Playbox - Great Instrument - but is it an abandoned product?

SoriceConsulting · 2025-05-27T21:47:49+00:00

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I LOVE Playbox - and have read many Youtube videos, online posts etc. by others that love it as well.

Unfortunately, unless I'm missing something (hopefully!), it seems like it is an abandoned product. No news/comments that I can find from Native Instruments for the last few years :^(

Anyone know something? Is it still being developed? Will there be a Playbox 2?

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Accepted answers

Matthew_NI

Typically, an instrument is fully featured, and left as is, from the point of release onwards.

We will occasionally update instruments to take advantage of framework improvements (e.g. updated user interface) or to protect against environmental changes that affect it (e.g. new OS).

We may also occasionally add new presets, samples, or even a version two.

Playbox was released 3 years ago. It's not abandoned; it's a great instrument that hasn't needed any changes, so we haven't changed it. If we consider the measure of abandonment as "has not received an update in x time", then it might seem like most of Komplete is abandoned. Which of course is not the case.

All comments

PK The DJ

What gives you the impression it's "abandoned"? What are you expecting to happen?

LostInFoundation

Although I don’t see it as abandoned (way older libraries have received few to no additions at all and are still there and usable anyway), when Playbox came out I also thought we could have seen some more “activities” for it.

I don’t know if I really expected it, but one of the things I thought back then was “they could sell some “expansions” for this product: more chords sets, more samples (maybe well thought to fit together),…”.

In my opinion, this is a wasted chance for NI. Some curated new “packs” for it could sell at least some unit, without a big investment from their side (in order of time or money needed to realize them)

Matthew_NI

Typically, an instrument is fully featured, and left as is, from the point of release onwards.

We will occasionally update instruments to take advantage of framework improvements (e.g. updated user interface) or to protect against environmental changes that affect it (e.g. new OS).

We may also occasionally add new presets, samples, or even a version two.

LostInFoundation

@Matthew_NI What do you think about my idea about “expansions” for it?

Is it something that has ever been considered by NI?

SoriceConsulting

Thanks all for the comments! Guess I was hoping that some of the User suggestions for improvement might be implemented in an update (i.e., can't scroll through presets with mouse wheel, dropping in midi does not properly fill the Chord Matrix, a keyboard mode in addition to the chord mode, show actual chord names on Chords Page, etc.).

Still a great instrument and any future improvements would be most welcomed!

LostInFoundation

Those are all good suggestions for improvements 👍🏼

BIF

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/228531#Comment_228531

I like the idea of extensions. Furthermore, I think some extensions (they don't have to be great in number) added as free boni (plural of bonus, lol!) from time to time, would be a nice thing, and might help improve the NI-to-Customer relationship.

"Surprise! Introducing Five of Five! We created 5 new presets for each of the following 5 instruments or libraries. Happy Solstice! Resistance is futile!"

And then just have them show up in Native Access as updates to the pertinent libraries.

That would be very cool, and it might take some of the edge off as the summer heats up.

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