July 2025 – a community update from our Chief Product & Technology Officer

If someone asked me if NI understands it's audience, I would suggest the company is data-driven, but not data-led, because it feels like a lot of us are not being listened to.

I have seen precisely this in the forums. While data-driven is important, it MUST be able to be overridden by common sense, or else you end up hurting customers. And I believe that this DID happen with Komplete Kontrol 3's removal of several features/capabilities that were present in KK2.

If I might be so bold, can you give us any sense of how many play series instruments your shooting for in maschine standalone?

PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE bring over key analyzation of library files from Traktor. C'mon, most DJs don't even rely on mixing in key while every single sample-based producer NEEDS to know what key their sample is in order to add any instrument. It's such a basic overdue feature that users would use on every single session.

Some feedback.

Release these updates more frequent
Feels like a while ago. Release more frequent news updates, there is a lot of things to provide updates and context about like incomplete releases like Kontakt 8 and Maschine 3 and where you are in the development.

Kontakt 8 Classic GUI update?
I have given feedback in another post but haven't seen any new info on planned improvements for months. GUI improvements which should have been released with Kontakt 8 has still not been adressed. Certain tasks like MIDI CC assign parameters and setting up the mixer are still done in the old classic GUIs which have not been improved with a new modernised scalable GUI.

Kontakt 8 MIDI CC
Setting up MIDI CC for instruments within Kontakt 8 has worsened not improved (critical when setting up large templates).
- You still cannot copy and paste MIDI CC settings between instances which would speed up template building considerably.
- Drag and drop assign MIDI CC (From MIDI Automation side panel) on Instrument control parameters do not work on some newer instruments, critical this is fixed (learn button is not always an option and not always as fast)
- MIDI Automation Side Panel needs a column view for better overview where you see all MIDI CC parameters assigned
- Some new instruments cannot even assign MIDI CC on certain parameters due to bad design like mini menus etc. This needs to be adressed when you sell an instrument for 100-200 Euros.

Kontakt 8 + Leap = Grid
We still need grid player support control layer with Kontakt 8 and Leap. Push 3, Novation and AKAI users would all like to see improvements here.

Curious to see Battery kits will be managed in expansions in the future with Battery still supported yet technically phased out. Confusing times.

Many instruments still need a mid cycle refresh

Great hearing some synths getting a refresh - but many instrument series (especially Kontakt instruments) also needs proper updates/upgrades (free when possible) to feel fresh and to get rid of the pixelated GUI:
- Play Series (especially older ones)
- Galaxy Instruments Pianos (Noire, Una Corda etc)
- Alicia Keys
- Symphony Series + certain Session Series Instruments

Whatever needs to happen to support third party vendors to upgrade quicly, support it too. Some Heavyocity and Output products feels very outdated.

Weak Graphic Design
Some of the new instruments like the Scenes instruments, Leap expansions, Session: Percussions etc have very weak or inconsistent graphic design = weak presentation = may start to affect sales. Personally I hate the look of Scenes and some of the new Maschine expansions. If it looks like made by AI or cheap doodles maybe switch graphic designer. Whatever happened here I would try to fix it fast - maybe even switch some graphics. NI has been much stronger in this area.

Expansions on Live and Cubase (for free)

Nice seeing MPC Expansions - please add support for Ableton Live Drum Rack + Cubase Drum Machine next. If NI support 3-4 platforms with bespoke converted projects, kits, presets and sounds it would increase the value of NI sound design offering considerably.

However NI expansions should in general be free when expanded to new platforms. I get why it may be an upgrade fee if it required NI to develop a new instrument plugin etc. But in general for groove samples - it should be free i.e. if I own the NI Maschine version of an expansion I should get the MPC version for free.

Themed Expansion Bundles

Would love see more themed expansion bundles where we get Machine + Leap + Kontakt samples + Synth presets in one big themed bundle. I could see different cinematic bundles in the future.

Release one shot sample libraries of Kontakt libraries

There are certain Kontakt instruments which should have a companion one shot sample libraries. For instance Rise & Hit. Certain percussive sounds, drones etc could very easily be retooled by NI in a companion one shot sound expansions - same sounds just for a use case where drag and drop within a DAW timeline makes more sense than focus on initial sound design within Kontakt first.

Plugin Alliance, iZotope, NKS and Console 1
You forgot to mention many Plugin Alliance products like channel strips now work on Console 1. This is a big big improvement - nicely done.

However still no integration with Ozone and Neutron yet (Console 1 already have Fabfilter). Imagine triggering Neutron AI within Console 1 plugin or opening a Neutron module GUI within the Console plugin.

Still would like to see NKS implementation on Softube and SSL hardware as an optional control layer. Fully working NKS on Console Fader MK3 with Kontakt 8 would make many composer/producers happy - and a nice response to Spitfire sample player and SSL releasing bespoke control layer support.

Overall would love to see more collabs between NI and Softube.

iZotope portfolio dissonance

Some of the new product have interesting features but presentation, marketing and performance are creating some buyer dissonance.

Clean up the Reverb offering. For example there are too many reverbs in the portfolio at different tiers creating a dissonance. The top tier reverb series (based on old tech) is very advance but from what I can tell still lacks a convolution reverb pairing (many composers and producers still pair alog verb with a conv verb). Neoverb hasnt been updated for while but now have a more affordable tier with some new tech.

Some products require too much processing power and may need more optimization.

Synths
Play mode for Massive X would be nice, Pigments 6 already have this.

In product presentation Arturia is still king and should be a good benchmark where NI could improve product design, especially older products which either should be phased out or get a facelift. Hearing older Reaktor synths may finally getting updates is nice - however it should have happened way sooner.

Hoping we may see Reaktor 7.

Suspect AI features on some new (or old) NI synth products. Would be curious if we may also see another NI DSP platform being introduced in the future.

Arturia Synth Expansions NKS Index issue
Great to see Arturia NKS hardware integration - however one area where Arturia have problems is no NKS index on official Arturia preset expansions only the Arturia instrument core presets. If NI could do anything to improve implementation, please do. Terrible situation for the end user with only a partial portion of your presets can be found in Komplete Kontrol (and having to manually resave presets is frankly not ok).

Software managers (Native Access + Plugin Alliance)
- Plugin Alliance software manager is frankly a disaster from a UX perspective. If you sell expensive plugins it should at least be on par with similar software mangers. Either integrate Plugin Alliance product in Native Access or improve this one fast.
- Native Access still cannot uninstall certain products on a Mac. You can only do it manually. Horrible UX.
- Native Acces still cannot move libraries smoothly between drives. You can only do it manually. Horrible UX. If you want to sell more samples fix this fast.
- NI Expansions page needs more filters, categories and better overview
- Filters to sort products, hide products etc needed when your library grows.

For me, the work on automation is the most exciting maschine announcement in many years. It's going to change the game.
The improvements made in several areas of the software are much appreciated. It's reassuring to see that these things have been modernised. Well done to the whole team. My best wishes

• Maybe we could see an improvement now when we finally have NKS on the Arturia hardware keyboards.
• Another thing NI could do is to provide a link to the Arturia sample store when you have an Arturia instrument marked/selected in the Komplete Kontrol browser. Maybe this could be enough for the protesting exec at Arturia who is pushing back on indexing the presets properly.

Hard pass on manually resaving. Suspect Arturia has lost some money not supporting NKS properly on Arturia expansions.

Traktor hasn't had much information in this update, nor the February one.

Saying things are being worked on doesn't feel like a good response to the community.