Native Instruments to be acquired by inMusic

[havran]

Regarding the topic, I primarily hope Kontakt survives (because of some 3rd-party libraries I have bought).

[machinesworking]

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the notion that MPC and Maschine are incompatible under the same umbrella is probably overblown. Yes, they are competing products, but they're different enough that I think their development could each continue along their own trajectories and continue to be successful separate product lines. As a long-time Maschine user (I bought v1 on day one and have owned almost every iteration since) and also someone who has owned several MPCs (One and a couple of Live 2's), I feel like they are pretty different products that appeal to different people. As much as I love the idea of the MPCs, I simply do not jive with their workflow, but I (mostly) love the Maschine paradigm. I think a lot of other people feel the exact opposite and, of course, there are those people who love both product lines. Ideally, we'll still have that option going forward, but time will tell...

Similar trajectory, but I bought Maschine first, eventually sold it and currently own the Live II retro.
IMO they are very very similar these days, MPC 3 has an arranger now, it hosts some Air plugins, and a few NI Play series "instruments".

So yeah the overlap is massive at this point. I do think it's a coin toss what InMusic do though, do they make Massive desktop only and abandon Maschine+? or make the MPC standalone only? Maybe they do nothing and let the two competing very very similar platforms compete with each other? I feel like we won't know 100% until a year has passed etc.

[_leras]

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

With Uhe I need to look up my licence details for every product I install. Means I have to store text files of each with my details, or iirc, request an email to resend.

With NI I can just click install on each, of many, that I want to install. Native Access is much more convenient. One password.

[machinesworking]

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

With Uhe I need to look up my licence details for every product I install. Means I have to store text files of each with my details, or iirc, request an email to resend.

With NI I can just click install on each, of many, that I want to install. Native Access is much more convenient. One password.

I think we're talking about U-He's brand new method, involving a virtual card, as soon as you tie all your licenses to it, you then just install the card and that computer is licensed for everything you own. Native Access I'm not 100% sure of, I don't know if every three months or so it's not phoning home? I think that's happening with Arturia's, and definitely happening with InMusics method. Both methods are great though compared to the others, I'm partial to the digital card method but I like that Native Access lets you know which plugins need updating.

[digitalboytn]

I wonder how much IM is paying for the NI Assets ?

[D-Fusion]

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

With Uhe I need to look up my licence details for every product I install. Means I have to store text files of each with my details, or iirc, request an email to resend.

With NI I can just click install on each, of many, that I want to install. Native Access is much more convenient. One password.

@leras
You only need to do that the first time you install u-he plugins.

Take a backup of the u-he data folder and you can reuse that folder the next time you need to install the plugins you own.

What would you do if NI didn't get a buyer and closed down today and you needed to reinstall the plugins tomorow?

[Ah_Dziz]

NI plugins don't phone home in any way that can stop them from continuing to work. Not currently. I've got a million things from NI running fine on an offline rig as well as an online rig.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Not yet they don't! Give it time!

[machinesworking]

From VI-Control

Native Instruments has found a home. The complaints against InMusic sound like the complaints against Native Instruments.

[MrJubbly]

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

With Uhe I need to look up my licence details for every product I install. Means I have to store text files of each with my details, or iirc, request an email to resend.

With NI I can just click install on each, of many, that I want to install. Native Access is much more convenient. One password.

@leras
You only need to do that the first time you install u-he plugins.

Take a backup of the u-he data folder and you can reuse that folder the next time you need to install the plugins you own.

What would you do if NI didn't get a buyer and closed down today and you needed to reinstall the plugins tomorow?

You don't even need to do that much ("a backup of the u-he data folder.")

So long as you keep a copy of the u-he "licence card" itself (a single .png image) safe and secure. For example, stored on a usb memory stick, or any other storage method...

That single .png licence file can then be used to authorise all your purchased u-he products offline, as many times as required, on any new devices in the future.

That is definitely one of the better licence authorisation solutions currently available, imho. (obviously, Plogue are likewise included, since their method influenced u-he to adopt a similar system themselves).

If only more software developers were as thoughtful enough to implement such unintrusive offline activation methods into their products for their customers.

[Weasel-Boy]

To me, the one bright spot about InMusic is that they are NOT a publicly traded company.

[pdxindy]

With Uhe I need to look up my licence details for every product I install. Means I have to store text files of each with my details, or iirc, request an email to resend.

Outdated info...

[D-Fusion]

NI plugins don't phone home in any way that can stop them from continuing to work. Not currently. I've got a million things from NI running fine on an offline rig as well as an online rig.

How do you install and register Ni Products offline without relying on their servers for activation when they removed that option in 2017?

"As of September 2017, the possibility of activating Native Instruments products offline has been discontinued. From now on, please use Native Access to activate your NI products.

The computer used for the installation of the product requires online access during the activation process through Native Access. All Native Instruments products now require an online activation in order to unlock the demo mode and use all product features without any limitations."
https://support.native-instruments.com/ ... s-Products

[Scoops]

NI plugins don't phone home in any way that can stop them from continuing to work.

Yeah, talk to the people that have had their entire NI library toggled to "demo" mode.

[Teksonik]

NI plugins don't phone home in any way that can stop them from continuing to work.

Yeah, talk to the people that have had their entire NI library toggled to "demo" mode.

I don't know if they phone home for license checks but I would urge everyone to check out what NI's NTKDaemon.exe is doing in regards to constant up/down network traffic. I always manually delete the .exe every time Native Access installs it again. The plugins work fine without it but it is needed for Native Access to function.

NTKDaemon 051026-1.png