ReasonTalk.com

NI just laid off around 100 people. I saw this comment: “100 peeps fired in Berlin, almost all hardware teams are fired. Maschine stand-alone was cancelled on the first day of mass production.”
I guess it is related to lack luster sales of Maschine 3 and the new Traktor DJ set - so not directly related to Massive X.

It kinda ties in to my old post "The DAW update war". Shakeup comes when products mature and users have no longer a big need to upgrade for small incremental upgrades. Less than stellar product updates and things can get bad quickly, and gets more important to get the feature set to 100%, not 80% or 90%. Things are moving over to a more loop based production. I hope Reason understands that, even if Loopcloud has a super product in that space. I also hope they understand they need to get the new Rack to 100%, it is great, but just not there yet.

One thing we know for sure is DAWs will always be around. Companies might go out of business but people will always need a way to create music. I don’t see hardware or software ever going away in the future. Unless some other technology comes out. What would that look like?

Never good when folks lose their jobs. This one looks like the result of yet another "corporate vision".
More info and the official statement here:

https://djworx.com/statement-native-ins ... -strategy/

They are going to try to mash together several disparate teams to get one coherent product "hub". They might succeed but I think they might be about to learn that you lose some of your key members of the dev teams if you mess them about too much. Quality devs are in big demand.

Why do CEOs make the most money and do the worst damage?

Just heard about this today.

I think a fair amount of the hardware teams being let go have a lot to do with trade tariffs against goods produced in China right now. I guess the profit margins were pretty tight if that's the case, but I think this has been going on since 2018.

As for "corporate vision", oh boy. Sounds like a bit of what RS is going through right now. But they don't have the size to ride out missing the mark.

semi related, i wonder if the employees at Reason Studios are unionised

Last Alternative wrote: ↑

04 Sep 2019

Why do CEOs make the most money and do the worst damage?

In my working life I have noticed that people who can talk a good game e.g are very articulate seem to get managed well above there level of competence. They also dont like to be undermined by the clever people under them who actually got the company where it is and have the best interests of said company at heart, so they are happy to push them aside and populate important positions with 'yes men' and 'arse lickers'.
It never ends well but these people jump around CEO level jobs in start-ups that are looking to move to the next level, or small to mid sized companies that have lost some key staff and are looking to re-invigorate.

They are normally brought in with mis-spent capital investment, by people who own the company who are susceptible to there sweet talking. By the time they get found out the company is on its last legs and the liquidators are not far from the door.

The problem is fairly common in these modern times where companies grow by acquisition and merging.

As CEO you end up with a company where your dev teams are scattered across the globe. Maybe you have a UK office doing hardware with a bit of software, a US Office doing just PC software and a Canadian office doing mobile stuff. You already have some crossover in the teams, video conferencing, maybe an engineer or two spending time in the different offices. But that's not the same as having everyone in one building, talking and interacting all the time.

So then you have this idea to get everyone in one place. Great idea in theory but the problem is that people mostly don't want to relocate. They have families, friends, roots. Some of those folks can be persuaded, others can't. The danger is that you lose your key people. The ones who give the product its soul and feel. And as CEO you may not even know who those people are. Welcome to the corporate world where often, to quote a timeless song, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

boingy wrote: ↑

04 Sep 2019

The problem is fairly common in these modern times where companies grow by acquisition and merging.

As CEO you end up with a company where your dev teams are scattered across the globe. Maybe you have a UK office doing hardware with a bit of software, a US Office doing just PC software and a Canadian office doing mobile stuff. You already have some crossover in the teams, video conferencing, maybe an engineer or two spending time in the different offices. But that's not the same as having everyone in one building, talking and interacting all the time.

So then you have this idea to get everyone in one place. Great idea in theory but the problem is that people mostly don't want to relocate. They have families, friends, roots. Some of those folks can be persuaded, others can't. The danger is that you lose your key people. The ones who give the product its soul and feel. And as CEO you may not even know who those people are. Welcome to the corporate world where often, to quote a timeless song, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

yep this too

Raveshaper wrote: ↑

04 Sep 2019

Just heard about this today.

I think a fair amount of the hardware teams being let go have a lot to do with trade tariffs against goods produced in China right now. I guess the profit margins were pretty tight if that's the case, but I think this has been going on since 2018.

NI is German, not American.

Boombastix wrote: ↑

04 Sep 2019

NI just laid off around 100 people. I saw this comment: “100 peeps fired in Berlin, almost all hardware teams are fired. Maschine stand-alone was cancelled on the first day of mass production.”
I guess it is related to lack luster sales of Maschine 3 and the new Traktor DJ set - so not directly related to Massive X.

It's always sad if people lose their jobs but in this case I can't say that it surprises me, even though I don't necessarily keep up with NI's status and all that.

I once owned a Maschine, for a few days, and eventually returned it and luckily for me I also got my money back. That thing was such a let down for me... The pads were amazing, but the rest of the controller felt plain out cheap to me, not something I paid around E 600,- for. Having a few faulty rotaries also didn't help, but the cheap feel of those... yech. That also cured me from ever wanting to own any other NI build hardware, I simply wasn't going to take the risk. And I'm sure I wasn't alone in that idea.

And well... it's also like you said: you can release multiple versions of the same hardware, but if you do that too many times you also create an impression that the early adopters were mostly test subjects.. because obviously v3.5 is the version to get, who cares if many people had to buy nearly the same stuff multiple times. That will only last you so many times....

Heck... last weekend I spend plenty on cash on a Push 2 (=dedicated Ableton Live controller & instrument). Even if a Push 3 would come out (which would surprise me) then I really see no need to upgrade because of all the things I can already do with my v2.

Boombastix wrote: ↑

04 Sep 2019

Things are moving over to a more loop based production.

not saying you’re wrong (I have no idea), but if you’re right...

🤮

Hardware is an unforgiving business, especially niche hardware (as opposed to ubiquitous things like blenders, car parts, and vacuum cleaners). Aside from all the design and manufacturing logistics, there's inventory, distribution, tech support, and returns to manage. To do it right requires substantial investment and infrastructure, and NI isn't the first hardware/software music company to take a hit on the hardware side. But nevertheless, it's never a good thing when people lose jobs.

Saturated market with Midi master keyboards.
Giving out hardware connected to a certain platform seems so compelling on the paper.
But it has to be done very incredible good and in an open architecture for others to use too.
Can guess a quite few studios and individuals invest in a Komplete keyboard or audio interface. Too sparse of knobs and faders and no pads. You need to be very dedicated to NI products to choose one of those.

Look at Balance. Nice little unit but...

It looks like Mpc and Nektar are at least close to a more convinient road although I find the keys themselves a bit so so on many of them.

From what I've read, they made a larger profit than before, so it wasn't because of failings in any of their branches.

It is sad some people lost their jobs but they shouldn't have a hard time finding a new position at another company based in Berlin.

We shall wait and see what is this whole "one native" is all about in a few months. But from the sounds of it, it should be a good thing if they make sure all their product lines are working closely as opposed to separate teams doing their own thing. Idk. ‍♂️

Last Alternative wrote: ↑

04 Sep 2019

Why do CEOs make the most money and do the worst damage?

Because there is no accountability for people with power.

Funny. All these years of talk about PH going out of business. LOL

Bes wrote: ↑

04 Sep 2019

semi related, i wonder if the employees at Reason Studios are unionised

Yeah, like Jimmy Hoffa. They're big fans of musique concrete.


(That's not my joke, but it was too good not to share... )

Behringer has already registered interest in NI’s former personnel, writing on Facebook:
“It has come to our attention that a well-known DJ manufacturer in Germany has been laying off 200+ engineers.

“We can help as we’re looking for 50 digital hardware, DSP and embedded software engineers for our Innovation centers in Willich, Germany, Manchester, UK and Aarhus, Denmark.

“We welcome everyone to apply and send their resume to Julia.atli@musictribe.com. If you know anyone from this company please share this post with them.

The Software tether is Killing them, imo. There's just too many choice stand-alone(able) Boxes now.

Here's the Article: https://mixmag.net/read/native-instrume ... uring-tech
“GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING”

Daniel Haver, Native Instrument’s CEO and co-founder, said in a statement: “To make this transformation successful, we needed to adapt our strategy, including a centralized functional setup that can support our vision of ‘One Native’. Unfortunately, this also means we had to make some tough decisions and part ways with a number of employees. This has been the hardest part of this transformation.”

Mate Galic, Native Instruments’ Chief Innovation Officers and President, said the aim of the new platform is to ensure “all parts of the company work together towards one common goal” and move away from the company’s previous divisional setup and multi-brand approach.

Seeing as they were talking about many "crossovers", sounds like they stopped wanting to waste money in trivial efforts, causing confusing updates across platforms. Remember there was a time when Service Center AND Native Access were authorizing things. It was slightly confusing for people (I use to troubleshoot this stuff in another position). I'm guessing their move is to be able to avoid these types of overlaps and create a unified experience without the hiccups between locations. Early Presonus anybody?

Yeah, they said NI was setup in silos. Producers use more and more loops, DJs once a bit matured move into production. Loops is and will be a bigger thing of production. Roland Variphrase was on it in early 2000 but WAAAY to expensive to get adopted and never made it over as an available VST (this is called dropping the ball).

Sounds.com is a mess as a website, and poorly integrated in Maschine/KK and not yet in Traktor. Makes sense that they try to streamline and unify a platform that they build upon. Hope they can get better interfaces too and not "made by engineers for engineers" type stuff. Reason are actually pretty good at the ergonomics of the UI, not always (browser) but instruments and sequencer is.

Maybe Loopmasters launching Loopcloud and buying Beatport Sounds was the ultimate wake up call?

Though keep in mind size matters: RS $10, LM $20, NI $100 (estimated annual sales USD)

Last Alternative wrote: ↑

04 Sep 2019

Why do CEOs make the most money and do the worst damage?

Same reason why a dog licks his own balls. Cause he can.

What if NI makes a huge own DAW? Or they can buy Reason and merge the both worlds.
Quite of a workstation...

I must the only person that doesn't like loops even for making electronic music.

oh no are they’re vst is cancel at this point now?