do it in Play, but you can do it in a second instance of Play to which you route the notes that would sound awful in the first Play instance and making the necessary changes. I finally ended up with needing five (!) Play instances to get rid of the foul notes, but oh my god does it sound sweet then. To make it even more alive you can add a bit of VGP2 in some extra (QL Spaces) ER. This gives you a sound that is less steady, less time-invariant if you will, think of Steinway's genius piano technician and tuner Franz Mohr who did a lot of work for Horowitz, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA2KzMOXPBU , don't judge the sound of the piano on that video though, the analog tape plug-in is cranked up too high there . By the way, I mainly use Logic's transformer objects in the environment to make it all happen, which is by far not as difficult as some people say.

Something that I found more difficult to get right is the volume curve (not the velocity curve, which you can sort of fix with a transformer velocity map in Logic). At the top of the curve the samples become brighter, but are not loud enough. If you increase the steepness of the volume curve in Play the top end becomes more realistic in volume but then the lower and middle part is too steep. So again you have to split it up... yes .... 10 instances, just for one piano. But it works.

Still I agree with you, it should have been fixed long ago, and you should be able to make such changes in Play. Luckily it is still possible to work around Play and use 95% of the samples that are excellent.


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## EastWest Lurker (May 18, 2011)

synergy543 @ Wed May 18 said:


> Jay, any idea where that EW Lurker guy is? Because I really would like to hear whether or not EW ever intends to fix the pianos.
> 
> I wonder if the EW Lurker has played the pianos and what he thinks of them.



Never heard of him :D 

Please send me an email with the precise issues you need fixed and I will pass it on. As specific as you can be is very helpful as are MIDI files, as Piet did.

LK, now please forgive me folks for not logging out as EastWest Lurker and logging back in as Ashermusic, but now I am speaking strictly as Jay Asher the composer. 

Actually, I have only gotten into these a recently as I only received them a few months ago and like most of you, when I am in the middle of projects I use what I know and only start exploring in my free time.

So far I have used the Bosendorfer Master patch and Steinway D Master patch and I like them a lot. The Bosendorfer reminds me oif the one I used to record on at Chick Corea's Mad Hatter studio, where I did a lot of "Zorro" and a other stuff. I loved that piano, Chick loved it, but Mike Lang hated it :D 

That does mean I will not still be using the EXS24 version of the Sampletekk Seven Seas Grand, which has been my "go to' for years as well as sometimes ArtVista's Maljmso and VGP, both of which are excellent.

Quite frankly, my biggest problem lately is that I have so many excellent choices that it is hard for me to make a decision sometimes.


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## synergy543 (May 18, 2011)

Thank you for your reply Jay,... er, I mean EW Lurker.

And also thank you for the offer to pass on specific problems to EW. However, this is a bit like the piano tuner asking you to write down which notes need to be tuned and he may or may not get to it within the next few months/year. I need the whole piano fixed and NOW.

Really, instead of my listing bad notes (some of which I did above) on a note-by-note and ticket-by-ticket basis, what is really needed is to bring in a piano tuner. And have him go through the entire sample set, note-by note, velocity-by-velocity and compare the tuning, the sound of the notes (compared to its surrounding notes - both tone and volume), and to check the start times (attack delay) of each note so they are consistent across the keyboard.

A really simple way to do this is to compare EW Pianos note-by-note to the competitors such as Vienna and Ivory. The problem notes will suddenly become glaringly apparent. And next to actually sit down and play some classical pieces with it. Not must a one-finger film score theme! Sure it "sounds great" but the questions is, can you really play it like a piano? Or does it require Cheney-level torturous fixes such as Scrianinoff describes above.

So instead of passing on a single problem to EW, would you convey the real issue I mention above that needs to be addressed on a larger global basis.

Thanks for your mediation and I really hope this issue get addressed rather than brushed aside telling us how great the sound is, or how many awards its won. Yada yada yada.... I don't care, if its not up to the reasonable standards that the competitors are able to achieve, and the standard of a "typical well-maintained home piano', it doesn't cut it as a professional solution. 

Yet, if these problems were adequately addressed (easy to do as the piano is sitting in the EW studios), the EW pianos could be a really lovely option that I would quite nice to play once in a while. As they stand right now though, they are in truly dreadful shape. If you bought a real piano and it played this badly, you'd be quite disappointed.




Oh....and one more thing.... 

Setting the velocity curve response, without numeric display (for repeatability), is really quite frustrating. And as Scrianoff pointed out, the volume response (as opposed to the velocity curve) is not consistent across the keys so adding an adjustment to allow tapered response across the keys would be a welcome addition.

@Scrianoff - I love Schumann's Dreamer at the end of your video link! Maybe like Schumann we should just face-the-reality (PLAY problems are exaggerated you know? And its 'won awards'), and jump into the river!


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## Andrew Aversa (May 18, 2011)

> If you are getting random crashes on a regular basis then that's something else but our thousands of users are not reporting this.



What about all the people on this forum who have been reporting such issues (plus serious performance issues with memory, CPU and pops/clicks at low loads), including in this very thread? 

I think this is the attitude that makes people upset with PLAY. I see legitimate, paying customers reporting problems, and they are then brushed aside as if they don't count. I have no bias against East West. As I said, I own basically everything they did pre-PLAY and I'm willing to give any new version of the software a shot. But is it hard to see why there might be some bad blood here?


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## Daniel James (May 18, 2011)

I have no issue what so ever with companies developing their own players for their libraries. 

Plugins should be able to mold themselves around the way a composer works, not force them to change their workflow to suit the plugin. Something Kontakt, with its background loading and instant ability to play, does very well.

As long as EW can get this aspect down, moving back to Kontakt would be pretty much irrelevant....and I would be all over it :D

Dan


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## TheUnfinished (May 18, 2011)

zircon_st @ Wed May 18 said:


> > If you are getting random crashes on a regular basis then that's something else but our thousands of users are not reporting this.
> 
> 
> 
> What about all the people on this forum who have been reporting such issues (plus serious performance issues with memory, CPU and pops/clicks at low loads), including in this very thread?



And that huge support forum on their own website with endless unanswered threads must be imaginary too...


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## Joe S (May 18, 2011)

I think it's obvious that there are enough people with PLAY problems out there to justify a thread like this. My personal experience is that currently the only real problems are on a mac because of memory issues. AND slow loading. Holding my breath for the new version. 

I also use the Steinway and have zero problems with it. If you hit it hard it has an out of tune slammed sound, but you can simply limit the velocity to 120 in PLAY and it's gone. I like the slammed notes personally.


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## Udo (May 18, 2011)

TheUnfinished @ Thu May 19 said:


> ..... And that huge support forum on their own website with endless unanswered threads must be imaginary too...


I'm not defending the way Easts-West deals with issues, but the forum specifically states "no support posts". For support, you should login to your account and raise a support ticket (where you can't see problems reported by others, only your own ....., but that's another issue :wink: ).


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## noiseboyuk (May 18, 2011)

Udo @ Thu May 19 said:


> TheUnfinished @ Thu May 19 said:
> 
> 
> > ..... And that huge support forum on their own website with endless unanswered threads must be imaginary too...
> ...



Well, apart from the dedicated and specifically labelled SUPPORT forum, you mean?!  The "no support" thing applies just to their other threads.

In practice I usually find it much more helpful to engage others in support. Piotr was a life saver for me over the weekend - lord knows how long that process would have taken me with official support. There were so many back and forths, each one goes into the queue.


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## Udo (May 19, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Thu May 19 said:


> Udo @ Thu May 19 said:
> 
> 
> > TheUnfinished @ Thu May 19 said:
> ...


AFAIK, the only forum where problems (and solutions) are discussed by users is "General Discussion (no support posts)" sub-forum. EW people sometimes get involved, but for official EW support, a support ticket must be raised.

Where's that "SUPPORT forum" you are talking about?


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## stevenson-again (May 19, 2011)

Well I raised a few support tickets, got some replies that didn't help much, and no replies for others. I found trying to register for support a nightmare in itself. I raised the same issues I was having on the general forum without reply. And I raised the same issues on the support forum without reply.

All in all it wasn't a great experience.

I got a LOT of help here and straight away. Mst of you made terrific suggestions that helped either resolve the problem, more clearly identify it, or find that it was indeed an issue. Kudos to VI control.


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## Simon Ravn (May 19, 2011)

Thomas_J @ Wed May 18 said:


> Oh come on Simon  that's [email protected]#t for the sake of provocation. We tried programming the monster legato patch in HS with the kontakt version that was out when we started developing HS (i believe it was kontakt 3.5) and it was not pretty. Kontakt did not do a good job with the endless amount of samples and samples triggered simultaneously.
> Not saying Play is perfect but it's a pretty powerful piece of software at this point and not giving me any problems on a daily basis at all. What kind of show stopping problems are you running into? Dragging and dropping files and not being able to do background loading is hardly something I consider big issues. If you are getting random crashes on a regular basis then that's something else but our thousands of users are not reporting this. There's a problem with hung notes in digital performer which is being worked on but you are painting a very Dali-esque picture of Play here and I suspect it stems from bad past experience with the software when it was in its infancy.



What show stopping problems? You should take a look at my "PLAY memory server bug" thread. I would say that crashing the host when you save an instance of PLAY is a shwo stopper. It happens because PLAY somehow moves its samples from the memory server to the host when saving (go figure why it does anything to the sample pool at all when saving, but that is probably because the programmer of PLAY screwed up royally). I have no random crashes to speak of, if any. I have very specific crashes when saving instances of PLAY with specific patches loaded. Also happened when I had some Choirs patches loaded that filled up a PLAY instance pretty good.

It is not my setup, it is PLAY. Obviously as a computer guy yourself who knows your way around OS'es, sound hardware and what not, you would know that if a problem can be isolated like that, it is not "something wrong with your system". (Which btw has been two different Mac Pro's, same problem).

I agree that drag'n'drop is no show stopper but the whole handling of loading/removing/replacing patches is, well.. to say the least, ancient.

So I guess you are saying that all the people here (and at other forums) who vented their issues with PLAY are just stupid users with a faulty system. I would hate for you to have caught that "EW bug", since you'er such a great guy, so I hope that's not what you really mean.


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## stevenson-again (May 19, 2011)

> Oh come on Simon that's bullshit for the sake of provocation



Thomas, i can confirm that simon's suspicions regarding the PLAY memory server have some justification - it is the same conclusion i came to. You may well be using PLAY on regular basis but that is on PC. We on VI-C have stated repeatedly that PLAY appears to be fine on a PC most probably because it is in the 64bit domain and therefore not running through a memory server. Don't just wave that away. Some of us here are pretty experienced with dealing with stuff like this, and believe me if we could have resolved it on our own we would have. You would be much better off acknowledging the problem and not recommending using a full HS set up on a mac, at least until you get 64bit PLAY out the door. We can use the ensemble patch no problems.

I sank 6 weeks of my life into trying to find some way of shoe-horning HS into my workflow (and I have never given software such a red hot go), and a great deal of that time was spent waiting for HS to load after an inevitable crash. I know an improvement is coming in that area, but I ran into tons of other problems as well. some of them are not work aroundable because i don't have any way of customizing PLAY.

I presume you were heavily involved in programming HS, so you had the opportunity to influence how things were setup to suit you. I can't get in there and tweak things to suit me - and that's a problem.

But before we get that far there has to be some acknowledgement that PLAY on a mac is not so hot. I have a number of colleagues who will not touch EW stuff because of PLAY, some because of the problems on a mac, and some, with PC slaves, who are worried about customization for their workflow. I know one guy having heaps of problems with crackling etc, thinking it was something to do with VEpro, and on discovering that he had PLAY libs (not even HS) we recommended bouncing out what he needed from the lib and removing PLAY altogether from his template. That worked. Sorry, but in my circles that's where things are at.

I think 64bit PLAY will bring it up to acceptably behind the competition. We may not like the restrictions and lack of flexibility, but at least it should work. Let's hope.


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## EvilDragon (May 19, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ 18.5.2011 said:


> Another question that's a bit off topic, is there a way in Kontakt to see how many samples are loaded in a patch, either in one patch or in total?



Good question.

Open Kontakt's browser, go to Monitor tab, and select Zones. You have an ID column there, and it shows roughly how many samples are there (I say roughly, because there are some issues with assigning IDs to zones in Kontakt - if you add a zone, it gets and ID of 0. But if you delete it, then add it back again, it will get and ID of 1...)

One other good way of checking the number of samples per NKI is to temporarily rename the "Samples" folder of the library - then try to load the NKI. Kontakt will show you the "Missing samples" dialog, along with how many samples are missing.



synergy543 @ 18.5.2011 said:


> VSL Vienna Imperial and Synthogy Ivory II German Steinway - two lovely pianos that really play like real instruments.



Haha. So far from the actual truth. The only virtual piano that plays and feels like a real piano is Pianoteq, bar none.


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## EvilDragon (May 19, 2011)

Thomas_J @ 18.5.2011 said:


> Oh come on Simon  that's bullshit for the sake of provocation. We tried programming the monster legato patch in HS with the kontakt version that was out when we started developing HS (i believe it was kontakt 3.5) and it was not pretty.



K3.5 is a lot worse than K4 and that is a fact.


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## Stephen Baysted (May 19, 2011)

Thomas_J @ Thu May 19 said:


> Yo Simon, my bad I didn't realize you were experiencing such difficulties! I can't remember but I think I recall you switching to Logic like 7 years ago while it was still available on the PC platform and you've probably continued down the Logic path, leading me to the assumption that you are now on a Mac. I keep forgetting about the Mac world. I think a lot of it is probably related to the way PLAY accesses memory outside of the 32-bit register, something I believe has been fixed as PLAY 3 is now true 64-bit on both MAC and PC. Unfortunately I don't know much, if anything, about the Mac side of things but I will report your problem to the programmers. It's frustrating for me to read these things because PLAY works so well on my PC.



TJ, can you confirm that you are able to use the HS legato powerful system celli patches in real time, at workable real time latencies (ie. 3 - 5ms), without any pops, clicks etc.? On my i7 920 PC slave, with 12gb ram, these powerful system legato celli patches are sitting on an SSD. Whether it's in standalone mode or within VE Pro, I get pops and clicks - making these patches completely unusable. ETA: that one patch being played (monophonic), those are the only samples on the SSD. 

Cheers

Stephen


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## noiseboyuk (May 19, 2011)

Udo @ Thu May 19 said:


> Where's that "SUPPORT forum" you are talking about?



Why, right here - http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/foru ... y.php?f=21

You need to register first to see it though.


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## TheUnfinished (May 19, 2011)

[quote="Udo @ Thu May 19, 2011 7:19 am]Where's that "SUPPORT forum" you are talking about?[/quote]
It's the forum with the title "Support". Sorry to sound sarcastic, but I've just gone to the forum page and can see it plainly in between Introduce Yourself and Q&A With David Newman.

It's huge and full of unresolved issues. Like Guy, I would have been screwed without Piotr's assistance, rather than anyone who actually works for EW.

I'm not out to "get" EW, it's just that of all the audio software I have PLAY has given me by the far the most issues - and I seem to be getting off very lightly in comparison to others. Because of this I'm reluctant to buy more EW stuff even though I bloody love the sound of Silk.

EDIT: Sorry Udo, it now looks like Guy and I are gangin up on you! Not the intention. :D Concentrate on Guy's post, he hasn't cocked up the quote html like I have!


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## lux (May 19, 2011)

wow, an heated thread i've been completely out from. I'm getting old...


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## Pedro Camacho (May 19, 2011)

Thomas_J @ Thu May 19 said:


> but I will report your problem to the programmers.



That is the way to go Thomas. You have always been such a great guy man, perhaps you can make the difference in the attitude that EW has in overall towards users.

Cheers and keep it up!


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## Simon Ravn (May 19, 2011)

Thomas_J @ Thu May 19 said:


> Yo Simon, my bad I didn't realize you were experiencing such difficulties! I can't remember but I think I recall you switching to Logic like 7 years ago while it was still available on the PC platform and you've probably continued down the Logic path, leading me to the assumption that you are now on a Mac. I keep forgetting about the Mac world. I think a lot of it is probably related to the way PLAY accesses memory outside of the 32-bit register, something I believe has been fixed as PLAY 3 is now true 64-bit on both MAC and PC. Unfortunately I don't know much, if anything, about the Mac side of things but I will report your problem to the programmers. It's frustrating for me to read these things because PLAY works so well on my PC.



Awesome - I am glad that this was just a misunderstanding, because you didn't know I was on Mac - yes I am. However, I am setting up a slave PC as soon as the new Shuttle SH67H7 ships, specifically for PLAY, since I would rather run most off a slave


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## Udo (May 19, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Thu May 19 said:


> Udo @ Thu May 19 said:
> 
> 
> > Where's that "SUPPORT forum" you are talking about?
> ...


I wasn't logged in :oops:


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## EastWest Lurker (May 19, 2011)

synergy543 @ Wed May 18 said:


> Thank you for your reply Jay,... er, I mean EW Lurker.
> 
> And also thank you for the offer to pass on specific problems to EW. However, this is a bit like the piano tuner asking you to write down which notes need to be tuned and he may or may not get to it within the next few months/year. I need the whole piano fixed and NOW.
> 
> ...



OK, I will pass this on. Still, please send me a least 1 MIDI file where you feel this shows it plainly and name the patch as Piet did. It just makes it so much easier for me and I would appreciate it.


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## Mike Connelly (May 19, 2011)

In general, creating an audio and midi example seems to be the best way to demonstrate issues that are found. If specific notes of specific patches are the issue, that may be enough but newer libraries can have so many round robins, dynamic levels (velo or crossfaded), legato intervals etc that it may be hard to find the bad ones.


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## Arbee (May 21, 2011)

For someone getting back into music after a long break and researching the libraries they will use to start from scratch, and the technical issues to avoid, I've made the decision to omit EastWest altogether based purely on Play. And - I'm very excited by the newer libraries on the market. VE Pro + Kontakt without Play seems like a pretty good place. If EastWest was on Kontakt I would seriously reconsider, it's that simple really.....any marketing folk listening?

Edit: Have just read the rest of this thread. Technically, XML is a very "heavy" way of getting data around in real time and switching to a more low level binary format makes perfect sense from a performance perspective, perhaps Play is at least on the right track.


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## Martin Hines (May 21, 2011)

This will never happen. Two reasons:

1) East West Financial Investment in PLAY
East West has sunk a lot of money into their own proprietary player. They are not going to throw that money away by going back to Kontakt


2) Copy Protection with PLAY
No one has yet successfully cracked the PLAY engine. There has been zero piracy of East West titles since they moved to PLAY. Native Instruments titles are cracked all the time.


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## Ah_dziz (May 21, 2011)

Martin Hines @ Sat May 21 said:


> 2) Copy Protection with PLAY
> No one has yet successfully cracked the PLAY engine. There has been zero piracy of East West titles since they moved to PLAY. Native Instruments titles are cracked all the time.



This is as far as I can see the only good reason for EW and others to create their own players. I was told recently by some kid on a music forum that the cracked version of Kontakt will load ANY protected kontakt library with no need to have a separate crack for the library itself. Thinking about this led me to consider a different method for protecting content that I've never seen implemented (and that may be because it wouldn't work).

Essentially you would use a robust form of software protection (eLicenser, iLok, etc.) to protect a directory full of data. So you could have any format of sounds and files inside that folder that would be completely inaccessible without a license on your dongle being present, but could be any format the developer wished to include. This would allow developers to develop for any platform that is open for 3rd parties and still protect their material with the best methods available. It would let kontakt developers bypass Kontakt's less than useless encryption and would even allow people like EW to release their samples as multi format libraries to keep everyone happy, or play programs with a wave file directory which could be reprogrammed in any format by anyone who wanted to put in the time. Seems like the best of both worlds to me, but like I said I'm not sure how good the current protection modes are at simply locking a directory down in a manner that would be very hard to crack.

Just a thought that I figured I would slip in here since nobody seemed to care when I created a thread about it before.


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## twinsinmind (May 26, 2011)

Please build us a Synthesizer with touchscreen and all libs of East west inside

much easier :D copy protection is secured and hardware that is test should work for everyone..


i am sligthly going back to hardware anyway .... 

(if you really do : EW  i get the prototype for my idea-) 0oD


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