Native Instruments to be acquired by inMusic

[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.

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

For me, I just disable the NTKDaemon at startup

[Harry_HH]

Wow, LOL! I'm sure this will work out well.

Wow, I'm sure this will be a disaster.
Just see what happened to the BFD3 gives you a hint.

[buffalo roam]

Well, if nothing else, I don't feel like I have to freeze my computer's operating system as it is just yet for fear of losing access to NI instruments. And I don't have to buy Omnisphere 3 yet for its massive library to replace Kontakt. But I'm not eager to invest any more in NI until I see how the product lineup actually shakes out over the next few months.

[ThoughtExperiment]

Wow, LOL! I'm sure this will work out well.

Wow, I'm sure this will be a disaster.
Just see what happened to the BFD3 gives you a hint.

I'm not optimistic either but to be fair, BFD3 was already f*cked by the time InMusic got involved, they were merely the last straw...

[machinesworking]

Wow, LOL! I'm sure this will work out well.

Wow, I'm sure this will be a disaster.
Just see what happened to the BFD3 gives you a hint.

I'm not optimistic either but to be fair, BFD3 was already f*cked by the time InMusic got involved, they were merely the last straw...

this is the constant issue with larger, plug-in companies, the main developer for a plug-in leaves, but he doesn’t own the rights to the plug-in, so eventually when it’s sold, it’s just alien code to anybody who tries working on it. This happens to every large company that I’ve seen so far, we watched Absynth almost die because Brian had left and and NI didn’t know if they wanted to pay him.

This 100% could happen to Native Instruments but I wouldn’t 100% blame InMusic for this, the developer could leave and all of a sudden massive X becomes way too much work to upgrade. Whether or not a company gets sold this is a problem with larger companies. I mean, the same thing is true of smaller developers. They can just decide to get out of the audio plug-in business and go work for some IT company.

[mixyguy2]

I can't think of a worse company to acquire Native Instruments.

Because...........

[mixyguy2]

Wow, I'm sure this will be a disaster.
Just see what happened to the BFD3 gives you a hint.

One is an awfully small sample size (pardon the pun).

None of us is really sure what will happen. At the very least it sounds like their products - or the main ones like Kontakt at least - will continue.

[ghettosynth]

I can't think of a worse company to acquire Native Instruments.

Because...........

I can't speak for him, and, I don't know all of the details about the company history. However, I do own significant products, both hardware and software, from both companies and I there is no comparison in terms of the design aesthetic that I prefer. The Force pads are terrible. I really can't describe them any other way. Compared to Maschine it's a completely different world. In general, I'm not an InMusic fan.

[sonidomolino]

Wow, LOL! I'm sure this will work out well.

... Just see what happened to the BFD3 gives you a hint.

... BFD3 was already f*cked by the time InMusic got involved...

... but I wouldn’t 100% blame InMusic for this, the developer could leave ...

actually I would blame InMusic. BFD3 could've benefited from a major overhaul at the time it was bought (like many other neglected legacy products, perhaps even Kontakt?) but... it was more than good enough to get things done. the move to InMusic included key members from the core FXpansion team which existing BFD users took as a strong positive and proceeded to update in good faith, only to discover the significant investment in expansion packs were now locked into InMusic's sketchyAF DRM. i won't go into detail here, but i took a significant hit when BFD3 failed to authorize for a number of sessions despite best practices to meet their new requirements. the core members seem to have since departed ways, i have zero expectations for any future investment/support/improvement and use a pre InMusic version on an archived system for legacy projects.

InMusic doesn't appear to develop anything that i can tell. Their catalog seems to consist of legacy products picked from the scrap heap and given a bit of lipstick to keep the existing user base on the hook for as long as they can. Sure, there could be some upside if they made an effort to keep any of the core development talent with specific insight into the codebase (if it's even available), but there's not much evidence to think this might happen. no idea what they might have for existing inhouse talent, but not seeing anything to inspire confidence in future improvements.

sign of the times for an oversaturated market further compromised by vibe-coded me-toos in an uncertain economy. i'm expecting more change than not, choosing to invest in smaller devs who have proven to deliver value. jme, ymmv.

[machinesworking]

InMusic doesn't appear to develop anything that i can tell. Their catalog seems to consist of legacy products picked from the scrap heap and given a bit of lipstick to keep the existing user base on the hook for as long as they can.

You're conflating things here. InMusic is a parent company, they don't stand in the way at all of Akai's development from what I can tell. Akai are doing great things, it's certainly more than lipstick that has been done with the MPC in the last decade even, a continuing development.

The sky is falling routine is through roof in this thread and sure the f*ck didn't calm down after NI were bought by a company that flatly has treated Akai well. It's just weird, they aren't dead, or parted out, people should be a bit relived if they cared about NI at all.

[IvyBirds]

InMusic doesn't appear to develop anything that i can tell. Their catalog seems to consist of legacy products picked from the scrap heap and given a bit of lipstick to keep the existing user base on the hook for as long as they can.

You're conflating things here. InMusic is a parent company, they don't stand in the way at all of Akai's development from what I can tell. Akai are doing great things, it's certainly more than lipstick that has been done with the MPC in the last decade even, a continuing development.

The sky is falling routine is through roof in this thread and sure the f*ck didn't calm down after NI were bought by a company that flatly has treated Akai well. It's just weird, they aren't dead, or parted out, people should be a bit relived if they cared about NI at all.

My Alesis and Marantz gear disagrees

[Broken]

One thing InMusic could do to immediately improve their products is move BFD licensing into Native Access.

[Tj Shredder]

Maybe they acquired NI because of Native Access???

[ThoughtExperiment]

... people should be a bit relieved if they cared about NI at all.

Absolutely. In fact, I only care about NI inasmuch as I'm tied to Kontakt for almost all of my orchestral stuff, even though I don't really like Kontakt. But I'm certainly relieved, it could have been a much worse outcome for NI. At the very least I'm prepared to wait and see what happens.

[ghettosynth]

One thing InMusic could do to immediately improve their products is move BFD licensing into Native Access.

OTOH, I'd much rather that NI stuff went iLok. Ok, ok, put down the rotten fruit, we all have our preferences.