Good morning producers 👋🏼

We're going to cut to the chase. We have 3 major announcements to make:

• dime[mb] official release date! We have an official release date for dime[mb]! The wait is… not quite over, but will be over soon! We're so stoked about it honestly, we can't wait for you to get your hands on it. The official release date is March 9th, 2026.

• time off audio podcast. We're starting a podcast! In it, we'll be discussing audio, music and tech news. The first episode is tomorrow! Check it out wherever you get your podcast, or on YouTube if you want the video podcast.

• Moe's birthday! Did you know that February 1st was our founder Moe Chaieb's birthday? He's been really hard at work making dime[mb] as good as it can for everyone, so give him a shout on Insta, LinkedIn, or Discord. I promise you it'll brighten his day! And it'll only slightly delay his work.

With all of that out of the way, thanks for being here. We've got tons in store for 2026.

The downfall of Native Instruments?

Native Instruments has been going through a pretty rough period. Earlier this year, the company entered insolvency proceedings in Germany, which understandably set off a lot of alarm bells across the audio world.

Native Instruments has been around since the 90s, pretty much as soon as DAWs became a thing, so seeing the word "insolvency" attached to the biggest plugin developer's name certainly shocked the industry, with White Sea Studio even calling it "The Upcoming Collapse of the Music Industry".

Let's contextualize. Native Instruments hasn't just been "Native Instruments" for a long time. Over the years, they've quietly built a pretty large umbrella of brands and products through acquisitions:

• Native Instruments
• iZotope (acquired in 2021)
• Plugin Alliance (acquired in 2021)
• Brainworx (acquired in 2021 as part of Plugin Alliance)
• Soundwide (the short-lived attempt to rebrand everything together)

On the product side, that means everything from Kontakt, Reaktor, Massive, and Traktor, to iZotope RX, Ozone, and Neutron, to a huge chunk of the modern plugin ecosystem via Plugin Alliance and Brainworx. That's an enormous amount of IP, user trust, and long-term install base tied to one company.

All of this begs the question. How can a company of this size be insolvent? "Insolvency" essentially means they took on too much debt, likely during all their recent acquisitions, and it has ballooned such that their interest is outpacing their income. By the way, this is not unlike what happened to Gibson in 2018. They had purchased too many companies and filed for Chapter 11 for very similar reasons. So this is not an unknown problem.

So while it might be easy to look at this and think "the plugin industry is dead!", it likely has more to do with the acquisitions themselves, and bad judgement on growth and product development. It's not black and white of course.

The insolvency news itself was quickly followed by a statement from Native Instruments' CEO, who was very clear about one thing: this is a restructuring, not a shutdown. According to the statement, Native Instruments continues to operate, products remain supported, and development is ongoing. The goal, at least on paper, is to reduce costs, simplify operations, and give the company a more stable long-term footing.

That said, the timing makes this especially interesting when you look at the company's recent history. The formation of Soundwide was supposed to unify Native Instruments, iZotope, and Plugin Alliance under a single ecosystem. Instead, it mostly created confusion. Branding was unclear, messaging felt corporate in a way audio folks tend to recoil from, and users were left wondering what actually mattered anymore: the individual brands or the umbrella itself.

Eventually, Soundwide was quietly walked back, with Native Instruments once again becoming the primary brand. In hindsight, that whole chapter feels like a signal that the company was already struggling to reconcile growth, identity, and scale.

So what does this mean going forward?

Best case scenario, Native Instruments trims the excess, refocuses on its strongest products, and stabilizes. Kontakt is still everywhere. Traktor still has a loyal user base. iZotope's tools are deeply embedded in professional workflows. There is real value here, both creatively and commercially.

The risk, of course, is stagnation. Insolvency restructurings tend to prioritize short-term financial survival over long-term innovation. Fewer updates, slower development cycles, and more aggressive monetization are all common outcomes. None of that is confirmed yet, but it's the pattern people are nervous about.

There have also been rumours of companies acquiring Native Instruments, such as Splice and Fender. But none of this is confirmed (and honestly, this would end up accruing more debt for those companies). We've already established that this business model doesn't seem to work, so I would be surprised if that ended up being the outcome.

For now, Native Instruments says it's business as usual. Support remains. Products remain. Development continues. Whether this restructuring becomes a reset or the beginning of a long fade is still an open question. But given how much of modern audio production flows through this one company, it's not something we can ignore.

Fender enters the preamp and consumer audio space

In case you didn't know, Fender bought PreSonus back in 2021. Since then, they've been pretty quiet on that front until the end of last year when they rebranded Studio One to Fender Studio. This year, they've doubled down and released several audio interfaces as well as some Bluetooth speakers and headphones:

Fender audio interfaces

• Audiobox Go
• Link I/O
• Quantum LT 2
• Quantum LT 4
• Quantum LT 16
• Quantum HD 2
• Quantum HD 8

Fender audio speakers & headphones

• ELIE 06
• ELIE 12
• MIX

Quickly on the speakers and headphones — I find it quite funny that their "audio" brand is purely a consumer brand while their interfaces exist under the Fender ecosystem. A bit of an odd choice (and confusing). That being said, the quality of the sound from the headphones is supposedly excellent — it won the "best audio" category of The Verge's CES 2026 roundup. We haven't had the chance to try it out ourselves, but that's certainly a welcome award for such an established brand entering a new market.

On the interface front, the main attractions are the Quantum LT and HD series. Both versions have the PreSonus MAX-HD preamps and USB-C connectivity. The HD is positioning itself as the more professional solution with 32-bit/192kHz recording vs the LT's 24-bit/192kHz. Additionally, the HD has features such as the inclusion of the perpetual Fender Studio Pro license on both models, inputs on the back of the rack, as well as instrument outputs for re-amping.

So, what does this mean for Fender and PreSonus? Is Fender going to keep PreSonus around and tier its hardware similarly to what they've done with guitars (Squier vs Fender)? Or will they be cycling out the PreSonus brand altogether with time? For the time being, it seems Fender will keep both brands in circulation, though rebranding measures (such as Studio One) definitely seem like the Fender brand will be the primary interface from here on out.

What I find the most interesting is that the PreSonus brand has historically not had the best reputation in the audio world. It has definitely been an entry-level studio purchase (no shade. The PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL was my very first interface and I loved it dearly). Fender, however, is definitely in the "professional" not "prosumer" category. My only hope in this rebranding is that they do so by elevating the perception around the PreSonus brand and not by diluting the history and adoration surrounding Fender. But only time will tell.

Honourable mentions

• Shadow library backs up all 300TB of Spotify
• FabFilter announces Pro-C 3
• The Grammy Awards are today! Here are the nominees

Thanks for taking the time, and as always, feel free to reach out via email or Discord for any questions or feedback!