Very true. What Spitfire has done isn't technically impressive, which is all the more reason the success of LABS is remarkable. It's immediately playable, offers unique instrument textures, and serves as an entry point for their paid offerings that are bigger and more complex. If such complex libraries were designed for the new Reason sampler (which hopefully is more full-featured than the 19-year-old NN-XT), they could feature greater modulation capabilities and ease-of-use which would allow the format to thrive without needing to beat Kontakt. It's unlikely any new sampler will dethrone Kontakt as the de facto king, but the new sampler doesn't need to. It just needs to be easy to use, have fresh instruments and be more powerful than the NN-XT. That would work for me!QVprod wrote: ↑22 May 2021I’ll preface that I’m in favor of a newer NNXT. However, the Spitfire Labs stuff could very much be pulled off now in NNXT since they’re not incredibly large in size and there’s not much to the UI. And the new Combinator does open up some more possibilities. And also, there’s nothing stopping REs of high quality acoustic stuff pretty much at all. There’s a quite a few sample based REs in the shop now. Just comes down to interest from developers/designers. Pack creators have choice in what they contribute.
I think the challenge with the RE market is that developers would be taking a big risk in terms of time and money invested recording the samples and learning the SDK, with a prospect for a return that is murky at best. That may be why we get way more REs that are synths, effects, players and CV processors than sample libraries. It's hard to convince users to even try a new RE if they don't see a use for it. I didn't know I wanted to play a Super Sul Tasto Cello until I played one in LABS! If a new RE with that title had popped up in the shop I probably would have kept scrolling. Now if the new sampler rejuvenates the Reason ecosystem so that Refills become hot again, I can image lite versions of new libraries floating around the community, more creative Combinator patches and more incentive for creators to release boutique sampled instruments. This may be Reason's renaissance!