What Is Going On With NI?

ShriveOnTheTrack · 2023-07-19T15:19:17+00:00

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Anyone have any idea what’s going on with Native Instruments? They rebranded their logo a few weeks ago, their Twitter account has been “inactive”. There have been a handful of new instruments and expansions that have come out in the last couple months but nothing I would consider “The Summer Of Sound”. Where is the new hardware? When is Maschine going to get an update?

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LostInFoundation

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/86634#Comment_86634

I think you are right. And this is their main problem.

Thinking a team that maybe is good in developing instruments must be good also in thinking how a Dj software and also a Groovebox must be done is quite wrong.

Lately many instruments have been developed by external teams. At this point this could be a good thing. If the situation is how I suppose, better give the money to an external expert team than hoping someone can hit the bullseye in all these different things.

But…at this point…what is Native Instruments?

PoorFellow

Quote : "But…at this point…what is Native Instruments?"

At this point then Native Instruments / Soundwide is a company owned by a 'Private equity firm' called 'Francisco Partners'. Francisco Partners has the muscle to be able to pay for expansion and development like grabbing other companies and merging technologies to create a world leader ?. If they will do that remains to be seen but rather than being negative then maybe we ought to hope for the best, I mean if they manage to make Native Instruments / Soundwide very great for profit then they still made it great(er)..

However , as ought to be understood then no matter if Native Instruments / Soundwide is owned by visionaries or people just out to make a profit then it still would have to be done in a way that made earnings and were financially viable , including the limited number of programmers available for development..

Francisco Partners (Private equity firm) :

https://www.franciscopartners.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Partners

Francisco Partners --> Soundwide (formerly Music Creation Group, which was a combination of Native Instruments and iZotope) is the leading players in the digital music creation, production, mixing, and mastering space, shapeing the future of music and audio creation with new creative possibilities for musicians, producers, and audio engineers.

<----SNIP---->

The two brands have joined forces in Soundwide, with the aim of creating new possibilities in the music making and audio production spaces.

Ref. : 'Francisco Partners Portfolio' : https://www.franciscopartners.com/investments , https://www.franciscopartners.com/investments/soundwide

Ref. :

EMH Partners and Native Instruments’ Founding Shareholders to sell majority ownership in Native Instruments to Francisco Partners : https://www.franciscopartners.com/media/emh-partners-and-native-instruments-founding-shareholders-to-sell-majority-ownership-in-native-instruments-to-francisco-partners

iZotope and Native Instruments join forces under new music and audio creator group : https://www.franciscopartners.com/media/izotope-and-native-instruments-join-forces-under-new-music-and-audio-creator-group

darkwaves

I think it's worth remembering that traktor has a subscription option. I'm not completely sure, but I guess many of the play series thingies and sample packs end up in native now. I can't blame them for trying, but I'm not going down that path with them.

basehead617

i generally buy expansions as they come out.. (and upgrade Komplete), I can always do with more sounds to inspire me.. if they switched to subscription i doubt i’d be paying anymore than i do now..

id be fine with subbing if they actively develop maschine again

D-One

I have to say there's some great jokes in this thread, we need a 'funny' reaction besides 'like' and 'insightful'. Can't wait for the reaction when the eventual "big" thing happens sometime in this century.

@AdelV asked:

Why does Traktor have a roadmap and Maschine does not?

NI was never really into public roadmaps, they have been burned hard when things announced didn't happen because something proved to be more difficult than expected or someone changed their mind.

It's probably because Traktor has a real feature request section here, afaik it's sort of an experiment to see how things go here, don't hold me on this as I don't quite remember the details about it but Traktor is sort of special in that sense, they aren't doing that for any other product atm. Maybe the fact that it has a subscription option incentives them to add more features to sell more subs? Then again Maschine sells expansions, if it keeps losing users to other solutions eventually that golden egg chicken will die too... so idk.. 🤷‍♂️

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/86550#Comment_86550

I have very strong feelings about surveys or any sort of attempt to gather info about what users want, I rather not go again into details as this is dear to my heart and I don't want to rant and be too negative but it's not that hard to have a list of the top 15/30 things people want and pick at least the easiest ones to implement... No need for surveys that only 1% of the userbase replies to be honest.

Murat Kayi

The thing that unnerved me about the survey was that it continuously made me sacrifice one thing for another. That felt very uncomfortable 😂

LostInFoundation

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/86687#Comment_86687

Thank you anyway for all the infos, but these are things we already knew 2-3 years ago.

I was talking about TODAY… and that is exactly what I meant: NI WAS great, and it became so innovating and developing things. At the point that a company like Francisco Partners was interested to buy them when they were in difficulties. But no one seems to ask himself “what made us great?” and what they are doing now is taking a complete different direction. They are not expanding and developing, they are milking from the cow the last drops, living on what the people before them created (and not even developing it…they just focus on the aspects that bring cash, like expansions and instruments made in batches with little differences, not understanding that not developing the platforms for those products is making them fall behind competitors).

IMO, there is only one universal law in economy: to make cash, you must spend cash. No investments, no gain (or better…a short timed gain…and then…failure)

PoorFellow

I were merely 'recapitulating' while suggesting that "rather than being negative then maybe we ought to hope for the best" , that is stay positive ! (and subsequently in 'constructive criticism' and 'positive communication' with the N.I. representatives try to get the best products that we can under the given circumstances !) !

(Not asking someone not 'a happy campers' to act as if)(and my post here is the ultra short 'not trying to make a discussion' post version)

Wouter De Muynck

From my point of view NI is betting on too many horses, but these horses appeared to be little ponies which don’t get enough attention, and now the pony-riders are sad! 😌 Hoping for better times for this once great company, mainly for the “NI Classics”, but I’ve my doubts…

orioleravenmd

It’s been a minute. I’ve been using Maschine since it first came out. Sold my mk2 three or so years ago. I have the smaller one still. I just think personally it’s gotta be a point where you realize that you are going to get what you’re gonna get with NI.

I pretty much sold all my traktor/maschine stuff. I don’t use Komplete as much. Over the years there has been some decent alternatives to NI/Izotope/Brainworx stuff.

Also, I feel a lot of these acquisitions have killed the excitement for certain products in general, as it has not been that good. Only things that has excited me is the Slate VSX headphones, and Steinberg releases thus far.

Rico010

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/86494#Comment_86494

Maybe a new 100GB sound library? :)

However, I believe it may be a new range of KK models with Pads from Maschine and brains from M+ integrated. A standalone unit that will compete with “some other” brand.

To be honest, not sure if NI will ever create anything standalone again. I guess they are out of hardware game… so far, no updates for a long time.

ScoopDogg

@D-One you are a shill. I’ve been an NI user since 2012. Since I’ve seen you in the forums, but never joined in or commented, you have always come across as an apologist and a shill. You skirt around glaring issues with this company and it’s annoying. NI is no more. They were awful with updates and letting the community know what’s going on, they are even worse now because they’re probably done. You say you can’t engaged when you see comments like “ni fanboys” but it’s the truth. You deny the truth. This forum is like an apple subreddit. Nothing but sycophants, and the one’s that express valid anger and disappointment get thumbed down by fanboys aka sycophants.

nightjar

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/89942#Comment_89942

@ScoopDogg ... you are not paying very good attention. NI has turned a corner this year. The chaos of acquisitions is starting to subside.

A vision forward is becoming clearer for the Komplete/Kontakt environment. We will be happy/unhappy in different degrees depending on our individual situations.

From what I can see of this emerging vision, I think it will be a strong performer in the marketplace of creative tools.

darkwaves

Are you sure you're not getting D-One confused with someone else? That's a pretty hilarious take about someone that's very critical of NI.

Braz

Wow D-One is not a shill at all.

Big shoutout to him for helping others and posting interesting thoughts

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