Native Instruments to be acquired by inMusic

[GrayfoxM]

I hope they don't go with the iLok.
https://paceap.com/products/ilok-softwa ... pricing-5/
$5000 per year or...
Prices so bad on other tiers they won't list them

I absolutely hate ilok, and systems what whatever the hell Waves does with the licenses in the cloud vs 'on the machine'

[sprnva]

I'm a little concerned with the direction activation could go but it absolutely will not be iLok. Both AIR and Moog dropped iLok when they were taken over. inMusic are all-in on their own Software Center, which after an update earlier today stopped working on my Big Sur install. Now it needs Monterey as a minimum.

I have my PA plugins activated to USB and iZotope to iLok so they're OK. If I have to stick to older versions going forward, so be it. Eventually I'll be migrating away to Linux anyway but I'd like to keep them available until then.

[mothra]

Inmusic havent destroyed Moog or Akia (many think Akia MPC has benefited) so we can only hope for the best...it certainly isn't the worst case scenario and people won't like all of the choices Inmusic make, but at least its a music tech savvy business and not random VC.

Former MPC Live user that moved back to Cubase and will never touch the anchor sitting on my floor again.

The MPC had its own streamlined workflow going that TONS of people loved and gelled with. They've completely destroyed it and now you get a pseudo Ableton-DAW experience on an extremely underpowered mobile platform, and all the 'innovation' are simply new plugins they want you to buy. The money someone spends on an MPC XL, can get you a better laptop and DAW+plugins heh.

@sprnva - not entirely true. Moog changed from iLok to a serial license before hand, and AIR was owned by Akai long before the new 'software center' that likes to discard peoples activations randomly. I still have AIR and the MPC software licenses in my iLok account.

[glokraw]

My other concern is what this means for product activation in the long run.

U-he seem to have mastered the license and registration process in win/mac/linux, even improving it recently. Simple, and it works. It would behove In Music to make a lucrative offer to use that technology, and have it coded by the U-he team. Have NI fix and keep native Access as an optional extra for those who like it, and buy all 9 of them a stein of beer in one of Berlin's nice pubs

[ksandvik]

Yes, the Zebra3 u-he 'License card' system is brilliant - they are rolling it to the other u-he products. Painless registration -- unlike iLok.

[ksandvik]

Also, I'm glad it was purchased by a music technology company, instead of again falling into the hands of a private equity fund that seldom has any interest in products, rather how to squeeze out money.

[vitocorleone123]

Also, I'm glad it was purchased by a music technology company, instead of again falling into the hands of a private equity fund that seldom has any interest in products, rather how to squeeze out money.

For all the flaws of InMuisic, this definitely could've turned out worse.

[Funky40]

+1

i can see how this "could" be a win.*

But i fear worst for that part of NI i`m interested in.
Reaktor, Battery,....well, Absynth was just refreshed, so i`d guess Absynth will be fine.
AND: will be interesting to see what finally happens with the PPG SW that was overtaken by Plugin Alliance/Brain Worx.


* in theory, inMusic could take their sample plattform stuff and NIs, and create a new third platform. Imagine they`d try to do things good ? But how likely is that ?



More likely ? ....future plans to create a complete DAW / HW-Boxes / Sample library set / DJ set / and what not platform....ALL IN ONE.......and then make it a abo based model. How lilkely would be that ?
The way managers think, i`d say, quite likely -> vs. the distant future **

** my opinion ? This whole market will steer towards that. 3-4-5 big players, "all in one platforms".....abo based. Bind your customers....and milk them.......

[machinesworking]

I would doubt that the developers of Air plugins still work for Air, and that, leads to stagnation.

Possibly but for the record Air did remove the requirement for iLok from their old plugins so some credit is due to them for that.

"InMusic officially announced the acquisition of the AIR Software Group (along with M-Audio) from Avid Technology, Inc. on July 2, 2012. The deal included the AIR team (formerly Wizoo Sound Design, based in Germany)".

June 2017:

some time ago I read something about larger GUIs for AIR instruments would be in the pipeline. Does anybody know if that is correct and when this will come? Will it be a free update?

Yes this is planned to be a free update

Of course it never happened for whatever reason.

Nomad Factory managed to not only provide larger sizes but entirely reworked GUIs for many of the plugins in their catalog for free even after Bernie passed away and they are working on the others so it's not an impossible task.

Whether we'll see larger GUI sizes for N.I. products is yet to be seen but if I were a betting man (I am) I'd lay odds it will not happen or at least not in the near future.

Like I said earlier Battery 4 could really use larger sizes and I seem to remember people asking for that for almost as long if not more. I've only owned it a short time getting in one of their "session" bundles so haven't paid that much attention to its history over the years.

To be honest I haven't touched an NI plugin since the world "insolvency" first popped up but I feel a little more comfortable doing so now. Of course who knows if the entire NI catalog will live on or if there will be casualties along the way.

Nomad and U-He are the exceptions though. I'm still waiting around for the Analog signature Pack, but it's been great seeing them plug away at it.

[machinesworking]

While that would be great for MPC users, for non DAW users we can already do that in our DAWs and computers. I can sample something in my DAW from a record or a tape or a field recording and clean it up and enhance it with Ozone and RX and I can already play Kontact Libraries

InMusic only has so much money to put towards so much development after all and the founders and lead developers of NI, Izotope, and PA are now all gone

I get your fear, but so far Air have released dozens of new plugins for AU, VST and the MPC in standalone. The old plugins currently do not work in standalone on the MPC. So the precedent set is for plugins to also work mostly in the MPC standalone not exclusively, but there are a few Air plugins that are not MPC SA compatible.

So far InMusic has not over prioritized the MPC lineup, the main issues IMO would be not fixing technical debt on older Air instruments and updating their dammed GUIs. I mean if what you fear was happening I would hope to see Moog Marina, Loom II, Hybrid etc. on the MPC standalone, but they aren't.

[SNBeatz]

There are now exactly zero massive scale programs and large development teams that are not heavily leveraging AI for development.

There is a world of difference between something being a good tool, and a tool that gets shoved down everyone's throats because the investors are desperate for it to work

[sprnva]

@sprnva - not entirely true. Moog changed from iLok to a serial license before hand, and AIR was owned by Akai long before the new 'software center' that likes to discard peoples activations randomly. I still have AIR and the MPC software licenses in my iLok account.

Thanks for the correction. I lost interest in both when they dropped iLok so I probably assumed it was when they were acquired.

It's not that I love iLok, but companies that drop it almost always replace it with online activation. Which is a hard pass for me. I'm done with risking my purchases and projects to servers that could arbitrarily stop working some day.

[havran]

[...]

•This post was made possible by ChatGPT. Your source for information.

I was feeling impish and just posted Gemini's reply to seangm's question.

[loachm]

...inmusic's precise numbers aren't publicly available, as it seems, and it's unclear, which branch earnt what amount of the estimated 140-400 millions, but it looks like that with this acquisition the group has swallowed one of their former major competitors in certain markets.

Considering the overlap/competion/"synergy" between inmusic and NI, as well as NI's amount of debt, I wouldn't be surprised, if some of NI's IP will be cannibalised for inmusic products (or integrated into ). For example, Maschine and Komplete Kontrol sacrificed for the MPC range and Traktor for Numark products. The virtual instruments and effects might be continued, if they are profitable and it's manageable to develop them further, so I'm not sure about Battery or Reaktor, for instance.

I'm not even sure about Kontakt either, as the days of large, detailed sample libraries could be over sooner than one might expect. Considering the developments with AI-driven instruments/DAWs/services the platform's sounds catalogue in the long run might be more interesting as training material for future sound generators as the instrument platform itself as a more or less pure sample player. I wouldn't be surprised if NI themselves have already started development work into this direction - as software under the Kontakt brand and workstations as Komplete Kontrol.

So, in a mid to long term view I don't think the NI portfolio as we know it will exist anymore (maybe not even in NI's own strategic plans). Kontakt might survive, but perhaps not in its current state. And I also wouldn't expect being able to still run e.g. decade old sampled instruments (most of which still sound incredible) on this platform in a couple of years. I'm not even sure, if, all MPE capabilities aside, for certain types of instruments like strings & brass I would want to keep programming keyswitches and automation data to get a realistic sounding performance instead of just writing or even humming a melody and prompting what kind of performance I would like to have. I think a hybrid between playing/writing and prompting might become the new norm for software music production.

I recently bought an MPC Sample which is a lot of fun. I installed the MPC software to have a look at it again and uninstalled it within 15 minutes - too much for a groove box, too little for a DAW. For simple music demos, recording ideas and beat making I think Maschine is still one of the most elegant and stream-lined instruments, but I don't see how it can survive next to the MPC line.

[Teksonik]

Sanjay C (who I'm not a huge fan of but his videos can at times contain useful information) has an interesting take on the story particularly about the overlap between the Machine and MPC hardware: