it would be a huge shame to see the creators of reaktor go down. if they could just keep reaktor alive i would be happy.

the plugin market has hit a bit of a wall imo. almost every new synth and effect now is just some fancy looking thing that does everything under the hood. there are not many new ideas any more, just shoehorn products that look unique but are in fact nothing new at all, they just combine already existing techniques into a slick interface that does everything for you. i have not been excited about something new in a long time without being disappointed when i actually used it.
the last exciting technology was spectral stuff, which opened loads of doors, but it seems most of those doors have now been explored.

 

Mysteria isn't made by Native Instruments, it's made by Galaxy Instruments and is not a choir, it's a vocal based instrument for drones, soundscapes and cinematic effects. I thought it was good and am using it on some projects.

Massive X - NI really should have released this years ago and are behind the curve. To say it's "shit" though is maybe too far, it can and does create some amazing sounds and has some unique features that can't be found in other synths.


"Now, they've gone too far down the blackhole, its over, they're laying off staff, RIP" They laid off staff around last summer, their profits were higher last year than any other year and they are objectively still growing.


There's many things I don't like about NI, but let's at least start with some basic facts...

 

Charming intro. Kinda poetic.

For real, as soon as my grandma tried Massive X she immediately said what a pos, and went back to Serum.

Well.. naturally shit comes from someone's ass so how did you expect it to sound like.

My grandma thinks so too. NI would be better to get an expansion from her newly formed band "Near Death Metal". Crossover sht bruh.

Yep and beat the hell out of him, then rape his wife, sister and daughter too. That 'll teach him to release ass sounding expansions.

Yes! You! I mean look at all those great arguments you 've made. Alka1 for NI CEO mofos.

 

I use MassiveX every day and I don't find think it's a trash plugin.I agree,it has some bugs unfortunately but it sounds great to me.
I'm not saying it's the best of the best synth plugin but it's one of the best with UHe synths,Serum,Falcon,Omnisphere and some others,sound wise.
Some of their relatively recent Kontakt libraries are great,like Noire.

About their hardware,their customers haven't all the same expectations,I guess it's very hard to satisfy everybody.People want great but cheap products.So there is problem here...NI is not the only manufacturer who sells shitty hardware,they all sell shitty cheap Chinese stuff.If they don't it's unaffordable for the masses.
It's a marketting strategy,you even make "consumer grade" hardware and you sell tons or "professional grade" hardware and you will sell 1000x less.

In the end there are their customers who decide.If they don't buy their stuff anymore,NI will modify something.So if they continue acting like that,it's because people buy their stuff.

 

Last edited: Mar 15, 2020

When policies change you are allowed to rescind the contract and get your money back in your pockets where they belong. I do think they actually run a charity because they swipe up everything promising the moon and they never give back anything.

This has been going on for years clearly and it's the reason why they're falling behind in pretty much everything. Think about how many samplers we have today. Pretty much any serious company created their own lifeboat. Creators that stick to Kontakt mainly do it out of loyalty to their customers.
There is no market strategy, no innovation, nothing that is truly groundbreaking as it used to be some years ago. I can only see here and there some interesting libraries because some creator works his ass off (Uli' pianos, Scarbee, AudioBro, e-instruments).
As for the hardware goes their controllers such as the MK series are way overpriced for what they offer.

Some of these products are still valid and in use because there are no alternatives. I speak for myself obviously, any 5.1 Surround Steinway running in Kontakt that comes to your mind of self entitled bitches? :D

 

Do you have maybe a source where this stands in? Like an official NI noticement about their profits?

 

It is characteristic of today's discussion culture that those who know the least facts about a subject shout the most and loudest.
It is a pity that there are people who even help them in this bad habit.

Contributions to discussions that contain massive amounts of words like fuck and piss are not interesting for me per se, because they are not very attractive in terms of language.

And finally, this thread is wrongly placed in "Software news", because it does not contain any software news, but can only be used for entertainment, for those who like to watch someone go nuts.
The thread should therefore be moved to "Lounge" or "Humor".

On "topic": I think the direction, the NI is not right either. On the other hand, I don't imagine that I understand the constraints that a small company, and this is NI (~400 employees), faces in today's global competition.

NI's instruments and tools, however, are quite useful and have become a standard in parts. Certainly not because they are particularly bad.

 

As much as I used NI products for a long time, it’s at least 3, 4 years since they did absolutely nothing that impressed me, my last hope was Massive X, and what huge a disappointment, a fuckin' cpu huger for features that seems and feels so incomplete that I had no interest in even downloading a version from our friendly site. the golden and creative years of the company is gone I think

 

Last edited: Mar 17, 2020

I think NI is probably doing what they should have years ago.....cut the dead weight.

At first, I believed they were dumping all their resources into SOUNDS and the subscription model (they still might be doing just that)....but the latest Maschine update gives some nice promise. With the new, leaned out structure.... they've managed to give a few requests that users been screaming for yours to have have implemented. That's positive IMO.

They seem to be listening.

I still love Maschine.... it's probably the most fun I've had in a computer based "DAW"

 

that's probably because both those vsts carry the size of all other vsts ever made on earth and possibly other life supporting planets...

 

There are good and bad things with NI ...Kontakt is definitely ugly as a shit but it has some of the best sounding libraries in existence. Also those of you still complaining about kontakts gui fail to realize 2 things 1) the software has to maintain support for all the developers who've created libraries for it which probably hinders correcting the design language issues and 2) Komplete IS the evolution of Kontakt. You dont need the hardware to use the software and it fixes many of the issues of Kontakt and adds a ton of new features. I imagine komplete relies on kontakts resources tho, hince why kontakt still exists.

I do agree they use a scummy business model in general tho.

 

To the virtue signalling numbskulls who jumped at my comment of "not owning any new NI products" and thought i didnt have a leg to stand on:
i was buying NI products when they were good, and brand new (spektral delay etc), i was using NI stuff when some of you were still playing with lego/still just a sperm. so give up that tact alright i know what im talking about.

Yes, massive X is a massive disappointment, if you don't see this its more a matter of how much you know of the general synth landscape than how much you know NI.

 

Truth brother

I think thats probably true, and top level management who shouldn't have been promoted.

Mysteria is a distorted choir phrase library. its full of phrases, bloated size and a shiny looking GUI to convince people like you, no its not anything its technically useless.

And yes, massive X is bad enough to not want to use at all, just take the wavetables and use in a better synth. IE ITS SHIT do you get me?

Just because they turn a profit on this years books because they cut a load of staff doesn't mean anything positive for the company, are you fucking serious!?
jesus christ... thats squirrel brained and impatient short term, materialist, vapid, hungry, capitalism to the max, congrats!!

.

 

People who get offended because this type of humor gives you a sore stomach, have you tried a soother and a blanket?...

"Wrong Section!!"
No. this is software news, this is the future of your softwares you soft anime generation

 

there is no need for YOU maybe. you can also glue and tape your nike or whatever shoes you have instead of buying a new pair.
funny logic.
this is the price of progress.
the old machine`s get re-sold anyway, so there is very little effect on the eco system as you claim.
you also took a dump today, does that not have an effect on the eco-system?

 

no this shit economics..
you sell proper products before moving on...
today they sell half products and announce next big thing
akai has cheap controllers too but they last..

sure massiv x is now good but hell what did we have if old coders where all there still and chef ettage would be not dreaming of wall street

and imagine : you can produce a proper a interface even with a plastic case

 

As if taking a dump and creating products based on oil, rare earths and toxic chemicals would be the same…

A lesson on logic and economy coming from a guy calling himself "hackerz4life" – that's actually pretty,pretty funny :D

There is no given natural need for progress in terms of economic growth and harvesting natural resources for the sake of monetization. It's ime to revise that paradigm of what you consider "progress". Think about it you take a dumpp or crack some code.

 

Quote
https://www.reddit.com/r/NativeInst...nancial_analysis_of_native_instruments_xpost/
The ex-employee reviews (if true) are particularly worrying and kind of emphasyses what a lot of us feel/fear.
I didn't find this but to make it easier to read i copied and past what was posted.. true or not sounds like alot going on here..

First, I checked the most recent reviews from Glassdoor.com. Here’s a few samples of the comments left by ex-employees over the last 3 months.

• "all innovative projects got cancelled. The management is a complete mess. Roadmap and OKRs change on a weekly basis."
• "A company on the path of abrupt shrinkage (600+ employees in 2018 to less then 400 employees in 2019)"
• "Mass layoffs the last 2 years (30 people in USA in 2018; 20 people in Germany in 2019)"
• "Constant cancellation of projects some being cancelled right before the release with the losses measured in many millions of euros - which is then compensated by cutting down the costs on personnel by means of mass layoffs."
• "Hiring of executive individuals the only function of who is to make the decision on firing, layoff and project cancellations."
• "Bureaucracy, bureaucracy and - because it seems so beautiful - even more bureaucracy. Up to 40% of my time was spent in meetings."
• "Massive technical debt; you touch one thing and 10 other things break."
• "No clear product road maps"
• "My prediction is that in a small amount of years time the company will collapse"

That sounds bad. Obviously ex-employee reviews aren’t the most unbiased source though. Every company with a few hundred employees will have disappointed ones who have been fired. A few bad reviews out of several hundred employees shouldn’t be taken too seriously. I was also excited to see more frequent releases and better customer engagement on their forums with the last few versions of TP3, so I have hope.

Review like those on Glassdoor are only a signal and possibly a weak one at that. The financial health of a company is a more fundamental indicator to it’s health and behavior.

So how’s NI doing financially? NI is a private company, meaning they don’t need to post details about their financials on the stock market. That said, they do operate out of Germany, so I checked the German Federal Register for their company financials and was able to find them (thank you Democratic Socialism! You can check it here and do your own analysis: https://www.bundesanzeiger.de/ebanzwww/wexsservlet. The website has an English option and you can use Google Translate on the financial reports.)

From what I can gather NI has two legal entities. An operating company (NI GmbH) and a holding company (NI Holding GmbH). Traditionally the profit from the operating company went to the holding company each year, so the holding company acts as a kind of financial and legal protection for NI’s ongoing money over time. Think of it like their long term piggy bank.

Both companies last filing was reported on Dec 31, 2017 (so after the cash injection) so I compiled financials for both companies from 2017 back to about 2013.

For the most recent year they filed (Jan 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017), the operating company (what we would think of as NI who makes the software, etc) generated €68 million in sales and about €19 million in “other operating income”, for a total revenue of €88.2 million. They also had €84.6 million in expenses which means that they barely broke even in 2017 and only made €3.6 million in profit. For comparison, NI reported almost €10 million in overall profit in 2016. They did €5 million in 2015, €18 million in 2014, €16 million in 2013, and so on. So 2017 was down a lot from previous years.

Some profit is better than none though; at least they didn’t lose money. Sales are down but not dramatically so and “other operating income” is actually up a healthy amount (€19 million in 2017 vs €14 million in 2015).

As an aside, NI spent €23 million on “general administrative costs” in 2017 which is usually staff salary. That’s more than they spent in 2016 and 2015 by about €3 million. This also correlates with the reported hirings they kicked off in 2017 to boost the company. Bookmark that figure though; I’ll come back to it below

From a financial perspective the company isn’t doing great, but also not that bad on the face of it. It’s not like they’ve got big loans to the bank, can’t pay employees, and are operating a loss. So that’s great news for us NI fans out there.

What about the holding company? We know that they received €50 million investment back in October, 2017 from an investment firm called EMH. That was almost two years ago.

While the amount of profit delivered to the holding company is clear from NI’s financials, the holding company may have other assets other than just the operating company. So the numbers aren’t one-to-one. It’s also not clear if the holding company is the sole owner of the operating company. By the looks of it I’d say there are other shareholders in NI other than the holding but I could be wrong. In any case, that muddies the water a little further.

That said, we can still tell a few interesting things about the holding company side of things. First, the holding company’s bank balance went up by nearly €28 million in 2017, which would make sense if that’s the first transfer of the EMH investment.

Second, the operating company did not transfer all of the profit back to the holding company in 2017, unlike all previous years I looked at back to 2012. NI made €3.6 million in profit in 2017 and also increased its staff expenses by around €2.5 million the same year. They gave €300,000 to the holding company as a profit transfer agreement, leaving around €500 to €600k to play with.

What does that mean, if anything? I just want to emphasize at this point that I know nothing about NI and am just speculating here. So don’t jump to conclusions! I could be totally wrong.

One positive hypothesis is that in 2017 the NI board, presumably in the form of the holding company, agreed to defer profit transfer and let NI reinvest more staff and developers. We’ve seen from NI’s own press releases that they doubled the size of the Traktor development team in 2017. Between then and now they’ve been busy, totally redesigning their hardware (Maschine Mk3, S4 and S2 Mk3, new Komplete keyboards and sample libraries, TP3, Traktor DJ 2, Massive X, and more). €3 million is not a small sum to play with when the average developer salary in Berlin is around €50,000 a year. Throw in marketing, project managers, etc. and that buys you 60 new employees; quite a healthy team (or project budget depending on what you spend it on).

Another hypothesis is that the €50 million wasn’t for the operating company at all, but was intended intended for the holding company. There could be a lot of reasons why the holding company would want to bank this cash, but without more detail it’s pure guess work. They could use it to buy another company. They could use it to buy out existing shareholders in an effort to clear the decks and bring in new talent. They could use it to pay off shareholders and free up more cash for NI to operate (remember that €3 million from before).

There’s a lot of reasons and we really can’t tell. All financials I looked at are from 2017, so we won’t know more about how they did in 2018 until around Jan or Feb of next year when they publish their 2018 numbers.

Conclusion:

Let’s guess what might happen in 2019. If the changes made in 2017 paid off, then 2018 should be a good year financially and we’d expect to see continued innovation and development from NI. That would be a great thing.

If, however, those changes didn’t perform as well as hoped then 2019 will be a bad year. Whoever in management was behind the plans from 2017/2018 will have a lot of explaining to do and new strategies will have to be developed. We’ve been hearing reports of entire teams being fired in 2019 and the Glassdoor reviews are terrible. If those indicators are to be believed, then 2018 might not have worked out as planned and now the holding company and the management are trying to course correct. This could also include things like mergers, acquisitions, or sale of all or part of the company in more dire circumstances.

The good news is that the company isn’t bleeding money. They’re still profitable on operating revenue alone (from what it looks like) and the holding company still has plenty of money in the bank. So whatever is going on inside NI isn’t being driven by financial panic. That doesn’t mean they’re doing great from a product perspective, but at least the numbers still add up.

Finally, it also suggests that even if 2018 and 2019 aren’t great years for NI from a financial perspective, they’ll still be with us for a while. I think that’s a great thing. We might not see crazy new innovations and awesome breakthroughs (which would be sad) but at least they aren’t going away (which would be even more sad). It just means they’ll spend more time fighting amongst themselves, leading to slower product updates, more employee attrition, and strategic wandering.

If they are contemplating a big change, which doesn’t seem to make sense given their relative financial health, then it’s a decision that isn’t being driven by financial motivation alone and would be more about the strategic fit for whatever new product lines they’re thinking of, company they’re thinking of buying or merging with, whatever new leadership team they appoint, or whatever they end up doing.

I suspect & hope that we’ll see more good news from NI in the coming months. Fingers crossed for NI’s continues spiritual rebirth.

FINAL CAVEAT:

Just to repeat what I said at the beginning, I know nothing about the insides of NI. All of this is pure guesswork and I could be 100% wrong on any number of things. I spent the afternoon doing this because I want NI to succeed, I started getting worried something was rotting from the inside, and wanted to find out more. I feel reassured they’re not about to go out of business or rush into a fire sale, which is great news. All we can do is wait and see for 2019 and hope that 2018 was a better year for them. In the mean time, don’t panic.

Thanks for reading this far.

 

..

 

Last edited: Mar 15, 2020