Native Instruments Layoffs?

[BONES]

Certain design decisions, like Komplete Kontrol having these nice big screens and yet they can't have a way to jump directly to a parameter page, showing the page name, just makes me think people are designing these things that don't actually use them at all.

What do you use KK for? I've looked at it many times and I don't understand its purpose. It just seems to be a wrapper for VSTs.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Certain design decisions, like Komplete Kontrol having these nice big screens and yet they can't have a way to jump directly to a parameter page, showing the page name, just makes me think people are designing these things that don't actually use them at all.

What do you use KK for? I've looked at it many times and I don't understand its purpose. It just seems to be a wrapper for VSTs.

I have a Komplete Kontrol S88 mkII because I like the feel as a piano and also think the lightguide is useful for kontakt instruments. Makes many complex kontakt patches much easier to use. It's also good for instruments where there aren't too many controls, so keyboards, pianos, realistic instruments, as opposed to synths, so there's limited parameters. But as a synth control surface, it's terrible. Not bad with a touch screen or mouse since you can click directly on the page on the screen that you want, but for the 88 key version, that's not always easy to have directly in the area of your mouse or the screen. Mines off to the side on a stand. And another thing I can't get over is using knobs for the function of buttons, but I've ranted enough about that. It was almost enough to make me not consider a KK, just for the principle. And the really infuriating thing is they already had all this figured out with kore. And seemed to through away the sensible decisions made with that.

[Local Man]

Will there be an entertaining forum meltdown if and when NI goes subscription?

Yeh boy

[spunkmuffin]

NI definitely have some issues - money injection- lots of new staff - growing pains....

Or shrinking pains.

I just read through the glassdoor posts...wow that's sad.

[DrGonzo]

The talk of "a unified platform strategy" makes me confident that the management knows exactly what needs to be done.

[spunkmuffin]

The talk of "a unified platform strategy" makes me confident that the management knows exactly what needs to be done.

haha yeah I'd like to laugh about it but...
I really hope Reaktor & the Reaktor community survives.

[SLiC]

Reason and a lot of the NI stuff share the same problems, lots of legacy code and problems modernising the look, feel, gui size etc from the ground up. It’s almost easier for a new company to start from scratch developing a modern plug/daw than it is for a company to modernise a product with decades of tweaked legacy code. Massive X was NI first eagerly awaited new modern instrument for a long time, a blank sheet for NI to show everyone what the future with NI was going to look like. Suffice to say they didn’t fill me with confidence for the future, and I see NI now more as a content provider (samples, sound packs etc) rather than an innovator.

[perfumer]

So why does it HAVE TO BE online?

[DrGonzo]

The talk of "a unified platform strategy" makes me confident that the management knows exactly what needs to be done.

haha yeah I'd like to laugh about it but...
I really hope Reaktor & the Reaktor community survives.

My feeling about the NI management is that they are almost completely out of touch with their customer base and my guess we won't see much of improvement in innovation or much focus on refining their core products. But to the blessing of NI - they do have some incredibly strong core products that will carry them forward even if the management continues with their "innovative" business experiments.

/C

[digitalboytn]

I wonder why the management didn't give themselves the axe ?

[ghettosynth]

I wonder why the management didn't give themselves the axe ?

LOL! I think you know why!

[Tj Shredder]

I am about to apply for a job at NI to put them on the right path...; - )

I always wondered about the size of that company. I mean Bitwig started with 4 and are now maybe 12 (rumour driven speculation) and still they pull out innovative quality per employee magnitudes higher than many others. U-he isn't huge either...
One Native seems to be a good strategy - whatever it means. Out of a management perspective its necessary to develop a platform which focuses on creativity and innovation and simplifies all administrative tasks. Those who actually spend money on NI products usually do not waist their time at KVR, we simply don't know the share of revenue they make from content and from their synths and hardware.
Many complain about some old products not being updated. A good product does not need updates! And NI has a bunch of them. (They still will be able to sell them, and those who have it already would only spend small upgrade fees if at all...) The market longs for something new (no idea why...). Every software project will reach the point where maintaining the existing code base is more difficult than recoding everything from scratch. I bet they are about to do just that. But there is a huge risk, historic examples are Final Cut Pro, and if you want Massive X (I bet its already based on a new reusable code base).
This is a huge project, that is what they need the investment for....

[ghettosynth]

Those who actually spend money on NI products usually do not waist their time at KVR

I waist my time everywhere, I'm storing everything else there, why not my time?

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Those who actually spend money on NI products usually do not waist their time at KVR

I waist my time everywhere, I'm storing everything else there, why not my time?

[DrGonzo]

Many complain about some old products not being updated. A good product does not need updates!

Well put! When a product reaches its goal it's ready. You might need some updates for futureproofing but apart from that - done.

But - that being said, on another hand it is a wasted resource.

Take the Pro-5 for example. When it came out it was one of the hottest plugins around and with Pro-52 NI made it even better. Then after a couple of years they ditched it together with B4. Building on them further (even if that means rewriting the base code) would have made NI securing their product line with two seriously heavy-weight synths and collect revenues from updates.

Instead they scrapped them and left the doors open for developers like u-he and Arturia. As a customer, I'm not too sad about that. Arturia does their stuff really well these days, and what u-he does is nothing but spectacular. But I still feel it was a big waste of opportunities for Native Instruments. Synths like Absynth and FM8 can absolutely be regarded as being "done" - but on another hand, both synths carry such amazing possibilities that you could make them into some serious flagships. Instead they let them stay on slowly fading into obscurity.

/C