The Sound Board

To our friends, artists, partners, collaborators, and community:

After three months of hard work, and three months of extraordinary loyalty from you, I am pleased to share that a definitive agreement has now been signed for Native Instruments to be acquired by inMusic.

Two iconic music technology companies, with decades of shared respect for this industry and the people who make music in it, are coming together to build something greater than either could alone. Our NKS hardware and MPC Editions collaboration last year was the beginning of this story. Today, we look ahead to a common future.

inMusic has spent three decades building and growing the brands that creators rely on every day — Akai Professional, Moog Music, Denon DJ, Numark, Rane, M-Audio and more. They understand what it means to build tools that musicians love. And they understand what Native Instruments means to our customers and community.

What this means for our community
The products, platforms, and brands you rely on continue. Native Instruments, iZotope, Plugin Alliance, Brainworx — all of it continues. Our teams continue to build, ship, and support every day.

What happens next
We are working towards the transaction completing in the coming weeks. Between now and then the business continues to operate normally, and we will share more about the integration as we have it.

As Jack O’Donnell, CEO of inMusic, put it: “Our commitment is simple: continued investment across all brands and product lines, and a long-term focus on innovation that serves creators at every level. The tools you rely on today will keep working, and the tools you will rely on tomorrow are actively being built.”

This is the fresh start we have been working toward. Thirty years of building tools for creators, and now a new chapter with a strong partner who has spent just as long dedicated to this industry.

The loyalty you have shown us through one of the most challenging periods in Native Instruments’ history is something we will not forget. From the partners who supported us, to the artists who kept creating, to the customers who kept showing up — thank you so much.

This moment belongs to all of you as much as it does to us. Thank you for standing with us.

Nick

wst3 wrote: ↑May 08, 2026 10:52 am I would love to be enthusiastic and optimistic about this. I do believe that Kontakt, at a minimum, will survive. Will it be reduced to a bargain basement tool? I hope not. The rest of the NI catalog is iffy. The first things to go may well be their libraries, especially the higher end stuff. The hardware will also survive, I think, although it may be re-branded, or folded into the M-Audio line?

I don't think the sky is falling for those of us that make use of Kontakt, but watch closely because it may be time to find alternatives to some of their libraries. Or Not?

Guy Rowland wrote: ↑May 08, 2026 10:57 am I don't see any reason why they would stop anything that currently exists library-wise. Those are assets, they cost peanuts to keep going.

Geoff Grace wrote: ↑May 08, 2026 11:02 am I think of InMusic as hospice care for companies that would have otherwise died,