Native Instruments file for insolvency...

[buffalo roam]

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.

Right. 8Dio's Soundpaint was an effort to free itself from Kontakt, too. I imagine Heavyocity is busily figuring out its escape route as we speak. I hope so, for the sake of Damage and Damage 2.

[buffalo roam]

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.

I think we're all shouting into the wind. No one really seems to know how the current private equity firm structured its deal to buy Native Instruments. And no one seems to really know whether the private equity firm is better off simply dissolving NI or selling off its component parts to lessen the private equity firm's loss. My own hope, of course, is that component parts will be sold off at a deep discount and made profitable again. But who knows?

[ATS]

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.

Right. 8Dio's Soundpaint was an effort to free itself from Kontakt, too. I imagine Heavyocity is busily figuring out its escape route as we speak. I hope so, for the sake of Damage and Damage 2.

seriously doubt Kontakt will cease to exist.

[bermudagold]

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.

and the new Triaz is built in Hise...another successful proof of concept for a sophisticated product built in Hise

[digitalboytn]

seriously doubt Kontakt will cease to exist.

The sun will fall out of the sky before Kontakt ceases to exist

[bermudagold]

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.

Right. 8Dio's Soundpaint was an effort to free itself from Kontakt, too. I imagine Heavyocity is busily figuring out its escape route as we speak. I hope so, for the sake of Damage and Damage 2.

yeah but Soundpaint has pivoted back to pcm and they are also releasing new pcm product for Kontakt under the 8dio brand...i cant help but think its impacted by one of the key developers leaving to start Koda

[Grizzellda]

Got an email from Izotope very recently, they are part of Native instruments now.

They mentioned that subscriptions were now an option, and it did not really surprise me.

Well, I have been posting about subscriptions lately, because it seems quite realistic.

[martinjuenke]

seriously doubt Kontakt will cease to exist.

The sun will fall out of the sky before Kontakt ceases to exist

It's quite dark today...

[HM]

Got an email from Izotope very recently, they are part of Native instruments now.

They mentioned that subscriptions were now an option, and it did not really surprise me.

Well, I have been posting about subscriptions lately, because it seems quite realistic.

Subscription would be a final killer for my part and many others AFAICT ,.. bad to worse

I scrapped all Adope, Topaz, and finaly also S1 with their new pseudo-subscription model

Some would maybe argue that in a situation where the hole impire might fall, and the
future already is highly unsafe, it would be easyer to sell a few mounth of subscription
at a time, untill they have proved stability, (unlikely after 10+ years deroute)

But there is also something principal in the stand to reject subscripion, and time is even
more precious than money. Who would spend time learning and educate them self into a
product or platform that is alsready standing with one leg in grave, exposing their loyal
customers for uncertainty, one thing they paid for years to avoid in the first place ?

I think a format, especially when tied to actual monopoly need to show 100 pct stability

As far as I remember Waves did try force people into subscription, but failed

Subscription is not what is called for, imho, especially not in the current situation

And "option" could likely be only temporary, before forced subscription, like Adope

Got the email to, seems just another desperate and wrong move

[VladK]

I scrapped all Adope, Topaz, and finaly also S1 with their new pseudo-subscription model

I also dropped my Adobe CC subscription few years ago.
And Topaz are just crooks IMO. Some years ago I bought a bunch or their photo correction tools which promised free upgrades for the life. A year or two later they rebranded all their tools by adding AI to the titles, and vois la, my products became deprecated and not eligible for free upgrades.

[BLUEsunny]

hmmm.. Anyone remembers ... Cakewalk .. announced "free for life" option .. updates or stg ( I forgot ) and then
just quit ! What a joke..

[Kypresso]

seriously doubt Kontakt will cease to exist.

The sun will fall out of the sky before Kontakt ceases to exist

It does that every evening here.
Thankfully it reappears every morning so i guess there is some hope there

[audiojunkie]

In FlStudio you can use directwave to sample plugins ...
For example kontakt ...
But its just theory.

There are lots of Autosample options and ultimately this may be the only path forward

I have been autosampling my plugins for several years now every patch I like and use including factory presets and homemade gets autosampled

I wouldn’t say there are “lots” of options. There are some. And fewer might actually be good.

[machinesworking]

?? iZotope have had a subscription model option for at least a couple years, just like NI.

[Sascha Franck]

As far as autosampling goes, it's a nice thing to have (and I'm using Logic's autosampling feature a whole lot), but doing so for a more or less complexed Kontakt library is pretty futile IMO. I mean, what about those patches with velocity zones, keyswitching, round robins and what not? And we haven't even talked filters, envelopes, FX and what not.

So, you could possible autosample some "barebones" but would then have to rebuild all the playing related aspects in the target sampler.
Alternatively, you may sample some more complexed settings - but in that case, to keep things flexible, you'd need to sample tons of patches.

Seriously, even just the idea of re-sampling any halfway elaborated Kontakt library makes me shudder.