Komplet 15 Ultimate vs V Collection X

[Hyperbole]

I have both but didn't upgrade to the newest version of either as there wasn't all that much that was new

With Arturia V collection you get emulations of dozens of vintage instruments. You Digital Synths, Analog Synths, pianos, and organs. There are three (four if you count mellotron) samplers. That come with sample libraries but they are from back in the day and are not "realistic" by modern standards. You also get some modern sample based instruments in the Augmented line.

With Komplete Ultimate you also get a ton of instruments. The star of the show is Kontact and with that you get a bunch of libraries that sound very real and you can do a lot of them. The good news is that you also get a bunch of other instruments that cover a bunch of things, the bad news is many of them have been out for a very long time and are not really being updated

My recommendation especially with Black Friday Sales right around the corner is the do the following. Keep in mind Komplete Ultimate is over $1,299

Take advantage of the current UVI sale and get Falcon 3.1 for $150. With that you will also get a $50 to go towards any library you want and they have a ton. Falcon has a ton of different Synthesis types all in one plugin and has a nice library of factory sounds. It also has a ton of expansion libraries

Wait a month until black Friday and get V Collection X on sale. You should be able to get it for $299. Now you are at $450

Then use the crossgrade pricing from owning Falcon to get HALion7. My guess is it will go on sale for Black Friday for $199 as a crossgrade. HALion7 has a HUGE factory sample library and several more bonus libraries as well. The bonus libraries include a really good Orchestral library and a really good Acoustic Guitar library, plus you get a fantastic FM synth, Wavetable, Spectral, granular and whole bunch more

So for half the cost of Komplete Ultimate you would get V Collection X, Falcon 3.1, and HALion7. With all of those things you could spend a lifetime and still not come close to exhausting the possibilities and they would work for all genres of music

This is really good advice. I would add that the Arturia synth emulations sound good (some better than others) but not 100% accurate, no matter how much their UIs may resemble the original synths. It's more quantity than quality, IMO.

The only problem with Kontakt, Falcon, and HALion as sound design tools is that they are bloated pigs and not particularly fun to use. HALion seems the most straightforward, but it's also a convoluted mess for the most part.

[Tj Shredder]

I don‘t get this comparison. An emulation is fundamentally different than sampling. Even if I add synthesizer elements like envelopes and filters.
Its like comparing fruits to meat.
If you get one of the UVI Quadra libraries, you could make infinite more different sounds with the emulations, and still the emulation could make all the sounds of that library… The differences would be tiny… Even all four Quadra libraries cannot cover the ground… and still need huge disc space on top.
Sampling is good for covering acoustic sounds, especially if its a limited instrument like a harpsichord… Though physical models are getting better…

[jlgrimes11]

Good morning,

What would be the best choice for electronic music composition (trance, melodic techno)?

Komplet Ultimate seems to be more suitable for orchestral, scoring and less for more modern music, now perhaps a preconceived idea.

On this subject, for orchestral, scoring, choirs, Komplet 15 Ultimate is a good choice or better to choose banks like Oblion One, Audio Imperia Nucleus or others?

Thank you in advance for your response.

For general production, I think Komplete is more valuable.

Arturia is more vintage synth specific.

Komplete has bigger and more expensive sample libraries.

Arturia is more synth geared and has more detailed emulations of old school synths. Great for vintage tunes and probably excellent for Synthwave.

NI has more modern influenced synths that said Arturia seems more active nowadays with Pigments it's flagship synth being more of a one stop modern synth workflow. It also has Minifreak and Minibrute for a more modern take on more vintage influenced synths. Massive X is a nice synth and sounds great but Arturia has better GUI IMO.

While NI isn't praised as much for emulations, Monark, is a great Minimoog, and Super 8 gives you that old school 80s Poly Sound. FM8 while old still is solid. Reaktor has user created emulations of almost everything, and once you get into sampling, I think that is where NI really shines. If you are a preset browser, NIs sample based presets are top notch especially once you need more standard acoustic/electro mechanical instruments, it is no competition. Arturia has a more niche sample concept of emulating old 80s digital gear which is great for character but for ultra realistic modern stuff isn't the right tools.


You can't necessarily go wrong with either but NI has a wider range of stuff (although now mostly samples), but still have many modern synths a little vintage stuff.


Problem with NI though is I think it is more slower paced than Arturia. Where i think NI in the 2000s - early 2010s where cutting edge. Massive was a huge plugin for them. But it took too long to develop a sequel and other companies took the shine.

Arturia kept a more steady approach but managing to work on modern concepts as well. They have also improved their emulations.

[Hyperbole]

I would not invest in any Native Instruments product until the company demonstrates that it can release resizable interfaces for ALL its current plugins and applications, particularly Kontakt. It's not enough to release a resizable browser, which is such a lame, half-assed move. The entire interface needs to be resizable. And while they are at it, do something to make it more understandable, attractive, and enjoyable to use. If I didn't have so many hardware sample libraries converted to Kontakt format, I would have bailed on it a long time ago and used a combination of Falcon and HALion, which are superior to Kontakt from a usability standpoint, IMO.

And NI, if you are listening, please stop releasing low-rent "Reaktor Instruments." Make synths like Monark and Super 8 proper VST/AU instruments (as Super 8 once was).

Arturia seems so much more on-the-ball than Native Instruments to me. Unless you are satisfied with the current state of Komplete 15, I would be very leery of spending my hard-earned money on it. Native Instruments is not the rapidly innovating company it was 20 years ago.

[glokraw]

Monark and Super 8 are old, so you received your wish...NI stopped years ago. I myself enjoy all the Komplete reaktor based synths I have, and wish they would release many more with similar quality and diversity. Especially if they can be in the $50 to $70 price range I paid for Prism and Razor, before buying Komplete.
Cheers

[mothra]

Any innovation NI had was long gone over a decade ago. Its just more and more Kontakt libraries and random one off specialized instruments based on those Kontakt libraries, or maybe the random Reaktor instrument. Reaktor is now dead. FM8 has been dead. Absynth, long dead. NI is pretty much dead.

I uninstalled my entire Arturia collection but Pigments, and even that I often forget I even own it. If I had to choose between the two for 'electronic' music, the Arturia collection basically gives you emulations of all the tools you need for it. NI's just going to fill up your machine with bloated 'expressive' sample libraries that might help, might be a waste of space and time.

You could probably cover most of what you need with just Halion heh.

[swilow11]

For being dead, FM8/Reaktor still work really well though.