None of this stuff is going anywhere. Some company will buy either the IP or the whole enchilada at a decent price, not even fire sale prices. If you’re a middle manager or programmer, maybe update your resume. Start learning Swahili for when they move production to Africa.

Relax. The sky isn’t falling on your sampler. Apple isn’t going to swoop in and buy a company that claims Mac compatibility when it takes them three major versions (Komplete Kontrol) just to get a .component AU plugin to load inside a VST3 wrapper for their own hardware controllers.

 

my advice is 90 % hardware and 10 % software. im serious

 

The worst part about investing in software is you never know when it could tank, and your software is worthless after a few years of OS updates. If a product goes under, fully cancelled, no further development, the least they could do is make it open-source, so the community could continue its development.

 

Dirk himself said flat out when he quit in 2024, things were 'not going the way he had thought they would'. It was no secret, he told you in 24 NI was dying thanks to its new 'management'. They managed to squeeze as much as they could out of us for another year, now that they got they money from the Absynth holdouts, what's left? Spend money and fix Reaktor? They don't spend money, they just steal it however they can.

Same shit happens any time an 'investment firm' takes over if you haven't learned this by now.

 

Maybe. NI wanted to go the Avid route and "conquer the world," without going the Avid route (i.e., buy out the market leaders, e.g., Media Composer, Newstar/iNews, ProTools, Sibelius, and "integrate" them).

I think iZotope will be fine - Berklee might buy them outright, or partner up with someone who wants to. There's a lot of value there.

One Dirk Ulrich saw the winds turn and the storm coming, sold off in time, and bought not one, not two, but three hardware companies.

In my vaguely informed opinion (having dabbled in software product design, management and consulting), this is partially due to the after effects of the pandemic: a lot of folks, myself included, had to sell gear to fill in the income gaps for 18-24 months - and thank God we could. But guess what we couldn't sell: software licenses. I had over $24,000 worth of software licenses - not a scratch on them. But no takers - as I imagine was the case for most if not all of you reading this.

So that's one partial factor. Another is that everyone and their corporate grandmother believed that:

1. we have endless funds to subscribe to Apple, Disney, Netflix, Paramount, plus cell, internet, gas, power, gear/studio/home/car insurance, Clear+ (well worth it when you travel a lot), etc.,
   
   
2. if Slate and Waves (and Roland) could leverage their relative positions in the market (Slate because they were first, presumably; Waves because they 'own' much of the pro touring rigs, and most US pro studios - and Roland because... it's Roland - no surprises), then there was unlimited growth for other companies,
   
   
3. once we bought in the "ecosystem" (I got on the Komplete and Arturia merry go round early myself), we would feel compelled to upgrade/update every other cycle on average. Thing is, I'm up to 823 plugins currently, many of which I've tried a couple of times and never again. Some Komplete libraries I've got no use for - in fact I want a refund on them - and most I've only used a dozen instruments or presets. Those of us who work in music for a living, we have little time to go through all the presets. I did that decades ago, when I was a student - and even then, I felt half of them at least were garbage.
   
   My point being, the appeal of subscription and continual updates and upgrades is wearing thin on most of us. There's just too many libraries to keep track of, too many features to master, and frankly, too many companies, and far too many products. Some of them are great, many are good/decent, but it's like everything in the world: the top of the pyramid is pointy, the base is widest.

Bottom line: a dollar is a dollar (or Euro, Pound or Yen) in your pocket, and our plugin subscription budget isn't just competing against fellow plugin companies: it's competing against Amazon, Apple, Disney, Netflix, etc - never mind WholeFoods, T-Mobile, Comcast.

Native Instruments used to be an excellent company - good product design, and an instinct for what pro and amateur musicians needed. Maybe they will bounce back - like Fender and Gibson before them. Maybe not - like G&L. I certainly wish they would.

 

Last edited: Jan 28, 2026 at 2:34 AM

That would be a shame - to the best of my knowledge, Berklee is heavily invested in the iZotope ecosystem. So there's that.

 

I was on Komplete 13. Nothing from it will run on the new mac studio I got except for battery, massive & massive x, reaktor. They fucked up bad with the disk error thing with Sequoia. You can't install content/libraries on external disk. You need to install on your system, then yada yada do some annoying workaround shit. Put me off updating to 15. And since holiday pricing is gone, not paying full price for an upgrade. Maybe K16? Maybe not happening, lol.

It was reaktor I first got back in the beginning 00's. Then Komplete as some point when it came out. i basically stayed with it all these long years as kinda the thing to have. Not that I even used it much. Hate to see them go if it happens, but I always used other synths 99% of the time.

 

Last edited: Jan 28, 2026 at 4:25 AM

I invested quite a good amount of money into software (Komplete, Traktor) and hardware (several controllers like Machine, Machine Jam, DJ controllers, soundcards) but stopped doing business with NI more than five years ago. I caved once with that last Traktor update and broke my own rule — and of course ended up regretting it. Their whole company structure and product strategy have been broken for ages. You rarely hear anything good from employees or ex-employees about that place. In the end, it’s just a slow, drawn-out death.

So yeah, it’s probably time to download all the installers and back them up properly. With news like this, there’s always that underlying fear they might eventually liquidate the company for good and shut down the website. And knowing Native Instruments, they obviously don’t have any kind of contingency plan for that sitting in a drawer.

 

The market is saturated with products, and piracy is a factor ofc. And if a company, very much like NI, is running offices and shit, money's just vaporizing. The industry is always changing. Paid musician? Then you are very lucky. Meanwhile, normal people still want music as a hobby and may want to pay for some softwares if the price is OK, but most of the customer base is NOT rappers with gold chains exactly. So...a lot of music software is just severely overpriced, since days long gone.

Look at Reason Studios, just bought by another company, and prices cut in half immediately. Maybe this is a tactic more companies should try? Will the same thing happen to NI? We'll see soon enough.

 

Last edited: Jan 28, 2026 at 2:28 PM

This is not good

So I am guessing we wont be able to activate any purchased NI products when the time comes to upgrade and replace my studio PC if the ship sinks?

I only purchased Komplete 15 Collector's Edition end of last year and that wasnt cheap.

Dang

 

That all is not rendered useless if NI is insolvent. So your panic is a result of not enough knowledge. ) Glad to have helped you out. Get a coffee and make music.

 

Bullshit. Kontakt works exactly as before the insolvency.

 

The Domino Effect




Native Instruments - preliminary insolvency

What This Means For Ocean Swift

Hello ocean drifters,

By now most of you must have heard the news that Native Instruments has entered preliminary insolvency. Our friends at APD have a good article on the topic.

We are assessing the situation, getting in touch with our sources at NI, discussing plans and figuring out possible next steps. Business wise, what is for certain is that a big hit is coming our way in the short term. There is a beautiful flagship NKS instrument in the style of Absynth from us, waiting in the wings scheduled for a February 12 release. It is unclear to us if it is happening from NI's side, or if we even want it to happen considering the situation from our side.

What this means for you as of now:

• All the NI related content is for now as usual, Native Access works as usual and you can download and activate.
• Our presets business goes on as usual, there are amazing things for some of our favorite synth coming soon.
• Our commitment to NKS continues, upcoming preset packs will be NKS compatible.
• If it comes to that, we will come up with a plan to at least move our instruments to Kontakt full, as a last resort.

Boutique companies like Ocean Swift whose business has a strong dependency to Native Instruments are extremely vulnerable right now, and this thing can have a profound domino effect.

We need your support now more than ever.

 

Last edited: Jan 28, 2026 at 11:16 AM

Do you remember the banking crisis of 2007/2008? The banks were bailed out with taxpayers' money because they were considered systemically important. Lehman Brothers was bailed out and absorbed by others, making the big banks even bigger. NI is not systemically important, and if they have good products and the necessary know-how, they will be bought by another financially strong company at a price far below market value.

What we can already observe is that there will be fewer and fewer companies; market power is becoming concentrated in the hands of a few. The technical term is centralization. It's important to remember that we are already in a global recession, meaning consumers are not getting richer, but poorer. The global economy is barely growing, and debt has never been as high as it is today. The cost of living and energy has increased.

All of this is reflected in changing consumer behavior; people are buying less or renting/leasing goods and services. People from impoverished countries are using cracked software. If all these people were given more money and their living expenses were reduced, there would also be more consumption.

If a company doesn't adapt to the market, it goes bankrupt. If a company doesn't generate enough revenue and profit, it goes bankrupt.
What remains are perhaps products that people use and need. Then other companies will acquire and pay for the patents and inventions. The product or service isn't gone; it's just owned by someone else.

I think the insolvency administrator will speak with interested parties, and in a few months, the insolvency will be over, and this company will continue to exist under different ownership.

 

According to Grok..

Spoiler: ai

"Cause > Financial challenges due to substantial debt accumulated from acquisitions and expansions (e.g., iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx).

Annual revenue estimates for recent years (including around 2025) range from approximately $78.5 million to $100 million.
Older confirmed revenue (from 2021) was €79.7 million (~$85 million at current exchange rates)"

-Having a company that cashes in +6M€/month get to this.. can only be mismanagement.

Most of what they sell is just software Downloads, not even physical products.. they're basically printing money.
So how big are the salaries? and the envelopes?

 

Last edited: Jan 28, 2026 at 10:05 PM

That's sad.

 

I tried, I wished and dreamed to support the effort, but the demo only showed to me a whitewashed new gui version of albeit an innovative way of creating sound, though one that sounded aweful to my ears and didn't seem to be anything but an effort at stuffing money in the holes of their financial statement. I liken it to an almost bait and switch scheme.

 

These days, many companies no longer belong to their owners, who are passionate entrepreneurs and do everything they can to protect and preserve their employees and their life's work.

Some companies have a management class that doesn't reinvest the money they earn back into the business—to buy new machines, hire new specialists, and grow. Instead, they take the money, go to the stock market, and speculate. The more profits they make, the higher their bonuses. Some managers ruin their companies, and they aren't held accountable for any bad decisions.

As you said, @ᑕ⊕ֆᗰIᑢ, the problem has been known for a long time, and the wrong decisions have been made for many years. When you borrow money, you always have to generate more revenue than the previous year to pay the installments and interest on the loan from the bank or investor.

Spoiler: Native Instruments: The Berlin-based company is laying off around 100 employees and announcing a platform strategy - 2019

Native Instruments: The Berlin-based company is laying off around 100 employees and announcing a platform strategy

By The Editorial Team - September 5, 2019

Berlin-based music software company Native Instruments abruptly laid off approximately 20 percent of its workforce across all locations on Thursday, August 29, 2019. Around 50 employees had already been laid off earlier in the year.

In a press release, the company cited rising internal costs as the reason, despite increased revenue in 2018 and the first half of 2019. The layoffs are part of a fundamental reorganization of NI's products, which are slated to be available on a single platform starting in 2020. Support for Komplete, Machine, and Traktor will continue.

Most of the laid-off employees worked in the Berlin departments of Sales & Distribution, Marketing & Product Management, Administration, and Engineering.

...* The Berlin-based company ’Constantly layoffs. “This was a very emotional day for the Native community. We have been driving innovation in music production since the 1990s. First through software instruments, then through complementary hardware, and now by creating a unified platform for modern music producers,” explains Daniel Haver, CEO and co-founder of the company, in the aforementioned press release.

It continues: “To successfully manage this transformation, we had to adapt our strategy, including a centralized, functional setup that supports our vision of ‘One Native.’ Unfortunately, this also meant making tough decisions and parting ways with a number of employees. This was the most difficult part of this transformation.”

The company regrets the impact the layoffs will have on the employees, their families, and the music scene. In addition to severance packages and outplacement services, Native Instruments is connecting them with other Berlin-based companies that are currently seeking highly skilled employees.

“This was the most difficult decision we have ever had to make in our entire history, because our past successes were only made possible by our skilled and passionate employees. We thank all our employees for their dedication, hard work, and unwavering loyalty to Native Instruments. We are fully committed to doing everything in our power to support our employees during this challenging time,” continued Daniel Haver.

Native Instruments first gained recognition in the early 2000s with its Reaktor software, which remains an industry standard for the free creation, manipulation, and assembly of sounds. Shortly thereafter, the company began emulating standard instruments like the Hammond organ and the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer as software. The key innovation was that the programs did not use samples and were therefore comparatively lightweight.

With Traktor, NI enabled users to create DJ mixes on their laptops, blurring the lines between professional and amateur DJs. Firstly, mixing skills were no longer required, and secondly, samples and effects could be used to manipulate the music. Newer products include Maschine, aimed at beat producers, and Komplete, a collection of virtual instruments and effects. The Massive X synthesizer was released this year.
The new product, available from 2020, focuses on a unified platform through which all of NI's core products and services, as well as third-party offerings, will be available. An addendum to the press release states: "Our reorganization aims to break down functional and brand silos that have developed over time through the continuous expansion of our portfolio. Given our broad product range and the overlap of responsibilities, this means that certain areas of product development will be more affected by the layoffs than others. In the past, we were trying to do too much at once."

``` The company's previous departmental and brand structure did not allow for the implementation of this strategy, according to the press release: "Today, customers expect a seamlessly integrated user experience in digital production environments. We are confident that we can offer music producers a globally unique and best-in-class experience by combining our existing ecosystem of award-winning software and hardware into a central online service," said Mate Galic, Native Chief Innovation Officer and Co-CEO of NI. "In the past, we had product lines that had grown independently, which was also reflected in our organizational structure. However, our platform vision requires a much more collaborative approach. All parts of the company must work together toward a common goal."

 

The owners need be those who work cooperatively in order to better their own products and not they who profit at the real expense of others. Such hierarchy breeds uncontrolled greed as we witness the endgame playing out before our very eyes as "wealth" flows contrary to the gravity of the common good. Drowning in a sea of monopoly will be written as the cause of death of billions if this all keeps up unchecked.

Since this is primarily a music production forum...

 

I call BS.
Insolvency is just a tool to trim staff, get out of bad contracts, and make a so-called pre-packed deal with the creditors, that incidentally are Bridgepoint and Bain.

In 2021, Francisco Partners, a much bigger U.S. tech private equity firm took over.
Francisco Partners "helped" (bankrupted) NI to merge with iZotope, then later acquire Plugin Alliance and Brainworx, combining them under a group called Soundwide.

Now here’s the kicker: this was all done via a leveraged buyout — meaning NI (and the other companies) took on debt to finance the deal. Think loans, credit facilities, etc. The ownership changed, but it left NI holding the financial baggage.

Like all BRO ventures, the new owners started pushing a “platform strategy” — trying to make NI into some kind of all-in-one music ecosystem. They launched new services (like Sounds.com), started a subscription product, and tried to deeply integrate all the acquired brands. That kind of growth costs money and resources.

CLEAR MISTAKE HERE: Not enough AI introduced

Sounds.com closed in 2023. Traktor and Massive X were underwhelming or late. Meanwhile, insiders say the company laid off a lot of staff (~20% back in 2019, then again in 2023) and morale took a hit.

2025: the company is still selling products and still making money — but all that debt from the buyouts is now looming.
BRO Venture Capital desperately tries to sell to other BRO Venture Capital - Bain Capital and Bridgepoint.
Deal fails.

2026: NI’s bills come due, but the money isn’t there, and the current owners aren’t going to throw in more. That’s when the board files for preliminary insolvency in Germany in January 2026.

Think like this: it's like buying a house with a mortgage you can afford if you win the lottery.

This is a textbook case of private equity pushing for hyper-growth, overleveraging, and walking away when it doesn’t pan out fast enough.

Welcome to bro capitalism!

 

Last edited: Jan 28, 2026 at 12:45 PM