KVR Audio

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 3:14 am

vurt wrote: Fri Sep 06, 2019 4:23 pm this is layoffs.
can we stay on topic please
for the sake of the mods sanity if nothing else.

too f**king late, lots of board warnings going out and a list of names who will not get a second chance in another thread from me.

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 3:16 am

chk071 wrote: Fri Sep 06, 2019 5:11 pm This is Hink, right at this moment:

and it's a f**king joke to you

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 3:25 am

unlocked, if you mentioned massive x after I went to work you got a board warning...let's try this again...

this is not a massive x thread, if you disrespect my request I will interpret as intentional trolling and act accordingly...if I missed you with a board warning you're lucky...it's not a joke, we mods spend too much time serving you so this site can stay relevant...the disrespect when we ask simple things is absolutely disgusting and shameful

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 4:30 am

VitaminD wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 1:50 am
digitalboytn wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 1:18 am
dionenoid wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 12:11 am https://www.kvraudio.com/news/native-in ... ness-46170
That is just the usual corporate speak BS...

A lot of impressive words that add up to a whole lot of nothing...

The important thing is to dismiss the semantics,break it all down to the basics and to read between the lines
Of course. And the last couple of paragraphs tell the tale.

Specifically "For that, a new platform is currently being developed with the goal of offering new ways of accessing the company's core products and services, as well as complementary ones from third-parties. The centralized platform will also include the company's expanded portfolio of loops and samples, which is currently part of sounds.com, and will launch in 2020. "

and

"We are confident that we can offer music producers worldwide a unique and premium experience by connecting our existing ecosystem of award-winning software and hardware to a centralized online service"

That doesn't sound like FM9, Pro54, Absynth6, or Massive2 to me. That sounds like more sample shovelware and online connected portals.. perhaps subscription gobbledygook.

This is not the Native Instruments of old. The one that brought them to where they are today as a 'giant' of the industry. This is a post modern Native Instruments without the actual NATIVE instruments. They took a page from Waves and started making tons of minor synths and effects that do less each. So they can either make more money off of people buying multiple or direct them to buy a Komplete package. Not much about innovating than just keeping profitable by broadly offering the least for the most. It is a shell of itself.

This is a great breakdown. Being an OG customer of theirs I'm not upset or shocked though, and it's not out of character. Komplete 2 when I bought it was amazing, Reaktor was a mess on OSX, and Absynth was a CPU pig on Windows, they took years to right these things. Everything has gotten better, but it was those initial ideas that were great, Reaktor, Kontakt, Absynth, Pro52, FM7 etc.

Here's my sort of informed speculation. NI are going subscription, they will continue to develop Komplete, but will attempt to get us into their loops world. It seams everyone believes that loops are going to be more popular in the future than they have been, because of a few youtube gangstas and pop divas.... I think beyond Massive X, they aren't going to do a lot more stand alone synths, or expand their line much. Reaktor will continue to be where they develop Player version stand alone 'synths' etc. since computers are more than powerful enough these days to carry the extra CPU weight that Reaktor synths have.

I sincerely hope they at the very least continue to develop their line, and I would bet they do, it's just going to be hard to determine until they actually do something. VST3 an resizable GUIs for everything would be a great start.

v1o · Post by **v1o** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 6:43 am

I believe Splice is doing really well with their online subscription based services for DAW users. They've had another successful round of investments. A lot of big name producers in Pop, EDM and HipHop are using Splice. It looks like NI wants a piece of that pie with their new centralised platform tying all their service offerings and software products together. Ideally Metapop and Sounds.com should have been integrated fully from the get go rather than two different websites.

EnGee · Post by **EnGee** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 6:48 am

They should have made like some game companies. Remastered versions of the old popular products. Remastered versions of FM8 and Absynth are very welcomed, but I think they have chosen the other direction, samples and loops. This means a DJ company like Akai, but isn't that market is already crowded?

The band of 4 or 5 performers is already a dead concept, so who knows, maybe the synthesis market will soon be dead as well! At least for the young generation while the old generation like me and many KVR members would stay in their shrinking world going in circles

(no M word in my post)

AnX · Post by **AnX** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 6:50 am

EnGee wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 6:48 am

The band of 4 or 5 performers is already a dead concept

nope

Touch The Universe · Post by **Touch The Universe** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:03 am

Were the layoffs localized to one area?

v1o · Post by **v1o** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:11 am

Touch The Universe wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:03 am Were the layoffs localized to one area?

According to PR they were worldwide, but the highest number of losses were at the Berlin HQ. In the areas of "Sales & Distribution, Marketing & Product Management, Administration and Engineering."

digitalboytn · Post by **digitalboytn** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:16 am

Touch The Universe wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:03 am Were the layoffs localized to one area?

Yeah...

Just the management

Tj Shredder · Post by **Tj Shredder** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:17 am

NI is a technological company. Do not underestimate the difficulties to pull out high quality tools. If they really do an overhaul of their creation tools, (I suspect Reaktor btw.) then this is a huge task. There had been people who thought that Massive X is based on Reaktor. And it might be that it is. But in a way, that it looks like an independent instrument. If you look at the quality and innovative power of recent Reaktor based synths like Form, Razor, Prism, Monark etc. it would make sense to use Reaktor as a general development platform, but have the results in way, that the user does not need to first load Reaktor and then the ensemble.
That would also mean, you need less coders who would code a synth purely in c++ and more who are familiar with DSP inside Reaktor... The investment money will be needed for other employees I bet...
All this speculation about subscription models I can’t hear anymore. It might happen or not, it cannot be related to laying off people... They will never go sub only anyway, it would kill them...
And now imagine to setup a VSTi store for those 3rd party developers who could market their creations made in Reaktor or Kontakt in a way that those also appear to be self contained VSTis, which would be cool for us as users. NKS 2.0 ... as unified copy protection and installation. Apple showed how that works with their appstore. To develop that you need resources and probably different people to hire...

worldfever · Post by **worldfever** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:18 am

Sad to see this, one of my friends working at NI HQ in berlin got let go as well...

Tj Shredder · Post by **Tj Shredder** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:23 am

They all could meet and create a new company. Lots of (wo)manpower to combine and create something new while they get Arbeitslosengeld (social security money)...

digitalboytn · Post by **digitalboytn** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:39 am

This is going be very interesting...

NI will be under increasing pressure to deliver the results they had predicted when they went to the private equity company for the cash injection...

I'm not sure what percentage of the company value they borrowed against for working capital,but if their schemes and dreams haven't hit the targets,then it could get a little heated in those board meetings..

It seems that the guys who created NI and came up with the ground breaking products,are no longer with the company and in their place,there's some clowns who are clearly more passionate about KPI's and pie graphs,than they are about anything musical...

Well....It looks like they are reaping what they have sown

Touch The Universe · Post by **Touch The Universe** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:53 am

So, definitively, all the people who created there synth line back in the day don't work there anymore? Only the reaktor coders?

Native Instruments Layoffs?