February 2025 – a community update from our Chief Product Officer
In January, a few of us from the team at Native Instruments, iZotope, and Plugin Alliance were at NAMM in LA for what is the biggest event in the music tech year. It was great to connect with our community, our customers, and many of our partners.
And, in fact, partnerships was the central theme of what we announced…
Expanding NKS to more hardware devices
Komplete Kontrol v3 will include integration with controllers from Akai Professional, M-Audio, Nektar, Novation and Korg.
NKS - the Native Control Standard - is the technology that enables seamless integration between hardware and not only NI’s software, but more than 2000 instruments and effects from more than 250 brands. Until now, the hardware side of that integration has been limited to NI’s own hardware. But many people use our software with other companies' hardware, which is why we’re delighted to expand the reach of NKS to devices from our 5 hardware partners: Akai Professional, M-Audio, Novation, Nektar and Korg.
In the next few weeks we’ll release an update to Komplete Kontrol which allows owners of supported hardware to select their device from a menu, and then the knobs, faders, and buttons for the default hardware configuration will be automatically mapped to the parameters of any NKS instrument or effect loaded within Komplete Kontrol.
And to enable owners of these supported devices to experience the benefits of NKS, they’ll soon get access to one of the three flavours of Komplete Select for free, empowering millions of creators to use our professional grade sound, no matter where they are in their music-making journey.
This is just the start. We’re working on a way to bring deeper integration to our partners’ devices. More on that in future updates.
NI Expansions and Play Series on Akai Professional’s MPC standalone devices
Also at NAMM, we released a curated selection of 5 Expansions and 5 Play Series instruments for Akai Professional’s MPC standalone platform.
By bringing a selection of NI’s sounds to the MPC, we’re expanding the number of creators who have access to these tools beyond the desktop and NI’s own hardware. It is something people have been asking for for a while.
It has been great to watch what musicians have created as they’ve got their hands on these new creative tools. And positive response to launch means we’re already starting to think about the next set of sounds we could bring to the MPC Standalone platform. Let me know in the comments if there’s specific content you’ll like to see available on the MPC.
I’ve read a lot of people questioning why our two companies are now working together. The reason is simple: NI and Akai share a common mission: to empower and enable creators to express themselves and explore new musical possibilities. While NI’s strengths include our huge, high quality library of sounds and our desktop software, Akai’s MPC series of standalone devices are legendary in their own right.
A quick note that the MPC Editions are not the same as the Expansions and Play Series on the desktop. The MPC Editions were rebuilt from the samples-up for the MPC with presets tailored to that platform crafted by our amazing Sound Design team. This is why they’re sold as different products vs the desktop versions.
For those using Maschine Plus, we plan to bring more content, including some Play Series instruments to that platform later in 2025 once we upgrade the on-device software. More on that below.
Leap
Leap is NI’s creative playground for loops and one-shots. We launched Leap with 12 curated Expansions back in September – and it’s been exciting to watch what people have created - including building their own custom Leap Kits.
We recently launched our 13th Leap Expansion – Italo Disco – and last month at NAMM in LA, we announced the Leap SDK which makes it possible for producers anywhere to create their own Leap Expansions and make them available to anyone using Kontakt 8.
While there’s a bit of a learning curve to develop your own Kontakt instrument, Leap Expansions are much easier to learn to create – with very little coding knowledge required. We’re excited to see producers bring new Leap Expansions to market that spark even more creative ideas.
New instruments, sounds, and effects
As well as these updates, we released a number of other products across NI, iZotope and Brainworx:
- Claire – a new instrument meticulously sampled from a world-class Italian concert grand piano known for its unmatched tonal clarity, depth, and power
- Claire: Avant – a new take on the Claire Piano with a focus on extended articulations and preparations.
- Session Guitarist: Electric Storm – an eight string metal guitar drop-tuned to span five octaves.
- SPL Machine Head – a new digital tape saturator on Plugin Alliance based on classic hardware from SPL
- Cremona Quartet Ensemble – crafting detailed string arrangements is easier than ever with four of the world’s most precious instruments.
- Play Series: Discoteca Keys & Discoteca Drums – capture the golden era of Italo Disco with these retro-futuristic instruments, and there’s a Leap expansion to go with it
- bx_refinement V3 – clearer, smoother mixes with the latest version of the mixing multitool from Brainworx
- Hot List Expansion and Play Series LUXA – developed in collaboration with Snipe Young, this pair of products offers a genre-blending toolkit perfect for chart-topping pop R&B, modern alternative pop, pop rap, and K-pop.
- NEOLD OLDTIMER: 60s bucket brigade delay and 70s digital systems in one dual-topology delay.
Another tool for Kontakt
We launched the Chords and Phrases Tools as part of Kontakt 8 to help spark new creative ideas and overcome writer's block. We’ve been delighted to see the strong uptake of these new features which are now being used by a significant proportion of Kontakt users.
Last week we launched the 3rd Tool: Patterns – which is available as a free update for both Kontakt and Kontakt Player, plus we have more creative Tools launching later this year.
We also recently announced the Tools SDK which enables developers anywhere to build new Tools and Leap Expansions for the huge community of active Kontakt users.
Performance improvements for Kontakt 8 and Kontakt 7
We’re continuing to make Kontakt faster and more reliable, with the latest version of Kontakt 8 (v8.2) including more than 60 bug fixes and performance enhancements. But for those still happy with Kontakt 7, we also back-ported the performance improvements to the final version of Kontakt 7 so your old projects will load faster into the future.
And for instrument builders, the new UI framework that enables high-resolution and resizable interfaces is now ready to develop against – meaning customers will start to see more new high-DPI, resizable instruments launching in the coming months.
Native Access: more stable, more reliable
For the last 6 months, the Native Access team has been laser-focused on one mission: improving software reliability and install success rate. While Native Access works well for many users – we’ve consistently heard feedback from others who’ve encountered challenges with installation and authorisation. Ensuring you can access and update your NI products is our #1 priority, so our team has been diligently focused on strengthening this area. Installing software may seem straightforward, but reliably supporting a number of different platforms, operating systems, and products over a few million endpoints presents unique challenges that we’re diligently tackling.
Our team has shipped a number of fixes to bugs related to installation and authorisation. We now also provide a way for you to share more detailed information about your system when contacting Customer Care. This helps us better get to the root of some of the more complex issues people are facing. As a result, we’ve seen a decline in error rates, as well as a dramatic reduction in the number of people contacting us for help with installation and authorisation. While this work is never done, in 2025 you’ll see us spending more time making Native Access the centre of your experience on the desktop, including new features that will help you get more out of your existing library of NI and iZotope products.
Sequoia compatibility
We invested significant time and energy ensuring more of our products were macOS Sequoia-ready more quickly than for macOS Sonoma. All iZotope products and Brainworx products are now Sequoia-ready as are Native Access, Maschine 3, Komplete Kontrol 3, Traktor Pro 4, Kontakt 7 and 8, and most other NI products. We also shipped a long overdue update to Battery 4 to ensure it works on the latest operating systems. While macOS Sequoia was a less disruptive update than Sonoma, we still have to test all our products on different hardware devices and in every major DAW which takes considerable time and effort.
A TEC Award for RX 11
The TEC Awards, held every year as part of NAMM, celebrate technical achievement in the world of audio. Competition is fierce, which is why we were delighted that RX 11 won the TEC Award for best signal processing software. Huge congratulations to the teams at iZotope who worked hard to make RX 11 yet another significant step forward in the field of music and audio repair and restoration.
So, what’s next?
Our teams have a packed roadmap for 2025 and there’s some things I’ll be excited to share a little closer to the time – but here’s some new products and features you can expect in the next few months.
iZotope Catalyst Series
2024 saw the launch of the new Catalyst series of intelligent plugins from iZotope with Plasma (a saturator), Aurora (a reverb), and Cascadia (a delay) rounding out the set. Each Catalyst plugin focussed on one important mixing problem – and with the success of the series so far, we’ll be releasing more Catalyst-series plugins throughout 2025.
Refreshed 3D reverbs
The Exponential Audio name has been synonymous with professional, high quality reverb effects for years – but the current products (Stratus 3D and Symphony 3D) are showing their age – and it was hard for us to add new features into their legacy codebase.
With the continuing growth of spatial audio, it’s time to give these incredible-sounding algorithms a new lease of life – so soon we’ll release a new product which brings together the Exponential Audio reverb algorithms with iZotope’s unmasking technology to create a modern, professional reverb designed for music and post production pros – especially those working with spatial audio. Stay tuned for more.
More for Maschine
As you may have read from Chris, we have some updates coming to Maschine. Following the release of Maschine v3 software last year, we’ll bring Custom Chord sets – another highly requested feature to Maschine 3 in the next few days after a successful beta-testing period.
Following that, we’ll ship an update to Maschine Plus that brings several new FX and some key bugfixes, before bringing Maschine 3 to Maschine Plus in Q2. As part of this, we’re also working to update the version of Kontakt that runs on Maschine Plus from Kontakt 6 to the latest Kontakt 8. In combination with the bounce-to-audio feature in Maschine 3, this will finally allow us to bring more content including some Play Series instruments to Maschine Plus later in the year.
I know some of you have been frustrated with the limited updates to Maschine, and the Maschine Plus. The truth is that nearly all of our software development capacity has been focussed on building the completely new technology platform that underpins the Kontrol S-Series MK3 – and that has taken resources away from the platform used in the Maschine Mk3 and Maschine Plus. And we’re now shifting some development energy back towards Maschine as you can see from the launch of v3 and the roadmap shared above.
Kontrol S-Series MK3 updates
After releasing MIDI Templates and on-device Play Assist for scale & chords, in the next few weeks we’ll release an on-device arpeggiator as well a major upgrade to the accessibility features for our community of visually impaired users.
This is a reminder that with the release of Maschine 3, the Kontrol S-Series MK3 now integrates with Maschine, giving you control over transport, selecting your channel plugins, and hardware control of NKS 2 plugin parameters for the first time.
Kontakt
We’re continuing to modernise Kontakt – and you’ll see us move to shipping updates every month or two – with a continued focus on performance and reliability improvements, not just new user-facing features. We know how critical Kontakt is to many people’s professional workflows – and we consider performance itself to be a feature just like something you might see in the interface.
Since launching Tools in Kontakt 8, people have been asking for the ability to chain multiple Tools together just as you can chain multiple instruments together and good news: that’s something we’re going to be working on.
We’re also working to make Kontakt integrate with 3rd party hardware from the NKS Hardware Partner program (see above) so owners of those devices will get a seamless workflow and access the thousands of instruments built for the world’s largest virtual instrument platform.
New Channel Strip
Plugin Alliance is excited to be working once again with Vertigo Sound, known for the acclaimed VSM-3 & VSC-2 plugins. In 2025, Vertigo will soon release the VSS-2 Discrete Channel Strip through Plugin Alliance – a high-end plugin blending its analog heritage with modern precision.
The VSS-2 features an Input Filter, VCA-style Compressor, Gyrator EQ, and vintage tube Saturation, faithfully emulating Vertigo’s iconic hardware. It delivers VSC-2/3-inspired compression, smooth VSE-2 EQ, and lush VSM-2 saturation, making it the perfect tool for adding punch, warmth, and depth to any mix.
Synths
While 2024 was the year Kontakt got its biggest update in years, in 2025 you’ll see more from NI in synths. It’s too early to share the rest of our plans, but I’m super jazzed about what the team is cooking up – including bringing some innovative new features to our synth products later this year.
Traktor
2024 was a big year for Traktor – new software and new hardware, and 2025 is another big year. The team are working to re-vamp Traktor’s already-comprehensive support for 3rd party controllers, as well as new features to help new DJs get started, and experienced DJs better manage their library. We’ve already started work on the next major version of Traktor which will bring a high resolution interface and a major upgrade to the browser.
–
I really appreciate the questions and engagement on my previous community updates back in March, June, and October last year. I hope you can see from this post and several other recent posts from our product team that we are investing more time and energy in listening to and engaging with our community. As always, I’ll do my best to answer the questions you post below.
Simon Cross
Chief Product Officer
Native Instruments Group
Comments
-
Great seeing monthly updates.
Reverbs
Would love to see some competitive offerings in the media composer reverb space. Go for it.iZotope on Native Access
We still need our products migrated to Native access. What is the current status?NKS on third party mixing/master controllers
Hope to see third party mix controller running NKS plugins within their software next - makes no sense for mix hardware to run Komplete Kontrol, they have their own software solutions. SSL already have a potential single fader controller with a screen that could become a potential NKS controller. I am also guessing Softube are at least prototyping something similar. Hope to see some development on this. Imagine running Ozone on the single fader SSL controller.Channel strips
NKS on channel strips would be nice and compatibility with the Console 1. Just saying.Synths
A new Reaktor release needed. More excited for Arturia products tbh. It would be nice for NI to surprise with an updated modernized Reaktor version and some competitive products in this category.Any hints on the next M32 (or M37)?
With a new arp engine soon released, one that might need the new tech is the expected Komplete Kontrol MK3 mini keyboard which could be released now in Q1 2025. On my wishlist is still CV, Gate and Clock ports and light guide with step sequencer to compete with the Arturia Keystep (battery option and MIDI bluetooth would be even better). This would make it a versatile little machine. Fingers crossed.Kontakt 8
Fix (modernise) the Midi CC editor to support drag and drop again on new Kontakt 8 instruments. Terrible UX atm. Learn button should not have to be used as the only option to assign Midi CC. This will be a growing issue so fix this now!Work with partners on mid cycle refreshes
Many products are starting to need bigger mid cycle updates. Would like to see more product series getting updates and bring new life into the instruments to keep them competitive. Hope we are seeing some development here.Grid player input addon in Kontakt for Leap
Would love to see some kind of spiritual successor for Battery in the form of a input grid player component to connect to Leap. Beside from the obvious Akai grid controllers, imagine Push 3 support and other hardware.0 -
Thank you for these updates, they're really appreciated.
Just one thing, for Kontrol S-Series MK3 updates:
There's no mention about us being able to use the MIDI DIN Out port when USB is connected?, I understand this feature is currently in beta, so is it to planned to be part of the Arp/Accessibility update as mentioned above?
Thanks again!
2 -
I love to hear that stability, performance and bug fixes are the focus for Kontakt and Native Access, that's really great! I also think it's great that you're sharing these regular updates and engage in the feedback, this dialog does go a long way to building a good relationship between you and your customers.
My top-1 feedback point would be this:
Please consider changing your product strategy away from the current system where new major versions of your plugins are always new, separate plugins that coexist with the old versions. The situation is especially bad with your iZotope products, where new major versions of Neutron and Ozone are being released every year or every two years. But even Kontakt has recently seen frequent iterations from 5 to 6, 7 and 8 in just a few short years. This product strategy is a major issue for your users because it breaks project recall. I would need to have Ozone versions 4 through 11 installed on my system to be able to fully recall all DAW projects I've created over the years. Of course many of those Ozone versions can't even run on my current system anymore. Since the reality is that you (understandably) only ever provide maintenance updates for the most recent major version (or maybe the two most recent major versions if we get extremely lucky, like in your example above with the new Kontakt 7 and 8 performance update), this puts your users in a bad situation in the long-term with projects than can no longer be recalled completely. Of course we're printing stems and multi-tracks for archiving, but those are no replacement for a full project file. The bad thing is that those who are new to making music don't realize that this is an issue right away, it's something you only become aware of after years of making music.
Of course in some cases it's inevitable to make a new major version into a separate plugin - this may or may not have been the case with Kontakt 8. But in many cases, your new major version releases of e.g. Neutron, Ozone, or even Kontakt could easily be made backwards-compatible and be one single plugin instead of separate plugins for every major version. Unless you make extremely drastic changes, there shouldn't be Neutron 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. There should just be Neutron. There shouldn't be Kontakt 8, there should just be Kontakt. A new major version should just be a backwards-compatible drop-in replacement for the old version whenever that is possible (and it very often is).0 -
@plf
I understand your problem — but the challenge is a number of other customers very much prefer the way that it works today where each new major version is a separate plugin such that the older versions and the newer versions can coexist. Kontakt actually used to work the way you describe (one plugin that upgrades in place) and we moved to use numbered versions based on customer feedback. On balance, we feel that the separate plugin approach seems to work best for most people. Happy to hear if other folks agree with your preference.1 -
A lot of great suggestions there.
NKS on third party mixing/master controllers: NKS has been historically mostly focussed on instruments as it was designed for NI's keyboard controllers. But with us opening up NKS to 3rd party hardware, it opens the door to more FX use cases with FX focussed MIDI controllers. Something we're certainly looking at.
Grid player input addon in Kontakt for Leap: Another great suggestion. Yep, we're looking at bringing more capabilities to Kontakt that serve beatmaker use cases like Battery served in the past.
iZotope on Native Access: All iZotope products are now distributable in Native Access. Once you unify your NI and iZotope accounts, that allows us to migrate your data from iZotope systems to NI, after which all your iZotope products will show up in Native Access; and you’ll soon be able to install and licence them on new computers using Native Access.
1 -
Kontakt can now migrate in some DAWs. If you can provide the option in Native Access for us to migrate on more plugins, that would be great.
1 -
Mentioned it before, saying it again, I would book meetings with SSL and Softube and get the ball rolling on NKS hardware.
0 -
TRAKTOR
When will we see a new roadmap so that we can see that something does happen with the software?
We need new Hardware - we need a new form of a S8 please - i still use my S8 with 2 x D2 because there is nothing that is better oder comparable … only if i would buy something from Pio… or Den… ;-)
A new S8 MKII with jogwheels an 2 microphone that will not block a channel would be GREAT a new FLAGSHIP for the FLAGSHIP DJ Software!0 -
"Once you unify your NI and iZotope accounts then all your iZotope products will show up in Native Access, and you'll be able to install and licence them on new computers using Native Access"
I need to challenge this a bit as I "unified" my NI and iZotope accounts several months back in late 2024 - and I do not see any Izotope product in NA.
I do see my entire 10+ app layout in iZotope Product Portal - but nothing in NA
Appreciate if you could clarify this as it is clear (over here anyway) that the two product lines still require separate tools.
Also - just checked my NI account and there is no sign of any of my iZotope products - which furthers supports the statement above.
VP
0 -
Thought I was missing something there when you mentioned logging back into the iZOtope site. I have been there a lot in the last few weeks and nothing happened "unification" wise that I could see.
I think Simon is either jumping the gun here OR maybe I did not "unify" correctly?
There is this at the top of izotope home page:
But I thought I did this a long while ago - and this link does nothing if one already has a Native ID.
Just a normal login for me with my existing Native ID
VP
0 -
@Simon_NI will we see new Traktor hardware ? An F1 update maybe ? Or a JAM mk2?
These are Devi es people want updates to, maybe the F1 can be similar to the. Xone k2?
1 -
We’ve already started work on the next major version of Traktor which will bring a high resolution interface and a major upgrade to the browser.
Does that mean we now have to pay again for every new feature that we have been wanting for a long time?
0 -
Thanks, appreciate it! As a Maschine user, I’m glad to see something new finally coming to Maschine Plus. 💪
3 -
I would love to see some improvements to browsing. But mostly I would love an improved MIDI mapper, with copy&paste, re-odering/grouping. But the thing I would love to see the most are on the fly stems, ie. 5-10s stem generation that just exist in a temporary cache. Heck I would even love the ability to convert a running deck into a stem deck. For example I see the audience singing, then I would love to be able to switch to a stem to more cleanly and easily cut out the vocals to give more room to the audience. Or conversely cut out everything but the vocal.
1
Categories
- All Categories
- 19 Welcome
- 1.5K Hangout
- 65 NI News
- 797 Tech Talks
- 4.1K Native Access
- 16.8K Komplete
- 2K Komplete General
- 4.4K Komplete Kontrol
- 5.8K Kontakt
- 1.6K Reaktor
- 386 Battery 4
- 854 Guitar Rig & FX
- 432 Massive X & Synths
- 1.3K Other Software & Hardware
- 5.8K Maschine
- 7.4K Traktor
- 7.4K Traktor Software & Hardware
- Check out everything you can do
- Create an account
- See member benefits
- Answer questions
- Ask the community
- See product news
- Connect with creators