KVR Audio

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Wed Mar 25, 2020 6:30 pm

I am actually super surprised about this topic.

Why? Because I didn't get any mail from Native Instruments and I sure as hell do have a couple of sample sets from Best Service that would go into the category "we don't activate that anymore" (in fact - it's not even showing up in Native Access - which still doesn't let me keep the downloaded ISOs!).

So can Matt from NI please explain to me why apparently only selected people were reached out to? What if I'd need to reactivate my product after May and I never got this piece of information? Can you then plainly say "sorry - but should have read up about it"?

I'm honestly sharing the sentiment that this is really bad business. In fact this has been the business for years at this point. I've pushed the Upgrade to Kontakt for years because if you're not a Komplete user, you basically pay royal (yet since NI created a monopoly with Kontakt samples, you don't have much choice). Yet why should I get Komplete if I really only need one of the tools of your house?

zvenx · Post by **zvenx** » Wed Mar 25, 2020 6:32 pm

I too never got any such email.
rsp

nix808 · Post by **nix808** » Wed Mar 25, 2020 6:34 pm

I pretty sure a mail wasn't sent to anyone

it was however announced somewhere on NI's website I think

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Wed Mar 25, 2020 6:37 pm

So if you don't even visit NI's website, because nothing of the sales really interest you, you're still SoL.

dickie001x · Post by **dickie001x** » Wed Mar 25, 2020 6:42 pm

I, too, did NOT receive an email, and only happened to notice the announcement by chance. I’ve been an NI customer since 2006 and have 15 purchases/serial numbers. Why no email?

Vertion · Post by **Vertion** » Wed Mar 25, 2020 7:08 pm

sprnva · Post by **sprnva** » Wed Mar 25, 2020 7:20 pm

I got an email. Perhaps you need to have opted in to receiving their newsletter. GDPR and all that.

midi_transmission · Post by **midi_transmission** » Wed Mar 25, 2020 8:58 pm

I also never got an email about it, owning some of the products. That's why I was a bit shocked to read it here today.

By the way. I seriously think we need an alternative to Kontakt when even sample libraries can be expire due to copy protection.

I have a lot of seconds thoughts now to buy Kontakt libraries I have to say. Something which I never thought of before. I'm fine with protected sample libraries, but not like this.

I own a lot im Kontakt sample libraries and starting to get worries if I can still use them in 10 years.

I mean this with still a lot of sympathy, NI, please focus again on creating honest, long living products that you want to buy yourself and not just on the business side. No marketing can restore broken trust in the brand for me.

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:12 am

We do have to differentiate regarding Kontakt libraries though.

There are the ones that you need to "activate" - which usually come with a "Kontakt Player" and therefore graphical integration into the Kontakt Library Selection. And then the ones that need no activation at all, but have no "library graphic". These are the sample packages that will probably have no issue whatsoever in the future.

But if there is a tendency now that I might not(!) be able to use certain sample sets in the future anymore... then yeah... I'm not a fan of that!

sprnva wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2020 7:20 pm I got an email. Perhaps you need to have opted in to receiving their newsletter. GDPR and all that.

I'm opted in. In fact, I just triple checked my mails - and all I got were "current deals", but no information about any of this "products discontinued" talk.

My oldest product is Peter Siedlaczek Strings - and that one is already borderline unusable with the new Native Access. Did I mention already that Native Access doesn't let you backup the downloads, but downloads, mounts the ISO, installs and then deletes the ISO again (so you need twice the space!). And how dare you not set up the proper install folder first. Or have fun not having a suitable VDSL dataline.

I really dislike download managers like these (in fact, I also highly dislike the iZotope one - but this is a completely different topic)

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 3:23 am

No notice email here either.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 9:48 am

I got the e-mail, with a link to knowledgebase article in it. Not sure why some of you didn't get it. I assume spamboxes checked, and so on?

From what I heard literally every user which had one or more affected products registered in their account was e-mailed. If you don't have any affected products you wouldn't get the e-mail. Note that some of the products in the list are the very oldest versions in some cases (i.e. Chris Hein Horns), which had a number of updates already. So if you had that updated version instead of the oldest one, you wouldn't get the e-mail.

Matt_NI · Post by **Matt_NI** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 10:05 am

Compyfox wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2020 6:30 pm I am actually super surprised about this topic.

Why? Because I didn't get any mail from Native Instruments and I sure as hell do have a couple of sample sets from Best Service that would go into the category "we don't activate that anymore" (in fact - it's not even showing up in Native Access - which still doesn't let me keep the downloaded ISOs!).

So can Matt from NI please explain to me why apparently only selected people were reached out to? What if I'd need to reactivate my product after May and I never got this piece of information? Can you then plainly say "sorry - but should have read up about it"?

We actually sent an email to every account with affected products registered. I'm not entirely sure if due to new GDPR regulation, you would need to have opt in to newsletter again at some point but I can check this out.
We are not really expecting users to check forums or our knowledge base and so changes as such would always be communicated via newsletter as well.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 10:08 am

Matt_NI wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 10:05 am We actually sent an email to every account with affected products registered. I'm not entirely sure if due to new GDPR regulation, you would need to have opt in to newsletter again at some point but I can check this out.
We are not really expecting users to check forums or our knowledge base and so changes as such would always be communicated via newsletter as well.

My account has some of those affected products (Pro-53 and B4 II, for example), and I usually receive NI e-mails with promotions, etc.

However, I didn't receive the e-mail warning about this. I only knew about it here at KVR.

xd37076 · Post by **xd37076** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 10:54 am

Already happened in the past - with my loved Vokator and KORE ...

Lotuz2019 · Post by **Lotuz2019** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:02 am

I can't find the e-mail either and I have several of these classic plugins.

NI have announced they will no longer activate discontinued products