Battery 4 development

@SaschaFranck

"Now, as said, I perfectly understand financial issues. But still, IMO they're shooting themselves in their feet. It's not all about profit, it's as well about support, both technically and creatively (if that makes sense). For a company in this kinda business, taking care about these two is like free advertising. A new Kontakt library however is just something yawn-worthy. At best, in case someone even takes notice."

I think we all need to take a few steps back and understand how the owners of NI (now) view the world.

When you are a private equity firm of this magnitude - NI is simply a number - part of a (very large) portfolio. This is not about "brand" awareness or "building loyalty" or "shooting themselves in the foot" or any of that "normal" company stuff that the "smaller" guys are doing to stay alive out there.

There is no "taking care" and no concern about keeping up with the competition. This comes down to some spreadsheet somewhere making specific sense to some internal accountants at some point in the future when the whole thing can be packaged up and sold to another buyer (hopefully for a profit). And then the cycle starts over again.

If this was NI circa 2010 - I totally get it. A different (more exciting) time with plenty of promise and reason for innovation and discovery

But NI circa 2025 is using a drastically different playbook with a vastly different goal.

VP

I really do not think this is how this PE group sees this. Survival is never the concern - selling (and making a profit) is where it's at. I

Now - I may be off my rocker or it may not be soon - maybe years - but I did a lot of reading on the PE firm that is in charge - and their goals are vastly different that what we see (or believe) they are.

And I get it - this totally grinds the user base because we are simply not capable (most of the time) to envision our favorite companies (or our fav products) as chess pieces in a major investment portfolio.

But if history is any guide - these guys did not purchase NI to make the world of audio software cool again OR to survive. They bought it to analyze it, slice it, dice it, gather trends on the pieces that matter and ignore the ones that don't - and then flip it when it makes the most financial sense to do so.

VP

Or - if you have a mindset like me - continue to use and enjoy the NI tools that I do have - that help me do my best work and spend zero time looking back. There is never anything good to see back there :)

And let's not forget - all of this stuff is just another tool in the toolbox. There are plenty of options out there.

VP

True - can't help you being a Mac user.

That said - Maturity, stability and compatibility are all paramount here as I do have clients and deadlines to meet.

But I have no time for down time (so to speak) which is why Windows 10 is the standard baseline here.

My main DAW here runs non-stop for months at a time and I rarely (if ever) see any of the issues that are posted daily here.

VP

@chk071

Claiming that Steinberg develops and updates their plugins. They have lots of stuff which doesn't get updated anymore, or has already been wed out.

Well, Groove Agent (right now the only one I really care about) is getting updated constantly. WAY more often than Battery. So there.

First, I love NI, sure I have some annoyances, but I have them with most things in life. I love the NI stuff I own (k14CE, Maschine mk3, s88 mk3) and have zero intention of ditching them.

Second: Thanks for pointing out the Steinberg sale. 50% off full versions of Cubase and Absolute. Better still, people on their forums offering up their 70% loyalty vouchers (part of their 40 year anniversary sale) to people who DM them.

Used to use Cubase, wanted to go back, also interested in HAlion.

Just bought Cubase 13 Pro and Absolute 6 (which includes HALion 7 and Groove Agent, plus a load of other stuff) for the total price of £274.80 after getting 70% off vouchers for both.

Didn’t even know there was a sale on and would have missed it completely without your post

It doesn't exactly bother me what you can or can't fathom. The only thing of interest for me is that I can clearly see a constant development of Groove Agent. As easy as that.