Time to tell the truth about NI after 20 years in the business

124

Comments

  • ShelLuser
    ShelLuser Member Posts: 240 Pro
    1. People are dumb.

    I never said that, what I did say was:

    As if NI are forcing people to buy their stuff. It's not their fault if people are dumb enough not to do any research on the things they buy, only to end up disappointed because ... oh dear... you actually need to understand how to use this stuff?!?! 🙄 Ignorance is bliss these days and of course it's always someone elses fault.

    I think you've just proven my point about #2. It's not my problem that you apparently felt addressed by my post and thus took it personally.

    "Mindless rant" => Yes, if you spew out a ton of accusations without any substantial argument to back up your claims... what's left?

    "Lay off the beer" => You got me on that one 🍻

    "I seriously doubt if you actually understand what this means" => So now I'm not allowed to share my opinion again?

    "You're barking" => Once again you put words in my mouth because you merely see what you wanted to see:

    So yah... you're barking up the wrong tree here. Making me convinced that you have no idea what you're talking about and are probably only trolling.

    "Barking up the wrong tree" is a perfectly valid and generally accepted saying. I suppose not when you suddenly feel addressed yourself. Also important: I provided arguments why I came to this conclusion: OP is putting the blame on NI for something that Steinberg dictates. So yah, he IS barking up the wrong tree, because any complaints about VST's should be directed towards Steinberg.

    Convenient how you chose to ignore all my arguments that lead up to this.

    "You have no idea what you're talking about" => Once again: OP shared accusations, I shared arguments which everyone can verify for themselves and see that they're true. I even pointed to a Wikipedia article which itself points to all the relevant external info. If you blame NI for something Steinberg enforced then yes: you're clueless about the topic at hand.

    "Your own ignorance" => You yourself are showcasing plenty of that right now too.

    And I will leave it at that because the rest all boils down to the same thing I already addressed.


    There's a huge difference between actually getting insulted or feeling to be insulted. All I did was attack OP's criticism and comments. Yet unlike yourself I never felt the need to make things personal, I called them out on their behavior and their comments, I never even came close to name calling. Unlike you of course.

    Believe it or not but I can agree to disagree. Seems like a good idea right now.

  • LostInFoundation
    LostInFoundation Member Posts: 4,196 Expert
    edited May 2023

    I never thought it was personal towards me. I just said the way you talked to the op for me was just meant to humiliate him.

    But again…you think your way, I think mine. Your way seems just denigrating to me. My way seems just I’m ignorant too to you. As you just said

    If you think “All I did was attack OP's criticism and comments” and this is the way you do it, I just don’t like it. But we both know you didn’t do just that, you denigrate him. You want to say the opposite? Free to say it. But you know what you did, no matter what you say after just to look innocent.

    But talking with sufficient to him like you did and then play the “I never felt the need to make things personal” guy…is quite funny (since I see you like funny things that much)

    Another funny thing is that I agree with many things you said (e.g. that people not researching things and then complaining are wrong. But I will never call them dumb anyway).

    So I won’t bother you again

    Let’s move on

  • JesterMgee
    JesterMgee Member Posts: 2,530 Expert

    TBH, if you have managed to use their software for the last 10+ years and you are only now creating an account becase suddenly you have realized, 10 years after the fact that 32bit support has ended and things may no longer work then that is less NI's fault and more your own for not keeping up with how things will go over time and preparing for that like we have all had to do!

    Over the years I have also lost access to many plugins that were 32bit and never updated for 64bit. Now we are all going through the same thing again with VST2 becoming EOL and VST3 replacing it and some plugins probably will never be VST3 or Apple Silicon supported.

    This is all stuff we all need to be aware of and prepare for overtime if you want to use computers and technology for your hobby. No good ignoring it for 10 years then complain when it all comes to a head. If you are still trying to work on tracks from 8-15 years ago that's probably a sign to move on from those projects and start fresh maybe.

    Would you tell a violonist is using obsolete technology to produce music ?

    Well, if the violin ran on software from 20+ years ago and didn't work in today's world, yes I would suggest they update their stuff. If you want to twist it to a similar analogy that you have, leave a violin out in the weather for 20 years without maintaining it and probably after that time, yes it will be no good to use, get a new Violin or switch to something different.

    It can be a bitter pill to swallow when something reaches EOL and becomes unsupported, would prob suggest you rethink considering a mac if you think NI are all about profits and not caring about maintaining compatibility, Not something Apple is known to be any better for, they just have a knack at training their users to be happy about spending money.

  • ozon
    ozon Member Posts: 1,301 Expert

    @JesterMgee wrote

    If you are still trying to work on tracks from 8-15 years ago that's probably a sign to move on from those projects and start fresh maybe.

    This is a very odd suggestion. Just because a piece of art was left unfinished for whatever reasons over a longer period of time doesn’t make it any less valid or unworthy of finishing.

    Maybe the creator just needed to evolve, mature and gain a different perspective on life to appreciate the potential in their own unfinished work.

  • JesterMgee
    JesterMgee Member Posts: 2,530 Expert

    It was half a joke, but honestly I have projects unfinished from 10-20 years ago, I would not be upset if I opened them and a plugin was unavailable or didnt work after that time, would be a sign to either move on or just update the instruments to new ones that work.

  • Triggi
    Triggi Member Posts: 48 Helper

    Hi there,

    here another opinion, my solution:

    i buy a hole system (pc, windumb, daw,...) for what it can do NOW. Than i've a lot of fun with it for a long long time without missing something.

    But my biggest rule is NEVER updating something if everything is working!

    I bought a virus ti a long time ago fo what it could do. There where a few nice firmware updates and now no longer support. But it just works even better than once i bought it.

    I never thought that it should have more knobs and buttons....

    My advice: buy stuff for what it is now, not for what it should be in future.

    Be creative,

    love to all!

  • djadidai
    djadidai Member Posts: 389 Pro

    Holy moly.

  • djadidai
    djadidai Member Posts: 389 Pro
    edited May 2023

    I have to say that I’m a very satisfied “consumer” or customer. I bought a maschine mk 2, got to upgrade for free from 1,8 to M2 software and all updates have been free since then. I’ve invested a little in light trilogy and a few select expansions on the 50% Black Friday sales, and downloaded freebies like Hypha. When I look in NA I see a million different products and I don’t know how my list can be so huge without having spent all that money. I bought an M+ also and a second hand Jam so I have triple licenses and so on. I can’t say that I have used all of my products to their full potential because I’m not a power user. However I have been working my way to stay away from my computer, where I just end up finishing my work. I use Logic Pro. and when I do that I export my stems separately with clean channels, no eq, no effects and so forth, every pad in wav files, and that stuff will work in any daw hopefully forever. However the M+ showed me the way to be more productive with “less”, now I find myself investing in hardware instead because I make more music and jam a a lot more without the computer, and even if M+ doesn’t get much upgrades it is still a fantastic piece of standalone hardware. I hope it lasts many years, and in 10 years I won’t complain if it still doesn’t have probability function because even in its current state it’s awesome. When my M1 mbp will be out of date I’ll make sure not to update M2 sw or M+ so that they will be compatible until I can afford a new laptop. However being separated from a computer makes me less dependent of upgrades and compatibility. MIDI cables and a mixer, and that stuff will always work :)

  • Kubrak
    Kubrak Member Posts: 2,772 Expert

    My few cents...

    1) No need to use more than one audio interface. No need to use NI's interface. For example I use RME Fireface 802 which works with NI SW just fine. Better said, better than NI's audio interfaces.

    2) If one needs to run 32bit... Use old HW that allows using older Win.

    3) Backward compatibility. Not everything is perfect, but most of the things may run on Win7 that is close to 20 year old.

    4) Support. NI has converted most plugins to Apple Silicon. And for free.

    But yes, support could be better. I hope that most of problems are result of COVID, Apple Silicon and war in Ukraine. And also restructuring under a new owner....

    Overall, I am very satisfied with NI. I did not need support last few years, but before that they always have solved everything.

    5) There is one thing I do not like a lot. NI has stopped authorisation of several legacy plugins and did not offered any way to authorise them anymore. That is just VERY wrong way to do things. They should in that case release unlocked versions of those plugins. And no, I do not speak about support/compatibility with current OSes, I speak about allowing to use NI SW on systems it was designed for.

  • DunedinDragon
    DunedinDragon Member Posts: 363 Pro

    Not all of us agree that the industry is more market focused than user focused. Quite frankly most larger companies in this industry are pretty even handed in dealing with both sides of those two issues. And that's because they MUST be in order to be larger, successful companies. Otherwise they fade into history.

    What I can see from my observations is the increasing lack of attention and management by end users for the systems they apparently depend upon, and then blame the resulting problems on their vendor rather than where it belongs which is on THEM.

    Any and all successful companies that depend on computers to conduct their business have a consistent and professional approach toward all aspects of systems management, and that definitely applies to software and hardware upgrades. They plan, evaluate and BUDGET for the options and understand the potential risks and plan for them in their transformation process to go from one working system to the next version of it. If end users would have the same regard and respect for how they manage their own systems we'd probably all be able to endure less of these sort of childish rants.

  • Flexi
    Flexi Member Posts: 366 Pro
    1. Never trust anything a rep of a company says, especially just a forum rep, especially "double super dare secret squirrel" reps from NI, they are paid to control an online narrative, with the same token, do not blame them either, again they are just paid to control an online narrative.
    2. Why are people still buying NI products since the 2000s if they are such a terrible company? what a completely nonsense question, first off they have some industry standard products that quite a lot of producers can not live without, especially if they work with others, Kontakt comes to mind here as a single example, it is very common to separate the art from the artist, and that is pretty much what HAS to happen here, but being able to point out that a companies behaviour is ******, even if you need to use their products, that is normal isn't it?
    3. NI acquired this, acquired that, acquired the other, yes, NI have never really had ownership that had a single clue what they where doing, they did however have some outstanding developers that that ownership let down as much as they let down users with their decisions, currently it is a struggle to see any signs of great developers or ownership at NI (Meh meh, don't buy their product, see no 2)
    4. Soundwide are just the latest to be blamed etc etc etc, do they own NI, yes, are they restricting development at NI, yes (No we don't know the reasons, but we can make an informed guess) so who else could we possibly blame?
    5. Everything NI did or do is just repackaged, rebadged, expansion packs etc etc etc, does this really need debunking? well I am going to anyway, and again I will use just one example (Even though my instinct is to point out Massive changed the world of synthesis) Kontakt, Industry standard since the day it was released until this very day (as of 2023) so lets shut up with that nonsense.


    I can rant better than most about NI, but honestly it would probably just get me banned, but are they that much different to any other corporation in the audio world, no, most of them are garbage piles when you look in to them.

  • 6xes
    6xes Member Posts: 630 Pro

    Great response!! very funny and insightful at the same time!!

    NI give this man a beeR

  • Uwe303
    Uwe303 Moderator Posts: 2,967 mod
    edited May 2023

    Hello,

    if you are using a pc to make music and want to be professional or semi pro - whatever and you have a great song, then bounce it. You can have an older pc\mac standing side by side with your new one, use virtual machines with an older os, for bouncing you don´t need a asio soundcard connected but even that is possible with virtual machines. Those changes don´t come over night so normally there is enough time to have a solution, if you are serious about music you have to invest the time to bounce and backup - and those problems are not native specific. Only daw i know i can open my 15 years old stuff is reason, cause i used only reason instruments and fx back then. And yes i also don´t do all i wrote above - but then it´s my fault.

  • Cretin Dilettante
    Cretin Dilettante Member Posts: 120 Advisor

    This. Bounce your stuff if you care about it and/or think you could make money remastering it at a later date. Otherwise, if you truly want your music to last, write it down. Literally write it down on a piece of paper w/ dynamic markings, and if you're brave, create some sort of visual score to accompany it and represent the automation/modulations any synth patches you may have are doing. You could even take exhaustive notes on which method of synthesis each patch uses, and how to arrive at such a patch with any generic synthesizer which utilizes that method. This would ensure that, even if future generations don't have access to Massive or FM8 or whatever, they could pick up any contemporary instrument which utilizes FM Synthesis or allows advanced modulation routing to approximate a synth patch originally made with Massive or FM8.

  • Senseixon
    Senseixon Member Posts: 14 Member

    Hey, for me working with NI for many years, the satisfaction is absolute.

    I’m still using Absynth at all, Maschine, Komplete and expansions without any problem.

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