What do you think of Kore 2?

[bburtin]

I bought the KORE software edition, hoping to use it for live performance. The sounds are great, and I love the tweakability factor. Each sound has up to 8 knobs and 8 buttons that can be tweaked in realtime to alter the sound, and the sound designers paid a lot of attention to this aspect. This part is pretty sweet.

Unfortunately the limitations keep me from being able to use it to play live:

1) When you switch KoreSounds in the UI, the knob and button configurations (user pages) switch. Unfortunately you can't switch from one KoreSound to another with your MIDI controller. Even if you could, there would be a delay of several seconds for larger instruments.

2) You can change *presets* with your MIDI controller, but then you have to have each KoreSound on a separate channel, with each preset muting all but one of your sounds. Pretty tedious.

3) When you switch presets, the configuration of the knobs and buttons doesn't automatically change. In order to change the config (user page), you have to use your mouse to click on the KoreSound. So there goes the instant tweakability aspect.

4) You can route the knobs and buttons to VST plugins, but not to the params of the KoreSounds. Go figure.

5) Relative modulation (MIDI increment/decrement) is not supported. If you use your own MIDI controller, the knobs and buttons go out of sync with your controller once you switch patches. If you use the KORE hardware controller, I believe it syncs with the states of the knobs and buttons in the UI.

Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed. The product sounds amazing. I can see it being great for studio work, but there are too many limitations for me to use it live. Too bad. So much potential that isn't being realized. I'm going to wait and see what is new in 2.1. If the majority of these issues aren't addressed, I'll probably sell it.

[MrDuke]

Unfortunately the limitations keep me from being able to use it to play live:

-Unfortunately you can't switch from one KoreSound to another with your MIDI controller. Even if you could, there would be a delay of several seconds for larger instruments.

-You can change *presets* with your MIDI controller, but then you have to have each KoreSound on a separate channel, with each preset muting all but one of your sounds. Pretty tedious.

And just as I was gearing up for using Kore 2 as my live performance "rack" of sorts...

You can't change Koresounds, but you can change Performance Presets via MIDI, right? The workflow of the product is supposed to be, that you program your set and all the sounds you need in each song into Performance Presets, and then switch between these live. Just as you would do in any other "live plug-in host", like Mainstage, actually. Sure it's not the same as an instant, seamless change of a patch on a hardware workstation, but even then, you might have to program a "Favorites" set beforehand.

I feel like Kore 2 is a great tool, and the Browser is an incredibly simple way of navigating through the jungle that is Komplete 5. I do agree that it has limitations.

It's a pretty bad situation that Kore 2 clearly only utilizes one core...and using it as a multi-channel (as it should be) plug-in host drains the CPU veeeery quickly. Your DAW however distributes the load if you load up multiple instances of Kore instead of using just one as a multi-channel instrument, so I guess what you can do is switch between tracks/channels via MIDI in your DAW (be it DP, Ableton, Logic etc), and not use Kore's Performance Presets at all.

I guess I'm gonna have to go back to Mainstage or Ableton after all...

[aMUSEd]

1) When you switch KoreSounds in the UI, the knob and button configurations (user pages) switch.

A long standing FR of mine is to have the ability to lock the user page so if you switch to another Sound it stays on the same page (e.g. I'd like to be able to keep the morph page view open when I switch)

[grymmjack]

Only one plugin folder is a shame - perhaps it works with shortcuts as well, in the same way Live does ? I assume it handles subdirectories of that one folder.

Shortcuts won't work- Live's one of the few apps I know of that will work with shortcuts. Subdirectories work fine.

orion also works with shortcuts. it's a great time saving feature.

[bburtin]

A long standing FR of mine is to have the ability to lock the user page...

Yeah, after reading the Kore forums, I get the impression that there are a lot of long-standing feature requests. That's the thing about Native Instruments. They make great-sounding synths, but customer service is not a priority for them. I sent my list of suggestions to NI tech support, and they completely blew me off. So if the thing doesn't work the way you want it to, don't expect it to ever change. Too bad.

[zerocrossing]

A long standing FR of mine is to have the ability to lock the user page...

Yeah, after reading the Kore forums, I get the impression that there are a lot of long-standing feature requests. That's the thing about Native Instruments. They make great-sounding synths, but customer service is not a priority for them. I sent my list of suggestions to NI tech support, and they completely blew me off. So if the thing doesn't work the way you want it to, don't expect it to ever change. Too bad.

That's not true. I've seen NI products change significantly due to public opinion. Just look at the fact that now you can use your Kore 2 controller as a MIDI controller. Seems like they're making big changes to Maschine too. Of course they're not going to make every change based on every whim of all their customers. That's not a way to make a solid product. Imagine if every one with an internet connection had the ability to dictate how you did your job.

I'm not blindly giving them a pass though. I do think that sometimes they have a bit of arrogance to them. I'm amazed that rather than do a major rewrite of all their amp models in Guitar Rig 4 they felt it was enough to just add a few new ones. Though what do I know? I'll probably do the upgrade anyway because I bet their graindelay will be a winner.

[aMUSEd]

A long standing FR of mine is to have the ability to lock the user page...

Yeah, after reading the Kore forums, I get the impression that there are a lot of long-standing feature requests. That's the thing about Native Instruments. They make great-sounding synths, but customer service is not a priority for them. I sent my list of suggestions to NI tech support, and they completely blew me off. So if the thing doesn't work the way you want it to, don't expect it to ever change. Too bad.

That's not true. I've seen NI products change significantly due to public opinion. Just look at the fact that now you can use your Kore 2 controller as a MIDI controller.

Yep, and many other features. It takes constructive engagement and yes, sometimes time and patience, but they do listen and take on board stuff although of course they also have their own vision of what they want a product to do.

[bburtin]

Of course they're not going to make every change based on every whim of all their customers.

The reason I was upset wasn't that they didn't implement my feature. It was that the tech support guy didn't even take the time to read my message and tell me that my ideas were bad. Glad to hear that other people have better experiences than I did.