Native Instruments Software Quality

echofriendly

Why does everyone consider Native Instruments a Joke Company with trash products now? when I was kid it was basically the best stuff but now all I hear is their software is buggy and VSTs are uninstalling and reinstalling completely when they update since they don't have competent update pipelines. did they lose a bunch of their good staff?

PoorFellow

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/31298/native-instruments-software-quality

did they lose a bunch of their good staff?

[Jokingly : ] No , they just started worshiping the NTKDaemon and just needs to learn to Dameon the Daemon

DunedinDragon

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/31298/native-instruments-software-quality

"Everyone" doesn't think such things. I think you have to bear in mind the number of people using the products world-wide and the number of people on this forum complaining. In my case and in many cases the NI software is and has been working perfectly over the last 4 years through all the upgrades. But I don't come on here and incessantly go on about my success. In fact a forum like this is a perfect place for people to rant publicly about their frustrations when something doesn't work or doesn't work the way THEY want it to. That's simply the nature of social media.

What IS true is that this most recent set of upgrades represent a pretty big deviation from the older architecture used on the products in the past. This is pretty much a necessity as there have been some developments in the underlying technical ways of doing these type of things that all manufacturers are moving to adopt in order to have a greater range of capabilities in the future.

I liken this to what happened in the guitar modeling area of music back in the mid 2010's. Early modelers had been around for more than a decade, but were limited by the underlying speed of the chips used. That changed in the mid 2010's with a new generation of chips causing a big scramble among the vendors to get new products to market, many of which suffered because they lacked many of the features from the past, but that quickly corrected itself such that we now have a wide range of very capable modelers in all sizes well beyond what was available before.

In all of these cases, then and now, you always have dependencies on outside companies such as Apple and Microsoft as they have their own agenda and schedule of upgrades for a much broader range of customers. Ideally these upgrades shouldn't (and commonly don't) affect the installed base of customers, but this time it did which caused a lot of unexpected problems that had to be resolved both at NI and at Apple (as well as other dependent products such as DAWs) before moving on with new features scheduled for the new software.

Of course most users have no idea of the complexities involved in getting these things worked out. They just know their stuff isn't working and features they were expecting in the short term were not being delivered and many lash out from frustration on a forum like this.

JesterMgee

They have lost a lot of talented people over the years, some of which walked out after being frustrated themselves and have clearly had ongoing issues for some time. Issues I see as a long time user is just a VERY slow and unreliable release cycle for improving their own software and a shift in focus into more content libraries, cross partnerships and subscription traps instead of innovative products, like most money pit companies. The KK MK3 is all nice but then they coupled it with the terrible update of the KK software.

One of the biggest issues I have found (not speaking for everyone) is they lack actually listening to users and constructively acting on issues unless they are macOS problems. They take things in but seem to deliver almost nothing that anyone asks for and plenty of what no one asked for.

Each has their own opinion but I once really loved and respected the company, been a user since 2009 and invested a lot of time on these forums but have sat through so much promise only to be dissapointed, we are at a new cycle again with all the promise of a "new direction" and features in the software and still yet, little to even show after 8 months and a list of bugs and issues that still need to be ironed out again.

Of course most users have no idea of the complexities involved in getting these things worked out. They just know their stuff isn't working and features they were expecting in the short term were not being delivered and many lash out from frustration on a forum like this.

But then some of us know exactly what can be involved and ideally what should be happening and expected around a release. KK V3 for instance has so many features from V2 completely missing that were basic and needed features. Accessibility, Template editing, Efficient browser to name just a few things.NI isn't a small 2 bit company, they have been in operation for 20+ years so one expects by this stage they should not even have to be constantly "promising" things are happening and improvements are being implemented, that should be just showing in the releases and the response to user feedback. Even so they are finding it hard to address some basic features that were already a thing in V2 of KK for 6 years.

Some of the frustrated users like myself are far from just being upset off a whim, it's 10 years of lack luster action and constant promises of change and improvement with basically nothing to show. Then of course there are changes also that again, no one asked for and doesn't make sense. Like the forums here, just recently there has been a change to prevent users from editing a post after 24 hours for no good reason at all. Has never been an issue, every other forum and social media allows a user to manage their own information, edit and delete a post, not this forum. After 24 hours, NI now own what you posted even if you wish to make a change. That is pretty scummy.

Just look at the changelog for KK v2, 10 years and not a single feature other than sound previews and VST3 compatibility! Hundreds of very good suggestions for what I would call BASIC features (like a random select button) and nothing considered, not even a single one in the new software (oh, they did make the window resizable but even that was a struggle for them because it was not in the initial release and they had to "figure out how to make it happen" after release as I recall so the number 1 requested feature was still not even initially considered). What were they even doing back there for 10 years?

This is why some people are frustrated and rightly so. Sure not everyone will be as frustrated and some just use the plugins and not rely on things like KK or Maschine but it is clear many that do have been affected, not just on the forums that is always biased, but just google around and it's pretty common to see posts of frustration far more than praise.

Simchris

Everyone hates tacos, too. certainly n.i. has stumbled a bit, but they still make some awesome stuff, and their classic stuff has not blown up. i use their stuff all the time. generalizations are not useful in the music business.

LostInFoundation

Frankly…speaking more in general about how NI works (on their new devices, programs, updates, bug fixes, decisions…)…I used to be like you and always tried to guess “why are they doing this or that?”.

Lately, I just start to think that behind many of the things that are happening there simply is no “why” but just… a lack of competences and skills.

They make a lot of mistakes and they are unable to fix them (and, even worst, the fixes attempts just bring new mistakes and new issues…). Hence also the reason why often they are not answering (or their aggressiveness when they partially do) and the lack of explanations: it’s not easy to admit “guys, the reasons for the messed state in which we are now is… well…simply our incompetence”…

Or…if we want to be a little more positive towards them…let’s think they are underemployed and somebody is even rushing them.

“We want to release a new device/introduce a new subscription model/ update things and we are not going to do it until we are sure it will not mess up things already in place by testing everything properly before releasing” is NOT the way NI works nowadays.

But when I read things like “we worked on the new Kontrol MK3 for years” and see the unfinished state in which it has been released, with a huge list of “we will deliver this later” and a list of priorities that, if you are so unlucky to be interested in something that is not placed in the first three spots, will probably bring you to have your interested functionality delivered (IF ever…) when your fingers will be blocked by advanced arthritis and therefore unable to play a keyboard (since the pace on which they are working on even the very first one)…well…my mind goes back to the “incompetence” theory…

Or a new strategy in the scheme of “we removed the looper from Guitar Rig 6 but we are thinking to re-add it again later…just wait…wait…wait…wait…ok… we re-added it…but now it’s called Guitar Rig 7 and you have to pay us to have it back”

Maciej Repetowski

I did have my own ups and downs with NI, especially during the transition to Apple Silicon.

Their code is very fragile both on modern Macs and PCs and the legacy GUIs are just not being updated at a pace one considers acceptable.

Kontakt is still the sampler with the most high quality libraries available. The new controllers are amazing quality-wise.

NA needs to be made robust, no doubt about that. Software and firmware updates need to pick up pace.

People also need to realise that NI is no longer synth company. They are now sample content company.