Maschine Hardware
Does the decision to retire software support for these products mean the Maschine product line is being discontinued?
No, in fact, this is part of NI’s longer-term commitment to Maschine. Maschine is a complex product from a technical point of view. Technologies and software evolve on a near exponential scale, while hardware products remain in the time capsule of how they were originally built. That introduces certain limitations on what we can do on the software side whilst still supporting these devices. As with all businesses our resources are finite, so to continue improving Maschine and to develop new features we need to part ways with some older products.
Comments
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So what are you really trying to say NI?
On one hand you are saying you have a longer-term commitment to Maschine but …………. on the other hand you are saying that you are no longer going to support older (some might say better, retro or in-fact still working quite fine indeed and are still very good hardware devices) that you are wanting us to just throw them in the trash because you don't care about loyal long term community members and that you want to pollute the world with the 'not supported HW with software upgrades" ………. this is a very poor move and it seems to indicate that you are not responsible for the hardware or the costs associated with not supporting old hardware. Well I ask you do you want to consider that other companies older hard ware are now still working and are considered cool and retro by many in the beats industry……….
I think you need to seriously consider honoring your community, your hardware lifespan environmental and financial sustainability obligations………Many of your loyal community have purchasaed VST, packs and other software whilst using 'older Maschine hardware' so these will also be of no value if you discontinue software support.
Not all of us has cash to burn on buying new Maschine controllers, and honestly love our older controllers and see no reason or purpose to be forced to buy a new one and throw away our old Maschines.
One (of probably thousands} not happy NI community member and retro Maschine hardware users.
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NI annoy me with their lack of updates and transparency but this move seems fairly understandable. The HW you are talking about will still work, its not just going to break, its just no longer going to recieve upgrades. To be fair, NI has supported Mk1 and MkII for around 14 years now. I have never seen Apple support an Iphone that long, have you? Its the nature of the beast, if they had just put out support for 3 or 4 years then yes I would agree with you but both have had a decade plus of upgrades and support which seems fair and like I say, they will still work,you will still be able to use them as you always have to make music, they will still work with the expansions you have, they just wont recieve support going forward.
Look at it this way, the Akai MPC5000 came out just one year before Maschine, when was the last time Akai updated it? NI only just announced stopping support for HW almost the same age as that MPC just the other day.
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Software that relies on hardware have to be developed together. You can't have new features in software on older hardware that doesn't support those features so the hardware has to be developed in line with the software. Look no further than the MK3 S series keyboards. In order to use the new features of KK, Kontakt 8 and NKS 2 a new keyboard was needed. It's the price of progress and no one is forcing you to upgrade, your existing gear will still do what it's always done just without the new software updates.
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it seems you guys don’t want to see the reality of things: the market is not what it used to be.
Back in the days, you used to buy a product and have it IN OUR HANDS. Installers, activation codes,… everything you need. In THIS case (and only THIS), you would be right: everything would work as before, just no updates.
But maybe you didn’t notice how things work now. They created a system that keeps you DEPENDENT from them. It’s enough they decide to remove something from Native Access and your ability to install it, authorize it and use it will be gone.
Maybe you are so lucky to not be around from enough to have many NI products that you can’t use anymore. The exact same rhetoric of “it’s not that it won’t work anymore. You can still use it as before, just no updates” has already been used many times. But…try to go down the rabbit hole and see what happens if you want to use your Kore, Guitar Rig Kontrol, or one of the many abandoned software…
You guys seems to analyze the things without any knowledge of what happened before. And to accept everything because “this is how things goes now”… Well…some of us don’t agree: if we bought Guitar Rig 3 with a Guitar Rig Kontrol and the things they do are more than enough for us, we want to be able to still use it (in the end, this is what we paid for: to USE IT). It’s our business if to use it we accept to still be on Windows 95. It should not be a decision taken by the company that cashed the money.
To conclude: all the things you say could be right…IF ONLY NI would be correct enough to say “we don’t want to develop/support this product anymore. Here are the installation files and activation codes for all the customers that bought it, so they can still use it”.
But the reality of things is another one: instead of putting efforts in giving us new products/features so valid that will CONVINCE us to update/upgrade, they prefer to try to FORCE us to follow them by making things really difficult for the ones that don’t want/don’t need/can’t afford to buy something new (maybe just because they are already happy with what they have…a concept the industry has been so able to cancel: “you NEED the new and shiny thing…no matter if it offers little or nothing more: IT’S SHINY!”)
BTW…just to let you know: at the beginning of this year, they already decided and announced that old NA1 will be retired at the beginning of next year. Decision taken no matter the state of the problematic, malfunctioning and definitely not ready NA2.
Are you sure you will still be able to authorize the products you bought and use? Or that after a little while they won’t remove them? Because…you know…they must sell Alicia’s Electric keys now…so…your copy of Scarbee Vintage keys could be a hindrance for their plans…
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Those controllers are dumb devices, they completely rely on the software and drivers for their operation, hence not even basic standalone MIDI capabilities. Nothing technical holds any developer back to keep providing drivers.
To cancel support for old (USB based controller) hardware is a decision - not a necessity to move forward with the host software!
It just wouldn’t generate significant revenue for NI.
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It could also be a UX decision. They stated they couldn't implement live slicing on the mk3 mikro because they couldn't create a user experience they liked. Maybe they feel changes coming with maschine 3 will make the UX on the old controllers too poor for their standards.
Or maybe they have data showing too few use the old devices to warrant spending dev resources on keeping compatibility.
Hmm; I wonder if "no longer supported" means they're also being removed from the controller editor. That would be nuclear.
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At this point wouldnt guitar rig 3 be almost twenty years old? If you still had it installed on an old enough OS, doesnt it still work? Wouldnt it be 32 bit though? Sorry, I never used it so Im not sure but I agree, if NI somehow broke it on your PC after installation then yes thats super shady, how do they do that?
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@Rhythm Smith said:
On one hand you are saying you have a longer-term commitment to Maschine but …………. on the other hand you are saying that you are no longer going to support older
you are wanting us to just throw them in the trash because you don't care about loyal long term community members and that you want to pollute the world with the 'not supported HW with software upgrades"
Maschine is a lot, it's not just Mk1/Mk2 controllers, so Maschine continues on, MK1/Mk2's do not, to a degree. So, there is a long-term commitment to Maschine as product and SW but a controller is just a controller… It will die eventually, 10-15 years is not bad run in terms of longevity.
You aren't forced to trow anything away, you can continue using Mk1/Mk2 with Maschine V2, the same thing you have been doing and what you paid for… None of this is being taken away. If you're on Windows you probably will be able to use it for many years, if you're an MacOS then eventually you wont be able to update to the OS.
I understand this is infuriating but, this narrative that all of sudden your older controller will stop working is simply not true… It just spreads panic.
Indeed. They can paint it however they want but IMO it's just to save dev resources and move forward faster.
I doubt they will touch Controller Editor, if that happens then they would have to provide a way for people to install older versions.
In terms of revenue, I do wonder if the amount of MK1/MK2 users buying v3 upgrade couldn't in a way justify the dev time.
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Back in the day, I read an interview with one of my favorite producers, who said they were using a 25 year old PC w/ an early version of Cubase. Kinda sad that tech companies are making it more difficult to maintain stuff for more than 10 years…a lot of them expect you to upgrade every 5, or less. 15 years is okay for Mk1 & Mk2, but 25 is much better. I think a more consumer-friendly solution would be to compromise a bit; to add as many Maschine 3.0 features to the old controllers via new "shift functions" or button combinations…and anything that couldn't translate well to the old controllers could just be for Mk3 and above. I'm pretty sure both Elektron & Polyend have added features to their previous generations of hardware…I know the original Tracker got a bunch of upgrades after the Tracker+ was released…It doesn't reach feature-parity with the newest iteration, but I think that was a really good move for them to make.
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back in the day I was using a Apple g4 and a early version of cubase 1.6 but for me to use a newer version of cubase i.e 4 , 5 years later , I had to buy a new computer .
as already mentioned in the various threads about this topic , you can still use your mk1/ mk2 with maschine v2 and if you’re on windows you’ll probably be ok for a few more years , if you’re on mac , you’ll probably have to avoid updating your os .
do you think polyend etc are gonna be updating the tracker in 15 years , or elektron are gonna be updating overbridge to work with 15 year old products1 -
Comparing dedicated sw controllers to standalone grooveboxes, hw synths or instruments makes no sense to me… If you want to use something as-is for 40 years then get one of those, they're for life until it breaks, but do not generally give 15 years of updates/improvements.
With that said, I wish there was a law that forced companies to release the source code for any product that is discontinued so that at least indie developers could keep working on them to give it a new life ans avoid the landfill - Even if in this case that would mean only a MIDI Mode driver… The problem is source code can contain tons of IP and facilitate reverse engineering the current gen.
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I'm sure I've mentioned it here previously; but I completely ignored maschine when first released because of this "issue". Mk3 people are going to be in the same position sooner or later. It's not "if". It's "when".
M+ is tricky. It shouldn't be in this position because the functionality is built into the device. Maybe you lose the option of using it with a computer, but you still have standalone. That said; it prompted me to log in before I could use it. If I have to reset my device 20 years from now and it's a brick because they've taken down activation servers… "mad" isn't strong enough to describe what I'd feel.
I remember feeling iffy about M+ when I first set it up, but I don't remember exactly why. I decided to reset it to test. It prompted me to setup wifi. Then go to an NI site to enter a code and sign in. I vaguely remember it asking me to enter my password last time; but this is better. However, you can't cancel it. The device is a brick until "activated". It would be one thing if this is just a gate in place to access their little sample packs; but it's a gate that stops any use of the device completely. If NI gets sold off to behringer or something and I have to reset this thing later… Yeah; now I remember why I was considering returning it immediately. I'm mad just thinking about it.
Funny enough; it prompted me to register after that - and failed several times. It gave a 'workaround' of visiting https://ni.de/register, but that page was throwing an error and wouldn't even load. lol. It seems their URL shortener service might have been having temporary hiccups while I was testing.
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That’s exactly the point: M+ is a standalone…but differently from how they made standalone grooveboxes, hw synths and music instruments till now, you still need “permission” from NI in order to be able to use it. If they decide to remove their activation, it’s gone.
THIS is the problem. Not for how long they update it, if 15 years is enough time,…
The problem is the whole “you must be connected to us to use something” system they put in place.
They keep their hands even on the products you paid for.
People always love to talk about updates, features additions, support…
The only things I would like is to be able to use my product
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The same can be said about any NI product or by other companies that have activations with online check, are you also this worried they will remove your “permission” to use the latest Komplete 15 and other products you might use? If so, then this is not an M+ specific conversation… It's about online checking in general.
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Well…the answer is…yes I am! 😂
Specially in these times where companies come and go…today they are here…tomorrow you don’t know…
And specially with a company like NI, that thinks they have the right to change the EULA just because they notice that saying “
Should Native Instruments for whatever reasons no longer be able to fulfill its obligations to deliver the activation key, it will provide the Licensee with a key which ensures the continued use of the Licensed Software independent of changes of the computer.”is not in their favor. And so they just remove it.Before, I didn’t mind too much if a company would fail: what I bought from them was in my hands and I was able to use it, them still existing or not.
Imagine if they apply the same policy to cars: when you turn the keys of your BMW, an online system decide if you are allowed to turn it on or not. Then BMW fails and you turning the keys doesn’t have any effect 😶
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