Sad state of Native Instruments

[cptgone]

I remember the first Komplete (called Komplete Care), NI sent you a cc like card when you bought it.
A marketing gimmick, I suppose. NI seemed to be ahead even in that department, back then.
Ironic that they now own Plugin Alliance, who outdid most everyone, marketing gimmick wise.

[grandmasterbird]

Question: with the library content that comes with Kontakt, can you select which elements to install and which not to? I know you can opt not to install at all but wondered if there is a way to select individual packs. E.g I would never use anything orchestral or brass for example.

Also have people found Kontakt 7 to be relatively stable?

[mabian]

As far as I know the factory library is all or nothing, you cannot install only parts of it.
About stability, I'd say fairly stable and actively updated, the bad news is that at least currently it's slower than K6, especially regarding loading times... This is my experience so far

[Fornicras]

Is it better to upgrade from K14U to K14CE right now or should I wait fro K15 and upgrade directly from K14U to K15CE?

[machinesworking]

I remember the first Komplete (called Komplete Care), NI sent you a cc like card when you bought it.
A marketing gimmick, I suppose. NI seemed to be ahead even in that department, back then.
Ironic that they now own Plugin Alliance, who outdid most everyone, marketing gimmick wise.

Nerd in me, Komplete Care was a separate product from Komplete. It was somewhat comparable to Bitwigs update plan, you bought a years worth of NI updates to Komplete in advance without knowing what would be updated. It was a bust, NI couldn't update hardly anything and ended up extending it another year and giving us copies of Massive as a bonus which had just come out for free, which we already had copies of in Komplete. I think Massive was the first soft synth I sold ever.

[cptgone]

You're right, machinesworking, I got things mixed up.

[noiseboyuk]

Komplete Care was a separate product from Komplete. It was somewhat comparable to Bitwigs update plan, you bought a years worth of NI updates to Komplete in advance without knowing what would be updated. It was a bust, NI couldn't update hardly anything and ended up extending it another year and giving us copies of Massive as a bonus which had just come out for free, which we already had copies of in Komplete. I think Massive was the first soft synth I sold ever.

There must have been plenty of KVR threads at the time prophesying the imminent end of NI.

[XorXisT]

Oi! Don´t tell me NI is going belly up!

I just cross-graded to Kontakt 7 for cheap!

Dang it!

[chk071]

It's all going to shitz bro! Sell it! Immediately!!

[cptgone]

Komplete Care was a separate product from Komplete. It was somewhat comparable to Bitwigs update plan, you bought a years worth of NI updates to Komplete in advance without knowing what would be updated. It was a bust, NI couldn't update hardly anything and ended up extending it another year and giving us copies of Massive as a bonus which had just come out for free, which we already had copies of in Komplete. I think Massive was the first soft synth I sold ever.

There must have been plenty of KVR threads at the time prophesying the imminent end of NI.

Not me

I remember NI being a major player - one of the best and biggest.
NI used that leverage to add hardware to their product line.
Then, a gradual decline set in, as prominent plugins were neglected/discontinued (Pro 5 being one of the first).
Hence - many years later - this thread.

It may be the case that NI has been clearing technical debt - but from a customer's perspective, decline is all we've seen.

[Daru925]

It's all going to shitz bro! Sell it! Immediately!!

Yeah these apocalyptic threads are funny.

If i were to start music right now, i would be amazed and overwhelmed by the choice and quality provided by any of these "sad greedy and on the verge of death" companies and devs.
I would not feel sad that some legendary dodosynth X-2 went extinct, i wouldn't be sad the synth or compressor is 15 years old without "improvments", because i would have no idea.
I just have so much cool stuff to experiment with, and lots of freebies too.
So from that point of view all these "behemots" have a very strong catalog still.

I would enjoy fm9, but if it never happens, its not like the competition is shit, when the day comes and fm8 stops working...

[grandmasterbird]

As far as I know the factory library is all or nothing, you cannot install only parts of it.
About stability, I'd say fairly stable and actively updated, the bad news is that at least currently it's slower than K6, especially regarding loading times... This is my experience so far

Thank you

[machinesworking]

Komplete Care was a separate product from Komplete. It was somewhat comparable to Bitwigs update plan, you bought a years worth of NI updates to Komplete in advance without knowing what would be updated. It was a bust, NI couldn't update hardly anything and ended up extending it another year and giving us copies of Massive as a bonus which had just come out for free, which we already had copies of in Komplete. I think Massive was the first soft synth I sold ever.

There must have been plenty of KVR threads at the time prophesying the imminent end of NI.

Not me

I remember NI being a major player - one of the best and biggest.
NI used that leverage to add hardware to their product line.
Then, a gradual decline set in, as prominent plugins were neglected/discontinued (Pro 5 being one of the first).
Hence - many years later - this thread.

It may be the case that NI has been clearing technical debt - but from a customer's perspective, decline is all we've seen.

Right away if you were on Mac OS in 2005 you noticed NI’s inability to move to new platforms or even make their current line up perfectly compatible in anything like a timely manor. Absynth worked much better on Mac OS for years and a Reaktor worked better on Windows. They had and have no unified code base, and developers come and go.

Mostly this how all large plugin companies work, there’s always some projects that become too hard to update because the developer left etc. and honestly none of this started with the last couple years etc. NI have always been glacial with housekeeping and have been guilty of keeping far too much technical debt.

They also make great products, these things aren’t mutually exclusive. There are plenty of mediocre developers that got resizable GUIs, VST3 and MPE support etc well before NI, especially since NI still don’t have resizable GUIs or MPE support!

[cptgone]

They also make great products

Indeed.

[SLiC]

They also make great products

They certainly made great products in the past, I’m not sure they are still making great products. MassiveX was the last new product of note (and that release was a bit of a shambles) everything else minor updates and romplers.