Native instruments summer of sound is here

[Atlatnesiti]

Well, well, well…
I’ve finally caved in and upgraded my NI 11 Ultimate to ver 14…
Just couldn’t resist the upgrade cost

[BBFG#]

Although Kontakt 5 was "clunky" it worked with all my libraries (albeit with some needing a bit of initial path add/scan).
The worst thing with it was the Service Center, but it had work arounds to get things done.
Have had problems with K6 finding or recognizing many libraries and Access progressively made things worse and mostly geared at killing all work arounds. Support became virtually nothing but a bot spitting out a FAQ that never solved anything. Have since downgraded to Kontakt 7 player and it recognizes even less of my player libraries. Even though they show up in Access, Kontakt itself refuses to allow them. Support has not even bothered to respond in almost a year...

After reading comments here about it being a "more for developers" upgrade, I think it might be better to wait for Kontakt 8 to see if they come back around to remember their customers. If I didn't have the amount of NFR libraries I have for it, I would completely just leave this whole company in the past...

50% off is nowhere near enough to get me to buy at their current status.

[noiseboyuk]

I nearly caved yesterday with some credit at AudioDeluxe, but reading up on Kontakt 7 has also convinced me it’s more trouble than its worth. I have 7 Player, and the browser is terrible. Even following Soundiron’s method of adding pictures and tags - tortuous - there are other problems that make it worse in use than QuickLoad.

Specifically - it doesn’t inherit folder structure. Audiobro’s LADD has no image, no tags and no way of navigating 1,600 files, many of whose names are truncated. It’s just a bunch of meaningless, function-free drivel in an ungainly heap.

I don’t know how NI do it, I really don’t. Massive et al had great functional browsers 15 years ago, tied into the Kore ecosystem. Today in 2023 Komplete Kontrol is still Komplete Krap, Massive X ditto and now Kontakt 7. In every case basic functionality is missing. Reaktor still can’t read its own patch tags. I mean - what the hell?

So even if I put in a month’s work to get 3rd party (and all Player) libraries into the one place, manually tagged with KK, it would STILL be rubbish because the files themselves are void of critical context that are supplied in the ignored folders.

The upgrade is cheap, but with the flagship product so demonstrably wanting and other products good but inessential for me, I’m going to pass. While people here get upset over the NI synths, I’m personally far more bothered that basic functionality on their kore (sorry, core) products is so woeful that the thought of upgrading is about as attractive as a brace of paper cuts with a liberal dousing of lemon juice.

[SLiC]

Running Kontakt 6 (or even 5) in the free Komplete Kontrol is is pretty much the same as Komplete 7 for most users...browser, preview sounds etc.

[Scotty]

Setting up my new to me Macbook Pro m1 2020 with Native Access 2. The installer does throw up a lot of errors when installing the Komplete Libraries. Some errors are warnings that flash and disappear and some require a quick restart of the app or laptop if the problem persists. For me at least you can't cue up dozens of installs and walk away and expect it to be purring nicely when you get back. I am having to babysit it. 5 to 7 installs at a time. They are working, but patience is required to download the content.

[noiseboyuk]

Due to credit at AudioDeluxe, the exchange rate and having worked out a way to part-use Kontakt 7's extremely flawed browser, I took the plunge and went from 13CE to 14CE. FWIW, here's what works for me and what doesn't - for reference I do cinematic, media-work and music of all shapes and sizes (though not a lot of EDM type stuff). The new stuff:

THE EXCELLENT

LORES is outstanding. Spitfire do this sort of scoring-combination stuff, but Lores knocks it out of the Spitfire park - really inspired combinations and elements that work far better than they have any right to. A joy to use.

ACTION STRINGS 2. A real surprise, vastly better than 1. Fluid fast lines are where this kind of library excels and it does that, but it also contains bread and butter articulations, a mic mixer and editable phrases to make it really work in practice.

THE GOOD

PICKED NYLON. NI don't get the credit they deserve with their recent guitar libraries. They're all limited - pretty much any keyboard-based guitar library is - but they do what they do very well, Nylon no exception. Really nice tone and sounds pretty convincing.

ASHLIGHT is in their Light tradition which has always worked well, and this is no exception. Some really good textures and combinations.

SPOTLIGHT: EAST ASIA. Another range that doesn't get the credit it deserves, their entire World series is really good quality stuff, great sound, playability and scripting.

KNIF AUDIO KNIFONIUM. Cor this sounds lovely. Got warmth and balls (if you will). I thought it lacked a proper browser at first, but it's hidden under the tiny icon next to the power button, which appears to be the house style.

THE OKAY

BX OBERHAUSEN. Sounds pretty good, but familiar ground

THE DISAPPOINTING

SEQUIS. Orchestral Tools are a great company, but this must have looked better on the whiteboard than it sounds in execution, trying to create rhythmic organic phrases and loops. Just didn't float my boat.

PIANO COLORS. Similar thoughts to Sequis - fine in theory, but an uninspiring end result. Noire covers much the same territory much better, and its not a scratch on Spectrsonics Keyscape Creative library.

CHOIR: OMNIA. Lovely tone, but poor scripting means phrases don't join together well at all - Soundiron's Requiem Lite did this far better over a decade ago at a 10th of the size. You have some limited tweakability to fix the worst volume bumps, but it still doesn't sound joined-up.

MASSIVE X EXPANSIONS. The popularity of Massive X continues to baffle me. All I hear is endless cold, clinical and abrasive patches. I'm an analogue head tis true, but for my ears Pigments does digital with a good deal more warmth and interest. I was wondering if better patches would come over the years, but these six expansions feel irritatingly familiar.

KONTAKT 7. (nb - I haven't downloaded the new factory library). Aside from under-the-hood improvements, this is basically a new browser, which is fatally flawed. Imported libraries ignore the folder structure, meaning you get sometimes hundreds of identically named patches in a complete mess. It doesn't auto-tag and you can't add tags either (only possibly via a very convoluted method using Komplete Kontrol). Nor can you add an library image, though this is possible via a not-too-tedious hack. The one area it is useful is in basic string searches, showing a quick glance at all the libraries that have any particular instrument. However, now I've imported most of my 3rd party non-Player stuff, it takes about 30 seconds to open. Sheesh - is it really worth the bother?

THE WTF

PLAYBOX. I have no clue what's supposed to be going on here or how I might ever use it. I'll file it with Rounds.

THE CONCLUSION

(Not tested any of the expansions, Play series, Ozone 10 or the other Brainworx stuff)

Overall, for what I paid, pretty happy. It's Kontakt 7 that is the most troublesome - they really need to fix all the obvious things wrong with it, thought I doubt they ever will. They haven't produced a solid fully-functioning browser in 15 years after all. We'll have nuclear fusion before we have that.

Whether it's worth it for you - it's so individual. People are quick to say bloatware, just because something isn't useful for them. This is just one edjit's guide to what did and didn't work for me.

[Bartone]

THE DISAPPOINTING

SEQUIS. Orchestral Tools are a great company, but this must have looked better on the whiteboard than it sounds in execution, trying to create rhythmic organic phrases and loops. Just didn't float my boat.


THE WTF

PLAYBOX. I have no clue what's supposed to be going on here or how I might ever use it. I'll file it with Rounds.

I was thinking the exact same when I watched the introducing video of these!

Sad to hear about the Choir: Omnia, it looks very cool and on paper it seems to be very interesting. But it is a big disappointment if the phrases don't join well together. That is a huge minus!

[aMUSEd]

Yeah I don't get Playbox either - several reviews describe it as 'groundbreaking' - problem is it makes some nice sounds but with a fairly limited sample set they get repetitive after a few rounds of hitting the randomiser. What is worst though is it is only mapped to one octave and then only the white keys - whoever thought of that? So it's called Playbox but you can't actually play it using a keyboard? What is the point of it?

[aMUSEd]

ASHLIGHT is good but some imbecile allowed them to mess with NKS categories so now my NKS tags in Komplete Kontrol are cluttered up with stupid meaningless or redundent tags that don't conform to the NKS standard.

[boombaxx]

Recently bought s88 mk2 on special which came with 14 standard wondering if it,s worth getting ultimate for 299.

[emulator01]

Hi,

I am on Komplete 13CE and I don't need all the new stuff from Komplete 14CE.
Is my understanding right to update only Kontakt from 6 to 7 is possible without loosing the K13CE licence for a future upgrade to K15CE?

[noiseboyuk]

I am on Komplete 13CE and I don't need all the new stuff from Komplete 14CE.
Is my understanding right to update only Kontakt from 6 to 7 is possible without loosing the K13CE licence for a future upgrade to K15CE?

Yup.

In fact I think you could update to a lower tier of Komplete - Standard - and still not lose the upgradeability of the K13CE license, which is policy change on NI's side. This wasn't possible before.

[emulator01]

I am on Komplete 13CE and I don't need all the new stuff from Komplete 14CE.
Is my understanding right to update only Kontakt from 6 to 7 is possible without loosing the K13CE licence for a future upgrade to K15CE?

Yup.

In fact I think you could update to a lower tier of Komplete - Standard - and still not lose the upgradeability of the K13CE license, which is policy change on NI's side. This wasn't possible before.

Thanks for the info. That means I can have e.g. K13CE and K14U in parallel in my account and later I can decide to upgrade the version I need.
Do you have the official link about the changed policy?

[SHall1000]

Strangely it’s Ozone 10 that’s tempting me to upgrade my 13 standard. Ozone + Kontakt 7 + a few bits and pieces for -£80 ?? Still struggling to be convinced though.

[noiseboyuk]

Do you have the official link about the changed policy?

If you sign in to your NI account, you can see the lower tiered slidegrades are all available to buy with discounts. In previous years you've only been offered the same level of product. I don't think they've made a formal announcement, but if you go back in this thread IIRC someone had it confirmed from customer service that you still retain your earlier license in full.