A note from TA (Co-Founder 8Dio & Soundpaint),
You may have seen recent news about Native Instruments’ recent
announcements. The company behind the Kontakt platform.
There is a lot of noise right now around sample platforms, ownership, and uncertainty. We have been watching this unfold and thinking deeply about what it means to you and to us. Your 8Dio Kontakt libraries remain supported and fully functional. Nothing about your current setup changes overnight, and we are continuing to support our Kontakt catalog.
But we also want to say something more important.
8Dio was never a software wrapper.
8Dio was never an engine.
8Dio has always been independent.
It was always about a musical performance.
The musicians we recorded.
The breath between notes.
The weight of a bow on a string.
The room in which the instruments sang.
The imperfection that makes something human.
Yes, many of our instruments were built inside Kontakt over the years. That was a chapter in the technological evolution of sampling, and we honor that chapter.
But long before this moment, we felt something deeper.
When you build your art on borrowed ground, you eventually feel the instability beneath it.
So we quietly, patiently made a decision more than a decade ago to build our own foundation.
That foundation became the Soundpaint engine.
Not out of fear.
Not out of rebellion (
well, kinda).
But out of responsibility.
Responsibility for our recordings.
Responsibility to our community.
Responsibility to the future of technology.
Today, our catalog spans both platforms. That gives us flexibility and control regardless of external shifts. We are not reacting to events. We are continuing a path we began years ago toward independence, clarity, and creative sovereignty.
There is also a broader conversation happening across the industry around something called “
chain of title.” In simple terms, that means knowing exactly who performed, recorded, owns, and licenses a sound. Studios are increasingly strengthening their contracts around AI-generated material and unclear sample sourcing. In professional production environments, clarity matters.
From the beginning, 8Dio has been built on recorded human performance, sessions we produced, musicians we hired, and masters we own. We do not train generative AI models on our recordings. Our instruments are grounded in clear authorship and transparent licensing.
Platforms will rise. Platforms will restructure. Technology always moves. But great recordings endure. The orchestras and instruments we captured.
The years of craft embedded in every sample, that is 8Dio.
Nothing can touch that.
In the coming weeks and months, we will share optional pathways for current Kontakt owners to access their instruments within Soundpaint where available, while continuing to support every member of the 8Dio Kontakt community, including those who joined us early in building Soundpaint. It is a transition.
And transition, when met with awareness, becomes evolution.
We remain steady.
We remain fiercely independent.
And we remain committed to protecting the value of your work.
With Appreciation,
TA and Troels, Founders of 8Dio
