Native Instruments to be acquired by inMusic

[mixyguy2]

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.

Fair enough, and I get some skepticism in general, but just because they made some bad hardware doesn't mean they will bungle NI.

[bmanic]

I'd much rather have periodic authoization than have something installed on my system that runs all the time. You're talking about reauthorizing four times....a year.

.. yeah, if only that was true and the authorization actually worked. It's literally almost every single time I open up an AIR plugin. You can imagine how frustrating that becomes when you have multiple instances in a project or just a few hidden instances that do some not-so-important sound effects or subtle filler pads, only to realize during rendering that they failed to produce any audio due to the authorization failing. And I'm constantly on the exact same hardware, same IP address, same everything.

It is a horrible situation and is one of the worst experiences I've ever had with copy protection. Unlike iLok that _just works_ (except that one infamous iLok apocalypse like 10 years ago). Mind you, I've never used iLok machine authorization. I'm strictly an iLok hardware user.


EDIT: I should add here that AKAI also had big problems with keeping licenses active on the actual MPC Live hardware. That too got broken a while ago, where every plugin suddenly lost it's license. But to their credit, that seems to be fixed now since update 3.7. I haven't had to re-authorize everything on the hardware for quite a while now but when it was bad, it was really really super bad. Enough so that I have a strict "Never purchase anything from them again" policy. And I'm not the only one either as I've met a few people who have dumped all their modern MPC hardware for live gigs and moved to other solutions.

So yeah, from my point of view and experience, Inmusic is the literal embodiment of "enshittification" in the music world. It's a f**ked up company. They ain't getting my money until they do some soul searching and customer friendly changes.

[noiseboyuk]

FWIW I haven't had a hitch with Native Access 2 for years, and I like that it "just works". I fiddle with nothing.

[billinder33]

For me, I just disable the NTKDaemon at startup

You mean change the "NTKDaemonService" start up type to disabled? Does that affect the way Native Access works?

For some clarity from my side. I rarely if ever go in and do updates with NA. It's a crap shoot. So yes, I disable the NTKDaemon service at startup. The exe is still on my machine, but the service is not running. If for any reason I need to open NA, the exe will start up. When I'm done with NA, I go back and disable the service

Scoops

On my M1, I have to manually force-kill the process to stop it. Pretty f***ing annoying and incredibly anti-customer. Only a company that has users totally locked into an ecosystem could get away with poking their customers in the eye like that.

Haven't installed it on my M5 yet to see if that's still the case. Trying to avoid installing if at all possible. Anyone know?

[Morty-C-137]

NI Rosetta-free when??

[Teksonik]

means that the software is entirely dependent on InMusic being in business forever.

As opposed to Native Instruments or Pace "being in business forever" ?

Without InMusic, N.I. might well have gone out of business so you're ripe for paranoia if you worry about other companies going out of business.

Again let's see what happens. We're arguing about crap that may never happen.

You've never lost authorization of a plugin because it went out of business then. I really do think you're arguing to argue here though. You on one side hate that NI stay online, but on the other don't mind that InMusic literally NEEDS you to be online or your software gets de-authorized.
It's not a tenable position, but you do you I guess?

No I have never lost a plugin (that is relevant in 2026) because a company went out of business. The only companies that went under I can remember are Camel Audio (on Windows) but I can still install and authorize Alchemy just fine to this day and Cakewalk which is the same story, everything I own from them can still be installed and authorized. I have lost N.I. plugins and they were still in business at the time they decided to take plugins away from paying customers. So it matters as much the morals of the people who own and run the company as it does the status of the company. You being worried about InMusic going under is "not a tenable position" given the size of the company. If they go under the whole industry would have to be in serious danger and that goes for Pace/iLok as well.

Back on page one of this thread I said:

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

That's based on experience I have had with their support over the years and broken promises of plugin updates. But I can separate the company from their Software Center which at this point in time I prefer to Native Abscess and the ilok malware. Personal preference, nothing more, nothing less.

I'm simply here to express my personal opinion just like you are. I don't hate that Native Access needs to go online for updates and installations. I hate that it stays online 24/7 or as long as your computer is running or awake constantly sending and receiving data. Certainly you can see the difference between that and a four times a year authorization refresh ?

My opinion is based on my personal experience and the operating conditions here and a healthy dose of logic and reasoning so will not change until (if) the data changes here.

If your experiences and conditions are different (always offline for whatever reason) then your opinion will likely be different. So yeah you do you I guess?

Again nothing we say here is going to influence InMusic's decisions in any way so unless you're just here to argue, any further discussions are pretty much pointless no?

Besides I'm too busy working on my next banger now:

https://youtu.be/j2yCfIHFRhI?list=RDj2yCfIHFRhI

[Scoops]

On my M1, I have to manually force-kill the process to stop it. Pretty f***ing annoying and incredibly anti-customer. Only a company that has users totally locked into an ecosystem could get away with poking their customers in the eye like that.

Totally agree.

I was contemplating an update to my iZotope everything
I've been told that I would have to use NA, and not the Product Portal to get the updates.
I promptly responded to the ticket and told them that the NA crap is why I will NOT be upgrading. Sorry, you lost a sale.

Just my $0.02

[CapnLockheed]

.........
Is THAT your idea of "doing pretty good"??

Being a viable business making and selling products rather than being bankrupt and only known through history is my idea of doing pretty good.

I have no complaints about the build quality and sound of my inMusic Moog Messenger.

Had you actually read my post you might have noticed that there was no mention of the Moog Messenger what I actually said was:

Specific Model Feedback: Owners of the Moog Muse have noted inconsistencies with buttons and encoders compared to previous, more rugged Moog gear.

A simple Google search will yield many posts from users complaining about the shoddy build quality of their inMusic Moog MUSE. And BTW....maybe you're satisfied with your inMusic Moog MESSENGER. But no inMusic Moog products come anywhere near the quality of genuine Moog products built in Asheville, NC. You might as well compare a Behringer PRO-1 to a Sequential Circuits Pro-One.

[D-Fusion]

.........
Is THAT your idea of "doing pretty good"??

Being a viable business making and selling products rather than being bankrupt and only known through history is my idea of doing pretty good.

I have no complaints about the build quality and sound of my inMusic Moog Messenger.

Had you actually read my post you might have noticed that there was no mention of the Moog Messenger what I actually said was:

Specific Model Feedback: Owners of the Moog Muse have noted inconsistencies with buttons and encoders compared to previous, more rugged Moog gear.

A simple Google search will yield many posts from users complaining about the shoddy build quality of their inMusic Moog MUSE. And BTW....maybe you're satisfied with your inMusic Moog MESSENGER. But no inMusic Moog products come anywhere near the quality of genuine Moog products built in Asheville, NC. You might as well compare a Behringer PRO-1 to a Sequential Circuits Pro-One.

Most of Moogs Synthesizers had many issues when it was Moog too so nothing has changed there.
The only thing that has been Premium from Moog for many years is the price and not their products

[CapnLockheed]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. However, when it comes to inMusic being a good steward of the companies they absorb, your opinion is clearly in the minority.

[IvyBirds]

.........
Is THAT your idea of "doing pretty good"??

Being a viable business making and selling products rather than being bankrupt and only known through history is my idea of doing pretty good.

I have no complaints about the build quality and sound of my inMusic Moog Messenger.

Had you actually read my post you might have noticed that there was no mention of the Moog Messenger what I actually said was:

Specific Model Feedback: Owners of the Moog Muse have noted inconsistencies with buttons and encoders compared to previous, more rugged Moog gear.

A simple Google search will yield many posts from users complaining about the shoddy build quality of their inMusic Moog MUSE. And BTW....maybe you're satisfied with your inMusic Moog MESSENGER. But no inMusic Moog products come anywhere near the quality of genuine Moog products built in Asheville, NC. You might as well compare a Behringer PRO-1 to a Sequential Circuits Pro-One.

Most of Moogs Synthesizers had many issues when it was Moog too so nothing has changed there.
The only thing that has been Premium from Moog for many years is the price and not their products

Yep, the bloom has been off the rose for many years at Moog which finally caught up to them as there are only so many ways to repackage a monosynth with a ladder filter and be commercially viable

With their implosion and purchase by inMusic nothing was really done to put the bloom back the rose, they just eliminated a bunch of jobs in North Carolina and made yet more repackaged monosynths with a ladder filter

Ultimately that's all inMusic will do with Native Instruments. Minimal investment or innovation just repackaged same old same old

[ThomasHelzle]

Yawn.

[Seafire Mk2]

You might as well compare a Behringer PRO-1 to a Sequential Circuits Pro-One.

They sound the same, and one has a crappy kybd

[D-Fusion]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. However, when it comes to inMusic being a good steward of the companies they absorb, your opinion is clearly in the minority.

I am not a fan of Inmusic at all and stopped buying anything from them because of their activation mess.

The last 2 companies they bought up "Moog and NI", has been on a downward spiral for many years so only time will tell if they will follow the same path or make things better for NI or make it worse.

[felis]

........Ultimately that's all inMusic will do with Native Instruments. Minimal investment or innovation just repackaged same old same old

The bottom line for all the companies absorbed by inMusic is - would you rather have that, or nothing?