Disappointed with KOMPLETE (??)

[3rdstone]

Sorry in advance if this is the wrong section of the forum...

As the title says, I'm really regretting buying into KOMPLETE (ultimate, no less)

There are some things in this software that are really cool, but most of it is geared toward music that I do not intend on making...

Back Story: I started out searching for software that would give me the sounds of (let's say) a Korg M3, but found no real links to products (free or otherwise)
I then saw many posts on forums and the like, stating that KOMPLETE would cover most bases.

Well, it might cover most bases if modern EDM etc. was what I wanted to record/produce, but that is not the case.

I'm not a keyboardist, first off. But I remember playing around with an M3 that was left here for band practice a few years back, and I could not get enough of it!
The sounds and patches seemed to cover anything I'd ever want to record, absolutely loved that thing..

Anyway, a long post to get to a simple question: Is there software available that is geared toward patches on keyboard workstations I've described, out there?
Geared toward genres like rock,pop, gospel, jazz, progressive music? (and not 'modern' EDM type sounds?)
(I'm not looking for 'flashy' samples, but more along the lines of 'majestic' samples, (if that makes sense)..hope so...


If there is, I sure wish someone in the know could clue me in, thanks...
Side note: I did demo a copy of Halion 6 and found it underwhelming, just to scratch it off the potential list/recommendations..

BTW, If I do find what I'm after, I'll be selling a licence to KOMPLETE ultimate for a lot less than it normally retails for...

Cheers
-Steve

[chk071]

No offense, but, i'm surprised you bought a 1.000 € product, without knowing exactly what you'll find in it. Most of the single products have downloadable demos from Native Instruments website.

And i'm also surprised that you did not find at least something remotely to your liking in the many Kontakt libraries included. I'm not too familiar with Komplete, but, i always read that it's pretty... complete.

[3rdstone]

No offense taken. I picked these products up at a deep discount, and 'ultimate' was purchased when I found the 'standard' version lacking things that I wanted.
While definitely an improvement, not quite what I was looking for...

Let me elaborate on the terms 'flashy' and 'majestic' while I'm at it..

Flashy (to me) is an attention-getting thing that has an 'adrenaline rush' type of effect, popular these days. (very rudimentary definition)

And 'majestic' (to me) is more of a soothing thing. Whether it be 'atmospheric' or otherwise..tubular bells comes to mind.. (again, very rudimentary definition)

[chk071]

Alright. Hope someone can point you in the right direction. As i mentioned, i don't really know what sounds are in Komplete, and what's in the Korg M3.

[Echoes in the Attic]

It's hard to tell what you are looking for that you don't find in komplete.

For the type of genres you listed (rock,pop, gospel, jazz, progressive), you need a lot of normal acoustic instruments like live drums, bass guitar, pianos, electric keyboards, organs. Komplete has plenty of these and pretty good ones. The acoustic pianos, scarbee bass, vintage keys, the vintage organs, the drummer series. It doesn't have a great electric guitar so you might want a good 3rd kontakt electric guitar. Lots of good ones for that like from orange tree, impact soundworks (I quite like the impact hollowbody). And the for jazz there's the session horns, pretty powerful, plus all the orchestral stuff could be useful. And the cuban thing. Seems like there's a lot there that's not EDM so what sounds are you looking for that you don't have?

[yellowmix]

Load up Kontakt and load whatever instruments you use in your music. There is a very good organ instrument, excellent pianos, electric pianos, horns, drum kits, serviceable guitars, and quite the range of acoustic sounds. Ultimate gives you a great deal of value in that department. If you bought the libraries separately it would cost more.

A lot of contemporary music uses synthesizers and you have one of the most capable synths in Massive. The DX7 has a lot of great and classic sounds, and FM8 can do those, like electric pianos and bells. You mentioned the Korg M3 and it does these types of sounds. But I get it if you don't want to deal with it.

If you want extremely convincing acoustic instruments, it's going to get expensive. You're going to need Kontakt for a lot of these libraries anyway. You need to give examples of music (YouTube links or whatever) because those genres are extremely open-ended with regards to instruments used.

I am also tempted to suggest looking at Omnisphere 2, since it gets a lot of use in worship services due to its performance workflow and vast library, but there is no user self-demo and you have a habit of poor purchase research so I don't want to be responsible for it.

[slartibartfast]

I own a Korg M3, and use this as the master keyboard in my home setup. I have never regretted purchasing it.

It, as you say, has a wide range of sounds (single patches and multis) in an extensive range of genres and on top of that has the KARMA system on board which can generate grooves, arpeggios, effects etc in real time (kind of a mini sequencer) - and a full sequencer, which I ignore, using my DAW instead. It uses PCM multisamples as the foundation for all of its sounds. As such, it is probably hard to find an exact equivalent to this in software. Some options you may want to consider include:

- Korg's M1 plug-in (part of the Legacy collection). This faithfully recreates the sounds from the M1 keyboard - the predecessor to the M3 - in software, but the range of sounds is more limited than the M3, and it doesn't have KARMA. It also requires iLok, which may or may not be a deal breaker for you.
- Omnisphere - I don't have it, but from what I understand it is most likely to be full of the "meat and potatoes" sounds that you are looking for in a wide range of genres. Also not cheap, but cheaper than Komplete Ultimate - so you may be able to sell Komplete Ultimate and recoup most of the expense of replacing it with Omnisphere.
- Alchemy (if you are on Mac) - I still have (and use) the PC version, but it is no longer available on PC since being acquired by Apple. It has very similar capabilities to the M3, and like the M3, most of the presets are quite inspiring. Great for just mucking about on looking for inspiration. If you like Alchemy, Omnisphere is (I believe) the closest to it in terms of functionality and sound on PC.
- Synthmaster - also full of a wide range of styles and sounds "out of the box" - especially if you go for the Everything Bundle. And the latest version allows you to load your own waveforms/samples. But (for me at least) not quite as initially inspiring as the others above.
- Serum by Xfer Records - another wavetable synth. Great fun to experiment with, and comparatively easy to understand.

There are trial versions of Synthmaster and Serum available - no trial versions of the others, to my knowledge.

I hope this is useful.

[szurcio]

I would suggest a Halion 6 (bread and butter sounds, arps, and some synths) + Omnisphere 2 combo (more synths and plenty of pads and soundscapes). That combination should be able to replace a workstation like M3 or Motif, without the need to dive into the ultrarealistic and multi-terabyte world of Kontakt libraries. The arps in Halion will not replace KARMA but should provide plenty of inspiration if you like this type of thing (and they are editable).

[V0RT3X]

OP if you can sell your Komplete Ultimate you can still find an affordable M3 system on ebay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Korg-M3M-Super ... SwuMZZHEEI

[3rdstone]

Thanks for all of your replies and suggestions, much appreciated.
I need to run off to work now, but just wanted to say that maybe I haven't explored komplete as deeply as I should have, and will probably do so before I jump ship.
Thanks again
-Steve

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Sorry in advance if this is the wrong section of the forum...

As the title says, I'm really regretting buying into KOMPLETE (ultimate, no less)

There are some things in this software that are really cool, but most of it is geared toward music that I do not intend on making...

Back Story: I started out searching for software that would give me the sounds of (let's say) a Korg M3, but found no real links to products (free or otherwise)
I then saw many posts on forums and the like, stating that KOMPLETE would cover most bases.

Well, it might cover most bases if modern EDM etc. was what I wanted to record/produce, but that is not the case.

I'm not a keyboardist, first off. But I remember playing around with an M3 that was left here for band practice a few years back, and I could not get enough of it!
The sounds and patches seemed to cover anything I'd ever want to record, absolutely loved that thing..

Anyway, a long post to get to a simple question: Is there software available that is geared toward patches on keyboard workstations I've described, out there?
Geared toward genres like rock,pop, gospel, jazz, progressive music? (and not 'modern' EDM type sounds?)
(I'm not looking for 'flashy' samples, but more along the lines of 'majestic' samples, (if that makes sense)..hope so...


If there is, I sure wish someone in the know could clue me in, thanks...
Side note: I did demo a copy of Halion 6 and found it underwhelming, just to scratch it off the potential list/recommendations..

BTW, If I do find what I'm after, I'll be selling a licence to KOMPLETE ultimate for a lot less than it normally retails for...

Cheers
-Steve

Not only will you find pretty much everything you need just within the basik, inkluded Kontakt faktory library, but you also get a ton more kontent within komplete which improves upon those basik offerings - Tons of great pianos, organs, real basses, real drum kits. Also, instruments like Kontour and Prism offer different takes on traditional instruments. Add to that the really good orkestral suites, and you really have all the instruments you'll need.

You also get kuality mixing effekts, guitar effekts/kabinets, and some great reverbs/delays.

And, who knows, maybe one day you'll get a bit more adventurous and step outside of your normal genres. Then you'll have everything you need for those, also

You're likely overwhelmed, and suffering from buyer's remorse. But if you take time to go through each part of the pakkage...slowly, you'll find that even if you rule out the parts that will never serve you, you'll still have ended up with many times the value of your outlay.

[Guenon]

- Korg's M1 plug-in (part of the Legacy collection). This faithfully recreates the sounds from the M1 keyboard - the predecessor to the M3 - in software, but the range of sounds is more limited than the M3, and it doesn't have KARMA. It also requires iLok, which may or may not be a deal breaker for you.

The M1 doesn't require iLok, you are probably thinking of some other product. Anyway, a very nice instrument with that certain historical feel to it

To the OP, it pays off to explore Komplete further, too, and start building your own multis by layering stuff in Kontakt and in your DAW. There's so much to draw from in Komplete Ultimate, you'll be achieving numerous interesting custom sound colors this way.

[Googly Smythe]

Sorry in advance if this is the wrong section of the forum...

As the title says, I'm really regretting buying into KOMPLETE (ultimate, no less)

There are some things in this software that are really cool, but most of it is geared toward music that I do not intend on making...

Back Story: I started out searching for software that would give me the sounds of (let's say) a Korg M3, but found no real links to products (free or otherwise)
I then saw many posts on forums and the like, stating that KOMPLETE would cover most bases.

Well, it might cover most bases if modern EDM etc. was what I wanted to record/produce, but that is not the case.

I'm not a keyboardist, first off. But I remember playing around with an M3 that was left here for band practice a few years back, and I could not get enough of it!
The sounds and patches seemed to cover anything I'd ever want to record, absolutely loved that thing..

Anyway, a long post to get to a simple question: Is there software available that is geared toward patches on keyboard workstations I've described, out there?
Geared toward genres like rock,pop, gospel, jazz, progressive music? (and not 'modern' EDM type sounds?)
(I'm not looking for 'flashy' samples, but more along the lines of 'majestic' samples, (if that makes sense)..hope so...


If there is, I sure wish someone in the know could clue me in, thanks...
Side note: I did demo a copy of Halion 6 and found it underwhelming, just to scratch it off the potential list/recommendations..

BTW, If I do find what I'm after, I'll be selling a licence to KOMPLETE ultimate for a lot less than it normally retails for...

Cheers
-Steve

Not only will you find pretty much everything you need just within the basik, inkluded Kontakt faktory library, but you also get a ton more kontent within komplete which improves upon those basik offerings - Tons of great pianos, organs, real basses, real drum kits. Also, instruments like Kontour and Prism offer different takes on traditional instruments. Add to that the really good orkestral suites, and you really have all the instruments you'll need.

You also get kuality mixing effekts, guitar effekts/kabinets, and some great reverbs/delays.

And, who knows, maybe one day you'll get a bit more adventurous and step outside of your normal genres. Then you'll have everything you need for those, also

You're likely overwhelmed, and suffering from buyer's remorse. But if you take time to go through each part of the pakkage...slowly, you'll find that even if you rule out the parts that will never serve you, you'll still have ended up with many times the value of your outlay.

Interesting use of the letter K!

[lobanov]

1. Korg M1 plug-in doesn't require iLok.

2. Kontakt + this one:
https://soundsandsamples.com/product/ko ... s-kontakt/

[Konduktor]

Interesting use of the letter K!

I knew I kouldn't have been the only one who saw a pattern in Native Instruments' naming konventions. Aside from real German words like "Kontakt," it's so korny it's kringeworthy.