Just in time for their 10th “NI-versary,” the folks at Native Instruments have released significant updates to two of their hottest products. Akoustik Piano has been updated to v1.1 R2 and will be available for downloading to registered users. A full list of all the fixes and changes would take up this entire column, so here are just a few:
- Mac: Installer issues with DFD and IRC extensions have been fixed.
- Library patches are now always installed and now contain Performance Views for use in Kontakt 2.1 and higher.
- Library patches now contain additional CC automation and new patches were added with improved overtone logic for all pianos.
- Concert Grand Phil’s upper range was improved.
- All overtone instruments use the Release Resonance drop-down list now for two settings – Release Resonance and Overtone volume, each of which keeps its current setting until another value is selected for that feature (i.e. values selected for Overtones do not change the current value selected for Release Resonance and vice versa).
Next up, Native Instruments has updated Battery to v2.1.5. This will also be available for download to registered owners. Changes, issues, and fixes include:
- Sample Import has been greatly improved and the logic was changed in order to provide better mapping of samples to cells.
- Empty samples problem for the Jazz kit has been fixed.
- Recording of automation via the Battery interface seems to be broken in Ableton Live with AU and Digital Performer with AU. Please use the VST version with Live and the “Hyper Draw” function in Digital Performer. Some automation recording problems were also reported for the DXi version.
- When used on PCs, problems can occur with multi-outs in the RTAS version.
- NI strongly recommends users update to Pro Tools 7.x. Battery can still be loaded in Pro Tools 6.9 but some issues may exist that were not happening with earlier Battery versions.
