12. April 2022

NI is now part of Soundwide – here’s what’s changing (and what’s not)

New additions to the team, an advisory board of incredible artists, and more.

As many of you will know, last year, we joined forces with iZotope, with the aim of making music creation easier and more accessible for creators at every stage of their journey. Fast forward to today, and things are going well. So well, in fact, that we now have the pleasure of introducing you to three new members of our family: Plugin Alliance, Brainworx, and the brand-new Sound Stacks. Collectively, and as of today, you can call us Soundwide.

For us, Soundwide is a chance to redouble our efforts as one team, with one goal: helping musicians like you to find – and stay in – the creative flow. It’s time to put the best minds of the industry to work on one simple question, as posed by our CEO Mark Cattini: “What do our community members need to tap into their ultimate creative workflow, and how can we help get them there?”

Who is Soundwide?

  • Native Instruments has been powering producers’ and DJs’ workflows with innovative hardware and software for over 25 years – you already knew that.
  • iZotope’s industry-leading intelligent audio technology helps musicians, music producers, and audio post engineers focus on their craft rather than the tech behind it.
  • Plugin Alliance and Brainworx already share a founder and CEO, Dirk Ulrich. The former is a leading plug-in platform that offers a dizzying array of creative tools to over 1 million users, while the latter specializes in pushing the envelope for digital recreations of high-end analog hardware.
  • Sound Stacks is a brand new company from Cesare Ferrari and Julian Storer, creator of the open-source audio framework JUCE. They’re working on innovative new audio platform technologies to benefit developers across our whole industry.

The first thing to know is that the products and brands you know already aren’t going away. You’ll still be making tracks with NI’s KOMPLETE and and your favorite Brainworx plug-ins, then finishing them with iZotope’s Ozone, etc. In the mid-to-long term, this all means tighter integration between products, more streamlined workflows and user experiences, and some very exciting new products and technologies that we’re only just beginning to work on together.

Meet the Artist Board

Right now, there are more than 600 of us working at Soundwide, and more than 10 million of you using our products. You can imagine the Artist Board as sitting somewhere in between – this panel of top-tier producers, songwriters, composers, and creators will help us focus on the ideas that matter most to the people who are using our products day-in-day-out. We’ll be looking to the board for guidance on everything from products and features to developing our own communities and fostering greater inclusivity across our industry.

So without further ado, here are the inaugural members:

  • Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys
  • Recording and mix engineer Ann Mincieli
  • Producer and rapper El-P of Run the Jewels
  • Musician/composer/producer Jacob Collier
  • Composer Ludwig Göransson
  • Producer and engineer Noah “40” Shebib
  • Production duo Take A Daytrip
  • Singer-songwriter Tayla Parx
  • Producer and engineer Young Guru

By our calculations that’s 29 GRAMMYs (from 77 nominations), well over 10 billion total streams, and a combined back-catalog that boasts some of the most memorable music of the past two decades – so it’s safe to say we’re in good hands.

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