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(NOT A DEAL) Native Instruments announced the sale of the company to a technology investor


Leok85

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19 hours ago, Batwaffel said:

I've got my popcorn ready for this. What I am starting to expect will happen won't be unlike what happened with Magix when they bought Sony Creative Suite; we'll see a yearly update of Komplete with not much added. Possibly a subscription but there is so much competition out there and so many people who already own some version of Komplete now that it may not be worth the investment. This is especially true since many already have Kontakt which is what they will likely be banking on making their money back with. They will likely continue to push out shovelware libraries to throw into Komplete to keep giving people reasons to upgrade every year.

I see development on Kontakt coming to a screeching halt. If NI themselves couldn't fix the disaster it's become, I can't see some new company coming in and doing it for them. Especially since it's an investment firm. Looking through their list of companies they've invested in, I can't see a single one that has actually benefitted from being bought out by them. Most have been cash grabs because they had large communities and customer bases already and they looked to capitalise on that before dropping the further development.

Looks like it's time for a new company to become the industry standard.

I think you probably hit the nail right on the head.

These "investment" companies aren't really interested in actually investing in anything and developing it so much as they are in buying something and skimming the money off the top. As long as it's profitable.  Then they dump it.

 

 

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19 hours ago, Batwaffel said:

I've got my popcorn ready for this. What I am starting to expect will happen won't be unlike what happened with Magix when they bought Sony Creative Suite; we'll see a yearly update of Komplete with not much added. Possibly a subscription but there is so much competition out there and so many people who already own some version of Komplete now that it may not be worth the investment. This is especially true since many already have Kontakt which is what they will likely be banking on making their money back with. They will likely continue to push out shovelware libraries to throw into Komplete to keep giving people reasons to upgrade every year.

I see development on Kontakt coming to a screeching halt. If NI themselves couldn't fix the disaster it's become, I can't see some new company coming in and doing it for them. Especially since it's an investment firm. Looking through their list of companies they've invested in, I can't see a single one that has actually benefitted from being bought out by them. Most have been cash grabs because they had large communities and customer bases already and they looked to capitalise on that before dropping the further development.

Looks like it's time for a new company to become the industry standard.

MAGIX and MOTU suffer from the same problems. Stagnation and lack of good marketing people. Goes along well with the weird supriority complex some Samplitude users seem to have simply because the plugins that come with their DAW are considerably better than what you get bundled with the competition's.

NI hasn't innovated much for a while now. If things keep going their course, soon every single product they have will be a Kontakt library.

While there are competitor samplers out there, they suffer from what I call the "YouTube Problem". Nobody uses them because the stuff that's on Kontakt is not there or they'll switch once everyone else does. People have been doing stuff to compete with Kontakt since it came out but never caught on because people don't want to change unless everyone does.

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19 hours ago, TheSteven said:

We all know that the best way to design cutting edge products is to design by committee.

Did you see the movie "Ford vs. Ferrari"?

That's essentially what Carroll Shelby told Henry Ford Jr. when asked to build the world's fastest race car for Ford. 🤣

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11 minutes ago, 53mph said:

Do you think it wise to update to Kontakt 6 now?

I'm still on 5 and was putting away some spare cash to go up to 6....but if NI is destined to go ***** up.....!!

I've been holding back on buying into Kontakt, but now hoping for a better deal! I have a couple paid for libraries running in the Kontakt Player version that I would like to keep running.

I expect the company to be around in some form for a good while, as NI are an 800 lb gorilla in the industry. But the real question may be, will their creative innovation be in any jeopardy with the new overlords? They might just be in it to flip the business to the next highest bidder...?

Edited by abacab
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4 minutes ago, 53mph said:

Do you think it wise to update to Kontakt 6 now?

I'm still on 5 and was putting away some spare cash to go up to 6....but if NI is destined to go ***** up.....!!

I don't think it will die; it might go on life support. That said, I think it would still be the leading sampler for a while (in terms of features and content) as the competition isn't quite there yet (as far as I know).

It's important to remember though that Kontakt isn't the only product that NI makes - there are synths like Battery, Massive, etc. as well as their hardware controllers. I have no idea what will happen to them; I'm just mentioning this because much of this thread seems to be related to Kontakt.

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25 minutes ago, antler said:

I don't think it will die; it might go on life support. That said, I think it would still be the leading sampler for a while (in terms of features and content) as the competition isn't quite there yet (as far as I know).

It's important to remember though that Kontakt isn't the only product that NI makes - there are synths like Battery, Massive, etc. as well as their hardware controllers. I have no idea what will happen to them; I'm just mentioning this because much of this thread seems to be related to Kontakt.

Good point.

I saw a lot of live streaming videos by producers over the last year highlighting their hardware.

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23 minutes ago, antler said:

It's important to remember though that Kontakt isn't the only product that NI makes - there are synths like Battery, Massive, etc. as well as their hardware controllers. I have no idea what will happen to them; I'm just mentioning this because much of this thread seems to be related to Kontakt.

I wonder whether the Komplete Kontrol MK2 has been positive or negative for NI's bottom line. I know it gets generally favorable reviews, but the touch is heavy and uneven, which must bother players besides me.

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30 minutes ago, abacab said:

I've been holding back on buying into Kontakt, but now hoping for a better deal! I have a couple paid for libraries running in the Kontakt Player version that I would like to keep running.

I expect the company to be around in some form for a good while, as NI are an 800 lb gorilla in the industry. But the real question may be, will their creative innovation be in any jeopardy with the new overlords? They might just be in it to flip the business to the next highest bidder...?

I'm actually a beta tester for 6. Been doing it for a year or so. The beta versions have a short life though, hence my intention to upgrade to the full deal.

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On 1/24/2021 at 9:42 PM, Michael Greenspan said:

I wonder whether the Komplete Kontrol MK2 has been positive or negative for NI's bottom line. I know it gets generally favorable reviews, but the touch is heavy and uneven, which must bother players besides me.

The thing that I have noticed in a few videos is how noisy the keys seem to be on the 88 version . Not seen one in the flesh, so don't know if this is true or just somehow exaggerated by the sound capture on the video.

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You guys aren't painting a very good picture here. I'm not a corporate expert in any sense of the word. I do know when large meetings happen with anything I've ever been involved in, lots of money is spent to call in experts( I use that word loosely) to draw up prints and make suggestions. After a year of weekly meetings it is determined it would cost too much money to implement the plan they talked about all year. Some of that is because they spent so much money on "idea men". 

It's sad to see really. I remember reading there was a shake up at NI and one of their top people left.

Most often I find I'm using 3rd party libraries for Kontakt if I use it at all. Mainly the reason I'm still on Komplete 10. I just keep updating Kontakt. 

In looking at all of the other available options out there I have wondered if NI was beginning to loose some of their grip these last few years. I think I see signs of it in this.

No other program out there like Kontakt that has so much support for 3rd party libraries. Maybe using a combination of different programs would cover it if it became necessary to move away from NI. Frankly I'm surprised they haven't gone to subscription already. I believe the writing is on the wall there. Hopefully it will be offered as an option. 

Someone could probably develop a program that would convert Kontakt files to another player. That someone would probably get sued. 

This is why I think we need for someone ( not me, I'm not capable) to develop an open ended Kontakt type player for the masses that works every bit as good as Kontakt. Something like an .sfz player  that can play large sample libraries. 

Or maybe this is a good time to go to Physically modeled instruments instead. 

Probably nothing serious enough to warrant a total change yet. Still...........if I had a good alternative I would be looking into it. ST4 is a nice contender possible alternative for sure. You can't buy 3rd party libs for it though.

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I imagine that NI has too big of an "economic moat" for most competitors to cross in a cost effective way. I wonder which earns them the most revenue, their hardware, or software?

Since NI Kontakt is essentially "the standard" for most commercial sample libraries, I suspect that even if NI were to fold (not likely), somebody would buy up that product line.

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59 minutes ago, Starise said:

Probably nothing serious enough to warrant a total change yet. Still...........if I had a good alternative I would be looking into it. ST4 is a nice contender possible alternative for sure. You can't buy 3rd party libs for it though.

Yep I keep hoping ST4 will be expanded. 

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