Komplete Insanity

[vurt]

No matter the name, that is a crazy amount of stuff for free, which rivals plenty of payware.

yup
for anyone just starting out, or for anyone looking for a few extra bits of sauce, it's a sweet deal
some great toys in there.

[noiseboyuk]

This looks like a cool NI library manager and plugin host, even without the NI keyboard integration

Sadly not in my experience. In general I'm an NI fan, but Komplete Kontrol has been useless since day one for me, and still very much is. Here's why:

1. The GUI cannot be resized. I yawn when I see people complaining about this for most plugins, but for KK its a critical failure. By the time you've selected your library, your attributes etc, there are times when there are precisely 2 results showing, out of hundreds or thousands. There's just no room to see the results.

2. You can only search one library or all. In theory KK would be handy for Reaktor synths, since it has the tag browser. But no dice - you can't just search for all the Reaktor synths, it has to be one or literally everything. Moreover:

3. You cannot see what patch belongs to which library or synth. This is much worse than it sounds. If you want to properly audition and play a few notes, it has to load the plugin. And since it can't sort by plugin type, you can't audition, say, all the Massive results one after the other. To get round this, they developed the cumbersome preview system that just plays a sample, and takes up half your hard drive.

[martinjuenke]

This looks like a cool NI library manager and plugin host, even without the NI keyboard integration

Sadly not in my experience. In general I'm an NI fan, but Komplete Kontrol has been useless since day one for me, and still very much is. Here's why:

1. The GUI cannot be resized. I yawn when I see people complaining about this for most plugins, but for KK its a critical failure. By the time you've selected your library, your attributes etc, there are times when there are precisely 2 results showing, out of hundreds or thousands. There's just no room to see the results.

2. You can only search one library or all. In theory KK would be handy for Reaktor synths, since it has the tag browser. But no dice - you can't just search for all the Reaktor synths, it has to be one or literally everything. Moreover:

3. You cannot see what patch belongs to which library or synth. This is much worse than it sounds. If you want to properly audition and play a few notes, it has to load the plugin. And since it can't sort by plugin type, you can't audition, say, all the Massive results one after the other. To get round this, they developed the cumbersome preview system that just plays a sample, and takes up half your hard drive.

Even for me as a NI hardcore fan these are valid points!

[zzz00m]

Ha! I knew there was a reason that I opted for the Akai VIP system over Native's NKS!

[aMUSEd]

This looks like a cool NI library manager and plugin host, even without the NI keyboard integration

Sadly not in my experience. In general I'm an NI fan, but Komplete Kontrol has been useless since day one for me, and still very much is. Here's why:

1. The GUI cannot be resized. I yawn when I see people complaining about this for most plugins, but for KK its a critical failure. By the time you've selected your library, your attributes etc, there are times when there are precisely 2 results showing, out of hundreds or thousands. There's just no room to see the results.

2. You can only search one library or all. In theory KK would be handy for Reaktor synths, since it has the tag browser. But no dice - you can't just search for all the Reaktor synths, it has to be one or literally everything. Moreover:

3. You cannot see what patch belongs to which library or synth. This is much worse than it sounds. If you want to properly audition and play a few notes, it has to load the plugin. And since it can't sort by plugin type, you can't audition, say, all the Massive results one after the other. To get round this, they developed the cumbersome preview system that just plays a sample, and takes up half your hard drive.

I agree about the resizing but you can browse by plugin, and plugin banks can also have sub banks so you can narrow browsing down to specific libaries too. Also you can search all Reaktor patches, just select Reaktor as the plugin then either search all or browse down to specific ensembles to search just the presets for that one. I think you are just referring to browsing by categories where you select a specific tag and end up with a list say of all basses, there to see the plugin and bank each patch is from you need to have the edit window open in the browser; granted you can't do that from the hardware though but the point is there is more than one way to browse so it's more flexible than it sounds. Also I tend to use categories to narrow down a search once I've selected a particular plugin rather than try to use it in a completely top down fashion.

[JonSolo]

To be fair. Komplete is not the same as Complete. If it were complete, it would be called Complete, not Komplete. The K and the C are two different letters. Komplete is not even a word. Oh, well, it is now. But it means "a library of instruments released by Native Instruments". So....

Complete- 'everything'
Komplete- 'a library of instruments by Native Instruments'

So to expect Komplete to be complete is unreasonable. However, I would say that Komplete is pretty awesome, in any iteration.

[goldenanalog]

So even Komplete 12 Ultimate Collectors Edition is incomplete that's good to know. But that particular package contains: "150+ products, more than 90,000 sounds, and over 900 GB of content" - isn't that enough?

[wagtunes]

So even Komplete 12 Ultimate Collectors Edition is incomplete that's good to know. But that particular package contains: "150+ products, more than 90,000 sounds, and over 900 GB of content" - isn't that enough?

People will always want more. I'm more than content with my Komplete 11 Ultimate or whatever it's called.

[goldenanalog]

The other comment to make is that the above package is a $600 upgrade (not on-sale) from a 'KOMPLETE ULTIMATE 8-12' license - if/when it goes half-price (which it likely will - perhaps later this year if NI follows their normal history) - that's a steal by every metric that I can think of.

[pdxindy]

The other comment to make is that the above package is a $600 upgrade (not on-sale) from a 'KOMPLETE ULTIMATE 8-12' license - if/when it goes half-price (which it likely will - perhaps later this year if NI follows their normal history) - that's a steal by every metric that I can think of.

Except for the people who have no interest in what it offers... then its a steal for NI

[ATS]

The other comment to make is that the above package is a $600 upgrade (not on-sale) from a 'KOMPLETE ULTIMATE 8-12' license - if/when it goes half-price (which it likely will - perhaps later this year if NI follows their normal history) - that's a steal by every metric that I can think of.

Except for the people who have no interest in what it offers... then its a steal for NI

you mean like stuff to make music with?

[Echoes in the Attic]

I can't for the life of me figure out why they didn't keep the 8 buttons as part of the komplete preset mapping, like they had with kore. They already had the damn software and design. I understand reducing the complexity, but the morphing was amazing. Imagine if that was included as a function of komplete kontrol. And having a knob perform the function of a button is komplete bullshit. Have buttons do button things and have knobs do knob things. Kore had it right.

Not only that but they totally screwed up how the Komplete knobs show up in DAWs. Why the hell does the order change for different plugins? Should knobs 1-8 always be the same parameters in your host? So if you've configured those knobs in Ableton or Bitwig for example, they should show up in the same order of 8's. But nope, they jump around. It's absurd.

[pdxindy]

The other comment to make is that the above package is a $600 upgrade (not on-sale) from a 'KOMPLETE ULTIMATE 8-12' license - if/when it goes half-price (which it likely will - perhaps later this year if NI follows their normal history) - that's a steal by every metric that I can think of.

Except for the people who have no interest in what it offers... then its a steal for NI

you mean like stuff to make music with?

you mean nobody but NI makes that stuff?

[goldenanalog]

The other comment to make is that the above package is a $600 upgrade (not on-sale) from a 'KOMPLETE ULTIMATE 8-12' license - if/when it goes half-price (which it likely will - perhaps later this year if NI follows their normal history) - that's a steal by every metric that I can think of.

Except for the people who have no interest in what it offers... then its a steal for NI

- I agree with that!

But - in truth - With something ridiculously as large as the K12UCE: it's likely to have *something* (if not several things) that Joe normal musician who records in his project studio on his computer is going to both like and use. Whether or not you're a fan of NI - Komplete is a very mature product - it's been around for quite a while, now -

[martinjuenke]

I started my plugin journey with NI Komplete a couple of years ago. Later on I was wooed into additional products from other developers (the usual suspects). I believed in their fancy marketing, biased reviews and fanboy statements. I thought that with buying the new things there will be a quality boost in my music.

That assumption was wrong with nine of ten buys (exceptions: iZotope Neutron and Ozone, Zynaptiq, u-he, 2CAudio and TDR were real value adding things, but not many more).

Would I‘ve stayed with NI Komplete alone and my Logic Pro stuff (plus the mentioned additions) I‘d have saved a lot of money and avoided a lot of distraction, frustration and buyers remorse.

To make a long story short: for me Komplete Ultimate is nearly complete to cover my music making needs.