Komplete 13, ladies and gents

[tehlord]

I'm not sure I get the pricing.

I have K12 Ultimate, and my upgrade price to K13 Ultimate is £499.

Sure, right.

Not here it isn't. Same upgrade, £339. You sure you''re looking at the right thing? Upgrade to CE from 12U is £499.

So that would be £170 or £250 next June, which is quite tempting. The new quartet and Arkhis are both more interesting to me than the entire mildly disappointing Symphonic series, and at £80 for the pair that'll be pretty good.

Always the same discussions and complaints on NI pricing. What with their change of personnel and touted change of direction I thought we might see changes in the whole strategy this time, but everything is exactly as expected. Same price and update structure, even the most likely release date. And no subs! All quite comforting actually.

Yes, it's changed. It was £499 (I even screenshotted it for a friend lol!) but now it's £339.

Must have been a web b0rk

I knew it was weird because it was £499 for Ultimate, and £419 for Collectors Edition.

[fese]

so why not make a Kontakt2 stub dll that loads the K5/6 engine but has the old plugin id?

Because:

- Kontakt 2 codebase requires older versions of certain NI internal libraries that are not available anymore, or are changed beyond recognition
- Kontakt 2 codebase requires older dev tools that don't really work on newer hardware anymore (Mac is heavily used for development at NI, sure there are Windows machines there too, but Mac has better debug tools)
- It is not financially feasible to do so
- There are more important things to do

Kontakt 2 was just an example. And what I meant is a dll that is actually the newest Kontakt but has the plugin id of K2 (or K3/4/...) so it loads in older projects. Or just don’t release a new major version unless absolutely technically necessary.

But I guess it’s not really a technical problem but a marketing/business decision: we need to sell updates, so let’s give Kontakt/guitar rig/... a new version number and make it a new plugin, even if it would’ve been technically feasible to just add the features to the old major version and make it a compatible minor update. but then people would be less inclined pay for that, as customers do not expect to pay for minor releases... Stupid, but that’s the way it is.

[machinesworking]

so why not make a Kontakt2 stub dll that loads the K5/6 engine but has the old plugin id?

Because:

- Kontakt 2 codebase requires older versions of certain NI internal libraries that are not available anymore, or are changed beyond recognition
- Kontakt 2 codebase requires older dev tools that don't really work on newer hardware anymore (Mac is heavily used for development at NI, sure there are Windows machines there too, but Mac has better debug tools)
- It is not financially feasible to do so
- There are more important things to do

Kontakt 2 was just an example. And what I meant is a dll that is actually the newest Kontakt but has the plugin id of K2 (or K3/4/...) so it loads in older projects. Or just don’t release a new major version unless absolutely technically necessary.

But I guess it’s not really a technical problem but a marketing/business decision: we need to sell updates, so let’s give Kontakt/guitar rig/... a new version number and make it a new plugin, even if it would’ve been technically feasible to just add the features to the old major version and make it a compatible minor update. but then people would be less inclined pay for that, as customers do not expect to pay for minor releases... Stupid, but that’s the way it is.

My guess is it’s a technical support issue more than marketing. Kontakt 6 can open Kontakt 2 files, but things get slightly borked, newer versions of FX and general tweaks to how Kontakt works can lead to files not sounding or behaving like they did in v2. I would be OK with that but IMO they probably don’t want to explain that k6 is different than 2 over and over again, easier to get people to transfer to k6 on their own rather than constant emails to tech support etc.

I’m definitely not an NI defender in general, but you have to understand that most people are dumber than you, and more pig headed. It would be a nightmare for them, no matter how many red flags they threw up.

[EvilDragon]

Actually great care is taken to keep things sounding the same as they did in K2 when same things are used.

[machinesworking]

Actually great care is taken to keep things sounding the same as they did in K2 when same things are used.

There goes any real excuse then. We shouldn’t have to have Kontakt 2 installed to open songs with it in them, just laziness on the part of NI and other companies that upgrades break compatibility, great.

[bM3w]

Seriously, no VST3, no resizable GUIs? This old blah blah "it's a huge task" gets a little long in the tooth. It's said to be in the works for many years now and if they don't update their software, that task is certainly not becoming smaller. So far K13 looks like a rather disappointing upgrade.

[glokraw]

That special thanks is due to Stratocaster appearing in marketing materials, I'd reckon.

I hope Fender at least return the favor/compliment. Or sign the check I see any communication from the outside world to the Fender enclave as a good thing. Spinning off a model or two from their new GTX and LT amps wouldn't hurt either company.

Where's the 'special thanks to' little Suzie for posing with her NI gear?

[machinesworking]

I wouldn’t expect VST3 until they have native Apple arm/silicon comparability. VST3 industry wide has been the slowest adoption I’ve ever seen. NI aren’t even alone in not having it still more than a decade later..

[Echoes in the Attic]

Seriously, no VST3, no resizable GUIs? This old blah blah "it's a huge task" gets a little long in the tooth.

Especially since they're competitors with equally old products have mostly done these kinds of updates - Korg (resizable GUIs), Waldorf (VST3), Arturia (GUIs and VST3), smaller devs like Sylenth1 (resizable GUI) and u-he (GUIs and VST3). The list goes on.

[Brother Greg]

Nice to hear Guitar Rig has been updated. But I'm still several years' worth of being sore about NI's abandonment of Rig Kontrol hardware support. It's a no-go for me.

[risome]

.

Don't play gitaur or gutair of how on earth is it called... so no need for GR6

not trying to get you to upgrade, but you do realise, its basically an effects package.
which sounds great on synths too

Indeed it does

[glokraw]

Seriously, no VST3, no resizable GUIs? This old blah blah "it's a huge task" gets a little long in the tooth.

Especially since they're competitors with equally old products have mostly done these kinds of updates - Korg (resizable GUIs), Waldorf (VST3), Arturia (GUIs and VST3), smaller devs like Sylenth1 (resizable GUI) and u-he (GUIs and VST3). The list goes on.

Those fine companies don't kompete with Kontakt, and only indirectly kompete with Reaktor. So NI can take their time to get an enormous of bringing their flagships into the scalable future

Those kompanies do kompete with NI's older synths, which may be moot if they are not to be upgraded by NI. That leaves MassiveX to kompete with, and it's newer code with resizable gui.
My next NI purchase will be the Balinese Gamelan, as I'm still scratching the surface of K12, and Fathom 3 is out.
Cheers

[rACatkvr]

Haven’t waded through all this thread yet but looking at the Guitar Rig 6 webpage tells me that NI still need to employ someone who understands graphic design - I mean white text over a background image with large bits of white under the text? Cmon NI pay some attention to legibility and ease of use.

[XorXisT]

Haven’t waded through all this thread yet but looking at the Guitar Rig 6 webpage tells me that NI still need to employ someone who understands graphic design - I mean white text over a background image with large bits of white under the text? Cmon NI pay some attention to legibility and ease of use.

What are you waiting for?

Go teach them already!

[zadillo]

Seriously, no VST3, no resizable GUIs? This old blah blah "it's a huge task" gets a little long in the tooth.

Especially since they're competitors with equally old products have mostly done these kinds of updates - Korg (resizable GUIs), Waldorf (VST3), Arturia (GUIs and VST3), smaller devs like Sylenth1 (resizable GUI) and u-he (GUIs and VST3). The list goes on.

Those fine companies don't kompete with Kontakt, and only indirectly kompete with Reaktor. So NI can take their time to get an enormous of bringing their flagships into the scalable future

Those kompanies do kompete with NI's older synths, which may be moot if they are not to be upgraded by NI. That leaves MassiveX to kompete with, and it's newer code with resizable gui.
My next NI purchase will be the Balinese Gamelan, as I'm still scratching the surface of K12, and Fathom 3 is out.
Cheers

If you’re buying by itself I’d recommend the sequel released directly by SonicCouture, Balinese Gamelan II:

http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products ... amelan-ii/

(More affordable during one of SonicCouture’s sales)