A message from Native Instruments

Hi everyone,

We’ve been reading your responses and questions based upon the tough news about changes inside of Native Instruments. And we understand the doubts and fears that may have arisen. Our press statement was aimed at business media, so we want to speak to you directly here.

I can’t answer every question, but I hope I can at least give you some more information and reassurance.

Let’s just get this out of the way: Native Instruments is a healthy business. We’re not going anywhere, and neither are the products that you have.

Going forward, our priority is to listen to your requests, and to deliver the key features you want. This doesn’t mean we are going to be able to build every feature our community asks for, but we are listening. Our Product Managers are keeping track of the most requested features. And those of us in management will support them to ensure these features are built. In short, we will be focusing a lot more on software, and in turn making the hardware you have even better.

We also want to be more community-focused. But we are aware that in the past, we’ve promised things that we couldn’t always deliver. Instead of promising things now, we understand we have to build your trust by “doing” rather than “talking”.

An example of this are the arranger features currently in development for Maschine. We appreciate that this has been an important topic for many of you, and this is currently a top priority for us. If you want to see how this is taking shape, then I highly recommend joining our MASCHINE Beta group, where you’ll soon be able to test the first parts yourself and give us feedback. It’s a big task and we want to get it right, so we are building this step by step, and sharing this with you in the beta environment so that we deliver what you need.

Another example of where we are actively working with you, our community, is for Massive X. We are regularly updating the roadmap there based on your feedback and will be rolling out new features on a regular basis.

Many people were confused by the phrase “One Native” and you've probably seen this term being used in our press release. Firstly, it's not some kind of new product. To hopefully end speculation, this refers to how we work inside of Native. In the past, some of our teams have been working fairly separately and products have sometimes been developed with not enough collaboration and integration aspects in mind. By taking a unified approach inside the company, we believe we can make our products and services work together more smoothly and provide better communication to you, the musicians who are using Native. And it’s not just about connecting our own products, but also the wider world of sounds and music making tools out there. NKS is a great example of this, and we want to do more.

We’ve seen the term “platform strategy” brought up a number of times, with some believing this translates to “subscription”. It doesn’t. Native is already a platform provider. Examples of our existing platforms might be KONTAKT or REAKTOR. These are “authoring platforms” or tools which allow third parties to build instruments and make money from them. And we’re proud there are so many amazing instruments built on those platforms, many of them supporting the NKS standard, which we consider to be part of our platform experience. Naturally, we want to see more. So this is an aspect of our business that we believe we can strengthen, be it in developing existing products, or in larger ideas for the future.

On the subject of subscriptions, we understand some people feel strongly about this. Please let me reassure you that we’re not about to charge you subscriptions for the products you already own. One of Native’s aims is to remove barriers for people who want to make music. And for some people, that barrier might be financial. We’re exploring lots of different ways to address this including (but not limited to) subscriptions. A recent example of how we’re doing this is the introduction of PayPal installment plans in our online shop. But we want to do more.

Of course we can’t share everything that we’re working on. But I hope this gives you some insight into what’s going on at Native.

Best,

Paul

 

This is great news to hear. Really excited to see what enhancements are coming to the Maschine software, thanks for this update.

Even with the limited arranger, Maschine is still able to maintain its relevance as a production powerhouse in my setup.

A few key updates like arranger improvements will make it unbeatable.

 

Excellent. Thank you for taking the time to provide this

 

Thanks for the update

 

Thank You

 

Thanks Paul.

 

Thanks for this. I think paying by instalments, so that you actually own the software, is a much better option than a subscription. The reason it took me so long to buy Komplete was because I didn't have a lot of money yet the most cost effective option was to buy it in one go and bundled with Maschine Jam. I'm feeling quite positive about what you've said about Maschine and it's good to hear that you've got improvements lined up for it. I'm also happy about Massive X which is a good synth already, but it needs a few improvements to make it great and it looks like you're doing that..

 

Since you‘re going to focus on software to make existing hardware better: is there a chance to have d2/s5 supported again? I think, nobody really understood, why they‘ve been given up so early. It sort of looks like stems were not flying as they should, and so the budget has been cut...
Thx

 

One Question to your statement Paul: Will it be possible in the future to possess software or only to rent software?

 

Thanks Paul!
I think I speak for a lot of people here when I say that this open and transparent communication is absolutely appreciated.

I am really keen to see how One NI brings Maschine, KK and hopefully Traktor closer together.

 

Thanks for sharing more info.. looking forward to the beta's

 

Thanks for the post and update. All I can say as a NI customer for many years is, this is going to be a move that is going to make me re-evaluate my future usage of NI software products.I don't know if I can speak for others, but for me to now subscribe to a service of which I own the majority of the products already is going to be one hell of a sell. If you own Komplete Ultimate, you already own about 90% of whats in the software product portfolio to begin with. There is going to need to be a hell of a lot of new products and updates to existing production for a subscription model to be enticing.

 

Sorry pal we've heard it all before, and as you said you cant tell us anything and you never did and you never will. last time i heard that statement 5 years passed with nothing.

Now more than ever we are being tempted to jump from the traktor ship. Denon and pioneer hardware continue to go to another level with everyone else adding streaming and ive barely got a traktor that has progressed in 10 years. (discounting stems and remix decks)

so please tell us how far you are with the ground up rewrite of traktor and what new controller is coming before xmas, also is traktor getting streaming or not and when?

Oh thats right you cant tell us, could be 6 months of silence could be 5 years. Your company is a joke mate and traktor will be dead inside 2 years. No offence to you with your 1 post but please send out the big knobs ffs.

Once the top dj company in town now down to 12% market share how could you..........

edit: Subscription for the oldest crustiest dj software available do me a ******* favour lmfao

 

Like I keep saying: I'm loving the new open communication with NI, it's refreshing. Thank you, Paul Jeszenszky!

 

Hey Paul,

Hi! What about Traktor? I can't read any news related to Traktor Software (or Controllers)...
Plus, what it directly affects me... You seem to have the Traktor S8 more than forgotten... And in your website it's stated that it is the Flagship Controller... The only thing you've done to improve it was to allow to map it... (but in a very limited way...)
Finally, i guess that the whole community believes that Open and Frequent communication, taking care of your costumers and listenning to their questions and concerns is essential, and probably one of the weekest points of the company, considering it's 2019.
One more thing, i've been doubting for a couple wether if to buy the Maschine Mk3, but due to the lack of discerning updates, i've never taken the final decission. What i mean with this is that in the deep end of my heart, unfortunateky, my trust and faith in the company has lost a little of brightness... And my only wishes are that NI becomes a Market Leader company again, not only in music production but also in dj gear and software....
Keep us postes and answer as many of us you can Paul...

 

Thank you, Paul. As I'm sure you can expect, many users aren't ready to put their trust back into NI. This is just part for the course with what's happened over the last 5 years.

However, I see this communication as a good step forward.

As long as it stays consistent and honest, I will stick with you guys. I want to feel like I actually got my money's worth from my MK3 purchase 2 years ago. I want to trust and believe in NI again, so please don't go back to old ways. Many of us have made careers or names for ourselves with your products and we would hate to see you guys fall.

 

This all sounds pretty good. Now please deliver. Maschine software has so much potential, now please unfold it. With some effort on the software, Maschine hardware can become unbeatable product.
Good luck for the team.

 

Hi Paul,
Thanks for taking up the time to talk directly to us. Sadly i’m not on above-specified groups. I’m not a musician. I don't want to make music. I’m just a DJ.

There wasn’t even a single mention to Traktor in your post. So cannot imagine this is any sort of priority. In particular the “No Jogwheels” / no elastic beatgrids / STEMS / remix decks decisions tried to move Traktor closer to Production features. In my oppinion this neither appealed to Producers or to DJs. It doesn't even have integration with Maschine.

In the mean time your DJ competitiors innovated significantly on the pure DJ needs. Traktor is still a great - but severally aged - DJ software. So now is catchup time. To cathup, and eventually surpass the competition, please release Traktor completely from the production focus. The first step is opening Traktor to other controllers.

I’m probably asking Traktor to be away from One Native. Yes, thats my request.

Thank you

 

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Please let me reassure you that we’re not about to charge you subscriptions for the products you already own


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Well thank you for that , I think that would be even considered illegal