# Spitfire Player



## synthetic (Sep 1, 2019)

I don't see a thread for this one yet. I'm considering the new BBC orchestra but I have no experience with their VI player. (Yes, I know I need to download one of the free LABS samples.) 

What is the performance like? Does it do multitimbral, or do you instantiate one plug-in per instrument? If it's one per instrument, how does the performance of 48 Spitfire instruments compare to 4 Kontakt instruments with 16 channels each? 

Any other advantages or disadvantages you've found? Thanks.


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## Akarin (Sep 1, 2019)

I'll hijack the thread to ask another related question: can it be purged à la Kontakt where you purge everything and it loads samples as needed? The free LABS one doesn't do that.


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## jononotbono (Sep 1, 2019)

synthetic said:


> Does it do multitimbral



No. I wish it did.


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## MartinH. (Sep 1, 2019)

Can it be used to route individual midi channels do individual articulations to eliminate the need for keyswitching?


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## Pixelpoet1985 (Sep 1, 2019)

Are there the same articulation switching capabilitites as in the Kontakt libraries, e.g. via velocity or speed?


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## synthetic (Sep 1, 2019)

How does it perform in VEP? Anyone using the choirs in their template, for example? 

I guess in my example you would add 48 instances of this in VEP, set the first 16 to port 1, and put each on a different MIDI channel. It should work but I don't know how grumpy VEP gets when you add lots of instruments because I haven't tried it yet.


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## emasters (Sep 1, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> No. I wish it did.



I wish it did, too...


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## jononotbono (Sep 1, 2019)

emasters said:


> I wish it did, too...



Really missing the TM Kontakt patches too. They are very useful (yes I know there’s a “tightness” control but it’s not the same).


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## Wunderhorn (Sep 4, 2019)

The debacle with the PLAY engine years ago taught me to be really really careful with new sample players. I would definitely give it at least another year and watch user reports before adding it to my workflow. Kontakt too took a long time before it reached the level of usability and stability that we enjoy now.
No piece of software that is this demanding can be developed and expected to work flawless within a short time. These things must grow and ripen for a good while.


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## FriFlo (Sep 4, 2019)

Even, if the new SF player was up to par with Kontakt in its basic features (which it is far from at this point) ... what about multi scripts? There is a lot more to Kontakt, of course! But multi scripts alone offer such an incredible wealth of user programable possibilities to fit your libraries to your demands, in cases where the libraries simply do not work as you want them. I am aware, to many this may be a totally unused feature, but to some (like me) I simply do not want to do without it ...


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## ironbut (Sep 4, 2019)

Isn't the player/plugin that's going to be used for the BBC Sym. the same one they developed for the E.W. Choir and used for the Labs?
If so, the Labs are free to download and use.


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## jononotbono (Sep 11, 2019)

Really though, what is the reasoning behind not having a feature to time stretch samples in the new player so we can basically have the TM patches Spitfire offer with Kontakt? Being able to change short note lengths is priceless.


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## Jeremy Gillam (Sep 11, 2019)

Lack of Time Machine patches is big in the SF player. I also REALLY wish you could route each mic position to its own output from the sampler as you can with Kontakt multi-outputs, but as it stands you're stuck with everything going to the stereo output. In my view it's unfortunate that Spitfire has moved away from Kontakt. I don't really see an advantage to moving to a less feature-rich system.


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## Jeremy Gillam (Sep 11, 2019)

Also not sure if this is related to the Spitfire player or not, but I've found the legato patches in Hans Zimmer Strings to basically be useless. There is definitely a big possibility of user error here, but every time I try to use them I give up and go to CS2 or something. Unfortunate because it's such an amazing library in so many ways.


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## Daniel James (Sep 11, 2019)

I read the justification in another thread that SF player is cutting out all the non essential features you would get with Kontakt to make it have a lighter footprint, which totally makes sense, to a degree.

Although I personally much prefer having things like Multis, per patch FX, being able to load an entire section into one instance and have all its articulations loaded. Being able to add performance scripts, manually fix bugs that inevitably come from automated sample editing (I don't imagine they manually edited all 1,000,000 samples in BBCSO), And if course purge all samples button is a handy feature too (Although I am not sure if this is in the SF player yet, it could well be). I am also not a huge fan of the wasted space on the UI, but I have covered that one before.

Kontakt to me has had the benefit of years of development, taking in advice from a hugely diverse musical user base and building on a solid sampler foundation, with updates that add to the features you already have.

I have never been a fan personally of closed system custom samplers unless its for a solid reason. With the SF Player I struggle to see what the benefit is to me as the user. I can see plenty of reasons why a custom sampler is beneficial to them. But not for me. I had the same stance on EW PLAY when they ditched Kontakt. BBCSO on Kontakt would be undoubtably more appealing to me.

-DJ


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## jononotbono (Sep 11, 2019)

I would like to see a third fader next to mod and exp. Vibrato. That would be very welcome.

Is there a feature request thread yet? If not, I’m thinking it could be a good idea...


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## Jdiggity1 (Sep 11, 2019)

Spitfire player in its current state does not beat Kontakt overall, for sure. But I like to assume that features like Time Machine, Multi-Timbral support, individual mic output routing, etc, are all tick-boxes on a nice long list they've been working through from the beginning. They're important features for _us, _but there were probably 89 other features that were more important to another group of people.
But also it doesn't make sense to me to have a development team create a "v1" of a new program/sampler, and then say "Rightio i think that'll do it."
They'll obviously keep updating it, just as Play and others have done.

I see Spitfire as a business who works in stages, and are always looking long-term. Such as their recent trend of releasing fairly substantial updates to products a few months after release (new sample content, new legatos, supposedly some more planned updates for BBC already, etc). Like, they already know this stuff is coming before they even release the v1. "Releasing an unfinished product" you say? No no no... it's _extra_ content for FREE!

Anyway, they won't be dedicating all of their resources to the Player, but I'm sure it's one of a dozen concurrent projects being chiseled away at behind the scenes.


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## CT (Sep 11, 2019)

Maybe it's just that I come at all of this from a very "composery" angle, and so have very little use for the undoubtedly huge power of Kontakt that is valuable to those who like to tweak and program, but I'm definitely on board with Spitfire, and any other developers, moving towards their own players. As long as the fundamental functionality of a good VI player is there, all I really care about is its efficiency vs. Kontakt, not dozens of under-the-hood things. 

Anything that makes the process smoother, simpler, and more about the music itself, is welcome for me. Kontakt doesn't *usually* get in my way, but it's mostly a huge hunk of stuff that I just do not use. If I could move everything I have out of it, I wouldn't miss it.


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## Daniel James (Sep 11, 2019)

Jdiggity1 said:


> Spitfire player in its current state does not beat Kontakt overall, for sure. But I like to assume that features like Time Machine, Multi-Timbral support, individual mic output routing, etc, are all tick-boxes on a nice long list they've been working through from the beginning. They're important features for _us, _but there were probably 89 other features that were more important to another group of people.
> But also it doesn't make sense to me to have a development team create a "v1" of a new program/sampler, and then say "Rightio i think that'll do it."
> They'll obviously keep updating it, just as Play and others have done.
> 
> ...



Just to repeat the exact sentiment I expressed with PLAY back in the day....Sure all these features might be coming one day, but as it is right now we are having to pay a premium price for less features than had they released it in Kontakt (I use many Spitfire libraries in Kontakt happily!). Usually when I share that sentiment its followed by responses saying 'but its a full orchestra thats why its expensive' to which I can point at Albion, Cinesymphony lite, Jaeger, Nucleus, Orchestral Essentials etc. Its possible to run amazing full featured all encompassing orchestral libraries in Kontakt (with all its extra features) for sometimes more than half the cost.

So I repeat, I still don't see the benefit for the end user, just saying 'its coming at some point' doesn't help users now, when they are still paying top dollar for less features. All I can see from a user perspective is - does less, costs more.

Again, just to clarify, I am a happy user of many Spitfire libraries in Kontakt (before the accusations of ulterior motives and Spitfire hating happen again). 

-DJ


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## jononotbono (Sep 11, 2019)

I should add, I do love how it looks and I especially LOVE how it's resizable. That floors Kontakt in that respect. To be honest, the only problems I personally have with Kontakt at this point is that it's GUI isn't resizable and the buttons at the top being hidden yet all that space being wasted... I guess I'll have to keep on soldiering on through all this pain and suffering.


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## Ashermusic (Sep 11, 2019)

Daniel James said:


> So I repeat, I still don't see the benefit for the end user, just saying 'its coming at some point' doesn't help users now, when they are still paying top dollar for less features. All I can see from a user perspective is - does less, costs more.
> 
> 
> 
> -DJ




Here;s my guess, and it's only a guess but it seems logical. N.I charges some pretty big fees I am told, so they can sell this library less expensively with their own player than with Kontakt.


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## CT (Sep 11, 2019)

Daniel James said:


> Sure all these features might be coming one day, but as it is right now we are having to pay a premium price for less features than had they released it in Kontakt



But we're paying less than we would be for the same product in Kontakt, if for no other reason than the NI fees being eliminated. That sort of evens it out, I think, rather than "does less, costs more" as you put it.

Oops, Jay already made this point.


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## Jeremy Gillam (Sep 11, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> I should add, I do love how it looks and I especially LOVE how it's resizable. That floors Kontakt in that respect. To be honest, the only problems I personally have with Kontakt at this point is that it's GUI isn't resizable and the buttons at the top being hidden yet all that space being wasted... I guess I'll have to keep on soldiering on through all this pain and suffering.


I like some elements of the SF player design but the giant pointless knob/button in the middle is moronic design IMO. I’ve never touched that thing, meanwhile I’m scrolling through three pages of mic options in HZS to turn on the ones I want. Why not have the actually useful stuff occupy the majority of the space?


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## Daniel James (Sep 11, 2019)

Ashermusic said:


> Here;s my guess, and it's only a guess but it seems logical. N.I charges some pretty big fees I am told, so they can sell this library less expensively with their own player than with Kontakt.



You can also release libraries without going through NI, as many companies (including Spitfire with some of their own libraries have done). Also not to mention I heard they spent _a lot_ of money developing the custom player, not to mention hiring the staff to update and maintain it! I imagine that adds up to quite a pretty penny compared to the licence fee for a single Kontakt library. I don't have the figures but I have heard some other samplers around town have had millions put into them.

My 'does less, costs more' was in relation to other full orchestral library instruments hosted in Kontakt from their competition (and themselves). I added a list in my initial post of things I would miss from Kontakt on a personal level.

And to mikets post, we don't know what they would have charged if they released on Kontakt because they havn't done that. Sure they could say it would cost more, but unless you actually do it they could say any number, so you can't really make that assumption until they actually make a Kontakt version of it (which I'm not holding my breath for)

-DJ


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## Daniel James (Sep 11, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> I should add, I do love how it looks and I especially LOVE how it's resizable. That floors Kontakt in that respect. To be honest, the only problems I personally have with Kontakt at this point is that it's GUI isn't resizable and the buttons at the top being hidden yet all that space being wasted... I guess I'll have to keep on soldiering on through all this pain and suffering.



Yes! actually the fact you can resize the GUI is a nice feature.

-DJ


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## jononotbono (Sep 11, 2019)

Jeremy Gillam said:


> I like some elements of the SF player design but the giant pointless knob/button in the middle is moronic design IMO. I’ve never touched that thing, meanwhile I’m scrolling through three pages of mic options in HZS to turn on the ones I want. Why not have the actually useful stuff occupy the majority of the space?



I only said I like the look of it. Could the knob be smaller? Sure. But it doesn’t bother me. The wasted space could be utilised for sure.

Regarding mic positions, a mic tab where it brings up two rows of all the mic positions would be excellent. So you can see them all then click another tab and they are gone (as it is now but without tab after tab). That would be nice (in my opinion).


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## Vastman (Sep 11, 2019)

Jdiggity1 said:


> Spitfire player in its current state does not beat Kontakt overall, for sure. But I like to assume that features like Time Machine, Multi-Timbral support, individual mic output routing, etc, are all tick-boxes on a nice long list they've been working through from the beginning. They're important features for _us, _but there were probably 89 other features that were more important to another group of people.
> But also it doesn't make sense to me to have a development team create a "v1" of a new program/sampler, and then say "Rightio i think that'll do it."
> They'll obviously keep updating it, just as Play and others have done.
> 
> ...


Guess I'll wait to buy any more of their libraries till they finish their new platform then! Spending money on a truly crappy user interface (Kontakt blows it away) and being EXPECTED to wait for years for it to improve? I'll look elsewhere. 

I own nearly ALL SF libraries. I LOVE EWC but it's the last library I've bought as the move to their own platform seriously hobbled their libraries' functionality & utility to skim a bit more money off of each transaction


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## Jeremy Gillam (Sep 11, 2019)

I think part of Spitfire’s design language is driven by Paul and Christian’s desire to democratize the creation of orchestral music (a desire that I find admirable and that is one of the things I like about the company.) But to some extent they’ve dumbed down rather than simplified with the new player. Hopefully they’ll do a version soon where they put the headphone jack back in


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## JohnG (Sep 11, 2019)

One benefit may be -- as with PLAY -- that we may not see cracked versions available five minutes after Spitfire release the library. Makes me sick; glad I'm not a developer.

Also, I almost never avail myself of Kontakt's power because I'm really not interested in tweaking samples. If the sound isn't what I want, most of the time I use a different patch or a different library.

I am writing a lot of stuff and using tons of Spitfire -- including HZ strings and all the little boutique libraries I keep picking up. Having fun!


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## CT (Sep 11, 2019)

JohnG said:


> Also, I almost never avail myself of Kontakt's power because I'm really not interested in tweaking samples. If the sound isn't what I want, most of the time I use a different patch or a different library.



This is how I feel, too. It seems to be those of us who are less into the nuts and bolts of this stuff, and more about how cleanly something supports our ability to compose and perform, who aren't bothered by the idea of ditching Kontakt. 

That definitely fits what seems to be Spitfire's model of allowing people to make music in as uncomplicated a way as possible.


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## Jeremy Gillam (Sep 11, 2019)

JohnG said:


> I am really writing a lot of stuff and using tons of Spitfire -- including HZ strings and all the little boutique libraries I keep picking up. Having fun!



As am I. Perhaps my SF sampler critiques are on my mind because I’ve actually been using HZS, EWC, and their other symphonic libraries a lot on a recent project, but at the end of the day I feel incredibly lucky to live in a time when I’m able to express my feeble ideas with such beautiful tools.


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## Daniel James (Sep 11, 2019)

JohnG said:


> One benefit may be -- as with PLAY -- that we may not see cracked versions available five minutes after Spitfire release the library. Makes me sick; glad I'm not a developer.



This is a very huge plus for them and one of the main things I can get behind when it comes to custom samplers! NI's copy protection is shit, particularly if you are paying for the privilege! Its so easy to break I have heard of more than a few big time composers who use a cracked Kontakt to save them having to reregister stuff on different machines.

Although the one downside for them is if it ever does get cracked, its going to be a huge investment of time and money to keep up with the pirates.

I feel this is probably one of the few areas NI have always fallen behind on and needs to focus on catching up... although I guess thats what happens when you are the industry standard sampler, it's one of the downsides of growth, you become a bigger target!

-DJ


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## Lindon (Sep 12, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> Really though, what is the reasoning behind not having a feature to time stretch samples in the new player so we can basically have the TM patches Spitfire offer with Kontakt? Being able to change short note lengths is priceless.


Time stretching approaches in the public domain are not that great, so SF would have to license one , so cost may be an issue for them.


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## Lindon (Sep 12, 2019)

Ashermusic said:


> Here;s my guess, and it's only a guess but it seems logical. N.I charges some pretty big fees I am told, so they can sell this library less expensively with their own player than with Kontakt.


This is oft quoted as the reason, and oft denied by whichever company is currently offering their own player. I think SF have outright said this wasnt their reasoning(I could be wrong). It's more likely to be the snails pace at which Kontakt development has moved over the last 5-6 years. SF want some capability(because they think it will please users and add to sales) and NI wont add the required feature to Kontakt . Resizable GUI (mentioned earlier in this thread) is one such scenario.


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## jamwerks (Sep 12, 2019)

Just cosmetics, but I'd like the possibility to alter the skin. Total black like that isn't very easy or pleasing to stare at, and we will be doing lots of that at the beginning whilst setting up. Why not some skins with some real textures with wood, metal, etc.?


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## Dynamoe (Sep 12, 2019)

As an owner of Zimmer Strings (with the Spitfire player), I must confess that I don't use it as much as I thought I would when buying it...it is just to unstable on my system compared to Kontakt. After a few instances of the Spitfire player (4 or 5) my system starts chocking. I don't know if any of you have noticed that the performance is worse on your systems than with Kontakt? I run Pro Tools on a Mac Pro (2013 cheese), with 32 GB ram and from a solid state drive. This makes me very reluctant to buy the BBC...I'm just not sure that I will be able to use it...even though it really looks and sounds amazing!


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## JohnG (Sep 12, 2019)

Dynamoe said:


> I don't know if any of you have noticed that the performance is worse on your systems than with Kontakt?



Haven't had any performance problems; using about 20 instances, maybe two dozen Kontakt 5 instances and instances of PLAY as well, all housed in VE Pro standalone

I only discovered the scalability of the player from this thread (!) Much better.


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## babylonwaves (Sep 12, 2019)

Dynamoe said:


> I don't know if any of you have noticed that the performance is worse on your systems than with Kontakt?


I wonder how you've compared the performance since HZS is only available for the SF player? also, how do you setup the voice stealing preference in kontakt?


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## Greg (Sep 12, 2019)

I've had problems with it crashing Logic. Even bricking a session completely unless I delete the HZStrings component. Support is very good but they haven't been able to pinpoint a cause. Its pretty rare though and doesnt stop me from using it (yet)


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## Dynamoe (Sep 12, 2019)

babylonwaves said:


> I wonder how you've compared the performance since HZS is only available for the SF player? also, how do you setup the voice stealing preference in kontakt?


I have just noticed that I can’t run as many instances of the Spitfire player as I can the Kontakt player. I can have at least 10-15 instances of Kontakt (each with multis) in a normal composing situation where after 4-5 of the Spitfire player my system starts giving me ram errors and other funny stuff. But seeing that you guys don’t have any issues maybe I should investigate a little more and see if it is something in my setup😬


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## FriFlo (Sep 12, 2019)

Ashermusic said:


> Here;s my guess, and it's only a guess but it seems logical. N.I charges some pretty big fees I am told, so they can sell this library less expensively with their own player than with Kontakt.


That made my day!  So, you really think they will sell it cheaper for not having the NI costs? No way! That is not how companies do prices. They think about a strategy: how much is the customer probably willing to spend, how many units can we probably sell that way and what kind of special sale prices are reasonable based on that default price.
All of that is related to the costs of the company which need to be covered. An in-house software is certainly nothing cheap and will costs more than the NI fees and sales will need to cover those costs. Over a long period of time, the in-house software might be sensible, financially. But I do not believe this to be the case when building something equal to Kontakt. And even if that would be the case - Spitfire wouldn’t make anything cheaper because of that. If anything, prices of competing products lower the price.
I guarantee you: the price would be exactly the same for a Kontakt version!


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## JohnG (Sep 13, 2019)

Dynamoe said:


> I have just noticed that I can’t run as many instances of the Spitfire player as I can the Kontakt player. I can have at least 10-15 instances of Kontakt (each with multis) in a normal composing situation where after 4-5 of the Spitfire player my system starts giving me ram errors and other funny stuff. But seeing that you guys don’t have any issues maybe I should investigate a little more and see if it is something in my setup😬



My instances are all in VE Pro, which is standalone on a separate PC. 

Perhaps if you place HZ strings in VE Pro?


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## Ashermusic (Sep 13, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> That made my day!  So, you really think they will sell it cheaper for not having the NI costs? No way! That is not how companies do prices. They think about a strategy: how much is the customer probably willing to spend, how many units can we probably sell that way and what kind of special sale prices are reasonable based on that default price.
> All of that is related to the costs of the company which need to be covered. An in-house software is certainly nothing cheap and will costs more than the NI fees and sales will need to cover those costs. Over a long period of time, the in-house software might be sensible, financially. But I do not believe this to be the case when building something equal to Kontakt. And even if that would be the case - Spitfire wouldn’t make anything cheaper because of that. If anything, prices of competing products lower the price.
> I guarantee you: the price would be exactly the same for a Kontakt version!




All that may or may not be true. AFAIK, you don't own a large software producing company I am guessing you are not involved in the financial discussions and decision making of these companies so that is pure speculation on your part.


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## MartinH. (Sep 13, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> That made my day!  So, you really think they will sell it cheaper for not having the NI costs? No way! That is not how companies do prices. They think about a strategy: how much is the customer probably willing to spend, how many units can we probably sell that way and what kind of special sale prices are reasonable based on that default price.
> All of that is related to the costs of the company which need to be covered. An in-house software is certainly nothing cheap and will costs more than the NI fees and sales will need to cover those costs. Over a long period of time, the in-house software might be sensible, financially. But I do not believe this to be the case when building something equal to Kontakt. And even if that would be the case - Spitfire wouldn’t make anything cheaper because of that. If anything, prices of competing products lower the price.
> I guarantee you: the price would be exactly the same for a Kontakt version!



I think it probably has more to do with "risk mitigation" than fees. If NI went bankrupt and kontakt was abandoned, that would have pretty big consequences for all the sellers of kontakt libraries. If you're big enough to afford it, it seems like a reasonable move to secure longterm independence from other companies.


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## Denkii (Sep 13, 2019)

Daniel James said:


> Sure all these features might be coming one day, but as it is right now we are having to pay a premium price for less features than had they released it in Kontakt


Wouldn't the price for Kontakt (Player, as most of SF libraries are) be even more premium due to the fees? I'm not a dev so I don't know what cuts in profit we're talking about but maybe you already looked into that with your company and share some info?
Since BBCSO is marketed - somewhat - as a cheap nowadays everyday composer Vienna cube, it makes sense to try and sell it the cheapest amount possible, or not?
I don't know...that always interested me though. What is NI's share?

Furthermore I understand the notion of wanting to get rid of the dependency of third parties, which NI is for every dev for their platform. This also comes with the benefit for being able to manage distribution of keys and, god beware, deregistration of keys. Theoretically of course.

Edit: sorry for basically doubling what someone else already said. I haven't gotten far enough in this thread when I replied to know of those posts.


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## Daniel James (Sep 14, 2019)

Denkii said:


> Wouldn't the price for Kontakt (Player, as most of SF libraries are) be even more premium due to the fees? I'm not a dev so I don't know what cuts in profit we're talking about but maybe you already looked into that with your company and share some info?
> Since BBCSO is marketed - somewhat - as a cheap nowadays everyday composer Vienna cube, it makes sense to try and sell it the cheapest amount possible, or not?
> I don't know...that always interested me though. What is NI's share?
> 
> ...



You have to consider the cost of developing, supporting and updating a custom sampler if you are going to talk about overheads. I have seen the licence fee for NI but its NDA information if I remember correctly so can't give out numbers. I imagine however based on what I have seen it would cost _considerably_ more to create and maintain a sampler of your own.

But yes I agree with some of your points, there are benefits for Spitfire as a company, I just struggle to see the benefits for the end user.

And Jay I am sure you know full well most companies will try to figure out what is the most they can charge and still get the optimum amount of people to buy. It doesn't really matter the platform, if anything, considering how much it must cost to create their own player, I could see it being more likely Kontakt would have had lower overheads so feasibly it could have cost less. Although knowing their pricing structure I feel like the price BBCSO is probably what it would have always been. After reading the other Spitfire thread people were saying they were actually talking the SSD version of BBCSO being done _'at cost' _even though they are charging more for the SSD than it costs otherwise (the complete opposite of 'at cost'). The CEO is a former Marketing guy, they have had a strong marketing focus for years now it seems. They didn't just pull the number out of the air, it would have been very carefully chosen to create optimum income, regardless of platorm. That would be my assumption anyway, but of course I don't have the actual details, but if we could only talk about stuff we already know there wouldn't be much point of having a forum would there XD

-DJ


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## Denkii (Sep 14, 2019)

I found some info about NI's pricing for devs on https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/komplete/this-is-nks/pricing/

Take this example:





So if you order 1500 serials for a product you sell for 500€, you'd have to sell 24,5 to break even including initial encoding. Doesn't sound substantial to me, maybe annoying at best. Surely employing your own team or developers for your own platform comes at a higher cost.

For smaller devs/less pricey products though, this is a whole different story. They take up to 9% per license when MSRP is <49€.


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## gussunkri (Sep 14, 2019)

Daniel James said:


> After reading the other Spitfire thread people were saying they were actually talking the SSD version of BBCSO being done _'at cost' _even though they are charging more for the SSD than it costs otherwise (the complete opposite of 'at cost').
> 
> 
> -DJ


One shouldn’t trust blindly and uncritically what others say, but at the same time communication would be impossible if we assume that everyone is lying. The idea that they would be outright lying about this seems far fetched. I would guess that they also include the cost of shipping in the “at cost” calculation.


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## FriFlo (Sep 14, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> I think it probably has more to do with "risk mitigation" than fees. If NI went bankrupt and kontakt was abandoned, that would have pretty big consequences for all the sellers of kontakt libraries. If you're big enough to afford it, it seems like a reasonable move to secure longterm independence from other companies.


That sounds pretty reasonable as one of the reasons to do it! I am still not a fan of that for the reasons I stated earlier (they will never offer something as versatile as Kontakt including multi scripts and all those bells and whistles ...).
I would rather like all big developers join forces and money and build one independent (open source) sampler. They could take their time with making it as powerful as Kontakt and beyond and switch to it once it’s there ... that could be pretty cool, but we are probably never gonna see something like that today. It would be like back in the day when all big synth companies settled for a common midi format ... wouldn’t really happen again today!
That is why I have bigger hopes for orchestral tools to get it right. At leas, what they announced sounds more reasonable then spitfires very basic player.


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## Bluemount Score (Sep 14, 2019)

Would be cool if you could open the Spifire Player as a standalone, not just as a VST plugin in your DAW. Kontakt has this feature, as we all know.
But that's a tiny annotation.


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## FriFlo (Sep 14, 2019)

Meetyhtan said:


> Would be cool if you could open the Spifire Player as a standalone, not just as a VST plugin in your DAW. Kontakt has this feature, as we all know.
> But that's a tiny annotation.


There are thousands of features in Kontakt. Some you notice using it, like being available standalone or multiscripts or the multitimbrality. Others, you may start noticing for the first time when using inferior software, like back ground loading or highest efficiency.
I cannot prove it, but from what I can see, the Spitfire player is years away from even the basic functionality and will probably never include stuff like multiscripts.


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## paulthomson (Sep 14, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> I cannot prove it, but from what I can see, the Spitfire player is years away from even the basic functionality and will probably never include stuff like multiscripts.



I’m sorry, but that’s just absolute nonsense! 😂


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## FriFlo (Sep 14, 2019)

paulthomson said:


> I’m sorry, but that’s just absolute nonsense! 😂


Is it? Ok. First of all, this seems like a very rude and inappropriate way for a developer to dismiss a users opinion. And you do not provide any facts to back it up.
So, where is your player as advanced as Kontakt or maybe even better? Please go through all features that have been developed over years for Kontakt and tell us the equivalence for your player. Please include multitimbral mode, back ground loading and the possibility for users to influence the functionality via scripting (multiscripts). These are only a few things I can think about off the top of my head, but I am sure there are tons of other examples if you would start comparing and researching.
If you can show us, your player has all of those things (which I couldn’t see any sign of until this day) and add to that an honest test that both players are comparable regarding computer resources, then your remark would still be rude, but at least backed by facts.


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## paulthomson (Sep 14, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> Is it? Ok. First of all, this seems like a very rude and inappropriate way for a developer to dismiss a users opinion. And you do not provide any facts to back it up.
> So, where is your player as advanced as Kontakt or maybe even better? Please go through all features that have been developed over years for Kontakt and tell us the equivalence for your player. Please include multitimbral mode, back ground loading and the possibility for users to influence the functionality via scripting (multiscripts). These are only a few things I can think about off the top of my head, but I am sure there are tons of other examples if you would start comparing and researching.
> If you can show us, your player has all of those things (which I couldn’t see any sign of until this day) and add to that an honest test that both players are comparable regarding computer resources, then your remark would still be rude, but at least backed by facts.



Well Fritz - I don’t think there’s much point me trying to convince you. I understand that for some reason you don’t like our company but I do reserve the right to correct a misconception here or there!

All best,

Paul


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## zimm83 (Sep 14, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> No. I wish it did.


Make it multitimbral so we can make multis.....and it will be the kontakt successor....


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## FriFlo (Sep 14, 2019)

paulthomson said:


> Well Fritz - I don’t think there’s much point me trying to convince you. I understand that for some reason you don’t like our company but I do reserve the right to correct a misconception here or there!
> 
> All best,
> 
> Paul


So, you can’t back it up. I did not ask you to convince me of anything and it is simply wrong that I dislike your company, as I have bought a lot of libraries from you. I may not like some of your decisions and to address that I post my opinion. I may even not like a certain attitude spitfire is showing from time to time, which you are showing here, but you won’t catch me mentioning that here, as this a thread strictly about the pros and cons of the current spitfire player vs Kontakt and I stick to that as you can see.

When you call somebodies statements nonsense, you kind of put the burden upon yourself to at least tell him or her, why it is nonsense and provide some proof or examples for your view. But it seems you think you are beyond such standards of human communication ... alright!


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## Dynamoe (Sep 14, 2019)

JohnG said:


> My instances are all in VE Pro, which is standalone on a separate PC.
> 
> Perhaps if you place HZ strings in VE Pro?


Yeah, I do have VE Pro but got tired of the back and forth and a few other things...also I'll try and update the player


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## staypuft (Sep 14, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> So, you can’t back it up. I did not ask you to convince me of anything and it is simply wrong that I dislike your company, as I have bought a lot of libraries from you. I may not like some of your decisions and to address that I post my opinion. I may even not like a certain attitude spitfire is showing from time to time, which you are showing here, but you won’t catch me mentioning that here, as this a thread strictly about the pros and cons of the current spitfire player vs Kontakt and I stick to that as you can see.
> 
> When you call somebodies statements nonsense, you kind of put the burden upon yourself to at least tell him or her, why it is nonsense and provide some proof or examples for your view. But it seems you think you are beyond such standards of human communication ... alright!



I think Paul was very polite by calling your silly speculations "nonsense". I would also add that you sound like a spoiled brat who wants to have the last word in a discussion you know nothing about. When you start speculating and making crazy assumptions about the business model of a company you are not part of, that's pretty much nonsense to me.

And this..............
"I cannot prove it, but from what I can see, the Spitfire player is years away from even the basic functionality and will probably never include stuff like multiscripts."

This is so stupid that it actually hurts my brain. You say you cannot prove it but from "what you can see" you know what Spitfire's development will or will not be. Seriously, stop trying to stir shit up, be the better man and apologize.Paul deserves more respect.


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## styledelk (Sep 14, 2019)

Isn't the more appropriate comparison right now Kontakt Player and not Kontakt? Everyone is trying to compare the Spitfire Player to a __sampler__ not a sample player. 
Yes, Kontakt proper has a bunch of features that Spitfire Player doesn't have today. It also has a bunch of features that Kontakt Player doesn't have, too.

I'll accept that Spitfire has a roadmap for their player, and maybe even to extend it to have more Sampler-like features. They aren't just popping open the Spitfire Player and loading samples into it-- there's another piece of software that is essentially their library builder that presumably has scripting and setup they use to build these libraries. For now it's just for them. Maybe some day it'll be polished for everybody.


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## Ashermusic (Sep 14, 2019)

Daniel James said:


> That would be my assumption anyway, but of course I don't have the actual details, but if we could only talk about stuff we already know there wouldn't be much point of having a forum would there XD
> 
> -DJ



And that's my point, DJ. People are making assumptions without any actual knowledge. I am not a fan of that, forum or not.


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## FriFlo (Sep 14, 2019)

styledelk said:


> Isn't the more appropriate comparison right now Kontakt Player and not Kontakt? Everyone is trying to compare the Spitfire Player to a __sampler__ not a sample player.
> Yes, Kontakt proper has a bunch of features that Spitfire Player doesn't have today. It also has a bunch of features that Kontakt Player doesn't have, too.


From what I mentioned, only multiscript is a Kontakt full version feature. All the other stuff is also relevant with the player. So, for example, even with Kontakt player, instruments load samples to ram in the background, but that isn’t really the point ... most professional composers have the full version, anyway. And that is not only for being useful as a sampler recording your own material, it also helps with adjusting the libraries to your liking. Even if you just use the libraries out of the box, there is a lot that can be done to customise the way you use those libraries. And that has also to do with multi scripting, which uses a similar scripting language as instrument scripted, but is a separate thing. You can completely adjust the midi going in and out of your multitimbral Kontakt instance using it. To make a simple example, you can change incoming CC 1 on channel 1 to CC 11 on channel 2. Only a very simple example, of course ... 
All of that functionality is currently impossible to replace when you host in VEpro. Part of the functionality can be replaced, when you host directly in Cubase or Logic (through midi inserts or the environment).


> I'll accept that Spitfire has a roadmap for their player, and maybe even to extend it to have more Sampler-like features. They aren't just popping open the Spitfire Player and loading samples into it-- there's another piece of software that is essentially their library builder that presumably has scripting and setup they use to build these libraries. For now it's just for them. Maybe some day it'll be polished for everybody.


The aspect of being able to use your own material in a spitfire sampler is going a step further than what is being discussed here. We may remember the announcement of Play pro in this case ... but really, that is not even what I am talking about when I compare the current thing to Kontakt.


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## JohnG (Sep 14, 2019)

A lot of wild speculation, signifying... YOU decide!

However, that doesn't stop me from speculating either, my chief speculation continuing to be anti-piracy, though right behind that would be the zillion mic positions that, it seems to me, wouldn't fit too neatly in Kontakt. Then again, maybe they would and I lack imagination.

*Why do I dwell on piracy? *

Perform a search for any of Spitfire's libraries and a bunch of obnoxious, odious "free download" sites appear. It numbs me old brain to contemplate the volume of work, negotiation, editing etc. to produce even ONE instrument, let alone the BBC orchestra. To have that stolen by creeps who garble it and make money off your work would drive me mad. 

So personally if I were a developer I'd rather sell my products with a very inferior player than suffer that indignity and theft of my hard work. Which is NOT to say that Spitfire's player is inferior. Quite the contrary -- it's pretty good. It's scalable and has a volume slider that is a great antidote to "super sul tasto" volume levels. I don't find it hard to stumble around it (without a manual) and make changes I want. I think it's just fine.

Are people even considering the huge number of mic positions? I am for sure. It is like having a dozen or so instruments in one.

Sure, there are some changes I might recommend and some here have offered sensible suggestions. No doubt the player will advance over time.


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## Zero&One (Sep 14, 2019)

I much prefer the SA Player.
Opens and everything I want is there. Performance is fine. Can resize it. New player has custom preset function. Browser is great. The microphone save/lock function is great.
Doesn't feel like I'm opening a portal to another universe of sounds just to find one oboe.

Like others mentioned, I don't go under the hood with Kontakt, so it's just something I have to use. I don't doubt it's power and impact on sampling. But to me it's just a pain. I'll be glad to never use it again.

So @ OP, I like it :D


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## FriFlo (Sep 14, 2019)

JohnG said:


> A lot of wild speculation, signifying... YOU decide!
> 
> However, that doesn't stop me from speculating either, my chief speculation continuing to be anti-piracy, though right behind that would be the zillion mic positions that, it seems to me, wouldn't fit too neatly in Kontakt. Then again, maybe they would and I lack imagination.
> 
> ...


Piracy is certainly a fair point speaking for bigger developers wanting to develop their own sampler - I totally get that. Yet, they also need to sell their libraries and the sound of their products - while certainly a major aspect - is not everything! There also is the aspect of usability and functionality and it seems obvious to me that they better develop something that is at least equal and possibly superior to Kontakt. There is not much speculation to that, as it is blatantly obvious how many features are missing in the current form of the spitfire player. The only speculation is, will they improve their player and if they do, how long will that take ...
It is certainly only a major inconvenience to have HZ strings or the spitfire choir in that limited format. These are rather special libraries you don’t need to load in your default template for everyday use. But I can assure you that I would not invest in a library like BBC, which is bread and butter orchestral samples, if the player cannot provide the same set of features as Kontakt. Not to speak about a multi volume library like the Berlin Series or the spitfire orchestra which the BBC thing is supposedly heading towards. Only the extra time I will have to wait for the full template because of the missing background loading is enough inconvenience for me to pass on that offer.


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## JohnG (Sep 14, 2019)

Well, if you HAVE to have Kontakt, that's up to you. I think you've made the same points now quite a few times. 

Collaboration

I'm working with eight orchestrators on two continents right now and I would love it if they could be using the same library and template as I am. It would make their lives so much easier, and I would have far fewer changes and corrections to muck around with. That part of composing is, to me, just lost time.

So I'm pretty excited about the collaboration thing.


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## paulthomson (Sep 14, 2019)

haha.. ok so I'm not going down the rabbit hole of confected outrage.. but you want some hard facts. Well several very intelligent suggestions have been made already in this thread. Obviously I'm not going to "spill my guts" about all of the confidential conversations and reasoning behind our thinking on everything. 

However here's a single example. One code related thing is the group limits that Kontakt can handle. In our experience, YMMV, 800 groups is where K slows down and becomes harder to manage. By default all groups are on when you create or play a note, so all play. It's the loop "for each group turn off voice" before we start turning on the ones we want that causes the problem. Once you start turning off 800+ish voices per event, it takes longer than the 8-12ms buffer most audio interfaces have.

And patch load time:
Each group, zone, modulator etc gets loaded on patch load and takes up memory, even when purged.
It's mostly the popping from cpu though that we stay under 800 to avoid. You can get around it by scripting volumes/dynamics to cut down on group count but this isn't the way we want to do it.

So one of the reasons for us developing our own tech was to eliminate these problems and enable us to have all the mics and all the arts in one patch.

Totally understand that it might not work for everyone - not having a "sampler" available to make your own tweaks. However you may or may not be amazed how few people open a patch and fiddle with it. I'm not sure if thats NDA so I won't quote the actual figure but its very very very tiny.

Of course we have a roadmap, and an insanely clever team working on all kinds of cool stuff.

Anyway - happy Saturday all!

Paul


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## jononotbono (Sep 14, 2019)

I’ve got a day of so I’m going to load every single articulation of HZ Strings in VEPro. Just to see if the computer can handle it... and that’s what nerds do! 😉


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## JohnG (Sep 14, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> that’s what nerds do!



What? Are you insinuating that composers who use v.i. control are nerds???


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## Ashermusic (Sep 14, 2019)

JohnG said:


> What? Are you insinuating that composers who use v.i. control are nerds???



Because we are


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## Ashermusic (Sep 14, 2019)

paulthomson said:


> So one of the reasons for us developing our own tech was to eliminate these problems and enable us to have all the mics and all the arts in one patch.
> 
> 
> 
> Paul



Paul, I totally accept this. When I first went to work part time for EW years ago and I asked Doug why they switched from Kontakt to Play, he told me that one of the reasons was that when they were developing Hollywood Strings there were things they wanted to do that Kontakt could not handle well and when they reached out to N.I to implement those necessary changes, they were told no.

Some people here did not believe it of course, because of the times we live in, but I did then with EW, and I do now with Spitfire.


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## jononotbono (Sep 14, 2019)

JohnG said:


> What? Are you insinuating that composers who use v.i. control are nerds???



Nerds rule the world!


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## CT (Sep 14, 2019)

Some people on this forum are absolutely perplexing in their behavior. And I'm not talking about the mythical "fanboys."


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## Mike Greene (Sep 14, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> ... inferior software ...





paulthomson said:


> I’m sorry, but that’s just absolute nonsense! 😂





FriFlo said:


> First of all, this seems like a very rude and inappropriate way for a developer to dismiss a users opinion.


If you're going to use the word "inferior" to describe someone's software, then I would expect a response exactly like what Paul gave you, and IMO he was smart to not engage you further.

It's not Paul's responsibility to give you (or anyone else) a detailed response to each criticism you put forth. Especially in your case, where you're someone who loves, loves, LOVES to argue, so that's going to lead to an endless string of responses from you, and Paul would end up thinking, _"Why, oh why did I get myself into that discussion."_ (I've been there myself on that one.)

This, along with your little spat with Jay, is getting very tedious, so I'm going to ask that you stop posting in this thread (or related threads) unless you have something truly new to say AND if you can manage to say it in a way that is nice, as opposed to combative.

NOTE - I left almost all the posts as is, but I did delete a few short ones that are just silly _"I know I am but what are you?"_ posts.

ONE MORE NOTE - MY USUAL DISCLAIMER - No one from Spitfire (including Paul) contacted me at all about this. I'm chiming in and doing minor edits for the good of the forum, not because (as someone else claimed) I am worried about losing ad dollars.


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## Lindon (Sep 14, 2019)

As a Kontakt Dev, I can concur with Paul here. Kontakt is a platform you have to work around not with, and eventually you end up down a rabbit hole looking at a brick wall thinking - "OK well there's a feature thats not gonna ship". I absolutely understand many many users love Kontakt as a platform they know and understand - but NI just wont wont wont move to add/change features or functionality unless they need it themselves - likely not to change given the recent machinations in Berlin.
Like Spitfire many many of us developers are getting off the NI/Kontakt wagon - despite the knowledge that many users will be saddened to hear it, and we may lose some of you on the way.

Good luck Paul, and if it all falls over (it wont) you can join us over at the HISE developer forums...


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## Mike Greene (Sep 14, 2019)

I like Kontakt, but it is far from a perfect platform. When you start putting together large complicated libraries, you start running into issues like what Paul described. Even in my own case, my issues are different from Paul's, but I'm still in a situation where I'm not sure I can make Kontakt work for the next word-builder instrument we're doing. I know for sure that if I could build my own player and make it do what I want it to do, my vocal instrument would be better.

That's not a knock against Kontakt, it's just that we all have our individual needs for our particular instruments that a one-size-fits-all platform can't always address. I think just about all of us developers have toyed with the idea of creating our own samplers, not for cost reasons (as Daniel said, the KPlayer costs are pretty reasonable), but because we all have stories like that.

Plus, as mentioned before, piracy is a major concern. We say that to NI again and again, and over the years, we've suggested a few simple things we'd like them to add so that we could at least add our own CP coding, but we get nothing.

One additional factor that hasn't been mentioned is NKS compliance. That's a major PIA that adds days to the process, plus in my case (admittedly, I'm slow), weeks of learning _how_ to do all those steps. None of which makes my instruments better, it's all for the purpose of making their hardware a more attractive purchase. They're still waiting for me to send in Hip Hop Creator for compliance inspection, but I'm absolutely dreading it, so I keep putting it off.

So my hat's off the Spitfire and OT. I do like the people at NI a lot and Kontakt is a great sampler, but sometimes a company has needs that have to be addressed with a custom platform.


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## jononotbono (Sep 14, 2019)

As I venture down the long road of adding all of HZS patches in a VEPro template something is bothering me and perhaps this could be an update to the player? When I click on the articulation bar to select articulations, can the box made to be resizable? Constantly scrolling to find the arts I want. The buttons to quickly go to VLNS, VLAS etc are handy but it would be great if the box could be resizable so I can just see most of the list without scrolling.


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## jononotbono (Sep 14, 2019)

So after most of the day, I have loaded 148 Spitfire Player instances in VEPro (Photo shows 161 tracks but 13 of them are folders so I have deducted from them). The photo also shows 3.83gb of RAM being used but I've also looked with Activity monitor and VEPro is using 21.49gb of RAM.

Not sure if this data helps anyone but that's what it is if you're wondering about the whole footprint of having this beast loaded and ready to go with 148 instances of Spitfire Player. 






Activity Monitor...


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## Zero&One (Sep 14, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> The photo also shows 3.83gb of RAM being used but I've also looked with Activity monitor and VEPro is using 21.49gb of RAM.



Interesting, not sure if you seen mine? But Logic show's 10.53GB RAM on mine... the Player is the same with 3.84GB.






Spitfire Audio “This is London Calling” - BBC Symphony Orchestra


Any updates on how the BBCO would run on a 16gb ram machine? I guess with limited articulations loaded and only one mic on it shouldn't be too bad? It's been the freeze/bounce in place life for me as of late... I'm in the same boat with 20gb. I'm thinking that it might well be doable, providing...




vi-control.net


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## jononotbono (Sep 14, 2019)

James H said:


> Interesting, not sure if you seen mine? But Logic show's 10.53GB RAM on mine... the Player is the same with 3.84GB.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I’ll have to double check something else isn’t turned on in VEPro as it could be possible due to lack of sleep. I’ll check in a few hours.


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## Zero&One (Sep 14, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> I’ll have to double check something else isn’t turned on in VEPro as it could be possible due to lack of sleep. I’ll check in a few hours.



It's so much fun adding every one of those articulations isn't it 
I finished doing the same with BHCT last night, I wanted to die by the end

See what you find and give me a shout if you need me to load anything etc to compare


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## jononotbono (Sep 15, 2019)

James H said:


> It's so much fun adding every one of those articulations isn't it
> I finished doing the same with BHCT last night, I wanted to die by the end
> 
> See what you find and give me a shout if you need me to load anything etc to compare



Well that's going to take a while because upon reloading it today, HZS isn't in my VEPro template so something has gone wrong when saving. So it has to be done all again. Unbelievable.


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## FriFlo (Sep 15, 2019)

Mike Greene said:


> If you're going to use the word "inferior" to describe someone's software, then I would expect a response exactly like what Paul gave you, and IMO he was smart to not engage you further.
> 
> It's not Paul's responsibility to give you (or anyone else) a detailed response to each criticism you put forth. Especially in your case, where you're someone who loves, loves, LOVES to argue, so that's going to lead to an endless string of responses from you, and Paul would end up thinking, _"Why, oh why did I get myself into that discussion."_ (I've been there myself on that one.)
> 
> ...


Ok, I think this is past repairable ... I want to respectfully ask you to delete my complete profile including all of my posts from this forum. If you really think there was any need in censoring anything that I wrote here or prevent me from writing anything further, I have no further intention of either reading or posting or even being associated in any way with this forum. I do not love to argue and this will finally put an end to it.


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## Mike Greene (Sep 15, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> Ok, I think this is past repairable ... I want to respectfully ask you to delete my complete profile including all of my posts from this forum. If you really think there was any need in censoring anything that I wrote here or prevent me from writing anything further, I have no further intention of either reading or posting or even being associated in any way with this forum. I do not love to argue and this will finally put an end to it.


We don't delete profiles, because people often stomp off in a huff like this, then later change their mind. Instead I'll do the equivalent of banning, which gives me more flexibility. (This is your second banning, of course, so I doubt that flexibility will be necessary, but still, I like to keep my options open.)

So that request is granted, but I never delete old posts, for several reasons:

1. It isn't fair to other people who later read threads with missing context from deleted posts.

2. It's a childish request.

3. It isn't fair to other people who later read threads with missing context from deleted posts.

4. I don't know how.

5. It isn't fair to other people who later read threads with missing context from deleted posts.


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## Lindon (Sep 16, 2019)

Mike Greene said:


> I like Kontakt, but it is far from a perfect platform. When you start putting together large complicated libraries, you start running into issues like what Paul described. Even in my own case, my issues are different from Paul's, but I'm still in a situation where I'm not sure I can make Kontakt work for the next word-builder instrument we're doing. I know for sure that if I could build my own player and make it do what I want it to do, my vocal instrument would be better.


Mike,









Forum


Welcome to the official HISE Developer Forum. Get in touch with the pro's, and develop your own open-source VSTi.




forum.hise.audio





..come on in - the water's lovely...


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## EvilDragon (Sep 16, 2019)

paulthomson said:


> In our experience, YMMV, 800 groups is where K slows down and becomes harder to manage.



I'd like to slightly correct this statement. It really depends on what you're doing in Kontakt, but there are 2000-3000 group instruments out there that perform just fine (some made by yours truly). Just groups by themselves isn't a problem, but of course number of group FX and modulators, and especially what the scripting is doing, that could matter a lot. Sandbox does an awful lot of things and this is both great and not great - as everything in life every pro has a con.


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## Olfirf (Sep 17, 2019)

EvilDragon said:


> I'd like to slightly correct this statement. It really depends on what you're doing in Kontakt, but there are 2000-3000 group instruments out there that perform just fine (some made by yours truly). Just groups by themselves isn't a problem, but of course number of group FX and modulators, and especially what the scripting is doing, that could matter a lot. Sandbox does an awful lot of things and this is both great and not great - as everything in life every pro has a con.


Interesting ... it seems logical that the developers scripting has a big influence on the efficiency of Kontakt as a plugin. Do you think Kontakt limits you in what you can do in terms of scripting without getting inefficient? And would it be reasonable to suggest, that a custom player (without a sampler for your own sounds) could surpass Kontakt's performance and/or possibilities by being custom fit to the tasks of that Player? And lastly, would the exclusion of a multitimbral mode in your opinion make it easier to make a custom player more efficient?


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## jononotbono (Sep 17, 2019)

Does the Spitfire player (SP) automatically purge samples when an instrument is loaded? I'm suspecting not but it's definitely a feature that is heavily used in Kontakt. Wondering if samples don't get purged whether some kind of update is planned to bring this functionality to the SP?


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## EvilDragon (Sep 17, 2019)

Olfirf said:


> Do you think Kontakt limits you in what you can do in terms of scripting without getting inefficient?



Really wildly depends on what you're trying achieve, so no clear cut answer on that one.



Olfirf said:


> And would it be reasonable to suggest, that a custom player (without a sampler for your own sounds) could surpass Kontakt's performance and/or possibilities by being custom fit to the tasks of that Player?



Sure if you purpose-build something for a singular purpose, rather than trying to do many things, you can likely do optimizations not otherwise possible.



Olfirf said:


> And lastly, would the exclusion of a multitimbral mode in your opinion make it easier to make a custom player more efficient?



Not really. If the instrument is not loaded, it simply doesn't impact the performance of the whole instance in general.


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## mscp (Oct 1, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> Does the Spitfire player (SP) automatically purge samples when an instrument is loaded? I'm suspecting not but it's definitely a feature that is heavily used in Kontakt. Wondering if samples don't get purged whether some kind of update is planned to bring this functionality to the SP?



also curious about it.


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## synthetic (Oct 3, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> Does the Spitfire player (SP) automatically purge samples when an instrument is loaded? I'm suspecting not but it's definitely a feature that is heavily used in Kontakt. Wondering if samples don't get purged whether some kind of update is planned to bring this functionality to the SP?



I don't understand. Do you mean when a sample is unloaded? If so then it appears to in the Youtube videos. You can see them unload articulations and mics and the RAM load drops.


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## jononotbono (Oct 3, 2019)

synthetic said:


> I don't understand. Do you mean when a sample is unloaded? If so then it appears to in the Youtube videos. You can see them unload articulations and mics and the RAM load drops.



No. I am talking about loading a patch and having all the samples purged. Just like in Kontakt. If you purge your samples, save the patch, then load that saved patch, it will load with all samples purged. Then as you play, only the samples you play load into ram.


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## synthetic (Oct 4, 2019)

Huh, haven’t tried it. Get more ram, dude. 

If Spitfire is still listening to our whining, it would be nice to add an option to label the three controllers with the MIDI CC and/or their function. Rather than the little spider or whatever those are.


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## jononotbono (Oct 4, 2019)

I have 192gb of RAM in two machines I’m using at the minute. Plus 24gb in the Master machine. But sure, I guess I should add another machine. 

Anyway, I’d still love to know if it’s possible to purge samples in the new Spitfire player? Or if it’s planned as a feature at a later date. Would be great! Thanks.


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## synthetic (Oct 4, 2019)

I have 128gb and I feel like I’ve never reached that limit. Sometimes wonder why I didn’t just get 64gb instead.


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## halfwalk (Oct 5, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> Not sure if this data helps anyone but that's what it is if you're wondering about the whole footprint of having this beast loaded and ready to go with 148 instances of Spitfire Player.



But what happens when you press play? All the cargo space in the world is useless if the plane can't get off the ground.


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## Denkii (Oct 5, 2019)

paulthomson said:


> However you may or may not be amazed how few people open a patch and fiddle with it. I'm not sure if thats NDA so I won't quote the actual figure but its very very very tiny.


Out of curiosity: where do you get this info from?
Is Kontakt collecting this as user data and sends it to you/NI?


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## jononotbono (Oct 5, 2019)

halfwalk said:


> But what happens when you press play? All the cargo space in the world is useless if the plane can't get off the ground.



It takes off and flies the world.
Playback is fine.


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## halfwalk (Oct 5, 2019)

jononotbono said:


> It takes off and flies the world.
> Playback is fine.



Right on, I wasn't trying to be facetious, at least not entirely anyway , just curious since there seem to be some folks having performance issues with the player.


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## babylonwaves (Oct 5, 2019)

halfwalk said:


> just curious since there seem to be some folks having performance issues with the player.


same goes for Kontakt. IMO the SF player works just fine.


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## synthetic (Oct 14, 2019)

Question about using libraries on multiple machines. Spitfire said you get two licenses for their libraries. Obviously I only want to download BBC once, then move it to another machine on my network. How do I enable it on the second machine? Through the Spitfire Download Manager? I've found the trick of resetting the latest update then re-downloading that update, but it might not work with version 1.00 with no updates.


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## Vik (Oct 14, 2019)

babylonwaves said:


> IMO the SF player works just fine.


Have you checked if SF Player tracks will be unloaded (sample memory + player memory) when a track is frozen in Logic? Curious.


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