The Sound Board

On the NI forum NI just updated the Kontakt status thread with 5.6.0 now supposed to be available. It's not in my service center yet though.

Is there any reason to be excited about Kontakt 5.6? Anything new or improved for non-komplete owners? I tried to find something on the website, and it just kept taking me to the main Komplete splash page.

kpc wrote:Is there any reason to be excited about Kontakt 5.6? Anything new or improved for non-komplete owners? I tried to find something on the website, and it just kept taking me to the main Komplete splash page.

It has something of a UI overhaul, making it look more like Battery 4, Reaktor 6 etc. Not sure yet if that's a good thing, will be interested in early reports.

Half price upgrade sale now on - https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... /komplete/

Hmm...time for me to upgrade from KU 9 then?

Edit. Sod it. Just ordered it. Coming from KU9 it seems a good deal.

Oh-oh....is there a new version of Komplete on the horizon in a few months?

playz123 wrote:Oh-oh....is there a new version of Komplete on the horizon in a few months?

Possible Frank, but I'd guess not just yet. They tend to do upgrades about this time every year, and there doesn't seem too much new stuff yet to bundle into K12. I guess the biggie with be Kontakt 6 - I've lost track of how that's going to be honest, but I know they had some pretty serious issues with it.

In the meantime I'm on the fence - nothing greatly excites me, though Una Corda sounded nice.

I never upgraded from K10 Ultimate to K11 Ultimate. I subsequently picked up Una Corda and Replika XT along the way.
Even at the current $199.50 sale price, the upgrade just doesn't have enough I'm interested in that I don't already have covered.

I will wait for K12U, whenever that drops, and reevaluate. As Guy mentioned, there just isn't much new stuff yet to bundle into K12.

So who knows. Might be meat - might be cake - might be meat cake.

catsass wrote:meat cake.

mmmmm..... meat cake.....

I'm still on Komplete Ultim. 9 , did not feel 10 , or 11 were worth upgrading to.

I am either going to get Komp. Ult. 11 (at 50% Off), or wait for 12. The big question is ... When is Komplete 12 expected ? any guesses ?

Still on Komplete 9, I'll look, but the last time I looked I didn't see enough stuff I'd use to make it worthwhile. Maybe this time I'll look at Ultimate?

Muziksculp wrote: When is Komplete 12 expected ? any guesses ?

As I mentioned above, my guess is not yet. I see elsewhere the feeling is they're on roughly 18 month windows, which puts it at spring next year - that feels plausible.

I finally jumped on the Komplete train with this deal, only to find out that the new Native Access requires an internet connection, which my PC slave does not have... Luckily I found a cheap USB wifi option on Amazon, but I really didn't want to connect my PC to the internet.

SBmusic wrote:I finally jumped on the Komplete train with this deal, only to find out that the new Native Access requires an internet connection, which my PC slave does not have... Luckily I found a cheap USB wifi option on Amazon, but I really didn't want to connect my PC to the internet.

My Studio PCs are all connected to the web, no issues.

I think having studio PCs off the web is something of the past, and not the norm these days. Lots of advantages being online than offline today.

Muziksculp wrote:

SBmusic wrote:My Studio PCs are all connected to the web, no issues.

I think having studio PCs off the web is something of the past, and not the norm these days. Lots of advantages being online than offline today.

Yea I figured I would have to connect it at some point, most developers seem to be heading this way with updates/activation. Good to hear there should be no issues.

Komplete 8 here, no ultimate. Oddly enough, the most interesting added bit for me has been Rise and Hit, but that may be subsumed by Thrill.

Here's my analysis - Kontakt 6 will likely be a must-buy to keep up with newer libraries. So my choices are:

1. Pay £159 now, and pay another £320 for K12U in 9 months time.

2. Pay £159 now, and pay another £159 in 24 months time in the 2019 summer sale.

3. Pay nothing now, and pay £320 for K12U in 9 months time.

Given that there's really nothing I'm itching to get my mitts on in the K10U-K11U upgrade, just a few quite-nice-to-haves, I've chosen option 3. Also hoping Thrill will be in K12U, which is more appealing than anything in K11U.

If Thrill is included in K12U, hopefully it isn't a stripped down "Thrill Essentials" type situation with a pricey crossgrade path to the whole ball of wanks.

First time i'm thinking to abandone KU** updates and go to buy what i want.

KU12 next year or 2019?

Catsass - I think a light version of Thrill would be unlikely. They've only ever done that after an initial release for the Symphonic series, which is sort of a special case I think.

Thanks, Guy. Always the voice of reason.
I will wait patiently. Or patiently wait. Whichever comes first.

I don't have Komplete at all, never bought it, I just bought Kontakt on its own in 2013, I never thought the package was stellar back then. But now I could upgrade to Komplete 11 for €200 (plus VAT probably) and there's probably a bit more quality in there. Do you think it might be worth it in my case?

It would give me the pianos, the synths, a couple of drum kits and few fx and bits and pieces. The things I THINK I might actually use might be the pianos (e.g. una corda), maybe the drums (studio drummer), but then again I don't have Komplete so hard to know...

Any thoughts gratefully received.

Then again I could just wait and spent 350 sometime on Keyscape (I have Omni 2) which I'm sure I would love....

I just picked this up. It's great value for me because I upgraded from Komplete 8 standard to ultimate 11 for 299.

The additional drums, battery 4, una corda and a couple of synths alone are worth the money!

Heaviocity and the Trailer riser/percussion stuff might be good too. Look forward to it!

As well, picked up Komplete Ultimate 11 from version 10 a couple of days ago. Hummed and hawed about doing this update since it came out. I use Reaktor a lot in the past, big Indian Classical guy so I had enough motivation to consider it. Gots lots of orchestral stuff so the symphonic libraries are of little interest.

After some noodling Reaktor Blocks is pretty amazing in terms of setups and sound. I was pleasantly surprised as the demos gave me the impression the sonics were largely unmusical. Not so. Replika XT is remarkable as a delay unit getting lost in hallucinatory excursions for hours and hours, the India library is very good in terms of sound accuracy & mic placement. The instruments spread across about 12 octaves on the large ensemble patch so you have to go up and down a few octaves on your controller to access them. Una Corda is great but dive into the presets which may not be immediately self-evident when you launch into it. Amazing treatments on these presets that are quite surprising and delightful.

Haven't had time to get into some of the effects plugins or the synths Form and Flesh. The demos on those synths didn't impress me all that much but I could be surprised given the Blocks demos were not representative of what was contained therein.

Got the update from Ultimate 10 to Ultimate 11 at Best Service for $186 and change USD. Well worth it from my perspective for the stuff mentioned above. Sale ends pretty soon.

Thanks for that Andrew, that all sounds genuinely good, but I think I'll still wait for K12, hopefully with Kontakt 6 next spring or something.

Come to think of it, I'm getting rather good at spending no money whatsoever at the moment.