NI winding down development of Reaktor, discontinuing Super 8 standalone

[Guy Rowland]

Sad news, it looks like another one from NI is inching towards its end of life, and it's a big beast. A post on the NI forum from "George and the REAKTOR team" on a thread regarding the Beta of 6.5:

Sorry, but besides the addition of native Apple Silicon support and the new VST3 plugin there will be no new features implemented.

At this point, perhaps it is time to comment on the situation. For a variety of reasons, NI is not in a position to invest major resources in this product, which has not been news for some time. I'm not going to comment on the details, nor on whether or not I personally think all of these reasons are indisputable. What I will get into is the value of the upcoming release and why we are asking the Reaktor community to support it to get the best result:

• The 6.5.0 release will ensure that Reaktor and with it all existing content such as Reaktor Player products, Factory Library, Reaktor User Library content and personal user files are usable in existing and new DAW projects and standalone use cases. Including situations like
  
  • where there is no OSX Rosetta support, e.g. when a DAW is running in native Apple Silicon mode. In this case, if the DAW is supporting the VST2 --> VST3 migration feature, you will be able to load project files which were created using the VST2 version of Reaktor.
    
    when using a DAW that no longer has VST2 support. Again, if the DAW supports the VST2 --> VST3 migration feature, you will be able to load project files which were created using the VST2 version of Reaktor.
    
    when the user wants to upgrade to the currently latest Windows or Apple OS versions, but is currently unable to do so due to existing deficiencies.
  We also open a path for a possible use of Reaktor for a future where e.g. Apple abolishes Rosetta with an OSX update or some DAWs decide to stop VST2 support.

To make this happen, our very small team has put some effort into writing new code or reworking existing code. I'm actually quite proud of what we've accomplished so far under the circumstances, how thoroughly and prudently we've invested our resources to move forward, taking great care to avoid bugs like incorrectly loading old content. While this may sound like fishing for compliments, I'm writing this to share a bit of our motivations and why we need the Reaktor community's support, because the rebuild effort has been extensive and despite our diligence, internal testing has already revealed some unexpected bugs. As I mentioned in a previous post, the Apple Silicon port implied that we had to replace an important internal code object, and this replacement needed to be done with extreme care to not introduce serious errors. A prominent area is persistence where external file references were stored in content files, e.g. for non-embedded Sample files, references to ensembles in preset files or in host projects, references to Blocks in Rack files and so on. We tested this area a lot, also using cross platform testing which e.g. includes saving a file on Windows, then loading-testing and re-saving on Mac, and again loading-testing on Windows. Still: to make this a quality release we think that having a good test coverage in day by day user situations is absolutely essential.

Our team is aware that the lack of more features will lead to frustration. But at this stage, we as a team will not be able to change this situation. What we are trying to achieve is to deliver this version with high quality and a good base for the future. Therefore, we would like to motivate you to participate in the testing as well, so that together we can make this version a success and a valuable asset for you and all other users.

https://community.native-instruments.co ... ment_48110

Separately, NI are discontinuing the short-lived stand-alone version of Super 8, though FM8 lives for now.

FM8 should get an update early 2023. For Super 8, it's a little different. Super 8 is no longer developed as a standalone synth, it will now only be developed as a Reaktor synth, like it was before. So, you'll have to wait for the next Reaktor update, coming in Q1 2023.

https://community.native-instruments.co ... fm8-super8

[doctoremmet]

Very sad indeed.

[EvilDragon]

It's not really nearing end of life, Reaktor is obviously an important product (just not nearly as much as Kontakt, however it still powers a decent chunk of Komplete). Consider it more of maintenance mode so that it can keep on working through whatever curveballs Apple pulls...

[Lawrence]

Good to hear. I love Reaktor’s crazy libraries. Much prefer mucking about in it than Massive.

[Guy Rowland]

I only ever use Reaktor as a host, never attempting to actually build anything myself in it. I suspect 99.5% of other Reaktor users are the same. It's been perplexing, therefore, to me that they've never given it a proper browser. Functionally working in Reaktor it's much the same as working with Kontakt, which has always at least had the library pane which is quick to get around.

NI's browsers are lamentably bad - the one used in Kore, Massive et al was great, but the ones in KK, Massive X and the new one in Kontakt are a considerable step back from those. But at least they exist. Reaktor just has a file directory browser.

It would seem an obvious no-brainer to slap this same flawed browser - better than nothing - onto Reaktor. But it looks like actual product development is at an end now. While it's good to know it won't be actually discontinued and basic OS updates will be maintained, it looks like as a platform it is at its final resting place.

[Lawrence]

Oh, I can’t program the freaking thing, but it’s great fun to load some various crazinesses and as I said, just muck about. The mechanized electronic drums have huge amounts of bleeps and bloops and endless patterns. Stuff like Steampipe is awesome, with a mod wheel controlled chiff. The noise generators are great.

Usually I just find weird stuff I like and commit it to audio. Instant sound design.

[Guy Rowland]

Oh, I can’t program the freaking thing, but it’s great fun to load some various crazinesses and as I said, just muck about. The mechanized electronic drums have huge amounts of bleeps and bloops and endless patterns. Stuff like Steampipe is awesome, with a mod wheel controlled chiff. The noise generators are great.

Usually I just find weird stuff I like and commit it to audio. Instant sound design.

Right. Reaktor, for almost all of us, is merely the host, so it just needs to be an efficient and easy to use one.

I do occasionally make simple instruments in Kontakt. I did have a brief spell many years ago of trying to make a proper instrument, and it took me far too long to realise this was a foolish and ridiculous use of my time. It did at least give me a hazy notion of some of the fundamentals, even though today 99.5% of the time I open Kontakt it's to use someone else's libraries.

Well Reaktor it is 100% of the time. I'd just like a nice simple interface that says Monark, Razor, Skanner XT, where I find also find the snapshots / presets, and can quickly click go. I'd like it to be able to read the ensemble patches own metadata for crying out loud - you need the horror show that is Komplete Kontrol to do that. Nearly all of Reaktor's own libraries may as well not exist, because they're piecemeal and hidden, not in any simple unified browsing experience. All that information and the ability to read and display it is already in NI's code, in other products.

Looks like Reaktor will never evolve to that pretty obvious end-state. NI really are a very strange company.

[Guy Rowland]

Apparently Reaktor 6.5.0 is now in open Beta, with VST3 and silicon support. This could be the last major update, but that’s not 100% locked down.