Native Instruments file for insolvency...

[nightjar]

sounds good on paper but...sensel morph for custom controllers was elegant and went out of business...osc front ends to turn any phone or tablet into custom controllers didnt catch fire...leap motions with midi mappers for custom controllers didnt catch fire...all forward thinking executions...i wonder how well the volcas sell?...maschine seemed to have eaten into akai market share,...but i guess traktor wasnt doing the same to pioneer and serato...so im not so sure ur proposal is a slam dunk either

This re-thinking can't be about manipulating a phone/tablet...

It needs to be something ergonomically optimized to how humans move their fingers, hands, arms, legs... free from the constraints of legacy musical instruments that have limits dictated by the physical manipulation of strings/tubes/valves/membranes..

It needs to be forward thinking to with regards to performance feedback.. Haptics, visual, interactive with other humans and AI agents.

It need to be proprietary (but licensable) and tied to a subscription service to rebuilt libraries using the latest AI coding technologies.

A family of controllers that let us sit.. or stand.. or move.. or just "meditate" with minimal movement... subtle head gestures.. lip movement

[kraster]

Forgive me if this has already been posted:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-th ... =share_via

I don't agree with eveything he says, but it is a very interesting read never the less.
rsp

Thanks for the link! Very interesting and insightful article. I didn't realize that the private equity purchaser of NI simply stuck the price of purchasing it onto NI itself as debt. I imagine no new potential purchaser would be willing to accept that debt situation as part of the deal. But I can imagine the current private equity firm finding reason in spinning off components of NI at bargain prices just to lessen the private equity firm's loss....

That's how private equity always works. They front some of the cash themselves (10-20%) and then convince others to invest. That debt is then loaded onto the target company usually in the shape of a merger with a holding company

There has been a view that NI failed because they weren't making money on their products. They were but nowhere near enough to deal with the debt they were sidled with.

NI's problems are almost all from absolute s**t-for-brains investment decisions by people who do not understand the industry. I'll speculate and guess that they saw higher margins during the pandemic and assumed that was the norm. Either way they screwed up royally. As I've said previously on this thread private equity work best with predictable companies or services like utilities. Volatile industries like music software are much more of a gamble.

So the in this scenario the PE company will lose all the money they put in themselves and the rest will most likely to be a debt to equity swap.

I do think the guy in the article is overstating the obsolescence of NI's software. And he's not exactly a neutral contributor.

[glokraw]

I ask myself, what would I buy from a new NI? What would it need to offer?

1. an excellent keyboard controller with a
2. detachable touchscreen computer, that has easy swapping of ssd's for the various concoctions of Komplete and Kontakt libs that people own now, or would buy over time.
3. Assumes the touchscreen computer has standard i/o easily accessable
4. Native Access becomes optional, with traditional installers at the ready.
--------------------
For guitar and sundry keyboards,
1. a multi-fx device with abundant memory and ssd storage and long effects chains that have no typical restriction as to the order, total number, or repetitious placement of any effect.

2. A competitor to ToneX Plug, but with the addition of a 'quiet switch', for times one would edit just the high-gain presets from a lower initial output setting, without blasting the eardrums. This would bring Guitar Rig to the portable zone. (an aside, Fender's guitar and daw presence would be a decent starting point to build from, should they take the risks.)
etc etc

[fedexnman]

I think NI has released a couple of samples packs and play instruments since this insolvency issue . Seem like they are business as usual at the moment . They will probably figure out the subscription business model eventually. But man 300 million, who does this ? Who wrecks a company like this ?

[SLiC]

There have been plenty of small updates as well, so things are ticking along.

[HM]

Haha, sure, nice if the final version becomes relatively updated

Anyway, life goes on

Installers are being downloaded here, licenses for Izotope is moved to iLok now, and Plugin Alliance is being moved to USB-stick soon ,.. on the windows-platform things will work for a
long time I guess

Whats mine is mine ,.. and should not be stolen like Emulator X3 was

Unfortumately I have lots of 3-part Kontakt Librarys still

As for NI its tied to a computer, so I consider to build two spare-computers, (from extra parts I got), and use the two license-locations for these, as some "noahs arks" to keep things at least avialable at a stand alone location for som years, while other alternatives gradually are being implimented,..

A little handfull of most important unreplaceable instruments will be auto-sampled, and ported in best possible other formats, as good as possible

Some will be replaced, like "Session Horns Pro" may be replaced with the East West pendant

As for the rest they will be dropped and lost


Kontakt is no longer a trustworthy format IMHO, dont deserve our money, even less our time

Not even with new owner, as the format need to be open, or we will be fooled same way again

So no more kontakt-instruments, soonest possible stop using it in new arrangements also


Actually the procces started already 10-12 years ago, for my part, as NI began their deroute,
UVI, Arturia, EASTWEST, Steinberg/halion, got a chance insteadt, espcially the last 5 years

Always wise NOT to put all the eggs in same basket, as they say

[Kypresso]

I ask myself, what would I buy from a new NI? What would it need to offer?

1. an excellent keyboard controller with a
2. detachable touchscreen computer, that has easy swapping of ssd's for the various concoctions of Komplete and Kontakt libs that people own now, or would buy over time.
3. Assumes the touchscreen computer has standard i/o easily accessable
4. Native Access becomes optional, with traditional installers at the ready.
--------------------
For guitar and sundry keyboards,
1. a multi-fx device with abundant memory and ssd storage and long effects chains that have no typical restriction as to the order, total number, or repetitious placement of any effect.

Might have worked a year ago but will be unrealistically expensive at the moment due to ai pushing up all the ssd and memory etc, etc prices.

[IvyBirds]

Forgive me if this has already been posted:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-th ... =share_via

I don't agree with eveything he says, but it is a very interesting read never the less.
rsp

Thanks for the link! Very interesting and insightful article. I didn't realize that the private equity purchaser of NI simply stuck the price of purchasing it onto NI itself as debt. I imagine no new potential purchaser would be willing to accept that debt situation as part of the deal. But I can imagine the current private equity firm finding reason in spinning off components of NI at bargain prices just to lessen the private equity firm's loss....

That's how private equity always works. They front some of the cash themselves (10-20%) and then convince others to invest. That debt is then loaded onto the target company usually in the shape of a merger with a holding company

That's how most loans work. Ever buy a car or a house? You make a down payment usually 10-20% and the debt is tied to the car or house which can be repossessed or foreclosed upon if you default

Even if you don't make a down payment and do something dumb like buy a car or house with no money down the entire loan is loaded onto the asset

[kraster]

Forgive me if this has already been posted:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-th ... =share_via

I don't agree with eveything he says, but it is a very interesting read never the less.
rsp

Thanks for the link! Very interesting and insightful article. I didn't realize that the private equity purchaser of NI simply stuck the price of purchasing it onto NI itself as debt. I imagine no new potential purchaser would be willing to accept that debt situation as part of the deal. But I can imagine the current private equity firm finding reason in spinning off components of NI at bargain prices just to lessen the private equity firm's loss....

That's how private equity always works. They front some of the cash themselves (10-20%) and then convince others to invest. That debt is then loaded onto the target company usually in the shape of a merger with a holding company

That's how most loans work. Ever buy a car or a house? You make a down payment usually 10-20% and the debt is tied to the car or house which can be repossessed or foreclosed upon if you default

Even if you don't make a down payment and do something dumb like buy a car or house with no money down the entire loan is loaded onto the asset

The key difference is who bears the debt.

When you buy a house or a car, you personally borrow the money and you personally owe it.

In many leveraged buyouts, the acquisition debt ends up on the target company after the merger, and the company’s cash flow services that debt. The PE firm’s legal downside is typically limited to its equity contribution.

That structure can create a moral hazard: the investors control the company but only risk a fraction of the total enterprise value, while creditors, employees, and other stakeholders bear more of the downside if things go wrong.

Large PE firms also diversify across many portfolio companies, so a single failure may not materially affect them, whereas the consequences for the individual company can be severe.

[oobesan]

NI's problems are almost all from absolute s**t-for-brains investment decisions by people who do not understand the industry. I'll speculate and guess that they saw higher margins during the pandemic and assumed that was the norm.

Yes, and that's really all there is to it. Morons with money thinking that somehow makes them smarter than everyone else.

[buffalo roam]

How a private equity firm assigns its debt internally is just an accounting game. The debt is, in fact, the private equity firm's alone. The point I'm making is that a new potential buyer of NI would refuse to take on the private equity firm's debt and instead seek a purchase price free and clear of what the private equity firm artificially might claim is NI's debt. And the private equity firm would have good reason to take such an offer seriously just to reduce the loss it is inevitably going to take from its mishandling of its NI assets.

Kontakt is pretty much all sample libraries, which essentially are a different game from programming new synths. I think some purchaser will see value in them that is different from the values assigned to synths that can be more readily created from scratch with the help of AI technology. I think Kontakt is more likely to find a buyer than the rest of what NI has to offer.

[IvyBirds]

Forgive me if this has already been posted:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-th ... =share_via

I don't agree with eveything he says, but it is a very interesting read never the less.
rsp

Thanks for the link! Very interesting and insightful article. I didn't realize that the private equity purchaser of NI simply stuck the price of purchasing it onto NI itself as debt. I imagine no new potential purchaser would be willing to accept that debt situation as part of the deal. But I can imagine the current private equity firm finding reason in spinning off components of NI at bargain prices just to lessen the private equity firm's loss....

That's how private equity always works. They front some of the cash themselves (10-20%) and then convince others to invest. That debt is then loaded onto the target company usually in the shape of a merger with a holding company

That's how most loans work. Ever buy a car or a house? You make a down payment usually 10-20% and the debt is tied to the car or house which can be repossessed or foreclosed upon if you default

Even if you don't make a down payment and do something dumb like buy a car or house with no money down the entire loan is loaded onto the asset

The key difference is who bears the debt.

When you buy a house or a car, you personally borrow the money and you personally owe it.

In many leveraged buyouts, the acquisition debt ends up on the target company after the merger, and the company’s cash flow services that debt. The PE firm’s legal downside is typically limited to its equity contribution.

That structure can create a moral hazard: the investors control the company but only risk a fraction of the total enterprise value, while creditors, employees, and other stakeholders bear more of the downside if things go wrong.

Large PE firms also diversify across many portfolio companies, so a single failure may not materially affect them, whereas the consequences for the individual company can be severe.

And again that's how most loans work. If you buy a house or a car with 10% down you don't own either one the bank does your risk of default is on the bank. The bank is on the hook for 90% and you the borrower only have 10% skin in the game

That structure can create a moral hazard you control the car or house but only risk a fraction of the total value, while creditors, their employees, and other stakeholders bear more of the downside if things go wrong.

Large PE firms can only make so many bad bets before they can no longer acquire capital, investors, or financing and become small PE firms or no longer exist. They don't generally buy companies just to bankrupt them their reputation is the only product they have to sell, and many countries have fraud laws that can land people that try in jail

Let's be honest and not try to pretend that it's unusual at all to finance things with a small down payment and put the risk of that financing on the asset we buy

This goes for personal loans and commercial financing. An Uber Driver buying a car for their Uber Business with 10% down is not doing anything different than a Private Equity Firm buying a company. Both are putting very little of their own money into buying an asset and then expecting that asset to generate revenue to service that debt

The same can be said for someone who buys a building for their restaurant, or a warehouse for their furniture store, or even a musician who buys a synth to gig with, only usually the musician is just trying to justify the purchase that way for the wife

[kraster]

I think you’re still glossing over the key distinction.

When you buy a house or car the bank has collateral, but you’re liable for 100% of the loan, and default can follow you beyond just losing the asset. Many defaults are recourse so you could be subject to wage garnishment etc.

On the other hand in a typical leveraged buyout, the acquisition debt is structured at the portfolio company level and is generally non-recourse to the PE fund. In the case of Native instruments they assume the full debt. The PE loses its partial stake and the rest has to be figured out in terms of what the creditors.

The can't "go after" the private equity company to recoup the losses.

If a mortgage or a car loan worked like an LBO, you wouldn’t borrow personally.

You’d create an LLC, put in 10%, have the LLC borrow 90% to buy the house, and ensure the loan is non-recourse to you personally. If the house value drops, the LLC defaults, you lose your 10%, and the bank can’t touch your salary, savings, or other assets.

So saying it’s “the same” as a mortgage or car loan ignores how differently the risk is distributed.

[swilow11]

This may or may not be of use

https://www.mossgrabers.de/Software/Con ... hMoss.html

Lost is lost, time to move on, and maybe better so,.

(speaking as loyal owner since early days, now Komplete 15, and lots of 3 part libraryes)


Like many said, format is highly shady, closed on purpose, due to greed, so its up the hill

For developers there might even be legal issues/claims from whatever maybe remains of NI

Intention was always trappy monopoly, to prevent you from using this format anywhere else

From a user's perspective, proprietary formats are annoying but from a developers, it makes perfect sense.

"Closed on purpose due to greed". I'm not sure this is really accurate. The overwhelming majority of software developers are running companies to make money. This isn't really a good or bad thing- it's just a fact of life under capitalism. Trying to make money (profit even) isn't greed, it's what we basically all do.

To that end, efforts will be made to ensure that a companies IP is protected. This does lock people into using the IP in the way that the developer wants it used which is completely understandable given the economic structure we all live under. Why would any dev outlay time, money and other resources on products that could easily be copied/pirated/ported to competitors or otherwise exploited?

The downside of course is that proprietary formats die if the overarching ecosystem dies. I'm not sure this is an argument for open source formats though because developers probably die when they can't make ends meet too.

[Parco Molo]

If I remember correctly, Triaz from Wave Alchemy was originally a Kontakt instrument. Then they decided to turn it into a plugin, and I think they succeeded. So, as you can see, Kontakt doesn't necessarily have to be a one-way street, even if Native Instruments were to disappear.