Why I wont buy Native Instruments..

Ok so Yeah I bought a maschine micro and the Komplete ultimate collectors edition in 2019 so You got me for 2k. No problem. But I will not buy the Komplete kontrol keyboard, or upgrade to the Maschine +, nor will I buy the Kontakt libraries or will I buy an upgrade to the Komplete bundle. And the reason is simple. Native Instrument's is stretched thin in its resources. It spends way to much revenue on the Promotional aspect of the company instead of Research and design and fixing what it already has. Native Instruments barely updates Maschine software and everytime they do a kontakt upgrade they lose some of the people who buy 3rd party plugins for kontakt due to incompatibility issues. In my honest opinion Native instruments needs to hire more programmers and stop spending so much money on promotion and Hardware design. Just focus on making the products you have, better instead of making a ton of products that are buggy and never updated. Oh and another thing is the Maschine librarie expansions are mediocre at best. I cant bring my self to spend $50 per expansion on top of the buggy maschine software which is getting left behind in the game. I mean how hard is it to develop drum and sample kits and sell them. You want extra revenue to improve your company you might try that.

 

Do not care. The products work for me.

 

Good for you. some of us aren't as privileged as yourself. Maybe if NI would actually fix the bugs then people like me wouldnt have to speak up.

 

Have you got nothing better to contribute to the world than come here and moan about a product you don’t want to buy? Comparability issues since 2019? Very sad

 

No I did find a solution to my problem though.

 

What are the specifics that led to your complaint?

From my world experience, nothing is ever perfect and larger companies like NI can of course detatch from offering direct and personal support to its millions and millions of users. BUt one needs to learn to kind of accept some things and move on as best they can. Moaning about how their resources must be stretched thin or that Maschine is "rarely updated" tho I don't see this as the case, it just may not be updated with the features you personally expect.

Also, no one forces you to buy expansions or libraries. Can't really see why you would be complaining about that unless you are on the same narrow track many uninformed users are on where you believe it there is only a team of 3 people that do EVERYTHING from programming to GUI design to tech support to making libraries. These are always separate divisions and you should be supportive of the revenu these bring.

Use it for what it is and if something doesn't fit your workflow, either change your approach or simply looks for a plug to fit that hole. We all have to manage things in the same way, some are just better at making things in the world work without too much fuss. We all want change, but need to keep going in the meantime.

 

Well first off maschine still is not able to go into full screen mode as a vst but somehow thousands of vst developers are able to accomplish this fairly easy. Second issue I have is NI charging existing customers for upgrades such as people such as myself who have purchased komplet ultimate collectors edition. I am forced to invest another 500 into an upgrade when new comers only have to invest 1500. So my original 1500 plus 500 thats 2000 I invested when new comers only invest 1500 and receive the same product. I can go on and on about things that NI can improve their software's. but also it takes them sometimes weeks to months to reply to my support request. I dont have that kind of time. Im producing music for artists whos time is very valuable. Im still waiting on the issue with maschine freezing when I click on the menu button. or how I never use any of the expansions from the maschine even though thats partly why I got the Komplete ultimate collectors addition. Its just little things like that that make me look for alternatives and prevent me from investing my money into a company in my eyes is falling apart. I really do want them to succeed. I just dont have time to waist on a company who doesnt want to help itself.

 

Basically you are saying you just don't like how the world works these days. None of this is new or specific to NI, it's how things work.

Most VSTs I use do not go "Full Screen" and I use a LOT of them. IN fact, apart from a few Arturia ones and UVI Falcon, I cannot recall many that have a resizable GUI let alone the ability to go full screen. Remember that VSTs run within a container and have limitations in how they can work within an OS different to the actual application itself. May be frustrating but still workable.

So... you are mad because they release new products that are not free for you? You do know that you do not "have" to purchase a new product right? I still use K10U because for my needs I just don't require what they offer. Almost every vendor does the same kinds of incremental updates etc.

By this same logic you would also expect when you purchase a new car and a shiny new model is released 6 months later that costs the same, you should be able to upgrade your current car for free?

I purchased Vegas Pro 10 for $500USD. 8 months later, a new version was released which I could update to for $199USD the new version was still $500USD... Same then for v12, and 13, and 14.

I purchased Wavelab 8 then it was updated to 9 and... same scenario as above...

I purchased Live 8 years ago and then it updated to L9... then L10.... Now L11.... and guess what, I had to pay for each update while the outright cost remains the same.

If you do not like this kind of cycle that applies to software, buy a Xylophone.

Those complaints are kind of Moot because basically it's like complaining that the day is too bright because of the sun. It is how it is.

Support, I can kind of sympathise because over the last 10 years NI support has become even worse I agree to the point you cannot even call them now BUT this is again, a sign of the times. 20 years ago people had more time and patience to sit and figure things, also things were less complex but also help was less easy to find without Youtube but these days, far too many people have too much money and invest in all this stuff without a clue on what they are doing then will DEMAND support for their lack of knowledge on how to even open a box sometimes. I know this because I have worked in support for this long and have noted a decline in the aptitude of general joe user.

It frustrates me more that users lack the ability to learn the basics of things and expect everything to just work the way they imagine it should and end up clogging the support lines I personally use to be able to access for more high-tiered questions, now i have to wait 3 weeks because 60,000 kids want to know why nothing is working properly on Apples new OS release they just dropped.

if you want proper support, here are my tips:

1. Don't complain and rant as it will cause people to NOT want to help.
2. If the issue is a (suspected)bug, you need to have a process to produce it, video of the issue and confirmation it will happen if you do a sequence.
3. You need to provide all details of your OS, versions, environment etc.
4. Post the facts as short and sweet as possible leaving out any personal frustrations
5. wait a few days if possible, and if no reply, try and ping one of the friendly mods here on the forums and ask nicely to look into the status of your ticket.

This approach will work, I see it work and I respond to this in the same way with my support. Also, helps to use some basic paragraph punctuation so as to not force people to read a brick.

 

no Im mad because software that I paid 2 grand for doesn't work the way it should. That means with out bugs and glitches. That's a given. If you buy a product it should work as advertised. If it doesnt then some effort should be spent of fixing the issue..That brings me to the secodn issue Im mad about. thats customer service. If I have a technical issue I should receive a timely response and some sort of effort into fixing or solving the issue. Now that we got what Im actually mad out of the way. I do have other issues with NI such that Im dissapointed in NI for falling behind the industry in innovation and improvements of the software. That Im not mad at but just gives me more of a reason to find alternatives. I hope that clears it up for you.

 

I don’t care, I’m just saying your post sounds like all others out there when an issue affects their workflow. I have none of the problems you speak of so therefore I do not see the issue nor anything that needs a fix. Maybe it’s an os thing

 

Maybe it is an os thing.

It does leaves me with a few options though.

For one I can go the Akai MPC route for beat making but I'm having issues with them on response times for my Akai VST products much like NI. That scares me. That means innovations and bug fixes rare and are not likely to take place...

Two I can Invest another $500 on the Komplete collectors edition upgrade and still my Maschine software will not work as it should and still be charged for an upgrade periodically and response time is "crickets"....

3rd option I have is to use Presonus Studio One 5.1 for beat process Using the new pattern workflow. Which may work for what need and Im already invested in Presonus.

Fourth Option I have is invest $500 into Image-Line Fl Studio For my beat making process.

And the take away from all of this for me is this.

My future purchasing decisions will depend greatly on how I think a company will perform when It comes to innovations of existing products, and customer service.If a company is not innovating or fixing problems in a timely manner then How can they guaranty my product will continue to work when I need it? If they can not then In my Eyes they are running a scam...

 

Everyone has the right for an opinion and I appreciate you keeping this thread respectful but what i'm getting out of this is that - not delivering the features you want or getting back to your support request in more than 2 days = scams. That's a pretty tough benchmark for you to be satisfied

 

Well I sent my support request over a week ago, so there is that. And as far as innovation thats just a benchmark used to measure success in companies.

Have you seen the innovative things fl studio can do? For example You can double click a note and select individual note Properties...

I also love the fact that the Piano roll goes full screen.


Maschine is also falling behind in from Studio one. Ive had Maschine for over 6 years and its basically the same. Studio one has the ability to detach the Piano roll and Zoom into and out of the view.

Like I said. I hope NI gets it right. But until then Ive found a better solution and its not me raising the bar. Its the competition.

 

You can always PM me or colleagues here on the forum your request number. We're always happy to speed things up or see what could be the hold up with your ticket. One week is a little unusual at the moment.

To me it kinda sounds feature set rather than innovation.
Perhaps we're not that interested in offering the features FL Studio is pushing at the moment and vice versa. Perhaps that's not even what majority of our users want or are interested in having. I'm not saying it's all perfect but there is more than just application X or Y has a big piano roll and you don't Manufacturers are doing different things and that's also healthy.
At the end of the day, you need to find what's right for you and if Maschine is not fit for what you need to achieve, it's also fine.

 

Well Im traveling away from the studio and going to be gone for two weeks so the time has passed and there is nothing i can do until i return.

As for innovation aka features. Yeah there are companies that are constantly making new features that improve our workflow as artists.

Any thing that makes our job easier and faster is most likely going to gain more attention in the market. Thats just how it is.

The problem I see with NI is and I do wish them success remind you, is the management is focusing too much on promotional aspect of the company and not putting enough into the actual products they already have.

Yeah they come out with new products designs and yeah they make new plug ins here and there. I get that. But they have forgotten about maschine.

Beat making is half of the whole process of making music! With out a beat you have no music.

As for promotion and Nice packaging yeah its nice and flashy. But if you have a good product then they will sell themselves IF your existing customers are happy then and only then they will be selling your products for you through word of mouth...

 

Don't hesitate to PM me whenever you have time with your email - I'll make sure to check on your request.

I appreciate the constructive feedback as well and I'll forward this internally. It's always important to hear every perspective when it comes to development

 

If Maschine SW does not suite your needs, no problém to choose different SW that suits your needs. Or you may ask the developer to make SW exactly how you would like have it. It would cost some money, but you would have what you want.

And you may use Komplete without Maschine in program of your dreams. So, no real problém. And no need to upgrade to K13UCE, if you do not want. And if you wait till Summer Sale you might upgrade for 250$. Which is just fraction of price of Cremona Quartet and many other new Kontakt Libraries.

My experience with NI Support is fairly good. Things sometimes také time, but till now they fixed everything that did not work for me in acceptable timeframe.

 

Heres the thing. I did find a SW that did what i needed that SW was Maschine. The problem came when support did not respond to my request to fix a problem with the software that I paid high dollar for.

So as a result of support not answering me in a timely manner that got me to think about NI as a company and what it has to offer and I began searching for other solutions for my problem.

Then I learned about other softwares and how they are taking the game up a notch and I began asking myself "Should invest more money in a company who has proven to, 1. Not innovate existing softwares. 2. Respond timely to support requests?" In comparison to other software companies who are innovating and improving their platforms quickly. And responding to support requests in a timely manner.

And as a result of NI's actions I have found a few better solutions... Presonus's beat making workflow surpasses Maschines ability to speed up my process and make my work spaces more accomadating to my needs aka Full screen Piano roll while my daw is open and enableing me to pin it open so it doesnt close when I click on the DAW. Plus they have more intuative Penciling and automation features for glide notes and what have you plus now you can Use Music Notation within the DAW! I can go on and on about some of the features they have added such as Macros and what have you which have surpassed Maschine but Ill save that for NI research and Design team.

The second Solution Is FL Studio. They have so many feature I havent even began scratching the surface as I just started using the software yesterday. 1st thing is there community is crazy huge. Just look at all the youtube videos of beat makers using FLStudio. Second they actually not only listen to there customers feature requests but actually implement them quickly... I know its crazy mindblowing that a beat making software can do more than just add plugins to individual channels and Change the velocity of a note...

Look i understand the Software that runs on your computer needs to control a hardware piece of equipment. But I dont even use the hardware that much. The hardware is not the tool! Its the software that gets the job done! So why prioritize the hardware?

You want to monetize Maschine software? Just make Maschine software its own stand alone product and Make maschine the midi controller that can integrate as an addition to the software. Instead of a free software addition to maschine hardware. That way you can appropriate funds to improving the software

 

OK, you prefer Presonus and FL Studio, so use it. Maschine SW anyway is not all cases horse. And probably never will be. As well as one has different knives for different tasks, one uses different SW for different tasks. People using Maschine use often also other musical SW.

Main thing is that Maschine SW and Komplete are two different things. You may use Komplete directly in Presonus or FL Studio, no need to use it inside Maschine SW.

 

Here maybe this will help. This is a promise made to Customers from a company. They hit the nail on the head and for it they grew a customer base far beyhond what NI and Presonus combined have Garnered.