Considering Maschine+ instead of an MPC Live/X/One? Think..

...again, because Native Instruments was just sold:

https://www.gearnews.com/native-instrum ... -platform/



Sorry, I meant "acquired by a technology investor".

Spend $1400 for a company that have been in the same gear for the last 7 years.. yes great expansion and controller. That's it your gonna wait another 2 years before the new company shed all the dead weight and release new software and hardware..

Yes and don’t get a new MPC at the moment either because the hardware platform is hopelessly outdated and will be superseded by a refresh in a year or two. The new software will run on older devices but will eventually slow them down to the point where it’s barely useable.
But at least we were free from the computer for a while...

plenty of other instruments are built on hopelessly outdated technology and have new products releasing still. Waiting due to fomo seems off to me. It’s an instrument... get what you need today instead of worrying about what you might want tomorrow.

True but that goes for Maschine+ as well, right?

Disclaimer......the following is coming from a 10-year Maschine user who JUST converted to MPC on xmas 2020 and is NEVER looking back......

NI had a BIG missed opportunity with the +.
The new gen Mpc s were already out for years before they laid out the +. They had TIME to plan a superior product. And what did they do? They pretty much confirmed that standalone was keeping customers on MPCs and did NOTHING to make their $1300 machine better than AKAIs.
In fact The + competes more with the one rather than the Live on a feature - to - feature basis.

Seriously, no touchscreen? One midi in/out? The mic in is a 1/4" (WTF?)?

Arrangement is so much better on the MPC.
After Using MPC, the Machine workflow (which I used to love) is weak.
Try it out for your selves, but I think this battle is rough for competitors, even ROLAND is trying to compete but already looks to be inferior to the current gen MPCs.

Speaking as a business major, and a business man,- Akai now needs to punch through the wall. now that the competitors have shown their hands, and they are inferior, AKAI needs to put every dollar into the next X, and make that thing BANG. CPU, RAM, Standalone VTS, 3rd party effects in standalone ....

imagine being able to run 'PEEL' in standalone when sampling records

I was heavily invested in the NI ecosystem myself up until around Komplete 3 or 4... I had a lot of the NI hardware, the highest tier of support... heck I still have my cards for when you could pay up front to get the upgrades for the rest of the year included as a kind of subscription service.

What made me dump NI? Well it's a rather short list...
* new OS support was always a problem, breaking plugins and all that mess
* constant push for new versions of software, making loading DAW projects a hassle and scanning plugin folders scary
* straight up making a new plugin series only to dump it for something shinier within a year

At one point I was keeping four different desktops maintained so that I could keep older projects running and NI was a huge part of that hassle. This just became cumbersome to run, while also moving to the newer plugins. I threw in the towel when I was considering adding a fifth system while doing work on one of the older systems. Should I have been just moving everything to stems, and moving forward? Maybe... but you folks all know... there are things you cannot go back and do once you make that decision and your plugin chain is now broken so you cannot go make tweaks.

I am by no means a hardware snob... but I have learned my lesson about getting in too deep with software. At this point, I'm just running Ableton Live, Reason Studio, and a handful of other useful plugins. Am I missing out? Sure... but I am totally okay with it. I'm making due with what I have... and it is so much easier to flip hardware than it is to flip software licenses...

Officially done with NI here too. The only thing I have left I keep around is Absynth 5, which hasn't been touched in about 10 years, and is a little too CPU heavy to really use anymore. The guy that wrote Absynth, just released his new baby Plasmonic, so NI can kiss my ass goodbye from here on out.

Been rockin MPCs since the late 90s and just moved onto M+ lol.....

I had maschine mk1 and mk2. It was good for the time being... i could of just stuck it out with an mpc to be real.... I had Komplete 10, with a komplete keyboard....

It was ok... Not into scrolling through a 1000 unusable presets when i want to make music. I'm not into having to map out knobs in my projects, or use there komplete kontrol... It just did not feel like hardware regarding the knobs and placement of them....
If they actually had all the knobs on a traditional synth, which is like 3-4 times what they got now, then maybe you could get somewhere. But it does not feel like hardware truly.... I don't like designing synth sounds on a computer, and especially not if the UI looks ridiculous.

I also agree about updates breaking things on there end. especially for windows. Driver issues each update and such.... Not worth the hassle...

For me.... Repro 5 sounds fantastic, aswell as Diva, and BX Oberhausen. They all look logical. I dont actually like NI's synths, and sold all the stuff I had of theres.

I like intuitive gear. One thing I will say... NI does have some nice effects that the Mpc could benefit from.

I have a MPCX and I already want a One or a Live2 but might wait to see what happens in the next couple months. I can get what I need done. To be honest I wasn't a fan of the touch screen at first but now... Its good. Its a + for sure. I dig the new mpc's. Akai needs to step up there shit, but at this point I don't think I care anymore. If I want to make some busy music with more automations, and more electronic sounding I would probably just pop on Ableton... Not a groovebox... Just saying...

This generally isn’t good news for Akai though.

This headline could easily be written opposite, and still be relevant. From the opposite perspective, a company is now poised to invest capital into the NI ecosystem, likely pushing it to the next level. And they don’t have the pressure of selling new units to generate that capital.

I would have been happier seeing this type of headline for the Akai brand, not its competitor. This type of news isn’t sitting well within the InMusic / Akai ranks - guaranteed. Rumor is also that the investment company evaluated several companies, including Akai, and they chose NI to invest in. Also not a good look for Akai.

And btw, in the investment world, this was signaled by NI’s recent layoffs. Was only a matter of time before it happened. “We like you, but you’re not lean enough”. NI: layoffs to lean out. Their bloat was likely causing a lower valuation.

Wouldn’t change my interests either way. I’m an MPC dude regardless.

Eyalc wrote:This generally isn’t good news for Akai though.

This headline could easily be written opposite, and still be relevant. From the opposite perspective, a company is now poised to invest capital into the NI ecosystem, likely pushing it to the next level. And they don’t have the pressure of selling new units to generate that capital.

I would have been happier seeing this type of headline for the Akai brand, not its competitor. This type of news isn’t sitting well within the InMusic / Akai ranks - guaranteed. Rumor is also that the investment company evaluated several companies, including Akai, and they chose NI to invest in. Also not a good look for Akai.

And btw, in the investment world, this was signaled by NI’s recent layoffs. Was only a matter of time before it happened. “We like you, but you’re not lean enough”. NI: layoffs to lean out. Their bloat was likely causing a lower valuation.

Wouldn’t change my interests either way. I’m an MPC dude regardless.

+100%. Restructuring, switching to service base model, and streamlining and integrating all their products and services. Are clear signs that they're trying to attract investors. Maybe time to buy a Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S88 MKII.

A savvy consumer would certainly consider investing in NI. Another consideration would be to hold off on buying either, as NI will likely have several enhancements / improvements to their ecosystem within 12 months. While Akai is still releasing shiny objects that don’t actually help me to compose a song. LOL. Sorry, that last part was just a tad frustration with Akai’s direction.

But if I’m advising anyone, I’m saying sit tight, don’t invest in either, and watch NI closely. They now have funding untethered to sales to push their platform(s) forward.

Yo E what did l say when l sold my MPC Live? "I DON'T LIKE THE DIRECTION AKAI IS GOING". I dam sure wouldn't buy NI products. They don't support offline activation so nope. I love Spitfire orchestral instruments but they are stuck with NI. Im not buying anything that you have to use ni's engine.
Im waiting for self proprietary company like Eastwest to bring Opus to my alteady collection and use their orchestral sounds.
Peace

Eyalc wrote:A savvy consumer would certainly consider investing in NI. Another consideration would be to hold off on buying either, as NI will likely have several enhancements / improvements to their ecosystem within 12 months. While Akai is still releasing shiny objects that don’t actually help me to compose a song. LOL. Sorry, that last part was just a tad frustration with Akai’s direction.

But if I’m advising anyone, I’m saying sit tight, don’t invest in either, and watch NI closely. They now have funding untethered to sales to push their platform(s) forward.

Eyalc wrote:From the opposite perspective, a company is now poised to invest capital into the NI ecosystem, likely pushing it to the next level. And they don’t have the pressure of selling new units to generate that capital.

Make no mistake - NI absolutely are under pressure to sell new units in order to remain viable. That's certainly not lost on the new majority owner, nor the new CEO that replaced Daniel Haver. The new owners wouldn't have bought a majority share if they didn't see value in NI's current product line up (while also seeing plenty of room for growth).

That said, I can't see InMusic selling off Akai anytime soon - they know a money maker when they see it.