Kore discontinuation

one might argue, it was your failure investing in the future of sound, not NIs discontinuing Kore?

 

for me the discontinuing of a product that some people built their libraries on is far worse than the discontiunuing of the soundpacks.

 

Oi! Are you asking for a fight :lol: ?

 

please stay on topic!
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for me, the discontinuation of a product that some people build their entire sonic environment and workflow on is far worse, than the discontinuing of one sonic building block.

But this sometimes have to happen.

for me, the way customers are/have been treated and misleaded before/after a product has to be officially discontinued, that these customers build their entire sonic environment and workflow on can be far worse, than the discontinuation itself.

who asked for a fight?

 

Sure. We don't know whether there will be a Komplete 8, though this has been hinted at via statements about Kore's lack of compatibility with future releases - I for one assume this means content new to Komplete 8 won't come with KSDs compatible with Kore's library. What else could it mean? Kore can load any NI VST anyway, so I doubt it's a lack of compatiblity in that sense.

My suggestion is an opportunity for NI to win back our trust, and therefore keep us as customers. Even at a large discount, I don't need Maschine - especially when details about the promised features are so (deliberately?) vague. The only way I could be persuaded to take a gamble with Maschine is to be offered something else useful with it, and as a Komplete 7 owner Komplete 8 would fit that bill.


Hope that makes sense - following plopseaw up the Spectrasonics road is pretty tempting right now.

 

NI should have made a combined announcement, consisting of three parts:

1. Announcement of sales termination 30 or 60 days before yanking the product out of marketing.

2. Announcement that support and updates for existing customers/product owners would stop 12 months hence.

3. Announcement should have also included specifics as to what would be provided in any updates; ie 64 bit and fixing this or that bug (by naming the bugs).

This type of official announcement would have been seen as a clean and fair way to treat customers with dignity and business sense.

Many of NI's customers are are professionals in the recording industry. These people may be hurt the most by the way this discontinuance was botched, and they are the people who have the most money to spend on new NI products!

I am happy to hear that NI is reconsidering its stance on the packs, but even if they offer them, I fear that this whole fiasco will cost NI dearly in future sales because it left EVERYBODY with bad feelings toward the company, forever scarring NI's reputation in the minds of those who have been burned.

Customer goodwill can be irreparrably damaged and even destroyed by just a couple of stupid corporate gaffes, of which this was one of the dumbest. Native Instruments has a lot to learn about the PEOPLE who are their customers. Realizing that the Maschine discount was an insult to Kore owners (especially to those who already own Maschine in addition to Kore) would be a first good step. Bringing the Kore sound packs back, possibly at a discount, might be another small thing they can do.

I sincerely hope they are taking notes for the future, and I hope they take this advice to heart: Stop flying by the seat of your pants and stop hiding what few plans you actually do have! Say what you will do, do what you will say. Anything less is like you telling us we don't matter to you!

 

It occurs to me - after NI pulled this... I wouldnt be surprised to see Komplete split up again!

 

Oh yeah, I think that's almost a given, at least if you mean "repackaged". Much of the current line-up assumes integration with Kore, so....

 

Of course!

A company that has several product lines, one of which is much less profitable than the others, has good reason to discontinue the least profitable product if that will free resources that can be put into the more profitable ones. It is not a question of whether the product is profitable on an absolute scale; it is a question of whether it is more profitable than other ways in which that investment might be put to use.

 

hmm. Another set of posts from NI spokesmen that still don't answer or even address many valid inquiries. sigh. I give up.

 

Disagree here. How many components from K7 are intrinsically connected with Kore?

I can only think of one... Acoustic Refractions.

 

Right, but not exactly what I meant. I didn't use the word "intrinsically". Integration doesn't require an "intrinsic connection", per se, but the opportunity to use all as a "system" is clearly implied in the Komplete paradigm. All the bases are covered with Kore being the hub, if you get my drift. That's all I was saying.

 

Fair enough.

 

I agree here. Beside Traktor/Maschine, what else are they really pushing? It's not Battery, FM 8, Massive, and Absynth. It is Kontakt and Reaktor. Im guessing in the future Komplete will be nothing but Reator stuff, Kontakt Libraries, and Maschine expanisions. From a producers perspective, not a sound designer or engineer, massive/fm 8/absynth sounds are outdated. Omnisphere, Trillian, Tone 2's synth's are more inspiring to me. Just my 2.

 

Outdated? Methinks not.

I'm not sure about your prediction, though you raise good points. First, I don't think that FM8, Absynth, et al. are outdated. The sound is different than Tone 2's and Spectrasonic's sounds, but it's kind of like the difference we found in hardware synths between Aarp, Moog, and Oberheim stuff in the late 1970's/early 1980's and Yamaha, Korg, and Roland hardware in the mid-to-late 1980's and 1990's. Everything had its niche and this was a good thing. MIDI, of course, was the reason that we didn't have to opt out for one manufacturer over another. Remember that early on, one manufacturer (I don't remember if it was Oberheim, Sequential Circuits, or someone else) had a proprietary option to MIDI that pretty much required a closed system within the offerings from that one brand, but it didn't take. Now, if anything, we're even more "democratized". There is more than enough room for all the macro-approches to sound coming from the manufacturers. I am thankful for them all (not that you aren't).

Your comment about producers vs. programmers is really well-taken and the crux of your argument. Programmers keep these synths alive when they make their offerings available. The rest of us can then tweak them like crazy to our heart's content, perhaps ending up with something really new sounding. I think that all of NI's s/w are deep enough to keep us busy this way for a while.

Emulative s/w throws something of monkey wrench into your argument also, I think. A really amazing piano is not something that one will feel the need to upgrade often. I think there will be a time when it will "practically" be less necessary to attempt an improvement; the returns on the effort will just not be perceived by enough people to make it worthwhile.

 

I posted this here as well but wanted to bring it up in this topic as it's a legitimate question...

http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=141940

Given that Maschine will be releasing version 1.7 shortly, how long before the current Maschine hardware is replaced with a version 2.0? And how long before the software hits 2.0?

Given that Thomas and Keir have both stated multiple times that there is a clear road map for Maschine, this information should be readily available.

I would hate for some users to crossgrade from Kore, only to have version 2.0 of Maschine come out at the end of the year, after the crossgrade offer expires.

Seems to make a lot of sense that version 2.0 hardware would be released in spring, given the current version and the expiration of the crossgrade offer.

Any official word on this from Thomas/Keir who have knowledge of that clear road map?

 

Agreed. It would make more sense if NI would offer a voucher or a coupon that can be used against the Maschine purchase and maybe it's good for a couple of years?

 

Exactly. NI should NOT be taking advantage of the Kore discontinuation as a way to get users into Mashine. More importantly, they should NOT be taking advantage of cross-graders to eliminate stock of "old" Mashine controllers. i mean, you KNOW they're going to release a new version in "a few months" (6 max?) It's logical that they want to sell more/again AND that a newer one would be an opportunity to improve upon the first one, which they'd have learned about through the success of the first one.

The cross-grade offer should be thus:

1. Free Mashine software to Kore 2 owners.
2. Hardware cross-grade discount in perpetuity to Kore hardware owners.

 

That is a mail I've send to NI today. I'm waiting their answer.

"Hi,

I've just ordered Komplete 7 and receive it yesterday.
I know Kore 2 is discontinued but, you are still selling Komplete 7, in which there is Kore 2 !
What about me ? I'm not billionnaire and I decided not to crack your software but to buy it because I found them amazing. You know this is a HUGE investment for me to spend 499€.
And now, I have my komplete 7 with Kore 2, one of the top feature in K7 but it will never be developed in the future (that was not mentioned on your website before I buy K7). I feel cheated, really.
What about the E-Voucher... ? I planned to buy some Kore 2 soundpack with it, but now, IMPOSSIBLE. Your are selling Kore 2 with Komplete 7 without the possibility for the new owners to buy Kore soundpacks and increase there use of Kore 2.

I repeat, I feel angry and cheated.

The fact that you dicontinue Kore 2, ok, this can be discussed. BUT the fact you are not selling anymore kore soundpacks whereas you are selling KORE with K7 is just a fatal error.

I'm waiting for a solution from you company.
And remember that we buy you softwares when others crack them. So please treat us as respectable consumers."

 

Kore is not part of Komplete.


oh, the player probably is