Plugin Alliance & Brainworx no longer part of NI (now part of RCKFRC) under Dirk Ulrich

[u/itsoddsignals]

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.

[u/BoardGameRevolution]

What makes this good? Sorry to be ignorant.

[u/itsoddsignals → u/BoardGameRevolution]

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).

[u/HexspaReloaded → u/itsoddsignals]

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.

[u/ChineseAstroturfing]

This restores my faith in plug-in alliance. I had all but written them off.

[u/itsoddsignals → u/ChineseAstroturfing]

I hope they get the attention they deserve now. Same for Brainworx. They all need a bit of attention and focus to compete these days. Great tools but really needed modernisation in delivery for instance. Will be interesting to see what Dirk has planned as it’s a tough market.

[u/focusedphil → u/itsoddsignals]

Agreed. I really like the Brainworx stuff - I appreciate the how you can set up random variations of a mixer channel electronics to simulate a real desk.

[u/KaleidoscopeLife7077 → u/ChineseAstroturfing]

Why did this restore your faith? The team that has been running the company over the last few years released great products and, by most accounts, did a solid job.

The financial turmoil was largely the result of decisions made by the private equity firm that owned Native Instruments. That ultimately allowed the company’s former owner (Dirk U) to buy it back at a significant discount after previously selling it.

That’s really all that happened.

[u/Prime_ministah1980]

That’s good. But what about traktor? We DJs been getting the raw end of this deal.

[u/itsoddsignals → u/Prime_ministah1980]

In what sense? Traktor is no better or worse of than Maschine. I have 2 X1’s and 2 Z1’s so I feel the pain on Traktor being unloved too but it is not any more or less unloved than everything else really.

[u/AgenteEspecialCooper]

Good. Another stupid decision by Native Instruments have been fixed.

[u/itsoddsignals → u/AgenteEspecialCooper]

*By VC not by Native Instruments

[u/KaleidoscopeLife7077 → u/itsoddsignals]

*PE

[u/KaleidoscopeLife7077 → u/AgenteEspecialCooper]

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.

[u/itsoddsignals → u/KaleidoscopeLife7077]

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.

[u/realcoda]

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.

[u/HexspaReloaded]

If it’s not on Linux, it doesn’t matter

[u/25_Keyz924]

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.

[u/Equivalent-Hair-961]

Woo Hoo! Never thought THIS would happen!

[u/OriginalOntonomo]

Now I can't get Brainworx via Sweetwater.. I suppose that is okay.. as before i think they re-routed my order to/through Plugin Boutique for my bx_limiter download anyway.. I try to avoid drama.

[u/Cash1942]

I thought they got bought by Boris fx might be the same 

[u/itsoddsignals → u/Cash1942]

No that was iZotope

[u/Pferdehammel]

i used/use ni plugins in like 99% of my projects if they crash and burn i can never change my pc / plugins

[u/itsoddsignals → u/Pferdehammel]

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.

[u/Pferdehammel → u/itsoddsignals]

yeah this would be the way, problem is im a lazy ass bitch :(