Analog Dreams 'is a heavy plugin, there's no denying that'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTNgZQI ... LLM0&t=361

Just saw this video where he refers to Analog Dreams as being a 'heavy plugin'. Not knocking this guy personally, this is more a rant about how people seem to be falling over themselves over the NI plugins, building up some mystique that really isn't justified IMO.

These NI plugins seem nothing more than a re-purposed Fabric running a different sound library. In the original Kontakt instrument, each patch effectively consists of two very small single velocity keygroup instruments, each made of 15 WAV samples (notes C1 to C5, note stride 3), total instrument size ranging from just a few mb up to around 30mb.

So when you load a patch, you are effectively loading a 50MB instrument. This is the pause you are seeing, it's no different to the pause you would get when loading a 50MB kit or keygroup instrument in the browser. This is what makes the plugin seem 'heavy', but it's just pausing to load samples on the fly.

The instruments themselves are basic, they do not even feature multi velocity or round robins.

Technically it seems there isn't much going on there that is not already present within the MPC already (for example, the touchscreen 'blending' of patches is just like the XY pad interface with a different GUI). This is not running a modified version of Kontakt or anything like that.

Not saying it isn't a good sound set or a useful UI to mess around in - in fact I'd love it if Akai made a repurposed Fabric UI available for everyone to import their own instruments into. People just need to step back a bit with the hype.

Glad I didn't miss something in the free trial before rolling back.
Oooh, imagine the MPC being able to run old (ie S5/6k) keygroup programs and being able to plumb it into a visual, pc based user-template creator - add your own background image and a simple mod matrix behind the knobs you could select,drag and drop around your design...

DellAtreides wrote:..being able to plumb it into a visual, pc based user-template creator - add your own background image and a simple mod matrix behind the knobs you could select,drag and drop around your design...

Absolutely, I need to double check as I can't remember if I ever submitted my feature request for a custom UI for keygroup programs, but this could be extended to allow set up macros to provide custom knobs within the UI and even a bit of basic scripting to handle some extras. Could all be managed from the 'TrackData' folder using json.

Most of these MPC plugins are just keygroups with a fancy picture at the front. Fooling everyone into buying them, NI have just thought “I’m having a piece of that”
It’s all smoke and mirrors, just as it is with the arranger VIEW, coz that’s all it is a view.
And is already in the desktop version on mpc2 . Until the Mpc can exactly record into the arranger, that’s all it will ever be.
Smoke and mirrors, I tell ya.

For me it's the first time I've been able to confirm what complexity some of these instruments are, simply because in the MPC versions the individual samples used are normally hidden within a '.big' file. So best case these are 15 sample keygroups, possibly less in an attempt to speed up loading. I suspect Fabric XL is more of the same.

Ultimately if it sounds good it doesn't matter how many samples are involved and bravo for making something RAM efficient that sounds great, but I think people do misunderstand just how little is going on in these romplers (in terms of samples at least).

AKai do however need to sort out the loading times across the board, including projects. All this 'background process' loading they've introduced is ridiculous, after leaving the browser it can take up to 30 seconds before some sounds become available to use (hitting pads does nothing, and the samples show with a red 'X' next to their name in the project window)

Useless stuff, that's it, not much to say.
We already have libraries of all sorts, plugins, synths, pianos, organs, strings, analogish synths, we are well covered.
This NI stuff is just needless hype to promote a flawed MPC3.
Once MPC3 will be stable, loading MPC2 projects properly, bugless, with a serious midi architecture working, it's gonna be a good step forward.
But since it will take time for that and the developers are not that good in making flawless OS, they need to pump the hype with useless NI libraries, heavy or not, doesn't matter, it's just nothing new at all on MPC, we already have all of this.

Here is the Professional Platinum Hit-maker that this thread was triggered by.

You are welcome

No, it was the video I linked to in the original post (I didn't embed as I wanted to jump direct to the bit about Analog Dreams and the forum embed option doesn't support this)

MPD MPK RAY wrote:

Here is the Professional Platinum Hit-maker that this thread was triggered by.

You are welcome

I think he just means relatively heavy. Compared to load times on Jura or OP-X it takes a while. I don’t know how the CPU hit is relatively, but I imagine it is bigger since they have several effects in there that aren’t in keygroups.

I hope people keep pushing the limits of the plugins even if they are just gui redesigns. Don’t fool yourself that computer plugins are much different.

I dig Fabric’s sounds, but don’t like the gui. A better interface would make me appreciate that plug-in more. Mileage varies by user, so in a perfect world there will be a choice that makes every happy.

there's no point Andy... I've been laughed at and people claimed otherwise even with this screenshot taken directly from NI website lol . It's quite fascinating though... especially those those mpc groups on FB, sometimes when I'm down, I like to throw them something small and watch them for a week

BTW. did any of you checked the size of skin only for such "plugin" ? if not then... please do, and imagine some folks are running 8 instances of those or even better, because there are some stuntmans running hakai with 10-16 of those lolololol.
Imagine having a plugin with a skin that is sometimes heavier than the content

Hopefully Akai dont stop their teamup with AIR instruments; cos that connect has brought alot of value to the MPC platform.

jpeg wrote:Hopefully Akai dont stop their teamup with AIR instruments; cos that connect has brought alot of value to the MPC platform.

That's less likely to happen since they're both owned by inMusic & Akai gives them them an easy way to make money & promote their brand.

What made you say this?
Or are you just saying your random thoughts out loud?

There's nothing in this post or elsewhere that would indicate that Akai & Air would end their partnership. If anything, Akai working NI seems to indicate that Akai is open to working with more outside companies in the future, which wouldn't be the first plugins to do this (Odyssey was made by Wayoutware). Maybe it something that has to do with how OS3.0 is constructed & some new potential capabilities of the desktop software.

Yes hopefully there will be expanding this side of things, although WayOutWare are likely 'owned' by inMusic these days (domain points to the AIR site, I seem to remember reading WOW team were behind VIP software), so not sure they can be considered an outside company.

MPC-Tutor wrote:Yes hopefully there will be expanding this side of things, although WayOutWare are likely 'owned' by inMusic these days (domain points to the AIR site, I seem to remember reading WOW team were behind VIP software), so not sure they can be considered an outside company.

Yeah now that you mention it I think remember reading they were own by inMusic when I was trying to find more info the Odyssey's Echo delay . Still them working with NI is a good sign that things are gonna be different in the future.

So I just got it today, after hearing SynthTubers declare Analog Dreams as a must have.

Only tried it for about 15 minutes. It's really good, but a must have? Can't say I'm feeling it yet. Doesn't Jura and Hype cover this ground well enough? And OPX-4?