Native Instruments, hmmmm...

[cuttime]

I think they have been off their game for a while, and this seems to confirm this. I know I will think twice about investing any more in their products:

https://cdm.link/2019/09/native-instruments-cuts/

[Gravity Jim]

From the article:

"Revenues continued to grow for NI through 2019, so any snap analysis you may have read online that this is in response to financial trouble are likely misguided."

[Michael Canavan]

From the article:

"Revenues continued to grow for NI through 2019, so any snap analysis you may have read online that this is in response to financial trouble are likely misguided."

Sure, IMO it's more of a sign of how backwards management has things at NI, and that's nothing new.
It's also a sign that improvements to existing products are probably not going to happen. We're IMO less likely to see Absynth improve for instance and less likely to see VST3 versions, less likely to see resizable GUIs, and of course less likely to see these things as updates as opposed to paid upgrades.

Maybe I'm bitter because I owned Kore, Rig Kontrol 3 and still own Maschine Studio. Two of those are long since discontinued, and Machine Studio was replaced by Maschine MkII. They make great products, but I cannot in any honesty say that a lay off when there's still a lot of 'busy work' that needs to be done there is a good sign.

Here's to Kontakt surviving. I'm not going to invest in much else of theirs though until the dust settles. Unless there's a massive discount on the K12U upgrade.

[cuttime]

I'm not necessarily referring to their bottom line. I'm speaking of my own experiences. Just last year, I reported a bug in Kontakt 6, and it took over two months for a reply. Several weeks later they confirmed the bug. Several versions of K6 have been released since then, and the bug still persists. They told me I should just use K5! I'm still not sure why I upgraded to K6 at this point; they actually took away features from it! Reducing Engineering staff is certainly not going to help. Just last month I considered buying an S88 keyboard, and I sure am glad I didn't, now. There are plenty of people still fuming over the botched rollout of MassiveX, and rightly so. So no, I'm not going to speculate on what their plans are, there's plenty of that going on now. The vague corporate speak that they've been issuing is just not inspiring any confidence for a consumer to lay out any hard earned cash.

[mikehalloran]

Hmmmm.... 20% layoff combined with increased revenues. Classic sign of a company ridding itself of dead wood.

If I was an engineer, my resume would be in now.

[corbo-billy]

https://www.musicradar.com/news/native- ... d-platform

[wvandyck]

I thought long and hard before not upgradinng to K12U. Not enough to jusitify the expense from 11. Then again, over the years, the upgrade costs, especially during special promotionals have been fair.

No use speculating where this going, but the gut is not thrilled.

[HCMarkus]

How many plugins does a guy or gal need? Then again, I am seriously considering dropping $400 on that new SampleModeling string VI... innovation will still allow companies to separate us from our money. We’ll see if NI can keep up.

[Michael Canavan]

Hmmmm.... 20% layoff combined with increased revenues. Classic sign of a company ridding itself of dead wood.

If I was an engineer, my resume would be in now.

I would not bank on that assumption. First off a you can see their revenue stream as a german company, and it's steady, profits have varied from year to year with this last one being nowhere near their highest. They aren't showing a steady increase. The whole announcement they made was pure market speak.

They recently were invested heavily in by an outside firm, it's very likely they're turning a profit by layoff, the laziest way to turn a profit. NI have a long history of making ridiculous decisions in a slash and burn way, and this isn't any surprise to me.

I still love Kontakt and Reaktor though.

[mhschmieder]

Reading further down into the article is not fun. It seems they will have a new platform to replace the old, and will be far more focused on loops.

It's interesting timing, as I just sold most of my UVI stuff, after deciding I find the workflow and preset selection to be extremely cumbersome and counter-productive as it interrupts continuity of thought and vision. I don't notice it so much on ethnic libraries as on other stuff.

ENGINE will have a re-do soon(?). I only sold a couple of those libraries, and only due to redundancy vs. workflow or other things. It's still a minor platform vs. Kontakt or even UVI.

[Michael Canavan]

It's interesting timing, as I just sold most of my UVI stuff, after deciding I find the workflow and preset selection to be extremely cumbersome and counter-productive as it interrupts continuity of thought and vision. I don't notice it so much on ethnic libraries as on other stuff.

Out of curiosity how are you navigating Kontakt libraries that makes you feel it's a better approach?

Not arguing here, just curious, I find most sample libraries to be completely lacking in navigation, but I give props to NI for having a "search with Spotlight" option for when you yourself can't remember where the library is?

[mhschmieder]

Kontakt libraries are direct loads, and don't block what you're doing while switching settings. Presets are often drop-lists within the library GUI vs. requiring going back to the disc-level library loader. Also, updates are usually incremental vs. requiring the replacement of an entire gigantic monolith file.

I greatly admire the UVI pace of development, and many of the products are great, plus I am keeping ones that for now remain top choices (e.g. World Suite, Percussion Store, Mayhem of Loops). But I've also found it much more difficult to customize key switches, MIDI CC's, etc., even compared to ENGINE. Ironically, I found the very first generation of MOTU machFive a bit more intuitive and smooth overall.

[corbo-billy]

And with UVI Workstation, you can save a Multi but I don't find for a single patche or a a set of internal effects ...!

[HCMarkus]

I give props to NI for having a "search with Spotlight" option for when you yourself can't remember where the library is.

+1

[BobK]

I haven't upgraded Komplete for years - all I really use is Kontakt. I hope they don't change it to subscription-ware, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do.