Native Instruments vs. Live 9 ?

[2klo]

Well if you want context, I'll give you context for M4L which you can't do in Reaktor
- OSC programming
...

What do you mean? Reaktor has always handled OSC in standalone and the plug-in has had OSC support since 5.8.

Right, but 5.8 came out in late November 2012. That's not even 4 months ago and before that there were no OSC support in plug-in mode while M4L did since 2009.

[humnumb]

Well if you want context, I'll give you context for M4L which you can't do in Reaktor
- OSC programming
...

What do you mean? Reaktor has always handled OSC in standalone and the plug-in has had OSC support since 5.8.

Right, but 5.8 came out in late November 2012. That's not even 4 months ago and before that there were no OSC support in plug-in mode while M4L did since 2009.

Reaktor has had OSC support in plugin mode for over a year. If you knew that, why would you claim now that it couldn't do it? Reaktor's OSC support has come a long way. In fact, I can't even think of any other tool that provides easy bi-directional OSC in plug-in mode.

[2klo]

Reaktor has had OSC support in plugin mode for over a year

How do you count a year if it came out in 29 November 2012? Unless you had a version that none of us had. To be honest, Reaktor didn't support OSC in plugin mode for so long that I gave up waiting and M4L did the job very well.

[humnumb]

Fair enough. I should have said "since last year".

[The Carpet Cleaner]

I don't know about live 9, and I hope Ableton step up their game about sounds.

But comparing Komplete 8 and Live suite 8, komplete 8 offers a much much better sound library !

[Rosko]

most sound libraries that come with a sequencer are gonna be shitter than NI, i would imagine.

[agent314]

I've been impressed at some of the racks included with 9 Suite. Individual instrument presets always sound thin and flat, but some of the racked stuff I've used I've been really impressed with.

[JuanSOLO]

You may also consider all the effects you get with live which are of equal quality to NI stuff and more efficient.

Strongly disagree here. NI effects are far superior to Live effects in pretty much every category. Though I have nothing against Live's EQ and compressors.

+1
I use an instance of Guitar Rig inside an effectsRack which has a Flanger, Phaser, Corus, and Leslie.
3 of those basic effects suck balls in Live. I wish NI made this kind of thing sans GuitarRig.
Guitar Rigs Space Echo is pretty awesome too.
NI gave that "Driver" away for free, I love that thing!!!
Reaktor's FX sound better and usually perform better, than anything M4L.
There are synths in the Reaktor UL that are old, and still sound better than most of the current hip plugs.

I do believe Komplete is just overwhelming, especially if your just a local musician trying to develop a sound of your own.

In Live DrumRacks, Sampler, Operator, EQ8, and Compressor are great, for me thats about it.
That said, those 5 things are plenty to make all kinds of great tunes.
So far I havent liked anything M4L that had to do with processing audio. It's a CPU hog and kinda sounds dull.
However, if your into customizing controllers for Live, M4L is fantastic.

[agent314]

So far I havent liked anything M4L that had to do with processing audio. It's a CPU hog and kinda sounds dull.

I have felt sort of similar. Things like Buffer Shuffler and Tape Stop and the like are useful for specific creative purpose, but the reverbs/modulation effects/etc. that I've used have not been worth the CPU overhead

That said, tools like the LFO and the controller options are worth the price of admission for me

[Rosko]

I like the tools/midi effects in m4l, i actually like the convolution reverb as well but yeah for what ever reason the synths & adio effects are not great.

[hps909]

M4L beats the hell out of Reaktor

A rather useless statement without any context.

Also, Battery 4 was just announced.

Well if you want context, I'll give you context for M4L which you can't do in Reaktor
- OSC programming
- Direct access to Live's API which in turn allows you to built fully integrated Live devices
- Video processing
- in depth MIDI tweaking
- automation of external parameters

ok a few things that reaktor does over max
reaktor does OSC
VST/AU
(much much) bigger library (and a pretty awesome one at that)
much easier to build in reaktor , max is just a nightmare unless your a programmer
you can automate external parameters with reaktor
better custom GUI's for devices
better program UI

[JuanSOLO]

much easier to build in reaktor , max is just a nightmare unless your a programmer

This doesn't make since to me at all.
They are very similar, you connect wires to objects in both programs. In both programs you HAVE to know what the objects do. Far from writing a code language.
Max is well documented and the documentation is geared to learning it.
If you want to build in Reaktor you will no doubt need to ask question on the forum, and you need user built tools to figure out what the hell your doing.
Max can also automate external parameters.

I realize the building workflow is different, and some may find they like Reaktor better, but I have used Reaktor for 8 years and I only know how to build a few things because of what I learned in Max within a year.

[Angstrom]

much easier to build in reaktor , max is just a nightmare unless your a programmer

This doesn't make since to me at all.
They are very similar, you connect wires to objects in both programs. In both programs you HAVE to know what the objects do. Far from writing a code language.
Max is well documented and the documentation is geared to learning it.
If you want to build in Reaktor you will no doubt need to ask question on the forum, and you need user built tools to figure out what the hell your doing.
Max can also automate external parameters.

I realize the building workflow is different, and some may find they like Reaktor better, but I have used Reaktor for 8 years and I only know how to build a few things because of what I learned in Max within a year.

Nope.
I've got both, and it's waaaay easier to build a synth or an effect in Reaktor. Simply because of the Reaktor "macros" for such common items as filters, oscillators, amps and envelopes. New users can put these together like Lego. that process leads user into the app through actual usage.

In M4l the equivalent is probably a bPatcher, but does M4L start users off with a collection of "modular starting blocks" bPatchers right up in the face of beginners? Nope. Instead they are looking at a wall of irrellevant options. The much touted integration with live is nonsensical. Does M4L start a new instrument with an official LOM chooser for the new user to examine this integration? No.

Ableton Live users are musicians, they want musician tools right to hand immediately. M4L leads off with a programmer strategy "you can program anything, just look at our glorious multifaceted object list" .

Musicians want : "Lesson 1: here is a phaser, here is a moog filter, now connect them together". "Lesson 2: examine the Moog Filter, and connect an envelope to it"

Yes, the tutorials, help files, and info texts of M4L are excellent, but it's not ideal for musicians wanting to make music. I can actually code and I find M4L a lot less enjoyable to make synths in, in fact it actively repells me. The only way I can face it is to do it all in JS and link buttons to it.

I think if we compare the user created libraries we can see what each app favours.
In Reaktor user create 10,000 "my analog synth one"
In m4l users create 10,000 "buffer shuffling downsampler one"

[JuanSOLO]

I agree things could be more clear for beginning users in M4L.
There is no example patch "How to modulate Send A on Track 1 in Live."
I could see a useful beginning tutorial that had pre-made phaser, flanger, chorus etc, then show you how to use a "gate" or something.
However, the M4L user library has great devices to learn from, just like the Reaktor forums have the "Even Monitor"

I bought Reaktor because it has killer synths, I ended up getting a huge UL with a lot more than synths, and 20% of these things still sound AMAZING.
Yet it's been difficult for me to actually build something that I truly want from scratch, because the documentation is weak.

I bought M4L because I wanted that fucking Step Sequence Mode on my APC40. Didnt quite work like that and I ended up getting a bunch of crap effects.
However I did build APC40 patches that are really handy.

I'm not sure I would know what "Musicians want," I see all types, doing all things.