Future of Massive X

chk071

"While it's important for a company to make ends meet at the end of the day, it's also important for the long term financial well being not loose those who made up the core constituency of the user base."

Purely speculative, and not important, when this "core constituency" completely breaks away.

Why do you think NI mainly serves the beat makers and sample shooters now? Because they decided in a moment of enlightenment that that is what they want to do now? Or, because the market dictated that that's the main buyership now?

It's always the same when you discuss this kind of thing. People are stuck to the way things were 20 to 25 years ago, and they think it can always go on like that, even when the market is totally different than it was 20 to 25 years ago.

Vocalpoint

"People are stuck to the way things were 20 to 25 years ago, and they think it can always go on like that, even when the market is totally different than it was 20 to 25 years ago"

Not only stuck but totally resistant to ever really admitting to themselves that the market has changed and any company that actually wants to survive is chasing different fish now.

This whole concept of "core customer" is not even a thing any more - if it ever was.

Just because I bought some widget/product/thing from some company 20 years ago - does not make me "core" anything. It makes me a guy who bought something 20 years ago - and that's it.

VP

heinrichz

Thanks guys, points well taken about how business under capitalism works and indeed it's not that I don't understand our economic system. Pointless lamenting about the olden days and I've certainly experienced many of my production tools and techniques become obsolete over the years from splicing tapes to syncing up loops or calculating delay times. I do not miss any of that actually. As someone who always embraced the new technologies and has learned how to create sounds with many different synths, I realize that this might also become a somewhat an obsolete craft especially when I'm teaching it in music schools.

I know my teaching activities that many beginners are totally happy with using presets or turning a few macro knobs without understanding the underlying techniques and I actually have no problem with that as long as they manage to do something interesting in this way. I guess that's where the market is for some of these companies now.
However some students point out some interesting new synths by other companies which means that there is still an interest in "quaint" synth programming and thus also a market.
I yet have to hear if these instruments are sonically on the level of a Reaktor or MX.

I envision AI assisted sound design will be the next technology to embrace for me and I'm looking forward to explore it as part of my process.
If I will continue programming synths the old way, it's because I enjoy the process of it.

Vocalpoint

Well - I still love to “program” my synths - for me it simply that Massive X is no longer something I need to go to with at least a half dozen better options now.

VP

DS99

Yes, there are many other synthesizers on the market. But Massive X has the best-sounding filters and much more.

iNate

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/160325#Comment_160325

I've basically stopped buying products.

There is value in user experience. They dont' seem to agree with that, but that's basically the only thing I spend money on these days. Improvements that make me hate using the software less, or like using it more.

I may upgrade to Kontakt 8, but other than that I don't really care anymore. They are far too slow with these things, and any improvements are likely to come with showstopping regressions. I am on the verge of an anxiety attack any time I have to update anything from NI these days.

iNate

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/160495#Comment_160495

Beatmakers are going to want some of this stuff as much or more than producers in some other genres. They actually use Synths quite a bit, especially since a lot of up and coming beatmakers cannot afford to clear samples on all of their beats. This requires a large content pool to keep overuse to a minimum (Samples and Drum/Melodic Loops, etc.).

Play series isn't a beatmaker thing. It's just a way for them to cheaply put together Kontakt Libraries that they sell at a low price for maximum reach. It's probably one of their most profitable ventures, right now. They just so happen to partner them with Expansions, and they have done a few Beat-Driven Music Genre Expansiosn recently (expected, given Maschine is a core target segment for Expansions).

But I wouldn't say the new R&B Expansion is really hitting at the market segments you're actually referring to :-P

Besides, there is a lot of crossover going on in music production.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/160642#Comment_160642

The issue with Massive X is not sound. It sounds good. It's issue is the user experience and a lack of long-requested features that should have been delivered considering how long it took for them to get it out there.

But, they rushed it out, and now that it isn't quite performing as well as anyone would have expected they will use that as a rationale for deprioritization.

They have gone 10 steps beyond "risk averse."

chk071

You can see with the recently released Traktor Pro 4 why NI doesn't do much about synths at the moment. As I always said, their audience is a different one to the one back in the days. It consists of DJs, beat makers, and people who do music with something like Maschine or Ableton Push. We synth users are a niche for them.

Not complaining, just noting.

iNate

Beat Makers are synth users.

What are you talking about… Traktor Pro is a product for DJs. Of course the improvements will be made towards that market, the same way improvements for Maschine software are likely to be biased toward the beat making market segment[s].

The core issue is that they are not competitive in the soft synth market, so it makes little sense for them to invest in developing these virtual instruments - or, at least, prioritize their development.

It sucks for the people who want them to, but that's the reality of the situation.

They have lost this battle to products like Serum, Pigments and Vital. There is really nothing they can do to turn this around because the production market is very bandwagon'y. This product needed to establish its reputation on release. It did not. And because of that, most people now avoid it - assuming they even considered it to be an option.

Anyone who does a Google search about this synth is bombarded with a wall of disappointment. The damage was done when they decided to rush it to market before it was properly finished off in an attempt to make the next Komplete bundle upgrade look better.

Arturia and others even have much better synth expansions, etc.

The issue with Massive X is that there is really no reason for anyone to care about it, and it probably gets used less across the market than AIR Hybrid 3, at this point.

It was a complete failure of a product launch, and they were too slow to react to really "right the ship."