MAGIX is insolvent

[resistorman]

I would argue that it isn’t better. I took Resolve off my computer because it is totally unintuitive. I couldn't even do a simple thing like extract four channels of audio files from an MP4. I bought Vegas once they came back to their senses from the idiotic subscription model. Nobody except industry standards and leaders can get away with that for pro software.

Resolve has a bit of a learning curve with some functions, but once you get to know it it's not that hard to use.

No doubt, but the audio functionality in Vegas is a big plus for me!

[Arpangel]

Oh ****! Son and I have invested a modest amount in Sampltude over the years. He has the Pro X3 suite and I have 3 and Pro X 6. Bit annoyed that the illegitimates are still trying to flog me Sam 8!

Fortunately son is getting to grips with Reaper but with ten years experience he zips around Samplitude far quicker.

Dave.

I had Samplitude for five years, in that time I never figured out how to use VST's, and never got VSTi's to work, at all.
Reaper was like a new dawn.

[ef37a]

Oh ****! Son and I have invested a modest amount in Sampltude over the years. He has the Pro X3 suite and I have 3 and Pro X 6. Bit annoyed that the illegitimates are still trying to flog me Sam 8!

Fortunately son is getting to grips with Reaper but with ten years experience he zips around Samplitude far quicker.

Dave.

I had Samplitude for five years, in that time I never figured out how to use VST's, and never got VSTi's to work, at all.
Reaper was like a new dawn.

Well Toni, you should have taken more water with it! My son got it sorted and he is REALLY technically challenged. He tried Reaper initially because he needed an audio to MIDI converter. Sam has one it seems but it is a bit clunky. Reaper is much slicker. He bounces audio back to Sam though for further processing.

If no one comes forth to buy it I wonder if we will get lifetime re-activations so we can install what we have on new OS'esess? I still have Samplitude SE8 on a W7 laptop. Handy because it has meters that read down to -100dBFS. It makes a "clang!" each time you change a parameter but that does not get recorded. Never going to be fixed now what?

Dave.

[ef37a]

Just arrived...
https://link.letter.magix.com/u/gm.php? ... 4fb12c7adc

WTF?

Dave.

[The Red Bladder]

WTF?

Worldwide, economies everywhere are stalling. The last thing to be bought is some fancy SW when there are alternatives available for free. Magix now has a turnover per employee of under €100k and therefore is struggling. As the title says, it's insolvent.

It has double the number of employees it can manage, it is a mess of five different companies in five different locations (three in Germany, one in Holland and one in the US). They've made a dog's breakfast of their marketing and the new owners CAPZA and Capiton AG are tired of seeing continued losses and five years of falling revenues.

Berlin PE company Capiton stepped in as majority shareholder in 2018 following their financing a management buyout with the company and IP as security. Since then, every year has seen mounting losses (annual losses were 2018 €4.266m; 2019 €2.739m; 2020 €8.769m; 2021 €4.568m; 2022 €13.2m). Revenue for 2018 was c.a. €38m and that has been steadily falling every year - revenue for 2022 was €25m.

Calendar year 2023 have not yet been filed, but one can guess that they will not be good. The company is now desperate for cash-flow.

It sounds as if Capiton have said "Enough is enough!" and management is trying to sell with all 200 employees. I would put that in the 'Very Optimistic' category!

[ef37a]

Whatever Red but I think it is very reprehensible for MAGIX to try to flog me something they probably won't be able to support in a few weeks time.

Mind you, son and I found their customer service very hard to access and slow to act anyway. Perhaps part reason for their demise?

Dave.

[The Red Bladder]

Whatever Red but I think it is very reprehensible for MAGIX to try to flog me something they probably won't be able to support in a few weeks time.

Depends on who buys it and what the conditions of sale are.

Mind you, son and I found their customer service very hard to access and slow to act anyway.

I just phoned them up in Berlin!

[Arpangel]

Whatever Red but I think it is very reprehensible for MAGIX to try to flog me something they probably won't be able to support in a few weeks time.

Depends on who buys it and what the conditions of sale are.

Mind you, son and I found their customer service very hard to access and slow to act anyway.

I just phoned them up in Berlin!

Did they speak English? I too just phoned Berlin and spoke to Mr Schneidersladen, he speaks perfect English, so it makes life a lot easier.

[Forum Admin]

I’ve been trying to make Reaper equivalent to Samplitude for a long time, and can’t get it right. I use it primarily on my Mac Air for live recording.

Just use PreSonus Capture instead? Mac/PC compatible... imports into Studio One DAW...

Drat - just seen it is now a "legacy" product.

[ceejay]

... MAGIX appears to have a white knight ... https://www.mainsights.io/ma-news/rm-eq ... cy-in-2023

[The Red Bladder]

... MAGIX appears to have a white knight ...

My company info ticker gave me the following (Google Translate from German) -

Insolvency plan becomes legally binding after confirmation by the Charlottenburg District Court, Berlin.

Russ Media Equity Partners company takes over shares

Hamburg/Berlin, January 8, 2025 | The Berlin software company Magix Software GmbH has successfully completed its restructuring under self-administration after around twelve months. Magix was closely supported by attorney Viktor von Websky from the Hamburg law firm REIMER as general representative.

The insolvency plan submitted by Magix has become legally binding after confirmation by the Charlottenburg District Court. The plan includes the takeover of the shares by Erento GmbH, Berlin. This is a company of RM Equity Partners, an investment holding company that specializes in takeovers of digital marketplaces and software companies.

As an internationally recognized provider of multimedia software, Magix filed for insolvency in December 2023 and applied for self-administration. Comprehensive restructuring measures were developed and implemented as part of the self-administration process. At the same time, investment banking consultant Ashkan Kalantary and his team from the consulting firm Lincoln International carried out the successful search for a suitable investor. The investor is now taking over a stable and competitive company.

Magix Software is headquartered in Berlin. The company also has branches in Dresden and Lübbecke, as well as a subsidiary in the USA. Through its international sales channels, Magix serves professional and private users worldwide with its extensive portfolio of video and audio editing programs. More than 35 million people and hundreds of media companies such as ARD and Radio France use Magix's stationary and SaaS solutions to produce creative and media content. Music created with Magix software has also won numerous Grammys.

The insolvency court appointed attorney Friedemann Schade from the BRL law firm as administrator of the self-administration proceedings, who provided constructive support to the proceedings together with attorney Fiona Ehestädt, also from BRL. Financial management was in the hands of Malte Heesch and his team from Centuros Consult GmbH.

"The constructive, competent and very goal-oriented cooperation of all those involved was crucial to the success of the restructuring," emphasizes Viktor von Websky. "I am pleased for Magix and its employees that we have found such a solid and reliable investor in RM Equity Partners and that Magix is ​​now financially and strategically positioned for the future."

Further info -

RM Equity refers to Russmedia Holdings GmbH, Schwarzach, Austria (and not a US property company of the same name!)

Russmedia is headed by Eugen A Russ (grandson of the founder) and has net assets of over €150m (2023). The company was founded in 1919 around a local newspaper.

Opinion -

This would seem to be a major investment for Russmedia that has to date been very cautious in its development. It is a well run and well financed company with diverse profitable fringe media products, including print and online.

Magix grew from two guys with one simple software product (MusicMaker) to an important player in the extremely competitive media creation software market through acquisitions and development. Magix found the market too difficult and was crushed between Adobe and Avid, plus new entrants Blackmagic Design and Reaper. With eight different products, each requiring constant updating and also requiring new features to compete in a very difficult market, it could no longer keep up.

Flagship video product Vegas received annual updates that were largely cosmetic and the marketing effort was feeble and almost entirely based around persuading existing customers to buy into this stream of updates.

Russmedia now has a choice. Either (1) take those eight software products even further down-market to compete head-on with DaVinci and Reaper, or (2) invest in new 'must-have' plugins and features found in other SW products and invest in marketing those new features.

[resistorman]

Good! Reaper is at a point where I can almost duplicate Samplitude's object oriented workflow but not quite, my PC workstations are good for a few more years and I still like Vegas over Resolve. Since they're concentrating on making Sam 8 better and not putting out 9 I'm finally going to upgrade from 6

[ceejay]

Russmedia now has a choice. Either (1) take those eight software products even further down-market to compete head-on with DaVinci and Reaper, or (2) invest in new 'must-have' plugins and features found in other SW products and invest in marketing those new features.

... interestingly, MAGIX asked me to complete a survey just after the announcement and one of the questions was what AI features did I want included in a future version of Samplitude Pro X ... I answered "none" ...

[James Perrett]

Magix grew from two guys with one simple software product (MusicMaker) to an important player in the extremely competitive media creation software market through acquisitions and development. Magix found the market too difficult and was crushed between Adobe and Avid, plus new entrants Blackmagic Design and Reaper. With eight different products, each requiring constant updating and also requiring new features to compete in a very difficult market, it could no longer keep up.

I've always seen Magix as a company selling easy to use software for beginners. I'm on their mailing list and that's all they ever try to sell me. They simply don't understand the market for the more serious software like the Sonic Foundry/Sony tools or the Samplitude family.

[amanise]

Magix grew from two guys with one simple software product (MusicMaker) to an important player in the extremely competitive media creation software market through acquisitions and development. Magix found the market too difficult and was crushed between Adobe and Avid, plus new entrants Blackmagic Design and Reaper. With eight different products, each requiring constant updating and also requiring new features to compete in a very difficult market, it could no longer keep up.

I've always seen Magix as a company selling easy to use software for beginners. I'm on their mailing list and that's all they ever try to sell me. They simply don't understand the market for the more serious software like the Sonic Foundry/Sony tools or the Samplitude family.

They certainly took Acid Pro back a few steps (IMHO) when they took that on from Sony - and the constant up sell mailings were a right pain. V10 was OK but you could see that it was mostly cosmetic 'out with the old' and re-branding, with a few weird teasers for new functions. Those didn't bode well for me, so I took a different path when V11 came along. They never did clear up their embarrassing legacy interface issues - like the track EQ module that was the same look and feel as in the old Sonic Foundry days! I don't think they ever got to grips with Vst3 either. Lots of crashes with those. The user community was quite strong, but there was a lot of frustration expressed, whenever I looked, about how things had gone on the slide since Sony.

[The Red Bladder]

I've always seen Magix as a company selling easy to use software for beginners. I'm on their mailing list and that's all they ever try to sell me. They simply don't understand the market for the more serious software like the Sonic Foundry/Sony tools or the Samplitude family.

Exactly!

I bought Vegas because it could solve a single simple problem - convert 20fps to 25fps. Avid glitched, Adobe and daVinci didn't even accept 20fps as a video format - so I bought the pro version for one simple ability - and amazingly (to me) it is a feature they do not seem to realise it has!

But in that scenario is their core problem - 10% is 60%.

i.e. 10% of your potential customers account for 60% of your market. By all means go ahead and give the remaining 90% something cheap or for free if that floats your boat, but your profits are all in the 10% - and of the 10% the same calculation applies --> just 10% of that 10% account for 60% (or 36% of the entire market).

So 1% of your potential customers account for 36% of your turnover and probably 50% to 80% of your profits. And the last time I looked, the entire object of running a business is to make a profit and/or add asset-value to the company. Anything else such as fun-to-do or piece-of-mind and independence is icing on the cake.

Now RussMedia has to work out how to make that 1% buy Samplitude, SoundForge, Sonic Foundry and Vegas.

My Number One advice to RussMedia would be to integrate all three of the main 3D audio codecs - or at least make them each optional extras - and add some serious AI features and object removal/replacement tools into the premium versions of Vegas.

Even if you are making a very low-budget reality-TV project, you are going to have tens of thousands of out-of-pocket expenses like flights, hotels, insurance, catering and all those other costs one tends to conveniently forget. So a few hundred for being able to remove unwanted objects or crash a car without crashing a real car and add Dobly Atmos or DTS-X hardly matters.

[The Red Bladder]

The 200 employees are now just 120 and the company is earmarked to stay within the RM group - for the time being at least!

[Axe L]

And they would still be up against cheap and/or free software that is usually better!

I would argue that it isn’t better. I took Resolve off my computer because it is totally unintuitive.

That's really funny because I picked up Resolve and started using it, entirely intuitively, without a manual (or YouTube tutorial). I found everything where I expected it to be, and working how I "intuited" it should work (colour correction notwithstanding - that's like an alien language to me).

I’m in the US working mostly on PC, so nobody has heard of Samplitude, but when they see me working with it, they are amazed. It’s really about Magix’s awful, confusing marketing.

I concur: I'm in L.A., and only heard of Samplitude because they bought or licensed Logic's MIDI Engine to integrate into Sampllitude (years ago).
I'm on Mac/Logic (not least because that's what everyone I know and work with uses here: Logic, as a front end to ProTools), otherwise I'd be on Samplitude/Sequoia - GUI's a little dated, but what a fantastic DAW, last I checked.

[ef37a]

I have very recently been offered Samplitude 8 for 98 quid.
I am hoping the company and even better bargains are still around November time when I want to get a refurbed W11 laptop for my son.

Dave.

[resistorman]

I have very recently been offered Samplitude 8 for 98 quid.
I am hoping the company and even better bargains are still around November time when I want to get a refurbed W11 laptop for my son.

Dave.

I finally updated from V6 and am really happy I did, it's much more stable, especially the MIDI engine.

[Forum Admin]

Sadly, too many companies put their marketing budget into YouTube influencers and social media ads, turning their back sillily on around 1 million monthly unique users of soundonsound.com who are their core audience.

[RicRac]

Dear SOS Community,
We would like to take this opportunity to inform you that MAGIX's insolvency proceedings have been successfully concluded. Our company is currently undergoing a structured process of realignment in order to move even more strongly into the future. This step enables us to continue to develop innovative software solutions and provide our customers with the best possible support.
All information can be found in our official press release:

https://www.magix.com/gb/press/detail/n ... -magix-gb/

[Forum Admin]

Dear SOS Community,
We would like to take this opportunity to inform you that MAGIX's insolvency proceedings have been successfully concluded. Our company is currently undergoing a structured process of realignment in order to move even more strongly into the future. This step enables us to continue to develop innovative software solutions and provide our customers with the best possible support.
All information can be found in our official press release:

https://www.magix.com/gb/press/detail/n ... -magix-gb/

That’s good news for your user base and would-be new users.

But with respect, why have you not used a real-world username for your account. RicRac could be anyone. Or add your credentials in your Signature?

It would help establish credibility at this stage.

Ian Gilby
CEO / Owner / Forum Admin

[ef37a]

Dear SOS Community,
We would like to take this opportunity to inform you that MAGIX's insolvency proceedings have been successfully concluded. Our company is currently undergoing a structured process of realignment in order to move even more strongly into the future. This step enables us to continue to develop innovative software solutions and provide our customers with the best possible support.
All information can be found in our official press release:

https://www.magix.com/gb/press/detail/n ... -magix-gb/

That’s good news for your user base and would-be new users.

But with respect, why have you not used a real-world username for your account. RicRac could be anyone. Or add your credentials in your Signature?

It would help establish credibility at this stage.

Ian Gilby
CEO / Owner / Forum Admin

Thank you Ian you have voiced my concerns. I am a complete numpty in these matters. My aim is to provide my son with the latest version of his favourite DAW and a reasonably powerful laptop that will enable him to keep on with his music (and a bit of video) for perhaps the next five years at least*. I am not sure I shall be around then. At all or in any fit state to help anybody!

If we cannot be reasonably certain that Samplitude will continue in a "serviceable" manner then it will be time perhaps for him to look at another DAW? He has Reaper and the free Cakewalk. He has used Cubase some years ago so the "curve" would not be too steep for him?

*Does anyone know when we shall all HAVE to go on to Win 12? I doubt there will ever be a W13!

Dave.

[RicRac]

I came across this thread by chance today while looking for something else.
My name is Ricardo Röpke, and I'm the Product Owner for Samplitude, Sequoia, Sound Forge, and our plugin product lines at MAGIX.

My post was a spontaneous one, simply because I wanted to make sure there’s no uncertainty in the SOS community: MAGIX is continuing its work – both with the DAW Samplitude and with Sequoia.

If there are any specific questions, I’m happy to answer them.

Best