The Sound Board

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.

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.

Lawrence wrote: ↑Jan 20, 2023 12:09 am 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.