Installing Komplete

[chalaby]

Dear valued customers,

I am writing to address the disappointment that has been created by our decision to roll the Komplete 4 user installer into the next version of ReceptorOS.

First, please note that we are all listening to you and working very hard to deliver the tools you need, especially those of you who have been working with us from the beginning. Sometimes things don't work out exactly as we planned them and in this case we are sincerely sorry if this has created an inconvenience for any of you.

Muse Research was founded on the idea that virtual instrument software, while impressive and powerful, didn't quite reach its full potential running inside a computer, especially when used while playing live. And although we currently support lots of different plug-ins, we up to this point have not been able to install and host large plug-in packages such as Komplete 4. The good news is that 'Receptor with Komplete Inside' is the first product that truly realizes our vision of having an ideal platform upon which to run a large collection of virtual instruments that have been well thought out from a musician's perspective. The fact that we have pre-installed everything makes it so that one can make music immediately.

The bad news is that supporting Komplete 4 running on Receptor made it necessary to go far beyond the typical Receptor Installer, essentially requiring us to host an entire registration and authorization environment (NI Service Center) within Receptor's host framework. This required a huge amount of engineering effort to accomplish, and currently exists only as a tool set that resides in our production environment. Although we plan a user installable Service Center so that Komplete 4 can be installed without our help, we decided it was better to roll this into a future update as opposed to delaying the ability to run Komplete 4 any longer.

We want to emphasize that installing software for customers is NOT a profit center for us. We are charging what it costs us to provide this service. Installing software as large as Komplete 4 on any computer takes several hours and requires a significant amount of attention during the installation process. Once it's done in many cases there are issues that still need to be resolved. In charging $200 for the installation, we are updating a customer's Receptor to the latest software, disassembling the Receptor, removing the hard drive, installing all of Komplete 4, authorizing and registering it, and ensuring that everything works properly.

We understand that first and foremost you want to make music… Although it may seem like a lot when you could install Komplete for yourself with a Mac or PC, having Muse Research do it saves you a lot of time and effort. It's hours you can spend making music instead of installing software. For those who believe that this is simply too much to pay, we again apologize for the inconvenience, and ask you bear with us a while longer while we finish the development required to let you install it yourself.

Once again we apologize creating any problems for you. We are still trying to think of ways to resolve this so please continue to check back for further announcements, but we can't make any promises at this time.

Sincerely,

Chris Halaby,
President and CEO
Muse Research, Inc.

[Hybernation]

Thanks for the update Chris...this clarifies the situation. Keep up the good work!

[ksiragusa]

umm, that last paragraph is a bit of a worry isn't it
That sounds to me that a K4 user installer is a long, long, long way off.
Oh, what to do?
And how about those outside the US for getting muse to install K4?

[bekenone]

"NI Service Center" is the app we need for present and future "NI" products.
I would suggest creating a "NI Service Center/Macromedia Flash Plugin" installer.
since its the only REAL thing stopping the installation process.

I would be more than happy to help out.

[Paul David]

And how about those outside the US for getting muse to install K4?

Maybe if you bought a new hard disk from them they would pre-install K4 for you? It'd be much cheaper than sending the Receptor back and forth.

[ksiragusa]

Hi Paul
I'm discussing that option with them as we speak. Great minds.....

[okiikahuna]

Can we get individual parts of K4 installed without getting the whole thing, or is it all or nothing? For example, could I just get Reaktor?

K.

[bekenone]

[quote="okiikahuna"]Can we get individual parts of K4 installed without getting the whole thing, or is it all or nothing? For example, could I just get Reaktor?

K.[/quote]

yes.
thats what I do.
I own Reaktor 5 and Absynth 3.

[gizmostatic]

While I completely understand the business decision made, and it makes sense as explained, this is still hard to swallow, even a month later. I didn't buy receptor to run Cosmogirl, or TickyClav, or LOG Synth, or daHornet, although its nice to have those, I bought my Rev C to run Native Instruments products and Atmosphere. 9 months and countless gigs later I have Atmosphere. (and to be fair, RMX, which I don't use live, and a paid for B4 that NI gracefully allowed me to crossgrade from K2, which I do use).

I even understand the cost of the $200 for the installation, and even think for the effort that's a good deal based on hourly support costs.

But I need to contest the 'time saver' position .. how does being dark with receptor for 3 weeks constitute a time savings? (this is based on regular UPS ground there and back from east coast). And at 3 weeks ground shipping, the cost is now $280. If I want it faster, overnight is $120 each way .. so $440 to have a product suite I've already paid thousands of dollars for to work while new customers get it as part of a new offering? How does this save me time installing Receptor myself?

I consider Receptor to be a cutting edge instrument positioned to change live rigs as we know them .. at least from a keyboardist perspective, but I have to say that I think I could have done better with a Windows-based laptop and some cheap-ware or even free-ware. I did a tour with a mac laptop using Reason, Rax, and a Kurzweil PC 2 YEARS AGO and I had more options on stage back then than I do now with the Receptor .. at least in terms of programming and playing Pro 52, Absynth, B4, sequencing, FM7, and mostly sampling, and it was much more portable. And I could sample and edit those samples right away and perform with them minutes later.

I love bleeding edge technology, and am willing to handle the pain involved, but should it really take a year or more and more cash to even begin to see real benefits? My receptor hardware is already seeming out of date and this thing hasn't even begun to live up to my expectations from late 2006.

And all I can do is wait for news about the latest OS which may or may not address my (and many others') issues and continue to find work arounds.

I try to roll with it, but as others have said, Receptor is not cheap, and not beta, so I have to hold to to some standard of excellence, and the bottom line is I'm really disappointed.

ok, rant done .. please continue to work hard and remember that current customers are at least as important as new customers.

[analogaddict]

The only thing that REALLY bothers me is that when I took the plunge for a Receptor and Komplete 4 a YEAR ago, NI stated that the K4 instruments were fully compatible with everything the 'single' instruments were, and Receptor was compatible with most of the single products. I've been pestering the NI support for over a year about this, and they've come up with a few suggestions, none of which worked. Like stated above, the Receptor hardware ages, and if we'll never be able to play the latest synths, what's the point..? The last year, I've mostly been using mine as an Ivory player and a huge Kontakt sampler (I own Kontakt separately), and as such it has been great, but not quite what I thought it would be.

In my opinion, it would be nice if either NI or Muse could help us European users find a solution other than shipping the Receptor back and forth to the US. Perhaps we could send the HD to NI in Germany and have an installation done there, I'd really like to be able to use this stuff now. My Macbook is almost as fast as the Receptor, and MUCH easier to use if you take authorisation and compatibility issues into consideration. Right now I get more mileage from my Nord Stage and Macbook than the Receptor, and the Receptor isn't getting younger... Bah!!!

[piksel]

I would like to try and install myself instead of sending my receptor ... can anyone give me a link with a tutorial to do installl komplete 4 and activate it?

[gizmostatic]

Basically no, at least not that I'm aware of. K4 on receptor, at least the authorization component, is apparently pretty complex, and while Muse now supports running K4 and authorizing it, DIY won't be available until a future OS upgrade, and they obviously have a business motivation to not tie up customer support for the installation/authorization process while trying to sell a new product.

Just a gentle nudge to Muse, how long before this company puts out a product in direct competition on price point?

[piksel]

I'm a bit disappointed that there isn't a DIY solution at this point. I was hoping that 'muse' would have released an installation/authorisation tutorial, even if it is complicated. I have recently bought a Receptor pro & Komplete 4 and now i can't use them together. Now i just have to wait, not very satisfying ...

ps: thx for your reply!

[sleen]

How does one deal with a disk failure? Do you keep 2 receptor on the road with you?

[Talk Show Host]

This is crap. My receptor pro jr. was expensive enough. Give us a DIY solution to install whatever we want. It's our unit and software; what does Muse have to gain by preventing us from manually installing software that we already own?