What is happening to Native Instruments?

[audiot]

What a stupid thread ...

You can (and you should) critisize NI for specific reasons, like Massive X, or for their strategy on legacy products, but that pointless company bashing is just awful

I bet that a few of the haters, dont have a problem with installing their christmas freebies (Raum, Driver, Supercharger ...) and frequently use Kontakt because there is no serious competitor (and dont come up with Falcon - most expensive bad buy I ever did ).

So, you find this thread stupid (I agree that the recent post kind of are), but the best argument you found to defend a company is attacking a product of OTHER company?

Yeah ... sorry for that! Sometimes my fingers are faster than my brain I hope that UVI completly redesigns the UI with the next major update. But I'm still pissed ... if there would have been a demo version, I wouldnt have bought it

[FapFilter]

Not meaning to derail the thread, but that's something I haven't heard before. Out of personal curiosity - what did you replace your u-he plugs with?

/C

i haven't bought any of the analog modelled synths from them, but ACE was pretty close.
i'm using TAL Mod instead. I prefer it's tone even to Diva or the Repros - i don't care wether it's technically on a more convincingly analog level, or not, but i love the sounds i can coax of it. It is also way more flexible regarding modulations compared to the latter two u-he synths.
It also has the better workflow, GUI layout and a *drum roll* freely scalable GUI

I liked and still like Bazille. And i know it's a totally different category, but the only other synth i'm using is Icarus 2. it just suits me better for the more “digital“ side of sounds

I'm also using TAL sampler as a quick and easy to use basic sampler for melodic stuff (which i probably wouldn't need if i was using a host other than Reaper ) and Geist 2 for my drum sampling duties. Of course both are no replacements for u-he stuff, because they don't offer any sampler at all.

These four are actually the only software instruments i use. I also have a handful of hardware noise makers for toying around.

Haven't been wading through the whole market though, so there might be others that i'd even prefer to those. I'm just perfectly happy with that setup in all regards and feel no need at all to do so.

[Stefken]

i actually don't think that most people who dislike NI now, or for a while now actually would feel better if the went out of business.

I can actually speak for myself, but i think i've read it here by other people too, that i've had disappointment after disappointment starting in the later half of the noughties.
When they seamingly shifted their focus i wasn't that interested in anymore. Before that, the were an inventive, cutting edge company. Kontakt 3 might have been their last product that had that spirit for me, after that, more and more really good stuff got discontinued and abandoned, but at the same time it was just more and more sample libraries and stuff and most of their products mainly received feature updates for better library handling instead of improving the actual product, even if that just means a larger GUI and improved workflow.
Even the first Massive was handled by someone outside NI if i'm not mistaken.
I don't know if it's because Stefan Schmidt left NI, or maybe he just left NI of frustration/disagreement.

Yeah that quite sums it up for me. NI can keep producing sample packs for the next 20 years for all I care but that's the thing : it don't care much anymore as there is no innovative spirit.

People repeating conspiracy theories about people bashing NI just because it is big...
I just bought into Roland (you know that small company) with several hardware devices.

The reason is that Roland IS doing innovative things and IS listening to their customers.
They did some really nice free firmware upgrades to their MC-707 that really added interesting features. Features that the customers requested and ... there ye go.
Also their 'Zen-universe' is just getting started. They just launched the Zenology software. The software is still basic at this time (but Zenology Pro is coming) but this 'Zen-universe' has so much potential for both software and hardware. It's exciting to see it grow while NI is ..yawn... another sample pack.

Now I don't want the NI people to lose their job and I'm pretty sure NI will continue to exist but I don't expect many new interesting things from them. Which is OK I guess, just one of the companies out there doing what they have been doing for quite a while.

I think people frustrated with NI are people that invested in NI, that had high hopes (because of previous innovation) and saw that innovation and customers interaction coming to a standstill.

Nothing more, nothing less.

[chk071]

People repeating conspiracy theories about people bashing NI just because it is big...
I just bought into Roland (you know that small company) with several hardware devices.

Well, there's enough Roland bashing as well. Also, I'm not quite sure you understand what bashing means in this regard: Bashing means, coming in threads like these with nothing more to say than "I don't buy or use anything by this company anymore anyway, they can die and rot in hell!". Basically, nothing constructive, no reasoning, just pissed, jealous and insulted desctructive crap which should be let go in the nearest toilet, but not in a discussion. There's nothing wrong with saying that you don't like the company, won't buy anymore, and have no interest in the products, with a proper reasoning. Anything else is just stupid. And, in most cases, only political anyway.

In general, the bigger the company, the more people will complain. There are several reasons for that - bigger userbase, a company which can't say "How high?" when a single user tells them to jump, naive people who think the company lost their ties to the users, just because their egoistic views aren't fulfilled, but also a whole lot of "Bring down capitalism!", and stupid stuff like that. All the stuff which is so promiment with the usual internet oddball who feels this is the only way to express his minority opinion.

You know, back in the days, the only way to express discontent with a product or a company was to stop buying from them. What a nightmare compared to times where you just can rant on the internet or social media about them, infect others, and excercise power, huh? Surprisingly nobody complained about it back then.

[FapFilter]

I love my SH-01A, but i actually don't think they're that inventive in general.
It's more like their way of behringerizing the vintage market.
Sound is f**king great of course though!

And regarding Massive X. I think it's probably a great product, even if still flawed in some areas. But the reasons i didn't even consider it are the facts that
a) you can't form your oscillator waveforms from scratch - maybe the results sound better, if professionally treated by NI, or maybe *warning not 100% percent serious conspiration theory ahead* they wanted you to buy more sound libraries from them
and b) my aging CPU doesn't support the required instruction set anyway, whatever it was called again.
For the latter i of course don't fault NI. My CPU is 10 years old now and if an instrument truly made me horny, i'd probably buy a new CPU just for that.

[midi_transmission]

I'm also not impressed by the releases in the last years. But I wish them all the best and hope that they come back closer to the community with great products.

That said, without subscription please or I'm out!

[Kongru]

dont come up with Falcon - most expensive bad buy I ever did ).

Interesting that you cite Falcon as being a bad buy when it's commonly referred to as one of the best synth/ samplers ever made.

[audiot]

dont come up with Falcon - most expensive bad buy I ever did ).

Interesting that you cite Falcon as being a bad buy when it's commonly referred to as one of the best synth/ samplers ever made.

Some people suggested it as a proper alternative to Kontakt. It's not ... single thread, horrible browser, unintuitive UI. For samples i prefer Kontakt and TAL Sampler. And for subtractive, fm and wavetable stuff there are better alternatives. I understand that some people love that universal-do-it-all-workstation-concept, but in that form it just doesnt work for me. Phaseplant follows a similar concept, but has a much better UI in my opinion.

[Calenberger]

dont come up with Falcon - most expensive bad buy I ever did ).

Interesting that you cite Falcon as being a bad buy when it's commonly referred to as one of the best synth/ samplers ever made.

Perhaps the Falcon dislikers (like me) are a more polite bunch who does not enter every thread and troll around with a grumpy feeling?

[sinemotor]

And regarding Massive X. I think it's probably a great product, even if still flawed in some areas. But the reasons i didn't even consider it are the facts that
a) you can't form your oscillator waveforms from scratch - maybe the results sound better, if professionally treated by NI

I often see this criticism about Massive X not being able to import/create wavetables, etc. That's ok but it's also disregarding the most interesting aspects this synth has to offer to shape the sound, which are found in the different unique wavetable modes, the PM capabilities, the modular routing, filters, poly effects, etc. Even though it has its limitations, sonically MX goes way beyond any (wavetable) synth.

[audiot]

dont come up with Falcon - most expensive bad buy I ever did ).

Interesting that you cite Falcon as being a bad buy when it's commonly referred to as one of the best synth/ samplers ever made.

Perhaps the Falcon dislikers (like me) are a more polite bunch who does not enter every thread and troll around with a grumpy feeling?

Yeah right Trollenberger This is my first post for this week! Falcon was not the main point of my post. And I apologize for the falcon criticism.

[rezoneight]

That's no problem. I also don't use u-he stuff anymore though too. But nothing related to personal disappointment or disagreement. I actually think they are probably the best “big name“ brand on the market who still seem to have that genuine spirit of invention / pushing the envelope with them.
I just found other stuff, that worked even better for me, and also sized down my VST folders significantly.

I see what you did there. "pushing the envelope". wink wink

[Kongru]

dont come up with Falcon - most expensive bad buy I ever did ).

Interesting that you cite Falcon as being a bad buy when it's commonly referred to as one of the best synth/ samplers ever made.

Perhaps the Falcon dislikers (like me) are a more polite bunch who does not enter every thread and troll around with a grumpy feeling?

Yeah right Trollenberger This is my first post for this week! Falcon was not the main point of my post. And I apologize for the falcon criticism.

Thanks for the detailed response, didn't mean to come across as aggressive or anything. Generally interested as I've never really heard anyone say anything against it other than the complicated UI.

I guess nothing really comes close to Kontakt with regards to its ubiquitousness.

[telecode]

dont come up with Falcon - most expensive bad buy I ever did ).

Interesting that you cite Falcon as being a bad buy when it's commonly referred to as one of the best synth/ samplers ever made.

Perhaps the Falcon dislikers (like me) are a more polite bunch who does not enter every thread and troll around with a grumpy feeling?

i would really like to try falcon one day. so far, all the UVI stuff I have I really like.

[rezoneight]

Not meaning to derail the thread, but that's something I haven't heard before. Out of personal curiosity - what did you replace your u-he plugs with?

/C

i haven't bought any of the analog modelled synths from them, but ACE was pretty close.
i'm using TAL Mod instead. I prefer it's tone even to Diva or the Repros - i don't care wether it's technically on a more convincingly analog level, or not, but i love the sounds i can coax of it. It is also way more flexible regarding modulations compared to the latter two u-he synths.
It also has the better workflow, GUI layout and a *drum roll* freely scalable GUI

To be fair...the latter two u-He synths you mentioned aren't semi-modular like TAL Mod ACE is and pretty flexible

That being said I've been spending quite some time as of late just messing with Diva and its amazing what can be coaxed out of that thing.