Native Instruments seems to be absorbing: The Plugin Alliance, Brainworx, and possibly Izotope.

[Robert Bone]

This was in an email from them.  They also are offering 6 or free plugins for those who sign up for an account with them.  I have had an account for years with them, and have bought multiple plugins from them.

This is their main web page: plugin-alliance

This is what was in the email I got:

"Dear PA friends,

You may have noticed our friends at Native Instruments showing up more and more across Plugin Alliance recently. Well, we have some exciting news: we’re making it official and bringing Plugin Alliance, Brainworx, and iZotope together under Native Instruments.

So, what does this mean for you? It means that, over time, you’ll have a unified audio ecosystem at your fingertips. From your first sample to your final master, you’ll be able to discover new tools, manage your plugins, and create with ease. 

Over the next few months, you’ll start to see more of Native Instruments across your new and improved web and product experiences. Plus, stay tuned for exciting new releases this fall.

You can learn more about this here.

Your friends at Plugin Alliance (now part of Native Instruments!)"

Bob Bone

 

[scook]

in no particular order and likely not a complete list - definity not including the threads about the original VC purchase of these businesses some time ago

 

[Byron Dickens]

Old news.

[Canopus]

I would say the Calkwalk user forum actually consists of four different parts with almost waterproof bulkheads in between when it comes to users. The Deals forum has its dedicated followers, the Coffee House has its own, the Songs forum has a third group of followers – and then there’s the rest, active in the Cakewalk specific sub-forums.

Not that many are active in multiple parts so this kind of duplicated posts are becoming increasingly common. And in the near future maybe we should expect yet another division; those that have bought Sonar and those that have stayed with the last version of CbB.

[Robert Bone]

I mostly posted the thread because of the 6 free plugins they are offering folks who create a free acount.

 

Bob Bone

[John Vere]

On 6/14/2023 at 10:29 PM, Canopus said:

I would say the Calkwalk user forum actually consists of four different parts with almost waterproof bulkheads in between when it comes to users. The Deals forum has its dedicated followers, the Coffee House has its own, the Songs forum has a third group of followers – and then there’s the rest, active in the Cakewalk specific sub-forums.

Not that many are active in multiple parts so this kind of duplicated posts are becoming increasingly common. And in the near future maybe we should expect yet another division; those that have bought Sonar and those that have stayed with the last version of CbB.

Boy do you have that right. Myself I only visit the Main forum and here. I rarely look at the other sub forums.  I sometimes look at the Question and answer sub forum but it seems like a place that takes about a week or so to change much.  I would say the Tutorial sub forum is the darkest corner of  this place. I Posted  some complete garbage on my thread there a few months ago and so far nobody has seemed to notice it. I like the idea of the song forum but it also seems a private club of people telling each other their songs are really great when they are actually ??  I was hoping for more , John, your song sucks, you better re do it from the ground up. We are all just to dang polite here.  

[Paul Fogarty]

various investment groups have bought out various pro audio software companies , for a number of reasons including access to their source code + IP etc.

some companies sadly are buying up pro audio companies for asset stripping, that's how it comes across.

sadly because of how the original cakewalk / propellerheads / camel audio / emagic aren't the same companies or have done things i find *OFF* .e.g. making a pc product mac only .. or offering "life time membership" as the ship was sinking .. i lost trust in many companies

it's a big subject.

but i'll go back to the original days of the akai sampler.. s900 etc was designed by people who knew music as well as electronics.. the later and "not so good" samplers were buggy and not as good , done by programmers who obviously wasn't so clued up about the music side

 

 

 

 

[Robert Bone]

4 hours ago, Paul Fogarty said:

various investment groups have bought out various pro audio software companies , for a number of reasons including access to their source code + IP etc.

some companies sadly are buying up pro audio companies for asset stripping, that's how it comes across.

sadly because of how the original cakewalk / propellerheads / camel audio / emagic aren't the same companies or have done things i find *OFF* .e.g. making a pc product mac only .. or offering "life time membership" as the ship was sinking .. i lost trust in many companies

it's a big subject.

but i'll go back to the original days of the akai sampler.. s900 etc was designed by people who knew music as well as electronics.. the later and "not so good" samplers were buggy and not as good , done by programmers who obviously wasn't so clued up about the music side

 

 

 

 

For whatever the worth, the Sonar Lifetime Updates fiasco was done by Gibson, making a money grab, and was not initiated by the actual Sonar development staff.  I will never for the rest of my life pay a single penny to Gibson, because of what they did with that money grab and then shutting down Sonar altogether.  I am SOOOOO happy that Cakewalk by Bandlab emerged through it all, with development and support with the same staff from Cakewalk being hired by Meng who owns Bandlab.  There is not a day that goes by where I don't silently thank Meng and Noel and the other folks who have continued to bust hump to keep Cakewalk by Bandlab alive, with Meng footing the bill to hire the Sonar development staff out of his own pocket.  That was simply amazing.

 

Bob Bone

Edited July 11, 2023 by Robert Bone
Fixed brain fart typos. DOH! :)

[mettelus]

Interesting faux pas or Freudian slip there... it is Meng, not Mung.

[Robert Bone]

22 minutes ago, mettelus said:

Interesting faux pas or Freudian slip there... it is Meng, not Mung.

Sorry - long day with large headache.  Brain fart at my end.  Thanks. 

Bob Bone

[Starship Krupa]

On 7/1/2023 at 7:08 PM, JohnnyV said:

I was hoping for more , John, your song sucks, you better re do it from the ground up.

Have you considered the possibility that your song actually doesn't suck? 😊

On 7/10/2023 at 3:15 PM, Paul Fogarty said:

sadly because of how the original cakewalk / propellerheads / camel audio / emagic aren't the same companies or have done things i find *OFF* .e.g. making a pc product mac only .. or offering "life time membership" as the ship was sinking .. i lost trust in many companies

Philosophical spew time:

I have an old saying, which I came up with after working at multiple companies that were going under: The Company Is Not Your Friend.

This goes for consumers as well as employees. Companies, ultimately, exist to make money. How they go about that, and the ethics they adhere to, vary widely.

But especially during a period where one is in danger of going under (as Cakewalk, Inc. under Gibson was), or gets sold to a company with management who um, "think different" about how they treat existing customers (as Apple did at the time of the eMagic purchase and still does), that ultimate reason for existence gets shoved to the front.

The owners may just love their employees and customers like family, but when things come down to the company's survival, or the owners going broke propping up a failing business....they will choose their own, and their company's, survival before all else.

Not cynicism, just reality, and something to remember when being an employee or customer, which we all are of some company or other. Nothing is guaranteed. My favorite plug-in company is Meldaproduction, I really dig their products, their policies, their business practices, everything but their documentation 😄. The owner is a cool guy and a genius developer. I have a lifetime license for their entire line of products, which I was able to afford due to making good use of their referral bonus program.

If Vojtech sells the company (Image Line already owns a chunk of it) entirely, or it shuts its doors, there go my "lifetime updates." But that's really all in the game. There are no real guarantees. It's always at least a small gamble. You buy a $50,000 car with an extended warranty and the manufacturer goes belly up in 6 months, oops.

Maybe another company will see a value in picking up the product in a way that will retain the current customer base, and maybe not. SONAR users got some of the best luck I've ever seen. Program reissued with a free license, cream of the development staff rehired, development model switched to developer-driven. Wow. Still, there were resentments about how the world could now get for free what they had paid for.

When I buy a software license, I know I am buying the software as it is on the day that I bought it. If the developer improves it and shoots me free or cheap updates, excellent! My biggest purchases, iZotope Music Production Suite 5.5 and Meldaproduction MComplete Bundle, work great today. Due to the license terms, I'm entitled to "dot" releases from iZotope, and of course everything that Meldaproduction ever release. If both companies decide to shut their doors tomorrow, I still have my money's worth (and then some, considering how little I paid out of pocket). Both companies are well-known for selling excellent products, both suites work flawlessly.

I am also an iPhone user. I love my iPhone. I also have a drawer full of iPhones that Apple, IMO, forced obsolescence on in ways that were unnecessary. But that's part of the game: I don't buy an iPhone expecting it to have a long life.

[John Vere]

@Starship Krupa Excellent rant, Now I need to make a second cup of coffee.. It's the last of my favorite beans. The grocery store told me they will no longer be offering it as they are changing to "No Name Brand"  Just when life is almost perfect, some stupid company changes it for you. 

28 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

SONAR users got some of the best luck I've ever seen. Program reissued with a free license, cream of the development staff rehired, development model switched to developer-driven. Wow.

This is the best thing anyone has ever said about what happened. And I have a feeling our luck is not about to change at all, just different. 

[Starship Krupa]

11 minutes ago, JohnnyV said:

It's the last of my favorite beans. The grocery store told me they will no longer be offering it as they are changing to "No Name Brand"  Just when life is almost perfect, some stupid company changes it for you.

Don't hate me, but I live in Alameda, CA, USA, which is the home of Peet's.

I regularly get free bags of the stuff via people who work there.😮

My big gripe is that plain Monterey Jack sliced cheese has become a rarity. It's my favorite for sandwiches, and all you can get, it seems, is pepper jack, which is great, but I don't always want it.

[JnTuneTech]

3 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Due to the license terms, I'm entitled to "dot" releases from iZotope, and of course everything that Meldaproduction ever release. If both companies decide to shut their doors tomorrow, I still have my money's worth (and then some, considering how little I paid out of pocket). Both companies are well-known for selling excellent products, both suites work flawlessly.

(OK, I just had my cup of Peets...) I am one of the folks fairly OK with subscriptions (yes, I know...), and I was all in with the lifetime thing with SONAR, but like you, I knew better than to expect that literally - from any company or product.  -I was still hoping to get an unlock key for the version I had last paid for, but again, I know what to expect from corporate dealings, so I have never complained about that.

-I did notice, within the terms of my iZotope subscription, that supposedly when I cancel, I will still have use of the software to open & run, but not edit or modify iZotope projects, and I think that maybe applies to plugins too (?) - at the last version level I paid for.  -That's about all I hope for these days, -being able to just use the software as it is - at least until my system dies or is updated too far ahead to use the old stuff. There sadly is a lot of stuff that doesn't work that way. -I keep heading towards making nearly immediate stems of all my projects that are using Native Instruments libraries... just in case.  Part of the modern workflow is planned obsolescence.   -Ah well, more coffee, so far "my" blend is actually still on sale here in Alaska today... 😅

[Starship Krupa]

48 minutes ago, JnTuneTech said:

Part of the modern workflow is planned obsolescence.

Oh boy, if I could go back in time....🙄

I created my own (unplanned) scenario for this.

My thing is that when I got back into the DAW thing about 10 years ago, I didn't have the budget (or didn't allocate it) for plug-ins that I had later, and of course I didn't know about the wonderful resource that is The Coffee House (kudos to Larry, King of Plug-in Deals).

So I relied heavily on free and very inexpensive plug-ins, such as those from Soundspot and W.A. Production, the Computer Music collection, etc. Soundspot and W.A. have a lot of beginner-friendly "get a phat sound NOW" style plug-ins (in the case of W.A., some very interesting sound design plug-ins), and at the time, W.A. had crazy low prices.

I also made use of the Meldaproduction FreeFX bundle, which helped set me on my way to a better understanding of how mixing processors work, and what more "professional" processors can do.

Fast forward to today, and I have leveled up my skills as well as my collection of processors, so I'd like to revisit some older projects.

Fine, but the issue is that when I open one of them, the DAW complains about the old plug-ins that I since deleted, and I would actually like to have the mixes in original form to see how much better I can do (if at all!). That means that in order to do this without the DAW throwing a fit, I have to keep all of my older, less-capable plug-ins installed. Don't like clutter on my HD, don't like the DAW having to scan so many plug-ins on startup, so this is annoying.

That said, I haven't yet had any of my older plug-ins stop working, which is a blessing.

[JnTuneTech]

21 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Fine, but the issue is that when I open one of them, the DAW complains about the old plug-ins that I since deleted, and I would actually like to have the mixes in original form to see how much better I can do (if at all!). That means that in order to do this without the DAW throwing a fit, I have to keep all of my older, less-capable plug-ins installed. Don't like clutter on my HD, don't like the DAW having to scan so many plug-ins on startup, so this is annoying.

That said, I haven't yet had any of my older plug-ins stop working, which is a blessing.

I guess many of us have been at it long enough now (maybe not always continuously - for me either) to see the catch-22 that this modern software-based audio production technology presents, you know?  I had never thought about it that way originally, I was just so jazzed to find that I might not have to buy every pedal and rack unit out there to do each effect I had always really wanted to use on my old cover tunes, and that I could have access to keyboards, even entire orchestras, -provided I could afford it and keep the computer in good enough shape to use them practically-, that I mostly stopped buying hardware for recording & production at all, when I got back into it about 15 years ago.

Then, I paused again about the time Cakewalk was about to get dumped by Gibson, and didn't delve into CbB until about the 2021 release period. -And like you, I also upgraded a lot of my old plugins, and had the same problems you are describing. -Even a few of my older NI libraries had been reorganized by then, which would screw up loading projects with them in it until I re-ran a library search, resaved the project, etc.  -All the while however, I still had a few rack units around, and any time I wanted to use a compressor, or a reverb for instance, those units would fire right up, and still do the very same thing I remembered, every time, no updates, no reinstalls, no relicensing...  Sometimes you just can't win!

Just last week - I opened an older SONAR project, which used a few Dimension patches (oops - programs!) - but ones that had been created and saved using the old 32-bit Cakewalk Sound Center plugin. -And, I had even saved the programs in the project folder, and "upgraded" them to running in 64-bit VST3 Rapture Pro.  However, when I played the project, only 1 out 3 tracks using those programs played back the MIDI.   -I scratched my head a bit, then looked closer at the names I had given the program files - and saw the non-working ones were referencing a "CWSC mod".  I realized then, I had recently removed all the 32-bit plugins in CbB that I could, including CWSC.  -So, I went to my backups, and found that originally, the 32-bit CWSC implementations used an entirely separate copy of the Dimension & Rapture multisamples, -instead of the eventually common shared folders that things became and was used until SONAR was dumped...  Luckily, I had backups, but backpedal, backpedal, to finally open just a simple older project properly. Jeez.

Anyway, I thought I had done so well "upgrading" and backing up my settings as well, but even that sometimes gets trounced by the changes in the technology we just casually use, and then you have to backpedal & gyrate just to open a project you thought was so simple!  -Then of course, there's the snags due to licensing and corporate ownership issues, that we find out as time goes on, on top of that.  Sigh.  -But well, as you say, most of it at least still keeps working (after some backpedaling anyway)!

[Starship Krupa]

3 hours ago, JnTuneTech said:

I thought I had done so well "upgrading" and backing up my settings as well, but even that sometimes gets trounced by the changes in the technology we just casually use, and then you have to backpedal & gyrate just to open a project you thought was so simple!  -Then of course, there's the snags due to licensing and corporate ownership issues, that we find out as time goes on, on top of that.  Sigh.  -But well, as you say, most of it at least still keeps working (after some backpedaling anyway)!

Maybe we're still settling into the technology, even though it's been settled into its current form (by which I mean DAW-with-plug-ins) for over 20 years?

Venus Theory on YouTube is one of my favorite people who philosophizes about the psychological aspects of this matter of everyone having access to a high level of music production technology. When possibilities are endless, when we "know" that there are no logistical penalties for working on a song "forever," when we can fully realize complex musical ideas without having to put together a band, get financial backing, spend money to hire a fully-staffed recording studio, the pressure that once existed to finish things is relieved. It's too easy to fall into a trap of endlessly polishing something as our skills continually level up, our collection of plug-ins levels up.

But as you describe, there is a penalty. I can open projects from 10 years ago, but back then I was using iZotope's Elements series, Kontakt Player 5, a whole bunch of plug-ins that if I wanted to fully revisit them, I'd need to reinstall a bunch of stuff I'd rather not have cluttering up my drives. When I got back into working with a DAW, the host I was using was just transitioning to 64-bit and VST3 support. I was having issues with the 64-bit version, and their VST3 support wasn't fully dialed in, so my projects from back then have some dependencies I'd rather not depend on.

My expectations need management; I need to work knowing that I will want to revisit projects in the future, and that my DAW system will have changed. I suspect that it may not change as much in the next 5 years as it did in the previous 5, due to my collection of mixing (and instrument) plug-ins having leveled up. I stick to well-supported stuff like Brainworx, Meldaproduction, and iZotope, but there are never any guarantees. My MIDI tracks sometimes make use of things that only Cakewalk supports, like the built-in arpeggiator and MIDI FX, which are DXi. Not many hosts still support DXi (Cakewalk and REAPER do). Cakewalk will likely support DXi plug-ins for a good long time to come (they still ship them), but what is "a good long time?" As you point out in the case of the same instrument plug-in from the same manufacturer, Dimension, things can change under the hood.

Maybe it's time to either get into the Venus Theory practice of finishing things whether I think they're perfect or not, and also work with the idea of future-proofing in mind. Knowing that I'll likely want to revisit things in the future. Bounce everything to individual tracks, both with and without FX, etc. I already save every plug-in installer, but there are probably a few that I no longer have due to system rebuilds, disk cleanups, etc.

[Jesse Screed]

On 7/1/2023 at 9:08 PM, JohnnyV said:

I like the idea of the song forum but it also seems a private club of people telling each other their songs are really great when they are actually ??  I was hoping for more , John, your song sucks, you better re do it from the ground up. We are all just to dang polite here.  

John, if you post a song in the song forum I would gladly tell you it sucks.😁

[Starship Krupa]

On 7/1/2023 at 7:08 PM, JohnnyV said:

I like the idea of the song forum but it also seems a private club of people telling each other their songs are really great when they are actually ??  I was hoping for more , John, your song sucks, you better re do it from the ground up. We are all just to dang polite here.

Maybe my standards are low, but IME, the stuff that people post on the Songs sub doesn't suck.

Maybe by the time someone gets a song in good enough shape for their ego to handle showing it off to an audience of entirely musicians/home (and some pro) recordists, it's usually in halfway decent shape.

Usually, if anything's "wrong," there are mix issues where the creator just needs to level up their skills a bit, reference more to their favorite mixes for comparison, etc. Frequency range collisions are something I hear a LOT of in hobbyist mixes (I wonder if Trackspacer is on sale, that thing is still the fastest, easiest way to help with that issue. Also problems with processing on the vocals (usually too dry, not enough highpass, inadequate control of dynamics, not the right kind of reverb for the material, and either too low or too high in the mix, depending on how the person feels about the voice).

Heck, if someone has finished a track, that's something I've only been able to do on average about once a year. Not that I'm terribly down on myself about that, the hobby isn't necessarily a machine for getting songs out there (wherever "there" even is). I just like playing around with sound. I do like it when I create a finished piece, but it's all the fiddling with it that's fun.

[Michael A.D.]

I just like playing around with sound. I do like it when I create a finished piece, but it's all the fiddling with it that's fun.

 

I couldn't have said it better!