Happy 25th Birthday NI, new hardware limited editions, free Play Series & giveaway

Native Instruments (NI) celebrates its 25th birthday with hardware limited editions (Maschine Plus…), free Play Series Twenty Five & Metapop competition

The Berlin company Native Instruments started 25 years ago. How the time flies. The start made Generator, a brainchild of NI founder Stephan Schmitt. After that came many other software pearls like the FM7, Pro53, Reaktor, and more. And the Generator DNA is still in many NI products today, mainly in Reaktor releases. I also took my first steps with NI products, especially Reaktor, a software that excited me from the beginning. Lego for modular synthesis.

I can only say happy birthday NI and to another successful 25 years. Native Instruments is also celebrating this event big with lots of releases, free software, and more.

25th Anniversary Collection

The Native Instruments history includes not only software but also hardware. The step came late but it was logical. Meanwhile, there are the Komplete Kontrol keyboards, Maschine, a standalone Maschine with a plus, and more. For the anniversary there are limited editions of the most popular NI products in two unique colors: Vapor Gray or Ultraviolet.

• Maschine Plus 
• Maschine Mk3 
• Komplete Kontrol S49 
• Komplete Kontrol S61
• Traktor Kontrol S4 
• Traktor Kontrol X1 

Native Instruments sent me a Maschine Plus to test in Ultraviolet. And the color is definitely ultra. Very shrill and eye-catching. I’m looking forward to going deeper into MP, so stay tuned.

Play Series: Twenty Five

The second release for the 25h birthday bash is a new Synthesizer. TWENTY FIVE is a new Play Series Synthesizer instrument for Kontakt 6 Player that sum’s up NI’s long history and the resulting products in sound. It features 150 new combinations of classic sounds from the NI vault.

The core of the Twenty Five instrument consists of two layers, each with a selection of different sources. Nice, each source has a little information snipped that gives you information from which virtual instrument the developer sampled it. That’s a cool idea. From Absynth, Massive X, Reaktor libraries, Prism… it’s a true NI sonic flashback.

https://25-years.native-instruments.com/Once selected, you can sculpt each layer with dedicated classic subtractive parameters including transpose, tune, filter, two envelopes, two LFOs, and more. To refine the sounds, Twenty Five also hosts a multi-fx section giving access to the Kontakt effect processor (Replika, Choral…). Then, you have a rich sequencer section with 8 sequencers with which you animate multiple parameters. The first two controls the pitch & velocity while the other 6 can animate the macros

Taking about macros. One of the key points of the Native Instruments Play Series is the concept. It gives you instantly playable sounds that remain tweakable thanks to pre-mapped macros. Here, too, there are numerous macros (balance, cutoff….) on the first interface page. On the last one, you can modify them at any time. Looks like an amazing virtual instrument you shouldn’t miss.

Metapop competition

And there is also a huge giveaway with big prices including limited editions of the Komplete Kontrol S49/S61 & Maschine Mk3 controllers, software, and more. To participate, you need to make a track using at least one instance of TWENTY FIVE. It can be any style or genre, just express yourself with your music and have fun. Upload your entry and tell Native Instruments which presets you’ve used. The Native Instruments team will pick the 25(!) winners, extra points will be given for creativity and originality.

The new Native Instruments (NI) Maschine Plus 25th Birthday Limited Edition can only be purchased exclusively via the official website. Play Series Twenty Five is available as a free download and runs in Kontakt 6 and Kontakt Player 6 as well. The metapop competition ends December 31, 2021.

More information here: Native Instruments 

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