Sad state of Native Instruments

[DrGonzo]

This might be one of the longest running threads on Kvr ever

I would be applauding NI for taking an effort to rewrite Kontakt, but the issue that has been talked about since the start of this thread is that NI is no longer in it for the long run. They release new things with larger spaces of time between them and the things they have they support with the absolute minimum. And as have been said multiple times now. They can't even get an installer working.

Any other company would die for having a userbase like that for Maschine for example. For any other company it would be a goldmine.

It wouldn't surprise me if some bigger fish will swallow up NI in the near future.

[noiseboyuk]

It's interesting how there's two narratives here. NI were bought out by venture capitalists early 2022, and since then:

NARRATIVE 1
They're only interested in the lowest possible hanging fruit, or:

NARRATIVE 2
They had to consolidate their line up to move forward.

By the autumn we'll have a sense of which is closer to the truth. If what NI really mean by "Later this year, we’ll significantly expand what's possible in Kontakt" is that they will launch another dozen PLAY libraries, Narrative 1 is correct. If it's something like Kontakt X, it will be narrative 2.

And lest I be accused of being an eternal optimist (heaven forfend), I consider iZotope to be thoroughly gutted and bankrupted. RX11 was their chance to catch up, and they failed. I don't see any glimmers of hope there that I do see in NI themselves.

[ericj23]

RX11 was their chance to catch up, and they failed.

Genuinely interested in what they were catching up too, as I want to do some audio restoration/clean-up soon. I am considering some new software, so what do you recommend?

[ralfrobert]

RX11 was their chance to catch up, and they failed.

Genuinely interested in what they were catching up too, as I want to do some audio restoration/clean-up soon. I am considering some new software, so what do you recommend?

Take a look at Acon Digital Acoustica.

[DrGonzo]

And lest I be accused of being an eternal optimist (heaven forfend)

There are worse crimes to be accused of than being an optimist

[digitalboytn]

Sub Kontraktorz

Brilliant

[carrieres]

And lest I be accused of being an eternal optimist (heaven forfend)

There are worse crimes to be accused of than being an optimist

Exactly, like accused to be a sheep, because you follow the mainstream trends or an ostrich because you put your head in the sand (french expression for : you don't want to see the real world as it is )
Yes, the world is poured with pessimistic words

[ericj23]

RX11 was their chance to catch up, and they failed.

Genuinely interested in what they were catching up too, as I want to do some audio restoration/clean-up soon. I am considering some new software, so what do you recommend?

Take a look at Acon Digital Acoustica.

ta - are there any others?

[dionenoid]

RX11 was their chance to catch up, and they failed.

Genuinely interested in what they were catching up too, as I want to do some audio restoration/clean-up soon. I am considering some new software, so what do you recommend?

Take a look at Acon Digital Acoustica.

ta - are there any others?

Spectralayers is the one to beat. So much better than RX or Acoustica. It's on sale right now, and new version is around the corner btw.

[ericj23]

RX11 was their chance to catch up, and they failed.

Genuinely interested in what they were catching up too, as I want to do some audio restoration/clean-up soon. I am considering some new software, so what do you recommend?

Take a look at Acon Digital Acoustica.

ta - are there any others?

Spectralayers is the one to beat. So much better than RX or Acoustica. It's on sale right now, and new version is around the corner btw.

Fab - that was on my list, but I am now going to download the demo.

[Robin Lobel]

If you'd like to compare the upcoming SpectraLayers 11 vs RX 11, Acoustica and other in audio restoration and unmixing:
https://divideconcept.github.io/Restoration-Comparison/
https://divideconcept.github.io/Unmix-Comparison/

[machinesworking]

It's interesting how there's two narratives here. NI were bought out by venture capitalists early 2022, and since then:

NARRATIVE 1
They're only interested in the lowest possible hanging fruit, or:

NARRATIVE 2
They had to consolidate their line up to move forward.

By the autumn we'll have a sense of which is closer to the truth. If what NI really mean by "Later this year, we’ll significantly expand what's possible in Kontakt" is that they will launch another dozen PLAY libraries, Narrative 1 is correct. If it's something like Kontakt X, it will be narrative 2.

And lest I be accused of being an eternal optimist (heaven forfend), I consider iZotope to be thoroughly gutted and bankrupted. RX11 was their chance to catch up, and they failed. I don't see any glimmers of hope there that I do see in NI themselves.

To be clear, I do not see any sea change in NI's behavior since 2022, the buy out has little to do with my thoughts on NI. I just see a pattern of behavior over 20 years that's growing larger, i.e. they're more interested in selling PLAY style instruments than competing in the market for synths and samplers targeting sound designers.

Consider that the GUI of a VI is the main thing that keeps getting changed by time, people want resizable GUI's, Arm for Apple Silicon, soon Arm for Windows. Most of their issues over the last 4 years have been admitted by themselves as due to 15 year old graphics frameworks with no similarity between programs. Now consider the simple interfaces of most PLAY instruments, and how little work it would be to port to a new framework compared to Kontakt or Reaktor.

Just for fun, this is my prediction, NI release Kontakt 8 with some basic synthesis engines, basic MIDI 2.0, but no MPE support, and a framework for third party developers to sell PLAY instruments. Reaktor is sidelined, essentially used to make instrument like Monark, and the only improvement is Monark etc. do not show the Reaktor shell.

[Jac459]

It's interesting how there's two narratives here. NI were bought out by venture capitalists early 2022, and since then:

NARRATIVE 1
They're only interested in the lowest possible hanging fruit, or:

NARRATIVE 2
They had to consolidate their line up to move forward.

By the autumn we'll have a sense of which is closer to the truth. If what NI really mean by "Later this year, we’ll significantly expand what's possible in Kontakt" is that they will launch another dozen PLAY libraries, Narrative 1 is correct. If it's something like Kontakt X, it will be narrative 2.

And lest I be accused of being an eternal optimist (heaven forfend), I consider iZotope to be thoroughly gutted and bankrupted. RX11 was their chance to catch up, and they failed. I don't see any glimmers of hope there that I do see in NI themselves.

I don't think narrative 1 and 2 excludes eachothers. Both are true imho.

The big test for Izotope will be ozone ... I am curious to see f they will propose a good refresh or just again a few new gimmicks with broken genAI features....

If so, I would considere moving 100% to fabfilter (I am already 50/50).

[Daru925]

Hehe naive instruments.

I love their now old catalog (massive x is already old right).
But their new yeah yoyo check ma youtoob 808 guys! sample packs isnt appealing to me, and it's just kontakt being used by third parties so much that keeps my interest.

I dont expect anything from them in the future so either they make some amazing fx, synth (not a sampled one) and that would be a good surprise (like santa is real) or i will use the good old tools for as long as possible, hoping they dont delete the side panel in next kontakt otherwise, my old trombone libraries won't show up (scan doesnt work).

[loungepanda]

I'm guessing SoundWide (Stibel and Co) is trying to avoid creating too much product overlap between NI and PA, hence the decreased focus on FX and synths.

Reaktor couldn't compete anyway, especially in terms of UX. A lot of the stuff is obviously good, but too complex for zoomers to understand and work with. They'd rather just use Serum/Phaseplant and RC20.