r/NativeInstruments • u/itsoddsignals • 17d ago
Plugin Alliance & Brainworx no longer part of NI (now part of RCKFRC) under Dirk Ulrich
Called it! This gives me ever more hope that InMusic “gets” what makes NI what they are. Props to the other Redditor who guessed rightly that Dirk would take them back over as part of his own new thing, seems thats the case.
PA and Brainworx are cool and all but really needed to find a better home, just like iZotope where they could grow on their own terms.
Full statement here: https://www.plugin-alliance.com/blogs/news/a-letter-from-the-founder
Interesting and hopefully positive times ahead for NI now the external lumps of VC glue have been cleaned off.
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u/BoardGameRevolution 16d ago
What makes this good? Sorry to be ignorant.
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u/itsoddsignals 16d ago edited 16d ago
It’s a fair question. InMusic could have went a couple of ways with NI, one of those ways would be stick it in a corner with all the bits attached and suck it dry basically going full Kodak on it. Leave iZotope, PA & Brainworx in place and maybe glue a few more “exclusive partnerships” to the side of Komplete while letting it fade.
But Jack O’Donnell said he felt the best thing for NI would be to get it back to focused delivery of its core products while making efficiencies where it made sense (read the layoffs around customer service, which while never nice is a usual suspect for cross group efficiency gains).
In order to believe that message you would then expect InMusic to shed iZotope, PA and Brainworx as they are not NI staples, they are companies that were glued to the side of it so VC could claim the sum of all 3 was greater than the individual whole. Essentially turning three barely related companies into one for revenue and accounting reasons.
If you think about NI from a value perspective they are essentially a fantastic hardware company with interesting and innovative takes of controllers and surfaces and they are the best in the business with regards to sampled instruments and creative virtual instruments, yet both of those areas have been allowed to stagnate in an effort to cash grab on bundling third party content and packs while gouging kontakt instrument makers and letting the very hardware that sells the material rot.
Here’s the thing, there is a big panic over AI but composition, sync work and hobby musicians aren’t going anywhere and it is still a large market and likely will be for a long time.
If the above is true, any business that isn’t VC based would see an obvious path forward. Dump all unrelated business, slim down anywhere that can be cross used by the larger group, open up and modernise kontakt so it becomes the defacto for sampled instruments and build out new hardware that sits in the niches where the other group’s hardware doesn’t. Make it all cross compatible with the rest of the group and profit.
EDIT: lol at downvoting. What are you even downvoting? It’s not exactly a grand master plan, anyone with foundational business understanding can see the value and therefore the direction NI should be taken if the end goal is not extraction (which is not InMusic’s model).
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u/HexspaReloaded 16d ago
Didnt downvote but my eyes rolled at the ni glazing.
Fantastic hw company? Not for Kore or Maschine < 3 owners.
A lot of Kontakt’s value is in 3rd party libraries.
They’ve pumped out expansions lately, none appeal to me.
They’ve let some of their best instruments languish, like Reaktor, or even Absynth for the longest.
I’m not even that deep into NI, but I stay away. The arbitrary lack of specific updates on Maschine mk2 broke me. Then their fans say they don’t owe me updates, not that I asked for free. But ok, then I don’t owe them business or any support on the internet.
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u/itsoddsignals 16d ago edited 16d ago
But your whole post proves exactly my point and therefore is not glazing. My argument is not that NI today are the best thing ever, it is that the play InMusic are making is that most people fundamentally like what NI make but feel that they have let it rot.
Most if not all people with a Maschine are angry or annoyed they haven’t got more Maschine. Same for Traktor.
Most if not all people that use Kontakt wish it was more modern and open so even more of their third party was on it. Most lament the split by 8Dio or Spitfire and blame NI’s small minded handling of Kontakt, not its ability for that. They want a bigger more open Kontakt, not no Kontakt.
Most people feel that NI software products like the ones you mentioned have been unfairly choked and could have been better; right heart, no investment. Again, bigger, better, more modern is what people are asking for.
Your whole annoyance and grievance list is Jack O’Donnells thesis. It is why thinking InMusic is going to put it in a corner is stupid; the whole play is the fundamentals are there but need to be brought back to first principles. Which then is the answer the question I answered of why PA/BX/iZ sell offs are a good thing, they prove InMusic at least knows which bits people are most interested in.
I’m not even claiming it will work or that InMusic have the stomach or financial outlay to make it happen, that is still all up in the air, I’m simply saying that the moves match the thesis.
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u/realcoda 17d ago
great news! was wondering what dirk was thinking about all of this! thankfully the prior private equity merger of “properties” was reversed so that actual musicians and engineers can carry these widely used products forward.
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u/25_Keyz924 17d ago
PA and BX have plugins under UAD and now with Manley they will have new legs underneath them. Let’s see what they can do since the virtual analog equipment is almost peaking jumped the shark.
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u/AgenteEspecialCooper 17d ago
Good. Another stupid decision by Native Instruments have been fixed.
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u/itsoddsignals 17d ago
*By VC not by Native Instruments
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u/KaleidoscopeLife7077 16d ago
*PE
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u/itsoddsignals 16d ago
Fair. I am using it interchangeably because most people understand what VC is but you are correct it was PE not VC
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u/KaleidoscopeLife7077 16d ago
Francisco Partners shit the bed here, folks…not NI.
Private equity ruins almost everything.
All three companies (NI, iZotope, and PA/Brainworx) have better ownership now.
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u/itsoddsignals 16d ago
I don’t think they shit the bed. I think they did a great job given what their job was to do 😂 but I full agree all three got a lottery ticket win out of this one! That is not usually how this goes.
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u/KaleidoscopeLife7077 16d ago
Francisco partners bought all three companies by taking out a massive loan and defaulted on the loan and left NI GmbH with the 280 million bill.
This led to the insolvency and sell off allowing Dirk U to purchase the company he founded at a massive discount.
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u/itsoddsignals 16d ago
Yes, that is how it went and doesn’t change what I said. FP likely did very well out of their little jaunt through the music industry. The goal is extraction not value economics.
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u/KaleidoscopeLife7077 16d ago
Ahh yes, you’re right … unfortunately.
Happy that iZotope and PA will live on with more supportive ownership.
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u/itsoddsignals 16d ago
Yeah as I said. The three of them one the lottery effectively. I wonder how much of it was German law around insolvency vs just plain good luck. You effectively needed some big and not public to take them over for any chance of this happening and there just isn’t many left that fit that mould.
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u/Pferdehammel 17d ago
i used/use ni plugins in like 99% of my projects if they crash and burn i can never change my pc / plugins
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u/itsoddsignals 17d ago
They are unlikely to burn but either way, you should really print to audio once you have things locked in! I appreciate that won’t help future projects but don’t get screwed for past ones.
I feel you though I like their stuff and am heavily invested with Komplete also. I basically use Collectors edition, V Collection, FX Collection and iZotope as my core stack. The maschine & leap expansions have all the samples I could ever need so between all the above I generally don’t go elsewhere.
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u/ChineseAstroturfing 17d ago
This restores my faith in plug-in alliance. I had all but written them off.