Reply To: 💬 Deal Chat – Free Form Discussion on the Latest Deals

[LinkedMusicians]

I realize that it’s well covered in other threads, but while I’m not going to hold off if I see a great deal on Kontakt libraries, I’m definitely hitting the pause button on anything else from NI and especially NI-acquired companies such as iZotope and anything from Plugin Alliance. The fact is, if you buy it now and the company is sold off, the company that purchases those brands hasn’t made any money from you and may not inherit any obligations that Native Instruments had, so I wouldn’t count on updates at no cost. If NI or another company that ends up with these brands/product lines were to buy Kontakt and the various main products in Komplete — personally, I only care about the sample libraries and Massive X presets, not loop collections — and had a good update for Komplete Ultimate 16 (I own version 15), I would strongly consider it.

I own a bunch of iZotope plugins — including a bunch of the advanced versions (but they’re around two versions behind). I own a few dozen Plugin Alliance plugins. This isn’t a safe time to buy more of them. It’s a gamble to buy any NI products right now. Kontakt is a lot less of a gamble because it’s the crown jewel and worth more money than anything else NI owns, but even that isn’t guaranteed. It could be sold off to a company like Apple, Splice, or Bandlab that decides to make it subscription-only or it could be — some strategists may think that it could be an excellent money maker with the current userbase. In any event, if you upgraded your iZotope plugins now, that’s revenue that goes towards the creditors today, not the eventual owner of these companies, and it’s not known, but I suspect iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx will end being sold off (if the administrator can get a decent price for them that will satisfy NI’s creditors).

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
POWERSEARCH TOOLS: Synth Presets, Loops & Sound FX, Gear Reviews 
FREE TOOLS: Mixing Problem Solver, Songwriter's Toolbox, QuickGuides, Scale, Mode & Chord Finder
READ/WATCH: Mag Articles / Podcasts, Audio Production & Songwriter's Dictionaries

1