Hey, great! Go for it... If you can do that, I'm sure a lot of people would appreciate it in addition to making it a lot easier for yourself then it has been.

And hey, I know the new Kontakt 7, well, NI has obscured more accessing non-protected libraries and whatnot, or pushes one to use their stupid browser with their tags .. (which I always ignored for the most part as outside of a few libraries, most of my stuff was accessed on a folder level, not the sidebar with the fancy pictures).. and my libraries from 2005 or 2016 or 2019... they don't have damn tags that correspond to the way "NI" wants me to "browse" etc.... I know where that distorted hurdy gurdy library I want is, I know where my old drums transferred from other devices library is etc... and I don't need to tag them with adjectives to meet their agenda intended for me...

So I do agree with you that they have made it, on the surface at least, less approachable, or less friendly without getting everything copacetic with damn Native Access etc...

 

How is it 'unusable'? Do you not know how to load an nki file? Do you need the wallpaper or you don't know how to use it?

 

That's because Steinberg isn't in the business of selling Halion libraries other than their own. They don't need to rape devs for licensing fees, because their income isn't focused around plugins. Unlike NI, they've had a sequencer/DAW product up in the top of the market for almost 40 years now.

A third party Halion library is basically ask Steinberg for permission, they say 'ok go for it' and that's that.

 

Without actually knowing one way or the other, I've always assumed it's been Steinberg reaching out to 3rd parties for content on their platform.

 

Do any of the sb/Halion libraries mention who actually produced them? If they went out and got some well-known producers to make them, why wouldn't they make mention of it? It would benefit them both if they did.

 

Soundiron, Sonuscore, Cinematique Instruments off the top of my head, the first two's were for Kontakt prior to Halion, I don't know how much time in-between though.

 

It's not just those three. They also did some more one-off ones with a few others. The majority of them were done in 2022, and it looks like it has really tapered off for Halion format. But not completely. It looks like they have just moved to the Sound and Loop sets which are just .wav, and some have been designated for Groove Agent. They probably have better sales with them instead of the proprietary formats.

 

Kontakt: scripting, effects, lots and lots of libraries.
Halion: no scripting, no effects, not so much libraries.

So?

 

Halion does in fact have scripting and effects. Making instruments in Halion is easier than one would expect. Steinberg just isn't great at promoting their products.

 

Yeah Halion can keep up with Kontakt's features and then some. With Halion 7 you even have a Yamaha FM engine built into it, its pretty much got Padshop and Retrologue rolled into it as well as a wavetable engine. It could easily give Kontakt a run for its money, but like @Semarus said, they don't really promote it much.

 

I am quickly approaching the point of no return with KT. The platform itself seems to be unraveling as there are new versions coming out every other week. Why is this? Is it more insane to have to keep reinstalling a stupid sampler every 1-2 weeks than it is to keep track of the plethora of garbage libraries that keep getting released for it? WHY so many redundant release versions? There are some fabulous libraries for the platform but lately there has been a LOT of redundant garbage as well. On top of that Kontakt is a finicky app that begs the use of the hacked versions unless you like having to be tied to an internet connection to allow it to keep updating the legit version and possibly screw up installed libraries or the platform itself in the process. It's ridiculous. If it wasn't for BobD and V.K.D. I would have cut kontakt loose a long time ago... If this platform doesn't SETTLE (nix the dam 1-2 week reinstall's) I will eventually cut it loose, or simply bag the updates until it's entirely necessary.

 

Was every single update necessary though? It wasn't until maybe the end of last year that there was a library released that required the newest version of Kontakt that was currently available at launch, v7.7.0 which had only been out for a couple of months. K7 didn't bring anything exciting to KSP so devs aren't jumping to convert all their libs for that.
Just looking at the changelog so far for K7, it's clear what has been the cause of all the updates, besides the usual stuff: New UI (so new problems), NKS 2, new Mk3 hardware, and macOS compatibility (which since M1 has been a nightmare for devs it seems), oh and the newly launched Cubase 13 and K7 weren't getting along.
Anyway, for plugins especially I think most people can skip most updates unless it's an emergency or something interesting comes along.