What do you guys think of PLAY?

[Lindon]

And what are these things that Kontakt doesn't have ? Developers always say that. And I can't see what Feature in Hollywood Strings would be superior to any other Strings Library. Same goes for Spitfires Sampler. For me as a customer I have more options in Kontakt than in any other sampler.

I gues I'm to young to know Gigastudio, but I think the possibility that East West dissapears is far bigger than Native Instruments going under.

Well I'm one of those developers so - yeah we always say that. But lets clear up a few misconceptions (not all of which are voiced in this post above..)

1. "Developers are moving away form Kontakt because of the high encoding fees for Player libraries." Mostly not true - unless you are very small indie developer these fees are just "part of the process" EW, Spitfire etc. can afford these in their sleep...
2. "Developers are moving away because Native Instruments looks like its falling apart" - Mostly not true as a reason to move away - yes NI look like they are imploding slowly but Kontakt is the cash-cow - a slimmed down and lean NI would keep this bit of their business for sure - or if needs must they would sell to someone who would keep it going. Frankly I think this later option is probably the developers preferred solution - as it *might* solve the real reason for moving away oft mentioned in "developer discussions"...which is:

Kontakt development historically moves at sub-glacial speed, and NI are very very unresponsive to developer feature requests. Major features ONLY show up when an NI product needs them.

It leaves me, as a developer, thinking that NI are using their ownership of Kontakt as a vehicle as a method to reduce my market share and increase there own, perhaps other developer feel the same way perhaps not.

In any case as a developer I ask for stuff and it doesn't get anywhere near even looked at (e.g. group based load/unload - I asked for this repeatedly over the last 6 years. It would be good for you (as customers) and me (as a developer) as I could produce audio extension libraries to load into existing products. NI have never responded in any way ever, and its a feature nowhere on the horizon).

To be entirely fair in recent times Kontakt has improved a lot quicker than it used to V5->6 as an example. But looking back through its lifetime - its under performing on improvements.

So in the end it much more likely the developers build their own players and move to the alternative development platforms because they want need something that NI are unwilling to provide.

(full disclosure here: I sell products on and build services for at least one of these alternative platforms so I do have a dog in the game. Yes once my dog was called "Kontakt" now its called something else - https://vi-control.net/community/th...nsidering-jumping-from-kontakt-to-hise.90765/

 

[Ashermusic]

In any case as a developer I ask for stuff and it doesn't get anywhere near even looked at ,I asked for this repeatedly over the last 6 years.

This is in sync with what I said earlier that Doug Rogers told me, with Hollywood Strings that prompted the development of Play.