What do you reckon? Is it really that bad, or is it just a classic case of internet hate with a larger number of people perfectly happy with the product? And as I mentioned, on trying their software I found a lot of stuff I liked and that sounded high quality - and that includes the stuff they give away. And the bundles of cinematic sounds (admittedly these are not always made by NI themselves) can be really nice - although they have stiff competition from companies (eg: Spitfire) who have nicer interfaces and a much more generous free tier of products. Despite the cost thing, it seems like Playbox should be in there alongside XO, Arcade and other semi-generative random softwares as being a genuinely useful idea generator. And although it seems like they are leaving their synths to launguish (and to be honest I’m more interested in that sample libraries anyway) I do hear a few tiny voices saying that despite the clunk and feeling a bit forgotten, the sounds are still pretty good. On the flipside, I have to say they are far from the only offender when it comes to poor interfaces. ![]() The NI approach reminds me a bit of how a lot of people see Adobe and their semi-monopoly on design software. It’s also pretty nuts that you can’t even get a free trial of any of their stuff. Playbox is really cool, but it feels somewhat odd that it is priced at the same level that you could (for example) buy an entire DAW or instrument/FX bundle for. And their individual app pricing is a bit mad. But in the current context, where you can get individual vst synths for very little money, or samples that stream to a player (rather than hogging your hard-drive space), I can see why folks resent being asked to fork out huge sums of money for a bundle of content they will only use selectively. Back then loading all this stuff onto your computer for access at some point made sense. I can see why this model worked 15 years ago when people didn’t have access to the candyshop of Splice & Loopcloud and easy access to unbundled one-off plugins. It also feels like they are hurt a bit by the bundle approach. The software itself is a bit convoluted and does look dated, especially when you compare it to software from the likes of Arturia or Output. Since I’m not buying any of their hardware I messed around with their Komplete Start bundle & Komplete Now to get a sense of what’s what. ![]() From a noob perspective, I get some of the criticism but I also wonder why it seems almost unanimous. I also hear constant rumbles on forums about them being stuck in the past as a company, slow to react (not just to M1) and not particularly helpful when it comes to customer support. While pretty much every other company came out with an M1 compatible product within months - NI seemed stuck for way, way longer than anyone else getting back on terms with the new tech.įrom what I’ve seen so far, it sounds like they are in a bit of financial trouble with mergers and layoffs with cost-cutting seemingly the order of that day (including some as recently as this week). On a personal note I was literally about to buy a Maschine when I spotted that M1 was a problem and I’d be paying a lot of money for what would essentially be a paperweight. ![]() So I was surprised to see that when I came back to look into things post-pandemic that many NI users seem to actively dislike the company. Just as there are “must have” softwares today, it seemed like I couldn’t bump into someone without them banging on about Massive like it was some kind of illicit substance. A rambly question/thought/post for anyone who ever crossed paths with Nature Instruments - I know we have a few Maschine-heads on here.īack when I first started getting interested in electronic music (early 2010s) NI was literally everywhere.
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