So as many of you know, i am a Native Instruments buff. I love their stuff, and some of their plugins/programs/hardware are HUGE in the digital audio field (Kontakt, Reaktor, Maschine, Absynth, FM series, Battery).

As ive been a customer of theirs for many years i have noticed patterns and cycles. Not too far off the typical sales cycles you see in industries such as Auto sales.

This cycle being prices drop ALOT right before a new model or year is released so they can clean out stock and charge you a premium for the next model.


Well i have noticed NI isnt much different. Almost every time you see a crazy sale on NI products they release something new (update, expansion, library, etc) for that.


I get all their email newsletters and such and i have an acquaintance in the Artist Relations sector. Though i dont hear from them often, at all, i could contact them for info if i ever needed. Thats all aside the point.


Time and time again they put a sale up for all the Kompletes, right before they release a new Komplete series.

I bring this up because of the newsletter i got yesterday.

Reaktor is 70% off.



And what version number are we currently at?


For those of you who have paid attention we are at 5.9.0 legit version.


What does this mean?


I highly believe we can expect in the next two months for Reaktor 6.0 to come out.


Whether this will be a paid update or a free update (for legit owners), we dont know. They may pull the Battery update on us (legit owners of battery 3 had to pay for battery 4 update).



It should be amazing when its released. But it also seems we are near a full update for some NI products (except Battery 4 and Maschine 2 [two most recent updates].

Absynth is 5.2.0 and is awesome but needs to be modernized in UI beauty
FM8 is 1.3.0 doesnt get much love in their product line (from my notice), they could drop it and i wouldnt mind
Kontakt is 5.3.1 and is the engine of their operation
Massive is 1.4.0 and is amazing and a 2.0 update would be, well, MASSIVE
Reaktor is 5.9.0 and is a rock. It is so powerful i dont even try to devel too deep in it cause id end up getting lost in it and not making music

I have guitar rig and wont ever use it. Just not my kind of thing. If i play a guitar or such i use real equipment and amps and pedals and mics.




In Conclusion, i believe very soon we will see Reaktor 6.0. I will get it the day it comes out.

Those who have read this can now pick up on NI product sale patterns and hold out on the 'crazy sale' until they release the new product (to avoid paying twice).

 

Been a costumers at NI for many years too and I´ve found this stategy buying new stuff from them!

I only invest in every second upgrade Komplete they release and keep expenses down that way! Might seems a but odd way to do it .... but Im a patient man and can wait a little before I get the newest stuff!

Cheers

 

When to upgrade is any interesting question. This is my first KU and I've barely touched the surface (got get you guys to teach me how synths work, small request I know), so I want to try using the bazillion things that came with KU before I think about upgrading. Adding the sounds of Cuba, more horns and upgrading a master synth I've not yet begun to learn aren't enough for me.
Now adding a high quality orchestra with Kontakt 6, that would tempt me...

 

Guitar Rig is great for songwriting ... guitar, Xkey, laptop, drum software ... Bingo!

 

Wow. Didnt know there would be much interest in this topic.

Phloopy has it right for buying strategy. I have Komplete Ultimate, and if you do a VS between say 8 Ult. and 9 Ult. there are few MAIN program differences. I dont need some libraries they put out cause i just wont use them (Cuba, Horns, Strings, Africa, Gamelan, and similar), but i use their main programs religiously. And between 8 Ult. and 9 Ult. they only updated Battery and some libraries.

In conclusion it is true it is best to skip one Komplete release and get the next one (if you purchase and like NI stuff).

BigCat,

NI products are so deep. as im sure you know. Reaktor is creazy once you open it up, you can design so many powerful instruments. Massive is universal, it has so many applications and i realllllly love it. Absynth is another one of my favorites but as Artic said, its interface is lacking. They could seriously work on beautifying it and making some cool feature. Cause its a really cool program. Easier to learn than Reaktor but still very powerful.

Sequence of easy to learn to hard

FM series>Massive>Absynth>Kontakt>Reaktor


Towards Artic,

Maschine is my go to for drums. Maybe not all their expansions, but the sequencing and hardware is nice. I dont know all the features of Maschine but its still the most effective tool ive found for drum synthesis/emulation and sequencing. Real drums are easier than maschine, but maschine has so many more applications than a real drum set.

Had an Akai and hated it, used a keyboard for drums, done live drums and foley. In the end once i have live drums or foley, using the wav files in maschine is what i do. Being as my music styling is more off-beat or out-of-sync in drums than say EDM.

How NI works is they have teams per specific product. And those teams work on those products. So they will hire on Maschine people, independent of Absynth people.

NI careers is another place to watch. You will notice a spike in careers in the field of which they are about to update (more Kontakt careers may equal a new version of Kontakt, and so on).

Matt and Artic,

And on the FM8 thing, it just has never stuck with me personally. Maybe i didnt give it time because i spent so much time with Massive or Maschine or Herbertos libraries in Kontakt . It just never stuck. I felt i achieved better or similar results with Absynth (but FM8 has a much nicer interface).


Matt,

Kore was AWESOME. They should have kept it going and just fix it up more. I dont like guitar rig but thats just for my purposes of it, and i owned traktor for all of two weeks and sold it. It is stupid. Im not a DJ or some EDM buff or wanting to play 'Steve Aoki' or whatever. Maschine isnt well suited for live performance in my opinion. Some people use it that way, but i find it best in a studio environment for sequencing drums.