21–30 of 34 posts
Wow. As a pretty heavy user of the Kontakt sampler, that's sad to hear. I've gotten so much mileage out of libraries like Analog Dreams and The Gentleman...
The Gentleman is my go-to piano library to mess around! I have Noire and a few others, but have always loved its sound. But also, yeah, NI is to music what... VS Code is to devs, right? Everyone uses/makes Kontakt libraries at some point.
This is crazy to hear. They also own izotope and several other brands. Imagine if the licensing servers go down.
It’s not all that crazy if you’ve paid attention to what NI has put out recently or rather what they haven’t. Their hardware has been incredibly dated forever and much of their software has been too. They have not looked like a healthy company for years.
Related, I suppose this is why they needed a third-party to revamp Absynth.
This is a dark day for plugin junkies. It really makes me nervous about the rest of the industry because NI had all the appearances of a successful company. I mean, they weren't updating Battery for a really long time, but I always assumed something would eventually happen with it. Maybe the Absynth reveal was a much grimmer peak into their operation than I'd like it to be.
So long and thanks for all the phish!
A much more detailed and better-linked writeup: https://cdm.link/ni-insolvency/ As noted, the company has been in decline since going into private equity in 2020. Pro audio users have felt it was less and less about innovation and more about selling preset packs and slim-value upgrades, as well as increasingly onerous license management. At the same time people are distressed because the firm has a very impressive hi…
Wow. As a pretty heavy user of the Kontakt sampler, that's sad to hear. I've gotten so much mileage out of libraries like Analog Dreams and The Gentleman...
A much more detailed and better-linked writeup: https://cdm.link/ni-insolvency/ As noted, the company has been in decline since going into private equity in 2020. Pro audio users have felt it was less and less about innovation and more about selling preset packs and slim-value upgrades, as well as increasingly onerous license management. At the same time people are distressed because the firm has a very impressive hi…
The main problem with NI is all the original devs left and the organization became a shell of itself.
Holy shit. I've been on the NI Komplete train for over a decade. They make some very important plugins that I've long thought of as stable and existing forever. Forever-plugins, if you will. Related, I suppose this is why they needed a third-party to revamp Absynth. This is a dark day for plugin junkies. It really makes me nervous about the rest of the industry because NI had all the appearances of a successful compa…
What third party? Do you mean Brian Clevinger, Absynth's original designer?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cory Doctorow suggests every other country should start doing this now. Every other country only has this law because America pressed for it, threatening tariffs or invasion if it wasn't the other country's law. Well, here we are and in 2026 this does not prevent that.
Native Instruments is a German company, not American. It seems unlikely that Germany wants them to fail or lose their IP, regardless of whether the US "threatens to invade" (?)