Sad state of Native Instruments

[gaf_thit]

I would probably fit as right at home in the Sad State of Native Instruments, but not sure how to apply for citizenship nor where it is. Ask the Natives?

[cptgone]

My advice would be for tho's that are debating who's right and who's wrong, to just ...

FIFY

[Scoops]

My advice would be for those that are debating whose right and whose wrong, to just ...

*who's*. who is, as contracted: 'who's'. whose is a possessive.

"You couldn't use NA for 4 days"
I couldn't for one part of one day. in any case I don't buy your story about this, as I was, having recently been in a small spree of NI product acquisition, in consistent contact with the thing at the time.

Man, I couldn't figure out what was going on! It seems like the world quit spinning, dog and cats were getting along, and politicians had all come to agreement on everything. It all goes back to my incorrect usage. Thanks all for the corrections!

As far as NI down for 4 days, True statement! I lost access for 2, and had intermittent access for the 2 following. NI issued statement 4 days after the fact. Had to rebuild my puter a second time because I had loaded NI content during this time, and content didn't play nice with my system, and didn't install and or function as advertised.

I'm not alone here, look at TrustPilot

Enter in NI land with caution

[Milkman]

I just found that 100s of NKI and KT3 formatted kits and instruments will no longer show up in kontakt/maschine/KK and I am effing pissed. I thought that many of the garbage changes occurring to the NI ecosystem hadnt majorly affected me, but then I found this....

The only way I can get these sounds loaded is by manually loading them, 1 at a time (no quicklaunch or library access) into kontakt7, and playing them with a keyboard. Maschine and KK wont "see" them anymore in their file browsers, and I cant "create a new instrument" and add them into it.

These are instruments that previously worked, and I went to add them to a quicklaunch menu last night but found that there is a red "nope" symbol on the import command now..... this is no good, and a major reason for me to avoid NKS/other NI formatted content.

[digitalboytn]

I just found that 100s of NKI and KT3 formatted kits and instruments will no longer show up in kontakt/maschine/KK and I am effing pissed. I thought that many of the garbage changes occurring to the NI ecosystem hadnt majorly affected me, but then I found this....

These are instruments that previously worked, and I went to add them to a quicklaunch menu last night but found that there is a red "nope" symbol on the import command now..... this is no good, and a major reason for me to avoid NKS/other NI formatted content.

This is one of the things that does piss me off about NI...

They break compatibility on purpose to force you into upgrading...

Komplete Control

That's why I avoid their ecosystems and just use the individual products

[Milkman]

I just found that 100s of NKI and KT3 formatted kits and instruments will no longer show up in kontakt/maschine/KK and I am effing pissed. I thought that many of the garbage changes occurring to the NI ecosystem hadnt majorly affected me, but then I found this....

These are instruments that previously worked, and I went to add them to a quicklaunch menu last night but found that there is a red "nope" symbol on the import command now..... this is no good, and a major reason for me to avoid NKS/other NI formatted content.

This is one of the things that does piss me off about NI...

They break compatibility on purpose to force you into upgrading...

Komplete Control

That's why I avoid their ecosystems and just use the individual products

Im done buying NI content at this point. And I guess this includes 3rd party kontakt instrument sellers as well, as most of the issues Im seeing are in 3rd party instruments. This alienates many 3rd party creators! Wtf!

Yeah Im good. No more NI products until they reverse course - IF they ever reverse course.

[swilow11]

Damn, I just bought a bunch of different Reaktor blocks and installing and using them has been both simple and fun. Something is up here for sure

[Milkman]

Damn, I just bought a bunch of different Reaktor blocks and installing and using them has been both simple and fun. Something is up here for sure

When you stay inside the NI ecosystem, everything *mostly* works, yeah. But NI doesnt exist inside an ecosystem of only NI, and the success of their overall brand relies on respecting the ecosystem. Alienating 1000s of content creators on one hand, then alienating many customers by way of breaking their 3rd party kontakt libraries is a good way to make your brand a lot less "simple and fun."

[swilow11]

I use NI for about 10% of my musical stuff.

Every dev has technical issues and glitches. I just think that NI are so big that their issues have much broader impact than most.

A lot of the issues in this thread are either minor and/or temporary. But some people here seem primed to catastrophise everything negative that is related to NI and get positive feedback for doing so.

Not trying to dismiss people who have encountered problems. But for me, for what I do, NI actually run smoothly. Native Access is a great installer, better than most, and the products I use (Reaktor, Ashlight/sample libraries) are great.

I will say that I've been playing with MASSIVE X again and am slightly appalled by how unfinished it seems but I think we can just chalk that up as a missed opportunity. Reaktor otoh is still amazing.

[chk071]

I use NI for about 10% of my musical stuff.

Every dev has technical issues and glitches. I just think that NI are so big that their issues have much broader impact than most.

A lot of the issues in this thread are either minor and/or temporary. But some people here seem primed to catastrophise everything negative that is related to NI and get positive feedback for doing so.

Spot on.

[Milkman]

I use NI for about 10% of my musical stuff.

Every dev has technical issues and glitches. I just think that NI are so big that their issues have much broader impact than most.

A lot of the issues in this thread are either minor and/or temporary. But some people here seem primed to catastrophise everything negative that is related to NI and get positive feedback for doing so.

Not trying to dismiss people who have encountered problems. But for me, for what I do, NI actually run smoothly. Native Access is a great installer, better than most, and the products I use (Reaktor, Ashlight/sample libraries) are great.

I will say that I've been playing with MASSIVE X again and am slightly appalled by how unfinished it seems but I think we can just chalk that up as a missed opportunity. Reaktor otoh is still amazing.

No, not "every dev" has these issues, nor does every dev handle their issues, when they have them, in the manner that NI has decided to -- just after being acquired by a big private equity investor.

Ive been in this industry for decades and a customer of NI as long, and Ive watched as NI moved more toward investor-friendly philosophies and away from customer, community-friendly philosophies, such as *breaking 100s or 1000s of purchased 3rd party instruments overnight and then trying to use PR and brand management to gloss it all over.

The issues described in this thread are anything but minor and temporary, including scheduled obsolescence of hardware AND software, intentional destruction of 3rd party creators (and of paid products), movement toward more dishonest PR philosophy, movement away from valuable sound design tools and toward "sample pack instruments", etc. NI got rid of Absynth's creator, FFS, Brian Clevinger, because he, too, was not part of their new philosophy despite arguably being a major part of their success.

'Catastrophizing' is a behavior associated with psych disorders, so you should shy away from using it to describe... the anger of long time NI customers who see these negative changes for what they are.

[enCiphered]

I use NI for about 10% of my musical stuff.

Every dev has technical issues and glitches. I just think that NI are so big that their issues have much broader impact than most.

A lot of the issues in this thread are either minor and/or temporary. But some people here seem primed to catastrophise everything negative that is related to NI and get positive feedback for doing so.

Not trying to dismiss people who have encountered problems. But for me, for what I do, NI actually run smoothly. Native Access is a great installer, better than most, and the products I use (Reaktor, Ashlight/sample libraries) are great.

I will say that I've been playing with MASSIVE X again and am slightly appalled by how unfinished it seems but I think we can just chalk that up as a missed opportunity. Reaktor otoh is still amazing.

This sounds exactly like someone who pursues music only as a hobby. But if you make your living with it, things are different. I'm not saying that most of the people here who point out problems are professionals, but I'm 100% sure that some of them rely on working projects and plugins, and if that's not the case, they have to use time-consuming and elaborate workarounds to be able to deliver their work at the end of the day.

I know, it is difficult to empathize with someone else's situation...

[Scoops]

I use NI for about 10% of my musical stuff.

Every dev has technical issues and glitches. I just think that NI are so big that their issues have much broader impact than most.

A lot of the issues in this thread are either minor and/or temporary. But some people here seem primed to catastrophise everything negative that is related to NI and get positive feedback for doing so.

I say spot off

I rebuilt my computer from scratch a couple weeks ago
IK Multimedia installed flawlessly - Studio Max with libraries
Fabfilter installed flawlessly
Waves Installed flawlessly
Spitfire BBCSO Pro - Installed flawlessly

Got this all built out in 3.5 hours including OS and updates

NI stuff is a different story, and I had to open separate tickets for Plugin Alliance, Izotope, and NI Komplete 14 UCE, as each of the installs experienced a problem.

Getting the NI stuff sorted out was a 5 day adventure in pain.

[chk071]

I wonder if Brian Clevinger would agree that NI "got rid of him", because "was not part of their new philosophy".

From what I read what he said, he only declared his sadness about the discontinuation of Absynth. Which is pretty understandable (the discontinuation), by the way, as it's a niche product. Heck, even Massive X didn't seem to sell particularly well, and that is a much more mainstream instrument.

[Milkman]

I wonder if Brian Clevinger would agree that NI "got rid of him", because "was not part of their new philosophy".

From what I read what he said, he only declared his sadness about the discontinuation of Absynth. Which is pretty understandable (the discontinuation), by the way, as it's a niche product. Heck, even Massive X didn't seem to sell particularly well, and that is a much more mainstream instrument.

I guess you will have to watch his video yourself, as it sounds like you havent. You know, the video where he talks about being "disappointed and upset by it - an understatement"? I like how he mentions working with the early NI team to make it all possible in the first place. Yeah sounds like no big deal to Brian, lol.



Im sure Brian is totally fine with it all, yes. Lets pat NI's new private equity investors on the back (who also fired 100s of OTHER NI staff recently) and give them a gift of free PR.