Native Instruments: Komplete Now subscription service

[Guy Rowland]

Will cut to the chase on this one - £8.99 per month / £89 per year (free for 3 months til Jan 10).

What it ISN'T is complete. It is "A curated bundle of essential, on-trend instruments and effects for chart-topping productions. Whether it’s pop, hip hop or drill, KOMPLETE NOW gives you the mainline to radio-ready sound".

BATTERY: NOW EDITION
A bespoke version of our cutting-edge drum sampler, with 50 tailor-made kits that are designed to make your rhythm tracks pop.

MASSIVE X
Our next-generation wavetable synthesizer. Powerful oscillators and effects, flexible semi-modular routing, and an architecture designed for total sonic freedom.

CLOUD SUPPLY
Made for creating heavy trap hooks and smoke-soaked pads with a wide palette of classic analog gear, hybrid sound sources, and resampling.

HYBRID KEYS
A blend of sampled pianos, synthesizers, and mallets, adding creative effects to produce completely new sounds that spark inspiration.

LO-FI GLOW
Hazy keys, wavy synths, guitars, and bass all recorded and creatively processed to give a warming lo-fi texture to productions.

RETRO MACHINES MK2
16 iconic analog synthesizers and keyboards, lovingly sampled from the original instruments to bring out the best of their beautiful vintage tone.

REPLIKA
Our essential delay with streamlined controls, perfect for anything from subtle slapback to dizzying echoes.

RAUM
The do-it-all creative reverb, built to take your sound anywhere across the spectrum from realistic rooms to experimental reflections.

So I think for most here it's "move along, nothing to see here", but the free trial could be useful if you wanted to demo anything.

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/s ... plete-now/

[wst3]

from a purely marketing perspective this sounds pretty dumb. I don't care for the subscription model, but I understand the utility (for developer and customer) if the software is updated regularly with new features and old bug fixes. This is the model that has been in place for decades at companies like IBM and Computer Associates (and Wang and DEC, but we'll slip those).

I would entertain a subscription plan for a major platform (Logic, Cubase, Studio One, Wavelab, etc).

I might consider a subscription for very complex plug-ins.

In both cases this spreads the old annual upgrade across the year, the developed has a more stable revenue stream, and the customer can plan accordingly.

Not passing judgement, but sample libraries do not undergo constant updates. I think that would be a disaster really. No one wants a library to change mid-stream!

Komplete appears, at first, to skirt one of the first two categories but I don't think it does, since the "upgrades" from Komplete x to Komplete +1 have been largely additions to the content. And most of that content does not appeal/apply to me. And on top of that they've even scaled it back.

I understand that as companies grow the need for steady income grows. But in this marketplace I'm not sure how they can make that happen.

Cakewalk had a brilliant plan, and it was working well right up until Gibson pulled the plug. Every month you received an update that included bug fixes and new features. You did not have to wait till the next version to get feature X or bug fix Y. And they were good to their word, they had an update every month. A couple were a little on the slim side, but they were updates.

I've often thought a better model for software, at least in our market, would be pay over time, but that would put a huge strain on the developer for the first year, since there would not be that huge bump in revenue. It seems that with a little planning it might still be possible, but I don't run a software company, so what do I know?

[Guy Rowland]

Well we don't know Bill... however great that Cakewalk model was for the user, they did go bust. I don't see many subscription services going bust, so I guess that model works for companies.

East West's subs service seems to work for customers, and NI's is sorta the same model as this, only this is much slimmed down. It's interesting NI have focused on specific genres - their marketing whizzes must have worked out those clients are most likely to use a relatively cheap sub I guess.

[wst3]

Well we don't know Bill... however great that Cakewalk model was for the user, they did go bust.

Not to nitpick, but Cakewalk did not go bust, Gibson was struggling and decided to shut them down. The model may well have worked had they chosen any other company with whom to partner.