Orchestral Tools moves away from Kontakt!

[mickeyl]

Well, not strictly, since it looks like they're going to support Kontakt for a while, but – given the convenience their new system adds – I'm sure sooner or later most people will migrate as well.

First Spitfire Audio, now Orchestral Tools – are we witnessing the decline of the Kontakt ecosystem?

Interesting times.

(NOTE: This is based on info they have just announced in their Keynote. The live stream is still ongoing)

[Guy Rowland]

...and here’s the videos. First the player, which has a few new tricks, such as a bespoke rendering of mic positions to keep resource use light:



Then an integrated shop. They seem to be making play of being able to but instruments piecemeal:



The Junkie XL brass library



LA Songwriter Instruments



and a free ensemble library

[Geoff Grace]

Here's a summary I put together for those who may have missed the presentation:

Orchestral Tools has created a free Orchestral Tools Sample Player, in conjunction with Axel Hartmann. Features include Auto Volume Scaling to enable legato transition and release samples to blend better, High Res Resampler, Mic Position Merging, Core Implemented Legato, and Advanced Articulation Management. Libraries will continue to be available in Kontakt format as well.

The new sample player will debut with the release of a free instrument called "Layers: Studio Ensembles," using small ensembles structured in layers of different kinds, such as mixed timbres and chords.

Customers will also have a wider choice in pricing structure with the availability of bundle pricing and à la carte pricing for individual mic positions, instruments, and articulations.

In addition, Orchestral Tools announced Junkie XL Brass to be developed with composer Tom Holkenborg, who promises a larger than life sound. The company also announced LA Sessions: Songwriter Instruments, a collection of pop instruments recorded at United Recording, in Studio B. The instruments include Studio Strings, Electric Guitar, Gospel Choir, Acoustic Guitar, Drum Set, Rhodes, Wurlitzer, and Electric Bass.

Best,

Geoff

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks for being the eyes and ears, Geoff. All sounds very interesting... how many staff do OT have now I wonder? This looks like a huge endeavour, and they've not been quiet in general of late.

The player certainly sounds a lot more ambitious than Spitfire's which end the end just seemed to be a way to stay out of NI's licensing fees. None of the buzzwords mean much to me here yet, but it does sound like they're trying new things. It's all about the performance and efficiency really, and there's no shortcut to waiting and seeing I guess. Very smart move to launch an interesting looking freebie that everyone will try to get a taste of the ecosystem. Doubly important I guess that it performs well out of the gate, it would I fear be an ungrateful and unforgiving mob if it didn't work well.

Really hope this goes well for OT. It feels like there's been quite a lack of innovation in the sample player realm of late, this could potentially shake things up.

[EvilDragon]

First Spitfire Audio, now Orchestral Tools – are we witnessing the decline of the Kontakt ecosystem?

No, we're not. There are hundreds of other 3rd party developers, and developers mostly developing orchestral libraries, while more prominent on the landscape (at least this particular landscape covered by this and the other forum), still only cater to a very particular range of customers. NI's customer base is much more varied than that, and Kontakt ecosystem has a bunch of 3rd party libraries (and devs of such libraries) to cover all of those ranges.

In short, nothing significant is happening to Kontakt's ecosystem. Also - I've said this on VI-C too - any new sampler that shows up will live or die based on its performance and hardware/DAW compatibility vs Kontakt. This is not an easy thing to do, as EastWest had to learn through years. Vienna seems to do great with their engine, though - they're probably the only ones with performance comparable to Kontakt. Any other sampler is just more resource intensive for the same task...

[Guy Rowland]

Agree Mario that its hardly the death of Kontakt. But at the same time, two major sample developers making their own engines is an interesting development, and I think good for the marketplace as a whole. As you say, performance is all, we'll just have to wait and see.

There's more details on the player at the 21 minute mark in the presentation video:

[EvilDragon]

I am honestly not too thrilled about the fragmentation of the sampler engines that is apparently happening. But I will concede that I am far too biased and too deep in the whole Kontakt world to see it as a good thing for the market. As long as these samplers are closed to 3rd parties (which they most likely will be, because they all have a very specific featureset rather than something all-encompassing like Kontakt, or even moreso, Falcon), there's no direct threat to Kontakt. Perhaps HISE, at some point, but that one still needs to grow and cultivate. A lot.

[Geoff Grace]

Thanks for being the eyes and ears, Geoff.

And thank you for all your splendid YouTube videos, Guy!

Best,

Geoff

[tack]

I don't like fragmentation either -- especially when significant features are missing from some of those fragments and even if you were willing to implement different solutions for each you may not even have the option -- but I also don't like de facto monopolies with stifled innovation, which is a situation it feels to me we are in with Kontakt. I suppose you're privy to a lot more internal discussion about Kontakt, ED, so you have a better sense of what's cooking, but from my perspective I see a boring, stale product that's moving at a snail's pace.

I was excited to see what Spitfire would come up with, and subsequently quite underwhelmed. There wasn't really anything in the OT marketing video to get worked up about and there's plenty of reasons to be skeptical, but I'm cautiously optimistic they're going to produce something more interesting than what Spitfire ended up with.

If nothing else, if this fragmentation ends up injecting just a bit more of a competitive and innovative drive into NI, that's a net plus in my books.

[EvilDragon]

As long as all these newfangled samplers remain closed to 3rd parties I don't think it could be considered a direct competition to Kontakt on the whole... Again, it's just one segment of a larger market, and dare I say not a segment that is in majority.


I do think OT might do better in their try than Spitfire. At least they didn't screw up the UI/UX, from what I saw. Spitfire made a huge and incomprehensible mistake of hiring UI designers who are renown for their work on MOBILE apps, to do UI design for a desktop app. I don't have enough hands to facepalm that hard.

[Muziksculp]

Any info. regarding if the entire OT Berlin Series (Strings, Brass, Woodwinds, Perc.) will all be available in their new OT Sampler format in the future ?

[Muziksculp]

I'm very happy OT decided to move away from NI Kontakt. Looking forward to using their new Sample Engine.

[KyleJudkins]

haven't had time to check things out, I REAAAAAALLLLY hope all their old stuff will be implemented....

and MAN am I going to be excited if it will... and it sounds like JXL brass will be in teldex(which is nice, considering I own almost all I want in their)

only shame is that I was really hoping to get my hands on individual instruments from glory days, but I imagine that will likely never happen(since it was before OT's player)

that said, it has a lot of the features I wanted, ESPECIALLY the mic merge, considering I currently use all the mics and just freeze tracks.

[KyleJudkins]

First Spitfire Audio, now Orchestral Tools – are we witnessing the decline of the Kontakt ecosystem?

No, we're not. There are hundreds of other 3rd party developers, and developers mostly developing orchestral libraries, while more prominent on the landscape (at least this particular landscape covered by this and the other forum), still only cater to a very particular range of customers. NI's customer base is much more varied than that, and Kontakt ecosystem has a bunch of 3rd party libraries (and devs of such libraries) to cover all of those ranges.

In short, nothing significant is happening to Kontakt's ecosystem. Also - I've said this on VI-C too - any new sampler that shows up will live or die based on its performance and hardware/DAW compatibility vs Kontakt. This is not an easy thing to do, as EastWest had to learn through years. Vienna seems to do great with their engine, though - they're probably the only ones with performance comparable to Kontakt. Any other sampler is just more resource intensive for the same task...

new startups will inevitably have to find the appropriate sampler to get their foot in the door.

not every company has insane amounts of resources to re-invent a wheel

[tack]

that said, it has a lot of the features I wanted, ESPECIALLY the mic merge, considering I currently use all the mics and just freeze tracks.

Do you freeze because of the RAM usage with all the mic positions? I didn't get the impression the mic merge feature was any more than a realtime summing of different mic perspectives just presenting it in the UI as a single fader. So I expect the memory usage would be the same as using the mic perspectives individually.

[KyleJudkins]

that said, it has a lot of the features I wanted, ESPECIALLY the mic merge, considering I currently use all the mics and just freeze tracks.

Do you freeze because of the RAM usage with all the mic positions? I didn't get the impression the mic merge feature was any more than a realtime summing of different mic perspectives just presenting it in the UI as a single fader. So I expect the memory usage would be the same as using the mic perspectives individually.

contextually, and literally - he explained the problem with using all the mics(resources) and what he does (only uses 2 mics) and then offers the new solution, which is activate them, pan them, ect - then specifically says mix down, the screw shows a processs of this "mixing down" and he even says in real life it would take longer.

pretty sure he means exactly what I'm saying he means - which is to come up with your own mic mix, then the sampler can mix that down to a single stereo microphone(like the dennis mixes in cinesamples/the jake Jackson mixes in SF)

"you are now able to make your own custom mixes and merge them into a single microphone position"

[tack]

pretty sure he means exactly what I'm saying he means - which is to come up with your own mic mix, then the sampler can mix that down to a single stereo microphone(like the dennis mixes in cinesamples/the jake Jackson mixes in SF)

Yeah, I didn't see that video yet, but you're right, that seems pretty clear. Thanks. Cool idea.

[KyleJudkins]

Yeah, I didn't see that video yet, but you're right, that seems pretty clear. Thanks. Cool idea.

i don't know if someone could activate every mic in berlin brass main with a 64 gig machine or not lol.

I've got 25 instruments(without all the articulations) loaded and im in the 70gs.... Learning so much stuff at work(and setting up a new standing desk arrangement at home) while also reformating recently, half of my stuff isnt even installed yet(so template is on the back burner)


sounds absolutely gorgeous with 0 plugins

wish i had a better example, but here was just something i was playing around with(someone elses theme they posted from another forum)


in true kyle fashion, everything is sloppy, and not planned out on paper(something I desperately need to do with anything I'm serious about)

the only plugins are temporary ones on my master bus to merge signals(i have all my close/tree/ab/surround mics send on their own stereo channels, then I sum them on the master using an blank instance of pro-Q2, and then I have an instance of pro-L incase i get too roudy with the brass)

for me, almost all of the sound I want, comes from the mic mixes



heres another example using very few instruments, from when I was bored, and having watched a lot of diablo II videos recently, had a bit of nostalgia so I toyed around with something I'd expect on a diablo OST.


even less instruments there - think it's just ark 1 + berlin bone ensemble blended, using sustains - with ark 1 low strings 8vb. then I think i added berlin trumpet ens sustains? ark 1 strings legato, bww flute 1, and ark 4 flute + piccolo I think?

all in all though - mic mixes alone are enough to create a pretty huge sound... it gives it a width and depth that 1 knob and a slider wont give you...


so that reason alone would make me switch samplers

[Lawrence]

I wouldn’t worry a whole lot, Mario. I suspect you’ll be as busy as you want to be for years and years to come.

[Muziksculp]

I am curious to know if the new OT-Sample Player's GUI is Scalable/Resizable ?

NI failed big time to offer this in Kontakt 6.

[KyleJudkins]

I am curious to know if the new OT-Sample Player's GUI is Scalable/Resizable ?

NI failed big time to offer this in Kontakt 6.

this was the most depressing part about kontakt 6(and why I didn't instantly buy the new version)

been using 4k displays since that first Samsung 28" was available for preorder. I use a 48" screen and it would be a lot easier if I had something scalable, mainly because of the mouse speed I use to navigate the size of this thing(less of a problem on the 28" when I had it) makes mouse accuracy a bit of an issue at speed.

[EvilDragon]

There are many (good) reasons why K6 didn't get the scalability implemented. It will happen eventually but it needs a lot more manhours put into it because things are extremely, extremely fickle and complicated in that codebase. Won't say anything more due to NDA.

[EvilDragon]

Also, regarding OT's mic merge feature. While a pretty cool idea, do note that you will have to secure enough HD space for it. This also means that samples very likely aren't monolithed, which means a loooooooot of write operations on your SSD (and delete, in case these mixes are temporary, but they probably aren't because those mixes need to stay there for your DAW project). Then if you do another slightly different mix for a different project, it takes more HD space again. You save up on RAM usage but disk will suffer, depending on how differently you do your mixes from project to project.

[Guy Rowland]

Mario, it’s the kind of thing that begs for new solutions in the market for sample players. Kontkt’s age is both it’s strength and it’s weakness. I’ve argued before that it might well be time for NI to do the same trick as it is currently doing with Massive - just start again, forget about backwards compatibility. Keep supporting old Kontakt for many years with OS updates. I know it would involve huge sums of time and money, but IMO it would be time and money better spent over the long term.

Of course I’m not holding my breath. After many years, Komplete Kontrol still hasn’t reached even a basic level of core functionality. It seems like either NI’s expertise or their resource management is wanting. Given the company’s size, something has been telling me for some time that all is not right internally at NI. They can still produce amazing new products, but the poverty of ideas and execution in Kontrol - to pick one example - is staggeringly poor.

I’d love to see one of these proprietary players open themselves up, but there’s only a case for it if the player was really good. Here’s hoping the OT player is, some of their ideas really do look as a modern player should. It would be interesting for OT to allow 3rd party devs on to their platform in the fullness of time, going through their integrated shop.

Properly back on topic, this raises a major concern I have. Building all this stuff into the player itself - even a shop - might be a mistake conceptually I fear. That thing is going to be huge, and I’m concerned that’ll be a big draw on resources. I think I’d prefer a separate shop, a la IK’s Custom Shop, it keeps all that clutter away from the business end.

Meanwhile, how do folks understand this mic merge thing working? As I understand it, you balance a mix that you like, press the magic button and it generates a bespoke mix. But for what? One articulation? One instrument? The entire library? Also whilst it would be able to reduce the streaming overhead and RAM use, it would increase the storage requirements. One thing I’d love to see, but very much doubt I will, is the ability to split mic positions up onto different drives. Would be great to create your own mix then shove some or all of the individual mic positions on to a rust drive.

[Guy Rowland]

Oh, and forgot - one more critical unknown at the moment - copy protection. Hoping it allows for at least two dongle-free installs.