March 2024 – a community update from our Chief Product Officer
Hey there, I’m Simon. It's been just over a year since I joined Native Instruments as Chief Product Officer. I hope you’ve noticed an increase in me and the other product managers engaging in our community forums recently, which is a trend that will continue. As part of that, I wanted to take the opportunity to look back on some of our recent releases in 2024 so far and give you a glimpse into what lies ahead.
What’s new in 2024 so far?
First up, let’s kick off with some of our recent launches, starting with VEA (Vocal Enhancement Assistant), a new AI-powered tool for podcasters, vloggers, and streamers. VEA uses some of the industry-leading technology from RX, Ozone, and Nectar to make your voice sound amazing, with three simple but powerful controls – Clean, Shape, and Boost. Unlike some products that only work with pre-recorded audio, we worked hard to make VEA work in real-time so you can also use it on live streams, live radio, and in-game. We’ve had some great feedback so far and are already thinking about how we could bring the technology we’re building for the next RX into a VEA 2.0.
Meanwhile, we’ve released several great new instruments for Kontakt. Electric Keys captures the sound of two iconic, vintage electric keyboards, while Schema Light and the brand-new Action Woodwinds add new dimensions to our cinematic series, with atmospheric, rhythmic soundscapes and stunningly realistic woodwind phrasing – perfect for film scoring. We also have the new Echo Versions expansion – classic dub sounds with an ultramodern twist, tailor made for Maschine and beyond.
We also launched three great new plugins for Plugin Alliance MEGA subscribers. The bx_enhancer brings a saturator, compressor, EQ, clipper, and auto-leveler into a single powerful mixing tool. The Cenozoix Compressor is a next-generation compressor that uses anti-derivative antialiasing (ADAA) technology to prevent high-frequency distortion. And HYPE from ADPTR Audio is a multi-band tool for compression, harmonics, and stereo enhancement.
Then there’s the return of Trash – iZotope’s much-loved distortion plugin. The team and I are excited about this for a few reasons. First, it sounds great: the two X-Y pads and over 600 distortion types and impulse responses make it just a lot of fun to play with. Second, there’s a free “lite” version, so anyone can get started. Third, it’s our first plugin for Logic Pro for iPad - making those X-Y pads especially fun to touch.
Our NKS ecosystem experienced significant growth in Q1. We were able to process over 130 third-party products that are compatible with our NKS hardware. Most of these products are made with Kontakt, our powerful instrument platform with over 100 active instrument-building partners.
And last but not least, we were thrilled to partner with the GRAMMY Award-winning Jacob Collier to build Audience Choir, a truly unique instrument that lets you dial in the sound of his live audience singing, as recorded during his most recent world tour. Oh, and it’s free!
Working hard on critical compatibility updates
The last few years have seen a once-in-a-generation change in desktop software. A combination of Apple Silicon, macOS Sonoma, and VST3 has meant a significant amount of work to update our products.
Across Native Instruments, iZotope, and Plugin Alliance, we have more than 500 software products, built on many different technologies and systems. Making them run on the latest platforms and operating systems is a non-trivial amount of work, requiring meticulous attention to detail and extensive testing.
Even so, I want to recognize that it’s taken longer than many of you expected. We’re working to ensure that when new operating system updates are released in the future, we’ll deliver compatibility updates faster. We’ll (finally) introduce fully Sonoma-compatible versions of Kontakt and Maschine – two of our most complex products – later this month.
In 2023, this work also reduced our capacity to invest in new products and features. With these updates behind us, we're excited to shift our focus back toward new products and feature development.
So what’s next?
Moving forward, from new creative instruments and audio tools to significant updates for existing products, there's plenty to look forward to.
Major updates for our key software platforms
Later this year, we’ll significantly expand what's possible in Kontakt, our flagship instrument platform. We're excited about the new sonic opportunities this will enable for both instrument builders and music producers. I can’t say much at this point, but there’ll be new ways to import and manipulate sounds, enhanced capabilities beyond just samples, and innovative methods to help you play instruments, not just control them.
And building on regular updates over the years, we recognize the need for bigger strides forward for Traktor and Maschine. Both will receive long-overdue software updates this year, with improvements that bring new creative tools and a clean, modern interface.
More capabilities for Kontrol
We released our new Kontrol S-Series MK3 keyboard in September. The MK3 is built on a completely different technical architecture from the MK2, which relied on the host computer for all the on-device graphics and functions. The MK3 has a powerful onboard processor, which lays the foundations for new features to come.
We’ll soon release an update that brings on-board Play Assist and MIDI template editing to the MK3. This will allow you to use Play Assist with any MIDI connected device, not just instruments running on a connected computer.
We’re also close to introducing some new accessibility features that will make Kontrol easier to use, particularly for visually impaired users. While these features may not be used by everyone, for those who do, they’re essential.
You can read more about the current state and future plans for Kontrol in Matt’s recent community post.
MIDI template zone editing
New, inspiring instruments and effects
We’ll roll out more instruments and expansions to expand your sonic palette, including another instrument built in partnership with a major music artist and a host of new additions for composers and sound designers.
We’re also close to releasing three new plugins from Plugin Alliance: a modern yet legendary-sounding bus compressor from Brainworx, a stonking new hybrid drum machine developed in partnership with Unfiltered Audio, and a unique saturation plugin from our friends at NEOLD, faithfully modeled from a one-off circuit using extremely rare vintage components.
Expanding what we offer through subscription
While many of our customers like to purchase perpetual licenses, others prefer the flexibility and lower up-front costs of a subscription. We offer several subscriptions today, including Plugin Alliance MEGA and iZotope Music Production Suite Pro.
Based on customer feedback, we’re working on an expanded version of Komplete Now, NI’s popular subscription service, to include everything you need to produce music – a wide range of instruments and sounds, inspiring creative effects, and powerful mixing and mastering tools, including products from Brainworx and iZotope, not just Native Instruments.
We also understand subscriptions aren’t for everyone, so don't worry – our perpetual bundles won't be going anywhere.
Making it easier to access and update your products
Finally, we're continuing to improve Native Access, our platform for managing desktop software installation and updates. Making this work reliably for over 500 products on many operating systems and hardware setups is no easy task – especially as operating systems and security tools add additional permissions and friction. But we recognise we have more work to do here – this is a priority for us in 2024.
Recent updates have included the ability to open applications directly from Native Access, automatic download resumptions in the case of network errors, and many improvements to how we handle queued downloads, with more reliability work to come.
Furthermore, we’re working on making it possible to distribute and activate products from iZotope and Brainworx through Native Access – enabling you to get all the software we offer in one place.
Stay tuned for more updates
That’s it for now, but I’ll be back in a few months with another update. And in the meantime, please let us know your thoughts below. We're always listening to your comments.
Comments
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In addition to the post shared by Simon, you can find a new post by our CEO in the NI blog: https://blog.native-instruments.com/embracing-2024/
Please note that this thread will be open for comments and questions until Friday 1PM CET :)
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If by hybrid drum machine you mean a mix of sample based and modelled drums/percussion that would be fantastic. Esp given it's from from Unfiltered Audio. I hope it will have NKS2 support
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Hi Simon
Thank you for your writeup.
The Traktor community is getting a tiny bit impatient with the progress. For about 2 years we have been told that certain features and bugfixes are "around the corner"
To ask bluntly: what is the holdup? Not enough ressources? Hard to solve problems? No dev wants to work on a 20 year old C++ codebase? :D
Also.. when does the private beta drop?
I hope you have a pleasant day.
Edit: Oh, and I want to say the community and Native Access team are doing a fantastic job :-* Good communication and visible changes.
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Simon
Pleased to meet you.
Thank you for the excellent update - look forward to seeing what's to come in 2024.
Cheers
VP
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Sounds like a plan. Let's wait to receive them.
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Thank you for stepping in and giving us some informations.
Would it be possible to have some more details about the just hinted Maschine and Traktor work in progress? (I know we can’t have full details, but a little more clearer hints at the direction taken would be already something)
As it is now, your update is almost only a recap of the things we already know (and probably that’s why you focused more on KK and Kontakt) with a little addition of “ for the other things, don’t worry, we will work on them”, which is more than welcome, but some more infos would really help us to “not worry” 😉.
And one last thought: you also hinted to some more new instruments and effects. While I do understand that a company needs new products to sell, I’m happy you underlined the improvements needed to your existing products (NA over all) as a priority.
A company with such a large portfolio (and, as you said, one built with so many different technologies) should prioritize being sure those products can work flawlessly, even if for a little while this would require slowing a little bit the releases of new versions of already existing fxs or new expansions or libraries.
Again: happy you recognize this. Maybe for keeping NI healthy a less larger portfolio but composed by constantly improving products is the way. And I’m sure that if users see their beloved (and already bought) products being improved, they will also understand the eventual need to pay the right price for some (really innovating) updates. Something that NI never took in consideration (why reinventing the wheel on something like Maschine just to put out a new product that will bring money when you can work building on top of it and ask the right price for the work done?).
NI is already too famous for abandoning things. It would be a nice changement for once to see it building on its foundations and its user base instead of starting a new house for new tenants. Maybe opening a platform like Maschine and its expansions to third party companies would help you to see the potential it can have (a little bit like Kontakt being used by so many companies to build and sell their libraries allows you to see it as an unavoidable member of your portfolio deserving a focus on innovating it, since it brings collateral sells)
So…to recap: thank you for the infos, a pity the less obscure chapters (Maschine and Traktor) deserved just a little paragraph not saying a lot and…treat your customers how they deserve to be treated 👍🏼
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Nice to see the comments about Native Access being improved. Really, that's the most important product you have as you can't deliver the other products without it. It needs to be made absolutely rock solid across all platforms, which at the moment it doesn't seem to be. It's a shame the beta program was discontinued because a lot of the current problems would have been spotted before it hit general release.
The other thing I think you need to look at is alternate delivery methods for when things go sideways. Hosting "older" products on Google drive is ok, but it doesn't look that professional when users get "That's been downloaded too much recently, please try later" messages. Ideally NA should allow you to download and install previous versions of products for the case when a newly released product breaks things. Offline installation and authorisation would be nice too for people who don't want their music computers online.
I'm very much looking forward to the Komplete Kontrol/Traktor/Maschine updates, hopefully we'll see those in beta very soon?
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hey @LostInFoundation - first, thank you for your constructive comment.
On providing more detail on Maschine and Traktor -- I'd love to, but it's a balance between signalling that we're working on something, and being specific about what and when (both of which can/will change from where we are today. The challenge is that things like people being out sick unexpectedly, or finding that feature X is much harder to build than we thought have a material impact on what we ship and when we ship it -- and I'd rather we underpromised and overdelivered as much as possible. That said, here's the latest (February) post from the Traktor team.
What I can say is that we've done a bunch of customer research, and feel that the features we're prioritising are some of the most-requested by the community in both cases -- and the teams building them (who are among the most power of power users!) are jazzed about what they're working on.
As to your point about updates/bugfixes vs new features -- again, it's a balance -- both the extremes of only building new things and not caring about stability is wrong - but so is setting the bar that everything must work "flawlessly" before we ship anything new. That means we'd underserve our customers who want new tools/sounds to expand their creative toolset.
Kontakt Instruments, for example, as we build more of them, actually create very little maintenance overhead: As long as we maintain Kontakt, they'll continue to work. That's why we're continuing to release more awesome new Kontakt instruments and Expansions at the same time as improve the core of the Kontakt platform.
What we are trying to do is rationalise the number of distinct software platforms we have to support, such that we can focus on making those more reliable and stable. Desktop software is a notoriously hostile place in which to distribute products -- things that work perfectly for the vast majority of people might not work at all for a few people with a particular desktop software setup. But we continue to ship fixes to address bugs like this as we find them. Maschine 2 software was released in 2012, and we're about to ship v2.18 -- the 18th "minor" version which will include yet more bugfixes.
While some people may feel we get the balance wrong -- what I can say is that we have robust internal conversations about this which is right, and healthy. Our job is to balance building new things (e.g. Maschine, Traktor, Kontakt) as well as maintaining our existing product portfolio.
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Also a welcome and thank you from me @Simon_NI but also a thumbs up for the good quality response by @LostInFoundation 👍🏻
Hopefully you’re willing to give some insides on Traktor, but especially on Maschine / M+ like it was promised before:
Thanks in advance!
Regards,
Maik
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@lord-carlos Thanks for the question -- and putting it bluntly is fine with me!
A ~20 year old codebase certainly doesn't help -- but our teams improve it as we go. Apple Silicon & Sonoma also slowed us down a bit, but the team is motivated to be focussing on new user features now.
Since 2022 Traktor has released 10+ updates with hundreds of bug and compatibility fixes. We also released the X1 MK3 and we introduced the Pattern Player and the Ozone Maximiser. The X1 Mk3 represents the first in a new generation of Traktor hardware, so we actually had to do a bunch of work in the desktop software to support it.
And yes, there's some hard-to-solve problems. Stem separation is non-trivial: getting it working reliably and sounding great takes time. And refreshing the interface in an old code base is hard -- but re-writing everything from scratch take too long.
I feel good about the amount of investment we're putting into Traktor -- and the team is working hard to move us forward.
As to when the private beta's start to become available, the answer is soon -- but there's no point shipping a beta when we're not yet ready to react to the feedback. Rest assured: getting pre-launch feedback from a small group of trusted beta testers is a key part of every product development cycle.
And I have shared your feedback re Native Access with that team.
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@MaikR - I can't share details of what/when we're doing for Maschine - but the team has been working on taking all the user/community feedback, estimating the effort & time required for key features, and then working across product/design/engineering to come up with a clear scope for the next major release. This takes time as it's easier, for example, to work on two features in the same part of the app rather then two features that are totally separate. We're now aligned on what we want to ship -- but as with all software development, estimates can be wrong, and unforseen issues can arise -- which is why we can't publicly commit to a scope, features, or date at this time.
But the team's focus is in the right things, and they're working on them in the right order.
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Yep, all plausible and understandable.
Did you also read the posting I was referring to? It’s not about new, major updates, but about ‘information’ on the Audio Interface compatibility issues.
Regards,
Maik
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Hi @Simon_NI - appreciate these heads up. Certainly saying something is greatly appreciated and gives us an idea of what to expect.
Re: Maschine, a lot of users would expect a hardware upgrade based on the recent S-Series refresh. That refresh was backwards compatible (aka: MK2 devices are supported. So on a similar note, can you ellaborate at all on the Maschine software update (guessing a potential v3.0?) in terms of whether it is planned to continue supporting MK3, even if a MK4 is on the cards?
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Hi, @Simon_NI, and thank you for the update! I just want to reinforce a couple of things mentioned by @LostInFoundation .
As it is now, your update is almost only a recap of the things we already know...
He's right, there was not much more in your post than we already know, even those of us who don't use Traktor, and those others of us who have Maschine but don't play in that world very often.
NI is already too famous for abandoning things.
Yes it is, and the list is way too long, for those of us who joined the NI ecosystem way back in Komplete 2 times. The loss of Kore 2 about 10 years now, that probably damaged customer relationships with NI more than you know. And then there's the loss of Rig Kontrol and most recently, the loss of Komplete Kontrol S MK1 keyboards for those using Komplete Kontrol app Version 3.
We get it, stuff gets old and can't be coded for the NI ecosystem anymore. But in two of the things I mentioned above (Kore and Rig Kontrol), the userbase was ignored for long periods of time before the official announcements of deprecation were actually made public, and then on top of that, NI has refused to leave us with any possible way to work up our own drivers or software to keep these great old devices useful for SOMETHING for a few more years. I don't like buying NI hardware with the end-of-life plan automatically being, "well, it's going to have to eventually go into the hazardous waste pipeline, probably in 10 short years".
NI, please make the commitment to stop forcing us to send our old NI gear to landfills all across the world!
And finally, a big gripe of the power-user community: Don't remove power user features! The latest example happened with Komplete Kontrol/Kontakt and the ability for power users to work up and maintain presets and banks for community sharing. @JesterMgee can add much more detail to this and other issues than I can. Jester is one of those power users who has generously donated his time and labor to the community over many years, but now with the latest versions of NI apps and instruments, he and his collaborators have suffered major setbacks. This should never happen in a healthy and robust vendor/customer relationship. Power user features, even if they were created by accident, should never just be removed under the excuse that we're cleaning up the back-end code, or we're using new tools now and it was easier to remove this old code than it would have been to keep it.
I'll let Jester (or anybody else) add their thoughts to this, and maybe they can give some better examples and explanations for this phenomenon.
Thanks again, Simon. Much appreciated! Oh, and one last thing: @Matthew_NI, @Jeremy_NI, (and so many other mods too, such as @PoorFellow) are doing a superb job here in the forums, and you should know that we are grateful for their contributions.
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Thank you! looking forward to the arrival of the Midi template to decide to buy the S61 MK3 (I don't use software, nor a computer, I use a synth and I only need to send 8 different parts to the S61 MK3). I hope the update arrives as soon as possible:-)
Regards!
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