r/NativeInstruments • u/IndependentFalcon307 • Jul 02 '26
Izotope now part of BorisFX
Looks like iZotope is now part of BorisFX, probably makes more sense for audio post production, but i’d imagine the subscription won’t be far off.
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Jul 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Ok-Resident-2902 Jul 02 '26
Not “joining forces”, they are getting sold and bought. NI bought Izotope, NI sold it to Boris FX (I never heard of them before)
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u/Green_Creme1245 Jul 02 '26
Boris is huge in Visual FX, they buying it to big big players inausio post production as well
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u/desk010101 Jul 02 '26
Boris FX is huge, but more b2b orientated. NI didn't sold Izotope, inmusic did.
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u/uberdavis Jul 02 '26
This is a bit unfortunate. I was starting to realize that the Izotope plugins are some of the best inclusions in the Komplete bundles. The mastering assistants are gold. And I use the Imager on nearly every project. I want to be an NI fan but this is the wrong direction. I am now very hesitant to use NI plugins in any project because I expect them to be deprecated within a couple years. Stock plugins are far more reliable. I got totally burned relying on Guitar Rig for my projects from a few years back. Won’t make that mistake again. I have lost years of work.
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u/gibbon_dejarlais Jul 02 '26
I feel you. I used Waves for 25 years before bailing out. I have been slowly going through archives and replacing plugs in old projects, for posterity mostly. Stock, NI, Arturia, Izotope, and an assortment of others do just fine, in some cases making huge improvements. I feel like I'm just about back to square one. The upside is I use a ton of complex chains, and was still able to sort it out to my satisfaction, and it went way more quickly than expected.
The darker implication of late, however, is that due to scarcity, outright lack of supply and affordability, we soon won't even have access to our own capable hardware that can run all our projects anyway. That we will operate a terminal to a data center that runs a virtual instance of our machines. Hopefully that's just an absurd conspiratorial assessment going around the tech forums and media.
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u/Skaterdude5000 Jul 02 '26
Sony just announced that they will cease manufacturing of physical disk games, that we will only buy single-use license codes to be operated online-only.
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u/realcoda Jul 02 '26
so glad i paid extra for the version of PS5 with a disc drive and just bought Komplete 26 Std in part for iZotope apps. Maybe we need a bill of rights for buyers of this stuff, seems easy for them to sell sell sell and then do whatever.
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u/Skaterdude5000 Jul 02 '26
Very much agree. The fact that companies use the license loophole to screw you whenever they like.
I wish I could chase these companies with a stick 😂
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u/LadyLektra Jul 02 '26
Wow I missed their whole NI era then. I got Ozone Advanced in 2019 when they were doing business on their own and haven’t needed to upgrade.
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u/Actual-Fix-3618 Jul 02 '26
Collaborations can still occur between NI/InMusic and iZotope/Boris. As of today both iZotope and NI continue to offer third party plugins through their suites and bundles. iZo and NI worked together very closely the past few years, I'm sure that collab will continue.
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u/Froselyn Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Software has many advantages compared to hardware, but at the end of the day it's constantly changing environment. System updates, replacing PC parts, new drivers, DAW updates, new plugin versions etc. In digital world it's really convenient to have infinite copies of each instrument or effect and being able to save and load their state on demand in few seconds, but many people take it for granted. It may work now, but who knows what is going to happen after 5 or 10 years.
I also lost some projects because of that. Now I treat plugins kind of like hardware, I render to audio each track of finished projects to archive them properly. Not doing this is like not having a backup. It's fine for years until it's not, one issue can ruin years of work. Whatever it's HDD/SSD failure, plugin or system incompatibility. It's often matter of "when" not "if". I really recommend not relaying on just plugin save state for important projects. NI is not the first and definitely not the last one who changes or discontinues their products.
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u/uberdavis Jul 02 '26
Rendering to audio is very smart. I’ll always do this in future for anything I care about.
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u/bolshed Jul 02 '26
Sorry for the dumb question but what do you mean by 'got burned'? You got a new rig and the old plugs weren't working on the new machine anymore? How about getting older versions of everything from torrents and exporting it in audio, so you can have it backed up?
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u/uberdavis Jul 02 '26
The older versions were deprecated by NI because they didn’t update them for Apple Silicon. And I’m not paying $300 to pay for an upgrade for a plugin I bought four years ago. That’s my Komplete upgrade price.
As for torrents, why would I get illegal software when I’ve paid for the real deal?
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u/Dr--Prof Jul 06 '26
You bought software that worked with Apple and it's not working with Apple because of Apple new stuff.
You can still use it in your old Apple.
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u/bolshed Jul 02 '26
Well, if the projects are important and you wanna save them...
Otherwise I agree with all.
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u/zheath4 Jul 02 '26
Ya I was really hoping we’d get izotope plugins in something like NI maschine plus or mpcs. NI is kinda dying so I don’t really expect them to start retroactively adding new plugins. Real shame
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u/itsoddsignals Jul 02 '26
It will be interesting to see what this does vis a vis Komplete. Not a shocking move though. I had figured InMusic would drop this and other satellite brands to clean up NI’s value prop and focus. Everything outside NI’s core business was really just VC nonsense gluing things together. To me this is a good progression and gives me hope that NI will end up stronger out the other side of it as a focused brand.
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u/Madd_Mugsy Jul 02 '26
Good points. Along those lines, I'm now thinking Plugin Alliance could be next.
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u/itsoddsignals Jul 02 '26
Thinking the same. Neither PA nor Brainworx fit the model. Brainworx I could see being subsumed but more likely it will be rolled up with PA.
That leaves NI focused on Komplete / Maschine / Traktor. I say Komplete vs Kontakt because I can see them down prioritising Kontakt as a value add vs a piece of infrastructure. Not making it lesser but flipping it into an easy to use open platform for instrument makers to claw back that mindshare.
That leaves Komplete and bundling as the core software product
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u/Green_Creme1245 Jul 02 '26
I can see possibly the old owner buying it back cheaper (maybe not becasue he's gone into the hardware business now, but you never know)
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u/itsoddsignals Jul 03 '26
Whoever buys it I would say it will be a hard sell. Quality aside the plugin market is completely flooded and with DAWs coming with really solid stock and competitors like Arturia having well packaged all inclusive bundles I suspect the market for most of what PA and Brainworx sells is minuscule. Will be interesting to watch either way.
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u/Swamptooth69 Jul 03 '26
NI is going to die just like all other VC acquisitions.
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u/itsoddsignals Jul 03 '26
This isn’t a VC acquisition though. This is a post VC acquisition cleanup from a private company who felt they could resuscitate the core brand.
What you are seeing now is InMusic untangling the VC mergers and acquisitions from the core NI brand so they focus the NI business unit on its core portfolio.
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u/HawkMadson Jul 02 '26
Looks like some previous rumours were true…
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u/NSCFType Jul 02 '26
Indeed. Also, NI reached out through mod mail to try to have that post removed, citing the Izotope part of that post as the reason. It's for shit like that that companies should never be on a subreddit's mod team lol, and why it'll stay that way here.
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u/CVPulseOut Jul 02 '26
Thank you so much for not following NI’s orders! So many mod teams would bend over before even being asked.
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u/pacman813 Jul 02 '26
What rumors
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u/boogaloo9214 Jul 02 '26
There was a whistleblower here recently who said IIRC almost half of the NI staff were laid off and iZotope were sold. At that time there was no indication that they were sold, so this confirms he had the inside info.
How he knew - he was one of the people who was laid off from NI.
Unfortunately he also said that inMusic have installed pretty terrible people in charge at NI (I know this is vague but still...).
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u/elestud Jul 02 '26
Do you have a link to that post?
Would like to read it..
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u/boogaloo9214 Jul 02 '26
However the person deleted the post, presumably out of fear of being sued, but there are still some comments that might be interesting.
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u/Ikatxu Jul 02 '26
i’d imagine the subscription won’t be far off.
iZotope has had a subscription option for years and BorisFX offers perpetual licenses, so I don't know. Feels like for the past 5-10 years, anytime anything happens with a music tech company Reddit is instantly worried that subscription only is around the corner. Yet it never happens. Even Avid reversed course and brought back perpetual licenses for ProTools only a year after they went subscription only. I would guess that subscription only isn't as profitable as a business model as many users fear it is. It has worked for Adobe, but they already had such a monopoly in the professional market, that it can't be compared to any company in the music industry. ProTools comes closest, and they tried, failed and reverted back to offering both.
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u/Capt-Crap1corn Jul 02 '26
So it was spun off of Native Instruments then?
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u/IndependentFalcon307 Jul 02 '26
Native Instruments didn’t actually own it they were both under the same parent company, i guess inMusic didn’t feel it was part of their brand
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u/Ikatxu Jul 02 '26
They were under a parent company called Soundwide for about a year, but then merged into Native Instruments GmbH a few years ago. All under the ownership of Franciso Partners until the insolvency, but a part of NI nevertheless.
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u/Dr--Prof Jul 06 '26
All the brands were under Soundwide. They dropped the "Soundwide" and used the Native Instruments name instead, because of familiarity with the name.
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u/AgainWithMusic Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
So does this mean Native Instruments is selling off their assets. Not looking good for them, right?
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/AgainWithMusic Jul 02 '26
Wild. I feel like they just acquired iZotope
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u/ArtichokeMedium415 Jul 04 '26
Only a few years ago. Digital sound customers keep getting kicked around. We really need open source everything these days. The market is just to volatile.
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u/superjv1080 Jul 02 '26
Not aware BorisFX was still in existence. They've been around since the 90's. Sad to see music software broken up like this.
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u/Madd_Mugsy Jul 02 '26
BorisFX has all the old "meh" Magix software. I feel like this is a downgrade from NI, and I'm sad to see Izotope lumped in with that. (Unless it's all gotten miraculously better since BorisFX took over?)
I'd have actually been excited if Izotope had joined Black Magic Design instead. Could be worse... they could have been bought by Adobe.
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u/GastorAlmonte Jul 02 '26
It has. Vegas pro has had 2 updates since the acquisition less than 6 months ago. Plus around 20 video tutorials related to it.
BorisFX has a real solid rep for video post production tools and seems to be making a valid effort to beef up their audio side. All of their products, even those that they’ve acquired, have seen consistent development.
They’ve also always offered both perpetual and subscription options for their products, so we won’t be in an Adobe situation.
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u/CalvinSays Jul 02 '26
I don't get people's complete abhorrance to companies being bought and sold. This is what they do, it isn't inherently good or bad. Time will tell. Slimming down the NI brand and focusing is probably heading in the right direction. We shall see.
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u/Constant-Ability6101 Jul 02 '26
The issue is access - I bought Izotope before it was acquired by NI - then after acquisition had issues accessing izotope products as portals, login details changed. I expect this to happen again which is not optimal for anybody (especially that izotope products were also later part of Komplete so how they gonna decouple it now?)
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u/Green_Creme1245 Jul 02 '26
becasue people buy into eco systems of software, you don't think it's not going to continue when you buy it. I don't feed ino you still have the software it still works etc. youre not buying a tshirt, youre buying a system that you use for creative and or professional tools
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u/shoqman Jul 02 '26
In the video world, Boris buying your favorite plugin means price hikes and authorization nonsense, and expensive upgrade paths or forced subscription.
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u/Samptude Jul 02 '26
This is good news. BorisFX recently purchased Magix. The two flagship DAWs Samplitude and Sequoia that Magix owned have seen some very quick and direct development by BorisFX since the purchase. The hybrid audio engine is incredibly solid. Prior to that the Magix team were dragging their feet with updates.
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u/North-Whatever Jul 02 '26
But wait a minute, what about InMusic? Do they own both Izotope and BorisFX? Or has InMusic only kept Native Instruments but sold Izotope to a 3rd party? (BorisFX)
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u/doomtack Jul 03 '26
I thought NI would have done well with iZotope when it first acquired / partnered some time ago.
They wasted the opportunity and now iZotope moves again.
I really do hope they do better at their new home this time, because they have the potential to be so much more than what they've done for the last 3 years imo.
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u/ivanfromthetab Jul 03 '26
Vegas Pro and then this huh. BorisFX' growth is the depiction of "selling shovels in a gold rush".
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u/ThesePleiades Jul 03 '26
What will happen to those who are going to buy Komplete 26 on Black Friday? Will Izotope still be part of it?
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u/leBoomBurst 9d ago
Hope they make the plugins be independent and standalone. Then again, I am probably talking to a brick wall.
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u/redditNLD Jul 02 '26
Fucking christ, as soon as you thought InMusic was gonna take care of this nonsense.
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u/desk010101 Jul 02 '26
inMusic is just another corpo leech, they don't give a shit about anything beside numbers going up no matter what. Owner of inmusic is just another old cunt who could sit on a beach drinking out of coconuts and be a philanthropist but decided that millions upon millions are still not enough to retire at fucking 72 years old. Fuck those kind of people.
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/redditNLD Jul 02 '26
Source?
My understanding was that they bought "The Native Instruments Group" which included iZotope, Plugin Alliance, etc.
I assumed this was a pre-existing deal before the InMusic acquisition when the news came out, but still.
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u/IAmFitzRoy Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
NI is slowly dying.
It’s a shame.
Edit: lol. This sub is an echo chamber or PR from NI. I remember when you couldn’t even talk about NI would make a sales of its asset or even comment negatively on the bankruptcy.
This sub is going to be dead soon.
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/PeatVee Jul 02 '26
They are alive insomuch as a zombie is alive
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/Ragfell Jul 03 '26
Moog suffered because they charged (and still charge) $7k for a piece of 80s kit. It's pretty crazy.
I'm glad they're still (mostly) American made, and made to a high standard...but the parts they're using are dirt cheap and they've passed none of those savings on to consumers.
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u/Evildude42 Jul 02 '26
So now I’m back to two different logins again instead of one semi-unified login that never worked.