iZotope and Native Instruments have announced that they have teamed up to form a new technology group, backed by Francisco Partners and EMH Partners.
With strong identities of their own, Native Instruments and iZotope will each continue to operate independently. But iZotope CEO Mark Ethier and NI CEO Constantin Koehncke will develop a shared strategy as co-presidents of the group.
Here’s what they have to say about the partnership:
“There have been many times in our history where we’ve wondered what it would be like to partner more closely. Past collaborations, like when iZotope introduced NKS (Native Kontrol Standard) to Ozone 9, gave us a glimmer of the potential.
We share a depth of experience in the industry, with NI’s journey beginning in 1996 and iZotope’s in 2001. We both have unique and complementary strengths – from iZotope’s intelligent audio processing to NI’s innovative instruments, effects, and integrated hardware.
Through our partnership, there are infinite possibilities for close collaboration, sharing of knowledge and technology, and enhancement of our product offerings.”
oh oh
looks like its turning into adobe for audio
everything will be subscriptions soon, just watch
and look for alternatives if you haven’t already
Recently had my Kontrol interface die but I had a second Kontrol so I tried to install it as my legacy machine can’t run the newer interfaces and has no internet access but No go. NI made my unit worthless with their bullshit online authorization crap and then actually not even allowing me to online authorize it. Add this to the fact that when I had a hard drive crash a while back I could not reinstall any of my old NI software so after spending thousands of dollars going back to me buying first gen releases and all the upgrades for my newer computers, and 3 komplete upgrades, and the Mashine Studio I have learned my lesson with NI. Go fuck yourself NI.
You will never get another penny from me. Never.
native instruments is industry standard. they make excellent products imo. please stop complaining.
Says the person who complains about “no screen” in post after post after post lol.
maschine always had decent screens. therefore i never had an issue with native. i am very happy that they didn´t jump on the touchscreen train (so far). my triton extreme screen doesn´t work properly anymore.
I had three Traktor S2 MK3 DJ controllers fail on me before switching to a Pioneer XDJ-RX 2 which has had no issue with my 2014 Macbook Pro.
Who knows if this will have implications for their software licensing.
I have mixed feelings about subscriptions– mostly negative. If it goes that way, there could be MANY different charges per month from different developers, and it would be a hassle to track all of it. I’d imagine Apple would want to get in on it by streamlining the subscriptions through their bank account. Also, virtually all examples I’ve seen of the pricing don’t demonstrate any advantage in terms of cost– if I was to continue using the software.
For some software, I stop using it after a few months anyway, so perhaps that’s a small opportunity for advantage.
If they switch to subscriptions– without a perma-license option or a grandfathering option, that could be a day of hunkering down with whatever last version they released. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Every product on its last leg will become a subscription service and alienate its core audience. Its sad to see it happen, the subs bring no extra value to the product, especially when it transitioned to it. If bitwig started a sub-service, I would have dove in 2 years earlier, its a great product. But if Bitwig becomes a sub-service, I’m out.
Oh wow! I own all the stuff made by both of them. I wonder what that means to me.
Sorry for my rant but this was something I just recently experienced with NI. I was a pretty loyal customer for many years. I understand no longer offering updates or even support but actually making stuff I paid for no longer work really is BS in my opinion. Some people love vintage synths…well I love vintage plug-ins and though I have multiple machines with tons of new stuff I find it fun to still use old software. Sadly I it seems companies are going to the “you don’t actually own anything physical” model. If you can get people to pay for stuff that actually has no physicality you are basically making money on “nothing.” IMHO the ramifications of such a business model sucks for the consumer. If NI would just leave me alone once I buy their products is all I ask. Let ME set the level of after sale interactions, but no you actually made the stuff I bought, old VSTs that have no impact on you worthless.
I’m holding on to dear life on whatever perpetual-license plugins I have.
I don’t expect companies to support obsolete products – I get it. I also don’t feel the need to get/upgrade to the latest version of everything just because I can. As long as they let me keep whatever I have installed as a perpetual license, I’m good. Any recent version of Komplete really has more than one ever needs in a lifetime of music-making. Seriously.
There’s always Spectrasonics, and plenty of other wonderful plugin companies, smaller companies making great plugins that are worth supporting. Kontakt is still annoyingly clunky anyway.
This is not going to fly. But that’s just my gut feeling, anyway.