A message from Native Instruments

HAhaha, touché my friend... touché.
TBH Komplete is the only thing I have some fear about in regards to the subscription-only thing, although I believe it's very, very unlikely to happen due to Komplete beeing sold tied to hardware I too would appreciate an answer to this concern.

Imagine buying a KKS88 + K12CE right now, thats exactly 1998.00 € and then a new Komplete is released and you have to pay monthly to be able to use it / upgrade, doesn't sound like a great business strategy... If that happens then I'll sell all my NI gear because Komplete is a major selling point for the controllers, I got 4 of them, NI would be losing out on the Pro Market who can afford to buy things seems like a very risky move.

Are you saying then that they already know, thus made a decision but are concisely not sharing the information?
It's definitively been/being considered IMO, any business model is considered and discussed in a company, especially by upper management so I dont think that is even a question... My point was there might not be an answer to that question yet.

As for no one is asking for it, that's your perception based on the forum userbase, everyone hates Sounds.com here too yet it Splice has 2.5million users who love it, it's pretty successful so that's sort of subjective.

I interpret the "listening" part above as being about software features/functionality requests specifically, not about the subscription thing at all.

PS. to anyone else reading not familiar with me, I am not defending NI on this one, more clarity is always good, just playing devil's advocate, discussing these things for me is conversation, not arguing.

 

So is releasing a Mikro with a too cut down accessibility and no midi support
So is releasing second generation keyboards without MCU.....and not telling anyone...............................
So is even considering Adobe as a role model as the market is so different and you find me one user that thinks that Adobe's mandatory subscription is preferred over optional ditto Autodesk.

I'm saying it must be definitely being considered not to quash the upset the speculation is causing.

Not everyone at all hates Sounds.com...there are many who are very upset that it's introduction appeared to be at the expense of long promised developments in Maschine and perhaps other areas. At the moment it is unobtrusive and the implementation isn't a problem to non uptakers.. and that is partly because they actually listened to the users and the outcome was hopefully more satisfactory for all concerned than if the users had been ignored. Sounds.com in no way ties users to a subscription to use their tools .. content yes but even then they own what they pay for. Kerching with the only problems being how well Sounds.com vies against the competition.

Many (self included) would like a subscription approach to NI's software but not in any way mandatory. Find me one user who wants any of the software/ tools to be only available by mandatory subscription and if you can let them come up with a viable reason why...............

It is about everything. They are indicating signs of change and Kai seems to be hopefully an embodiment of that change but that is not being followed through in shall we say........public relations other than so far as a dubious lip service that is in great danger of back firing.

And these are the types of conversations NI should be having with it's users if it really means that it is listening and wants to have a more community based approach.
The irony here is if it had listened to it's users and implemented half the requested features they'd be probably having to increase production...............

 

Yes this was my question

 

Just going to post a post from other website. I completely agree with this guy. And by the way I moved to Rekordbox and I will never buy anything form NI again. Bunch of liars.

"They just want to sell the company. They will be doomed before long, particularly the DJ division.They started on the wrong foot, when Traktor became the Bedroom DJ standard and decided they could just stop doing any significant updates,like they were the Technics 1200 of software or something.Then they started inventing things nobody asked for like the remix decks, then even worse with the STEMS, which make 0 sense for ANY dj, and producers can easily use Ableton to work with on a set, then they decided to shoot themselves on the foot ******* up their hardware by taking out the Jogs, thinking they would somehow make the people use their STEMS that way. That was exactly when Pioneer got into the controller/software game and snatched NI candy. They lost millions and needed a loan from an investor. Did a late push with the Traktor 3 and Mk3 controllers but like the teenager studying for an exam the day before, too little and too late. And now the investor wants the money back, so lets fire everyone that actually made us rich(remember NI comes from Final Scratch, they started with DJs waay before producers even started using Cubase 4) and try to follow the example of one of the most criticized companies EVER (Adobe) by making them pay every month for something they can pirate. They will go the Vestax way before long."

 

Something else I'm not sure they have 'thought through' Going mandatory subscription would probably increase piracy exponentially

 

Could you give the source of this ?

 

I‘m honestly really angry about the lack of support on rmx/stems/stepsequencer-topics in traktor. Especially dropping D2 and S5 (finally without this f***ing jogs and with screens!!), without proper explanation or alternative, made me loose much trust. And I owned almost everything from NI up to that day... But why should I use ableton for this, if my need is theoretically covered by NI?

So this is again a subjective statement as mentioned above by the mod. You don‘t like things I miss and viceversa... That‘s just normal...

 

Anyone know when Paul gets back off his 'holidays' ?

 

On September 30th like Mick?

 

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[/QUOTE]

Honestly, I am a long time NI user and own almost all of your software and some of your hardware (I just invested in a S61 this year- it's the best keyboard I've ever had my hands on and I've owned a Korg M1 and regularly play a Steinway...) The Kore abandonment broke my heart a little- but the current mature offering is so much more useful that I don't even feel that bad anymore.

In any event- I just want to say thanks for all of the work you're doing in being more transparent to us users. I have few, or no complaints about any of the products I own. There's three things I can't figure out with everything:

a) how to assign the S61 touchstrip to anything I want easily. I'm having the same issue with a volume pedal hooked up to the S61.
b) How to correctly configure DC coupled outputs for Reaktor (using my MOTU Ultralite MKIII)
c) How to have the S61 focused on one thing in Maschine while the Maschine is focused on something else. (so I want to play the S61 and trigger stuff on the Maschine)

I've looked through the forums and have not found a lot on these three issues.

Other than that- my NI hardware and software is super useful and well worth the investment.

 

Hello again,

I was indeed on a short break and you don’t have to fear this was a one-off thing. There have been a ton of replies and while my thanks to those of you who have been friendly and welcoming, all responses have the potential to be helpful.

The Product Owners are doing a great job of keeping you up to date on what the teams are currently working on. Some of which is currently being beta tested, others are still being worked on, and will be in the beta at a later stage.

As mentioned before, we can’t answer all your questions. That we don’t reply to individual requests doesn’t mean we aren’t listening, rest assured, we are reading all your comments. I kindly ask you to have an understanding of this.

D-One worded it nicely:

I hope that you either do or will soon see that we are turning things around. Things like this take time but we really are committed to engaging with our users. Both here on the forum with some of our hardcore users and also with our customers who don’t engage on the forum.

In my absence, there has also been a Traktor post, which hopefully also addresses some of the Traktor concerns in this thread. The Traktor team is committed and they are listening too. It has been brought up on the forum multiple times: “Talk is cheap”, so we’re going to prove this to you with actions.

I believe that over time most of you will notice the consistency of our efforts. And I will provide my next update by the end of October.

Best,
Paul

 

Thank you Paul for returning.
Whilst I'm sure that you cannot address all concerns that have been brought up in this thread and elsewhere I am actually struggling to find any issues that are really addressed and it would be very helpful to those distressed by the way NI appears to be heading to clarify the main paranoia
over whether any element of any subscription only future has any likelihood given that none of the users has expressed a preference for this, rather quite the opposite, and the idea expressed was that NI were listening to the users...................................
Sorry to harp on about this but as you can see it is a very contentious issue that has been brought up many times and it is a tad 'odd' that no answer has been forthcoming. It certainly in no way has any popularity.

 

Sold what I could, problem solved... Had enough all those years.
Good luck everyone

 

Hah, in another thread was mentioned that "waiting could help to solve the problem" in some way. Maybe, some more waiting should do?

 

Totally missed this post, but my mind is totally at ease now. It's incredibly reassuring to hear all this, and I'm super glad that approx. 0% of the speculation regarding some kind of subscription service is true. I'm quite happy with the Kontakt/Reaktor/Guitar Rig style platforms we have right now, as it means that us, the consumers, have the ability to experiment with creating our own instruments/fx/whatever in the same context as things like Razor. Gives a lot more value to the platforms themselves outside of being just a place to run existing products, and creates a unified platform for high-quality 3rd party products.

Having said that, I still wish Reflektor would receive the same treatment as the classic compressors and solid mix series. Sounds great, but having to load up Guitar Rig is a bit of a pain. Frankly, I think I'd rather have the Solid stuff be the odd man out, as then I'd be able to have all three visible at once, but that's just me.

And despite how much I'm enjoying Massive X, a third oscillator, second filter, and more FX slots would be pretty great. Kinda disappointing to see functionality removed from Massive, and seems odd that we have to choose between FX instead of the usual independent enabling/disabling of each, although then we'd only have access to one insert oscillator.


Honestly though, overall thanks a ton for the work you've done for the music community. NI products have become a major part of my workflow, and continue to inspire me creatively. I don't think any other company has quite the same approach, which results in what I feel are much more creative plugins to work with, and is why I continue to heap praise on NI despite the negative opinions I see about them. At the end of the day, your products help me to realize my musical ideas, and that's what matters to me the most.

 

Sorry Paul, but in the good NI tradition you are saying …. nothing. You keep recycling the same words, exactly like many before you did: "we are committed", "we are turning things around", "it takes time". Until you come with REAL tangible actions, you won´t see me as a customer anymore.

 

I watched Daniel Havers speech about "The Future Of Music" and there he lays down the subscription model based on assumptions he or his company had made. These are false on different levels. He talks as if the needs professional users have are similar to amateurs, gaming platforms, Spotify users and so on. All, of course, to let subscription appear as the biggest thing since sliced bread. The subscription model burdens a lot of bureaucratic loads on the professional, because he is not just using two or three platforms, like an amateur. A lot of subscriptions would have been to make for DAWS, Plug Ins etc. and been watched not to interfere with workflows, because some subscriptions ran out or were changed, the internet maybe locally down, etc. Artists like to own tools, not just consume something temporarily. Consumption of films or music tracks is totally different than making them. As a consumer you don't need to have everything always available, you don't learn a track or something. For a pro it is necessary to keep going or start anytime, not to think about subscriptions or alike. Many pro computers are not even on the internet. The comparison with Adobe is interesting, because it contradicts Havers plan of "democratisation" of music production. Adobe offers still amateur software with perpetual licenses. Of course their aim was to milk the professional customers who were locked in thru many years of using Adobe stuff. Many pros changed to competitors anyway.
Furthermore, why should anybody being interested to give the user stems to fiddle with? This is destroying partly what art is: a very individual statement, very subjective, very personal, very emotional. Those art works combined result in an oeuvre and should not be seen as something being diluted into a devaluating stream of bits and pieces.
Of course all this looks like just made up as flanking propaganda to squeeze more money out of the business. But NI has some responsibility, especially because they delivered great tools to the professional for music art and music production. If they change now the concept to subscription only, especially for the standard tools they built up as a tradition, it will be like a kick into the teeth of the long time loyal artists.
This is the video, I was referring to:

 

Tomorrow it's Mate Galic 43rd birthday.

 

So far I seem to be one of the few that reads that video that way. It is probably only me though that finds it emarkably offensive, hubris riddled, and insanely hypocritical. Still it's encouraging to know that NI is listening to us and answering our concerns as evinced in a remarkable fashion by this thread which is almost collapsing under the weight of the answers it contains to all the concerns raised. A cynic might find it a mildly offensive and merely dubious lip service but fortunately I'm not cynical.......................................

 

If you want to assess how Paul Jeszenszky's (OP) comments fit with the actual current state of NI Support, check out this thread and see what these guys have been going through for the last 3 weeks - https://support.native-instruments....Acoustic-install-fails-en-us-?page=1#comments