Native Instruments today launches a new version of its flagship Kontakt sampler with new filters, effects and processing, improved sound quality, and sound design features. NI also refreshes Komplete – including, at last, a Komplete bundle that really does include kompletely everything. And we see new products covering drum samples and grooves and studio effects, too, as well as a major update to the sound design and processing capabilities of Guitar Rig.

Sadly, that isn’t the Komplete Infinity package we saw lampooned last week, which promised “quite literally every sound that can be possibly be acoustically produced in free space on Earth … ” even including “the sound of one clapping on the North side of a Forest in Tanzania at four o’clock in the morning 60% humidity and low air pressure with a Neumann U87 at a distance of three feet.” But it does include a lot – optionally everything NI makes, bundled on a hard drive.

Here’s the parody ad, wherever it came from (I’m happy to provide credit if someone will step forward):

But what we do get is a Komplete I think may come closer to what users have wanted from that bundle.

Aside from Komplete, though, let’s talk Kontakt 5, which in this upgrade promises a whole host of new processing, filtering, and sound design tools, as well as worthy-looking new releases in the studio effects, guitar processing, and sampled drum groove categories.

Kontakt 5

The creator of Massive, the terrific “no, you don’t only have to make dubstep with it” synthesizer, is behind the new Kontakt. As a result, you get:

• 37 new filters, from Moog-inspired ladder filters to state-variable models to modern formant filters.
• Adaptive Resonance, which manages “excessive resonance peaks” (I assume by adjusting either gain or the resonance curve or both, but I’ll have to find out)
• TimeMachine Pro time-stretching.
• New EQ and compressor algorithms from an upcoming “Solid Mix Series,” plus a new Tape Saturator.
• Vintage sampling modes from Maschine.
• Transient Designer, available separately, is now an integrated effect. Ed.: confused here, as NI refers alternatively to Transient “Designer” and Transient “Master.” I’ll clarify. Hmmm… “Transient Lord”? “Dark Sorcerer of the Transients”?
• MIDI file support for KSP scripting users.
• 16 internal stereo buses for routing flexibility.
• New retro synth presets.

To me, it looks like the biggest Kontakt update since the sampler added scripting capability, and a very big deal. It’s really part of the challenge of NI’s product line, honestly – you could easily enough lose yourself in just Kontakt without needing a whole suite of stuff, even before you get into Kontakt’s 43 GB bundle of sounds.

If you are a completionist, though, the new Komplete is looking good.

Komplete 8

Komplete 8 is the obligatory update of Komplete that brings together the latest software releases. The standard version now includes 27 products, adding Kontakt 5, Guitar Rig 5, the West Africa percussion instrument, Studio Drummer, Transient Master, plus 1300 additional presets for Absynth, FM8, and Massive.

More interesting, perhaps, is Komplete 8 Ultimate, which packs all of the currently-available “Komplete instruments and effects” (so, the current active NI product line) onto a USB 2.0 hard drive, with 13,000 sounds and 240 GB of samples.

Clarification: As observed by reader aje of Keyquest Music, the hard disk is a convenience for installation, but not, sadly, a self-contained external means of running the software. As NI words it in their press release:

The hard drive enables a fast and convenient installation process, and also constitutes a compact and robust backup medium for the software.

To be sure, hard disk upgrades are inexpensive these days, but it’d sure be nice to have a version of Komplete you can plug into any machine and use as-is.

This note is interesting, too, suggesting NI sees Massive at the kore (sorry, poor choice of words) of its new strategy:

Both new KOMPLETE versions are optimized for Native Instruments’ groove production system MASCHINE, offering direct browser integration with attribute-based preset search as well as convenient automatic parameter mapping for the rotary knobs on the hardware controller.

So, that gives you a lot of presets. To me, the ease of having things on a hard drive is the real draw. I wonder if we’ll ever see custom hardware/OS combinations for software distribution, but that’s another discussion. (For previous examples, see early custom versions of Final Scratch, Native Instruments’ own Komplete shipping on the Linux-based, rack-mounted Muse Receptor, or, to get really obscure, Emagic’s C-Lab’s work with the Atari Falcon.)

Guitar Rig 5 Pro

I’m glad I didn’t have to write NI’s press release. Guitar Rig includes more guitar rig things. It has more guitar things in its rig than it did before, covering the things that they added to the guitar thing.

What’s new:

• New amp models, “Van51″ and “HotSolo+.”
• New effects: a new “classic” compressor model, “vintage” plate and spring reverb, studio-grade convolution based on Reflektor, 8-band filter bank, “stereo tune” chorus, “Resochord” harmonizor.
• Convolution-based speaker emulation with “Control Room Pro,” which adds 27 cabinets, 16 mics, combinations of eight cabinets (which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me relative to real world sound, but sounds interesting, at least), and mic placement and room sound controls. Since where you put mics and speakers in rooms has such a profound impact, this has been a kind of holy grail of guitar modeling; it’ll be interesting to hear how it stacks up to rivals.
• Sidechaining with modules. (Invent guitar dubstep!)
• Effect chains can be combined into macros NI calls “Containers” – very cool.

I’ve always been a fan of Guitar Rig for creative sound design, not just, you know, guitars, so this looks like a terrific combination of ingredients to me.

New Effects: Solid Mix, Transient Master

The effects developed for Guitar Rig are also being adapted into studio products. The Solid Mix Series is a 4-band EQ and compressor with sidechain capabilities, and a dynamics section and stereo compressor. Really, it’s somewhat surprising that these didn’t appear previously; it finally gives NI an entry in the bread-and-butter signal processing category for producers. (Aside from some intended for use in Reaktor, or presets based on those, I can’t think of a straight-ahead product from NI that did that.)

Transient Master is basically a dynamic-reshaping envelope follower.

Studio Drummer

Sampled drum kits meet a groove player in the newest drum product from NI. It’s an old idea – simulate what a drummer does by combining sounds with patterns – but the twist here is integration with Kontakt. The actual drum samples sound interesting, too, based on Pearl, Sonor, and Yamaha kits sampled at Berlin’s Teldex Studios and an 18-mic array for 17 GB of velocity-layered samples. That means I could see some people using the samples minus the grooves – and you do get some modern-sounding kits. Otherwise, we’ll just have to hear what the 3500 rhythmic patterns sound like.

In fact, my only real complaint is that the interface to me looks absurdly like the interface in Cakewalk’s Session Drummer. (Heck, they have almost the same names.) The sample content is very different – Cakewalk’s offering even includes electronic drum machines, which gives you the odd experience of looking at an acoustic kit and hearing a LinnDrum.

Anyway, that was just my first impression. Upon looking closer, you can see that the Studio Drummer UI has no rug, and parquet hardware floors instead of hardware floors.

Enough of nit-picking the UI. NI has cowbell and tambourine. Advantage: NI.

Putting it all together…

Pricing and availability, in short:

Komplete: US$559 ($229 update)

Komplete Ultimate, US$1099 ($559 update) with hard drive

Kontakt 5, US$339 ($119 update)

Guitar Rig Pro: US$199 for software, US$449 with pedalboard controller; US$79-only software update

Solid Mix Series: US$229 for the set or $119 a la carte effects

Transient Master: US$119

Studio Drummer: US$169

Everything’s available in September, and all the software is now included in Komplete.

Yes, that’s a lot of software. I hope my few months in Berlin this year prove to be this productive. I’d better chug the Club-Mate.

The word on the street I’ve been hearing is that a lot of users are curious in which direction NI is headed. A lot of users are, understandably, frustrated by seeing Kore discontinued after NI had pushed it as a central strategy, and because they worry about their own personal investment of time in tools. We also saw a shareholder reorganization in May, which returned the company to self-owned status. With the original founders and executive team now also in full ownership of the company, that could give NI freedom to focus on their priorities, and it comes at a time that they’ve seen significant sales growth. (Despite a rough economy, and past claims that music software doesn’t grow the way hardware does, I’ve heard several makers say they’ve seen healthy business right through the global recession. You can probably thank the passion of musicians for that.)

I’ll be interested to see this latest generation of NI software, and more of the company’s direction.

Our man in Seattle, Primus Luta aka David Dobson, continues his video coverage of the Decibel Festival for CDM with another set of feature coverage. All that coffee out there must be working. Take it away…

Despite being the first event after an incredible night, which for many extended well beyond the 2am last call, Pravda Studios is packed early on day three for a full schedule of conference activities.  It comes as little surprise though, the first workshop is one most who are involved with the release of music today are concerned with – “Creating a Digital Promotion Plan.”  Led by the PR savvy Shilo Urban of DanceFever5000 and head of promotions Decibel Erica Toelle, the workshop details the direct and indirect means of promoting music.  Covering issues including social networking, contacting blogs and labels, and building a promotions team, the hour long session is a crash course in self promotions.

There is little change over between the first and second session, indeed considering the subject matter perhaps the second session of the day should have preceeded the first.  The title “Uncertain Future: P2P Streams and Diffusing Works in the New Media World” paints a grim picture, but thankfully the panel is able to reveal some silver linings behind the clouds covering music today.  Moderated by Dave Segal of Seattle newspaper The Stranger, the panel features representatives from labels, radio and the press.  While it would seem most of the labels attest to following the BBE model (Barely Breaking Even) there does seem to be enthusiasm for this time in music.  Fans have become a commodity which both values music and is valuable to it, while labels have become cultural curators through which fans can filter through the deluge of releases to find the music that speaks to them.

As the next changeover happens things shift back to technology and creativity.  Where previous workshops on these lines dealt with music in a live setting the next two sessions focus on production in the studio.  ”Beat Production in Ableton Live” is hosted by Huston Singletary alongside Take.  Some of the tips Singletary provides are rather basic for the intermediate audience, but within them quite a few hidden gems are revealed.  Even more, Take seizes the opportunity to ask the hard questions of the in-house Ableton representatives, like why envelope information cannot be placed on clips.  At the end the audience takes his lead to probe the Ableton team about other software anomalies including the lack of SysEx support.

The next workshop focuses the new Native Instruments Komplete 7 presented by Dubspot, hosted by Thomas Faulds and featuring Lorn.  There isn’t enough time in an hour for Faulds to cover the 90GB package in total, so he focuses in on perhaps the bundles most powerful application Reaktor.  Things really get interesting when the focus shifts to Lorn who gives the audience a peak inside of his creative process by breaking down some of his own productions.  He turns to the layering of his drums utilizing multiple Battery instances.  While layering drums is not necessarily new there is something very special about Lorn’s approach which is most evident when all the layers are put together.  His drums are by no means merely stock Battery sounds.

In the heart of Downtown Seattle, the Nordstrom Recital Hall in Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, has been set up for the first of three Optical events at this years Decibel.  Decibel founder Sean Horton explains that the Optical events serve to show another side of electronic music.  It isn’t all about keeping the dance floor moving; contemplative works of electronic music too deserve their proper place, and the concert hall serves as a perfect setting.  Additionally serves another purpose which electronic music is in many ways at the forefront, and that is the integration of music and visuals.  Within this setting one must expect that they like their musical counterpart need not be of the rapid fire psychadelic variety, but instead touch the audience at the same depth as the music.

Robert Henke under his birth moniker is first, though he does not actually take the stage.  Instead he is positioned behind the projector at the center of the hall with a small mixing desk where he weaves sonic textures around slowly progressive visuals that pair the natural with the industrial.  The synergy between the sound and visual works wonderfully as one looks for the subtle changes visually as much they are listening for them.  As the volume of change in the visuals increase so too do the aural.

Murcof is next with visuals provided by Scott Sunn and from the first chord it is evident the audience is in for a ride.  The chord itself is obviously symphonic, but synthetic in a way which could never be duplicated by the musicians who normally call the hall their home.  The sound of it calls back to the workshop with Lorn; it is familiar but treated in such a manner as to become personalized to the artist.  It is taken a step further with Sunn’s visuals, which echo each of Murcof’s chords with imagery obviously computer generated, but the fluidity of his smoke like shapes make them seem almost organic.  If Sunn were standing in front of the screen with a brush one might think he is painting them, and the beautiful thing is that he actually is.

The final act for the evening Mark Van Hoen unfortunately served to exemplify one of the major setbacks of all electronic music – there will be glitches.  Fortunately he is able to work his way through them to complete a performance even if not the one he originally intended.   Back on Capital Hill Ill Cosby is warming up the Baltic Room for the Planet Mu showcase, Shlomo is warming up the Neumos crowd for the Red Bull Music Academy On The Floor event and the four is already on the floor courtesy of Mister Leisure in Sole Repair as Seattle’s own Trust crew aims to keep the crowd jumping all night.  On the far side of town, the stage at Motor is filled with instruments as the Art of Rhythm event plans to showcase the roots of electronic rhytms through a myriad of global beat influences, laid down by the likes of Phutureprimative and Beats Antique.  The selections for the evening are incredible but the distance between them less than desirable, setting up for hard decisions and sacrifice.

Apparently overnight Neumos either acquired or fixed a smoke machine, and whoever is operating it is trying to use it at every opportunity possible.  The first couple of times it makes for a nice atmospheric choice, but after a while it is just annoying.  Not annoying enough to take away from the stellar performance Brainfeeder Teebs is putting down.  Considering the heaviness usually associated with the hip-hop beat category he is thrown into, the melodic development of his songs show that there’s far more to the sub-genre than the strict headnod.  It compliments perfectly the early bubble in the crowd as he works his Roland 404, building up the energy slowly.  By the end he is showing that while he may prefer the more textured approach he can lay it down heavy with the rest of them.

While the line-up for this Red Bull event is indeed spectacular, the set arrangement leaves a lot of room for improvement, evident by the strange transition from Teebs into Addison Groove.  He’s billed as Headhunter, but as soon as the first thump from his Roland 808 hits, it’s quite clear this is an Addison Groove set.  The crowd takes little notice of the awkward switch into his dub techno floor rockers, but instead just take the cue to start the heavy dancing for the night a little early.

Over at the Baltic Room Falty DL is laying down a rundown of electronic music genres from the 90′s to today that somehow makes a pitstop at Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” before Starkey brings out Ikonika in a time slot an hour early.  She brings the bass heavy to the dancefloor, but perhaps has taken the early slot to slip out like others are to catch the first live U.S. appearance by Mount Kimbie back at Neumos, where a longer than expected intermission between sets is doing a good job of prepping the crowd for the second awkward transition of the night.

The UK duo is without a doubt the most anticipated set of the festival.  Their buzz precedes in them, and in this case has everyone in the crowd wondering if their live show can live up to the expectations of their recordings.  The smoke machine would make for a funny coincidence were they to have a repeat performance of their set the previous night where electrical difficulties left the majority of their rig powered down.  But there were no mirrors on the stage as they kicked into their dream like blend of every modern electric music influence imagineable.  Their hold of the audience’s attention beyond being well warranted was also quite fulfilling.

For the final awkward transition of the evening the Neumos crowd is released from the downtempo post dubstep of Mount Kimbie into the all out frenzy that is Modeselektor.  Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary hit the stage as if it is the cockpit, standing confidently behind their controls, scoping out the air space before turning off the fasten seat belt light so the passengers could enjoy every bump of the ride.

At the witching hour Decibel has the whole city of Seattle jumping, Modeselektor is trying to push past last call to honor their European club rocking heritage.  The trust party has hit full stride as Trus’Me mans the DJ booth at Sole Repair.  Beats Antique is fusing sounds turning Motor into a tribal dance.  At the Baltic Room Starkey is laying it all on the line with his breed of musical but still very heavy dubstep.  It stands as a testament to the power and reach of the music through all of its sounds.  That is until the bass booming from Baltic blows the subs.  Thankfully there are still after parties.

In addition, though, today’s Komplete 7 announcement brought some new tools to the table, as seen in the image gallery above. (Click on the thumbnails for a closer look.) They include a number of surprise effects announcements, and one less-surprising – but intriguing – synth for the new release of Reaktor from NI’s sonic scientist-in-chief.

• Reaktor Prism is a new “modal synth” created by NI founder and Reaktor creator Stephan Schmitt. Stephan walked me through Prism when I visited him in Berlin earlier this summer, and I have to say, it’s one of the software releases I’m most excited about – Stephan’s ideas about synthesis are always refreshing and inspiring. It makes a lot of use of the new objects in 5.5. It’s hard to describe, so stay tuned for more on it soon.
• Reflektor is a “zero-latency” convolution engine for simulating reverbs and other effects.
• Traktor’s 12 brings some of the effects from Traktor into producer’s hands. That’s good news, because some of Traktor’s far-out and granular-based timbres seem a natural for non-DJs.
• Rammfire is a new amp emulation developed with Richard Z. Kruspe of Rammstein.

While some standalone instruments and effects had been casualties of a trimmed Komplete suite in previous releases — Spektral Delay, Vokator, B4, and Akoustik Piano come to mind — those are replaced in this version by the addition of extensive soundware for the remaining flagship instruments. Scarbee Vintage Keys and MM-Bass, Abbey Road 60s Drums, and the Classic Piano Collection more than make up for the omission of dedicated piano and organ instruments, folding these instead into the consistent interface of the Kontakt and Battery samplers. Vintage Organs becomes the new replacement for B4, or as an NI spokeperson described it to me, a “spiritual successor.”

More interesting, you also get some more unusual instrumental creations: Reaktor Spark (also by Schmitt), Tim Exile’s insanely-brilliant performance effect The Finger, and the sonically-adventurous Acoustic Refractions.

So, that’s what’s new in terms of new stuff. But the new Komplete also represents some shifts in strategy, ones that mean cheaper access to sounds for those who don’t want all of the editing capabilities. That shift goes beyond even previous player and Kore soundware from NI.

Player for Guitar Rig, Reaktor

In addition to the expanded sonic palette, Komplete reflects a different way of delivering instruments. Guitar Rig Player allows effects to be delivered standalone in a “universal” (well, that’s what NI calls it – it’s universal for them) effects platform. Reflektor and Rammfire are delivered on the Guitar Rig Player platform, a bit like the soundware we’ve seen for Kontakt.

More notably, Reaktor Player means that Reaktor patches can finally be distributed without having to buy the full release of Reaktor. Unlike previous Kore versions, these won’t have a crippled UI. You’ll get the full, graphical user interface for some brilliant Reaktor patches, without having to buy the whole Reaktor package if you don’t want to edit them. Depending on how much NI exploits this idea, that could make Reaktor a more compelling tool for artists to create new instruments and effects for the platform, at least for those who work with NI directly.

Pricing and “Elements”

At US$559 for the whole set ($229 update), Komplete is also looking more economical, and I think is competitive with the pack-in instrument bundles in tools like Logic and Live.

If half a grand is steep, there’s also a budget “Elements” edition at US$119, which incorporates the Kontakt, Kore, and Guitar Rig engines plus 12 gigs of sample materials and 2000 sounds. You don’t get the full editing capabilities of the whole packages, but it means a cheap way to get a huge dose of preset sound content. There’s also a $60 voucher for adding on a la carte instruments and effects presets.

Upgrading from standalone NI products appears to be more difficult, unfortunately, say a couple of readers. That’s not great news; I’ll contact NI for clarification. Previous Komplete owners can easily upgrade from any version. Some standalone NI products are covered; here’s the upgrade deal:

Introductory Komplete 7 Upgrade
for owners of Kontakt (any version), Reaktor (Version 2 and upwards), Kore 2 or Guitar Rig 4 Kontrol Edition
Available until December 31st, 2010 as long as stock lasts
$339 / 299 €

But this isn’t a review – merely an acknowledgement that some of this is stuff I think will get us excited. Stay tuned for a full review, and details on some of the stand-out creations here, soon.

See comments for some interesting discussion of for whom this upgrade and pricing makes sense, and for whom it might not.

Native Instruments released a slew of soft synth updates today – thanks to everyone who sent this in. The big news is that Absynth, the alien-sounding synth that has become a darling of sound designers, gets a big update. But with so much to cover, here’s the in-a-nutshell version so you can grok it all in one place.

The other big news – Komplete’s price is down to EUR499/US$559, with cheaper upgrade pricing to match. That makes the suite much more aggressive, and certainly as far as software instruments, as much as you can get in any one box, anywhere, for that amount of change. It’s not all good news, though – there were some cuts of instruments from the lineup. Correction: These products are in fact discontinued. Pro-53, Akoustik Piano, and B4 II are being terminated, though unlike the previous vocoder and spectral delay, it sounds as though the replacement is effectively sample libraries in Kontakt.

Disclaimer: I’m reading this from a press release and peppering it with what either might be considered my expansive experience and finely-honed instincts or, in technical terms, “randomly made-up speculation.” Less review, more fauxview. Expect more once we’ve used these in the flesh.

Absynth 5

The synth Jim Aikin once described to me as a “rabbit hole” has just gotten deeper. New in this release:

• Supercomb filter for “physical-modeling-type” sounds – think exquisite new resonance.
• Cloud filter for granular-based modulation.
• Filter feedback paths for “gritty” “unpredictable” …well, you know, filter feedback.
• “Aetherizer” for breaking up and rearranging sound particles, apparently derived from granular models but implemented in an unusual way.
• More presets, in case you want a guide exploring the stuff above.
• Mutator for morphing presets based on musical keywords – an alternative way of navigating presets.

Those new filters and processors sound really extraordinary to me. I have a small selection of “desert island” synths. Absynth might qualify for when you move to a different planet.

Kontakt 4

Here’s a surprise. You see, Native Instruments only updated its flagship sampler to 3.5 as recently as July. That was no minor update, either, featuring 64-bit memory support (on Windows) and greater 32-bit memory (up to 32 GB on Mac), plus improved from-disk streaming, multi-core support, MIDI learn, and other enhanced features and compatibility. In less than a month and a half, they’re back to announce version 4.

And it does sophisticated live convolution of samples. Somewhere, someone is thinking of realistic purposes for that. I’m thinking Absynth may have company on that alien planet.

• Authentic Expression Technology (AET)  What? A process that mimics authentic instruments – with an obscure acronym to match? Is NI channeling Roland? AET isn’t quite like anything I’ve heard before, with a “phase-corrected convolution” based on an analysis of the original acoustic instrument sample. (In other words, it squishes your sample together with the analyzed behavior of a real-world instrument.) It’s a unique-sounding process, and one I’d love to hear warped to unusual sound design purposes – not just faking real instruments, but inventing new ones.
• Vowel morphing for choirs. (Yeah, see what I just said? You’re going to want to route synths through AET, too, aren’t you?)
• A sampled Mellotron.
• Sample compression to save on resources – without losing audio fidelity or taxing the CPU, says NI.
• Multi Scripts for Kontakt scripting users.
• A new sound browser with “more musical” terms.
• A stack of belgian waffles, dripping in syrup. (Okay, I made that one up. Mmmmm… waffles.)

Guitar Rig 4 (Pro and otherwise)

Where do you go in a crowded guitar emulation market, with a package that’s already crammed with sound tools? NI has chosen to focus on the speakers/cabinet/mic. There’s more talk of convolution – here, “latency-free” convolution – but I know NI’s tools often use different techniques for the different products, which means this may not be exactly what’s showing up in Kontakt; more on that once I find out exactly what they’ve done. New in “Pro”:

• Advanced cabinet, mic modeling: NI says they’ve applied latency-free convolution in order to get more precise models from their software. (Well, okay, digital processes inherently add latency, so let’s assume extreme-low-latency).
• Control Room mic + cabinet matching: Other guitar amp emulations do effectively this – there are some simple combinations in Apple’s new Logic 9, most recently. But NI says that, again, their technology is special, with phase-aligned studio mics for each cabinet and work by German guitar and recording guru Peter Weihe.
• New tube amps: “Hot Plex,” “Jump.”
• Two new delays, two new reverbs.
• Dedicated master effects section.
• True-stereo processing throughout the signal chain.
• Better sound quality for pitch-based effects.
• More host automation, controller assignment.
• Use the Rig Kontrol 3 pedal board as a MIDI controller with anything you like.

That’s just the flagship; some updates apply across the range to other packaged versions of the Guitar Rig line, with different sets of features and hardware that are a bit too complex to compare now.

Komplete 6

For those keeping score at home, here’s what you get if you prefer the whole box.

New versions:

• Absynth 5
• Kontakt 4
• Guitar Rig 4

And the existing lineup:

• Battery 3
• FM8
• Massive
• Reaktor 5
• Elektrik Piano (now simply as Kontakt samples, but that’s fine)

And those upgrading who felt burned in the past by the process, NI seems to be giving something back this time. All the way back to Komplete 2, you can upgrade for US$169, and Kontakt and Reaktor owners – any version – can Komplete themselves for US$339/EUR299 through the end of 2009.

The full Komplete package is now just US$559/EUR499.

So, what got cut:

• Akoustic Piano
• B4 II
• PRO-53

These three products are in fact discontinued. Pro-53 was a bit out of place in the suite, it’s true, and looking (and sounding) long in the tooth; NI is generally more about creating new synths than emulating old ones. The B4 and Akoustik Piano, though, I think are going to be missed. Akoustik Piano has some great piano samples and controls that aren’t really replaced by the piano samples in Kontakt. And while the C-3 samples in Kontakt sound terrific, you miss out on the variations and sound design options in B4 II. I’m guessing someone may be passionate about that, seeing as how they’re handcrafting full-sized controllers for it with custom stops and DIY electronics just to play it. It sounds like the direction is toward sampling, though, so perhaps we’ll see some additions in the Kontakt sample library to compensate for these omissions. Meanwhile, if you’ve already got these products, you can hang onto them.

I still think this gives Komplete an extra edge. And let’s not lose the real story here – real time convolution and crazy filtering in Absynth. I’ll sleep on that.

Oh yeah, and iPhone apps? Cool, but when you want to put more supercomputer-style processing on your tracks, your desktop computer is still your friend.

Native Instruments

Normally, pricing announcements and sales press releases bore me to tears, but this is actually news – Native Instruments is selling Komplete for July only at just US$/EUR 399, instead of $1139/EUR999.

That means if you were looking for Reaktor alone – about as good a desert island music software choice as you can find – this would be a good deal. You also get Absynth, the absurdly deep (if sometimes baffling) synth with surround sound envelopes and a workflow that could change how you think about sound, the very nice effects and loop recording in Guitar Rig, and the scriptable sampler Kontakt, as well as the Battery drum sampler and lovely Massive synth.

As recession specials go, this is a tough one to beat.

http://www.native-instruments.com/komplete5.info

In other news, we’re opening up more discussion of tools like Reaktor (among many others) to the community here on noisepages; check out Peter Dines’ recent modulations blog for thoughts on Reaktor (and the free and open source SuperCollider), or his just-formed Reaktor group, on which he asks, “what problems are you solving with Reaktor?”

Let’s cut straight to the reason we use this stuff: we want crazy-sounding delays we can play with. Reaktor guru Peter Dines shows just how you’d build such a thing in Reaktor from the ground up for CDM’s Kore site. He also takes it one step further by creating not only the Reaktor ensemble, but also a Kore performance preset to match. The advantage of going this route: Kore provides a way of organizing parameters for control, performance, and automation.

This is another all-free download, so have at it. Now I feel like I’m in a patching race with Peter, because I’ve got some ideas of my own for how you might modify this basic idea; let’s see if I can actually make that happen.

Making sense of Kore

The other side of the minisite is we’re further exploring what Kore is for and how to make it work. We asked readers of the minisite to tell us their thoughts on how Kore is going and how they use it, which has yielded an interesting comment thread:

How Do You Kore?

Our main focus, of course, is simply teaching people how to use the tool effectively – from there, you can decide whether it’s for you and how you want to use it. To that end, I’ve got the first half of a tutorial up that explains what for me was the biggest draw and the most initially confusing, which is the control pages Kore uses to assign automation and physical control. I walk through why you’d want this, how it works, and how you manage different levels of the control pages:

Demystifying Kore Control Pages for Automation and Performance, Pt. I: Different Page Types

We also have some important basics, like Kontakt automation, how to get a normal mixer view, and external MIDI control.

Coming soon: I’m planning some short features on each of NI’s instruments. We’ll have to call it the “get it out of the shrinkwrap” series, especially for people who got the overwhelming set of instruments that comes with Komplete.

Hardware is wonderful, but make no mistake about it: many musicians have put the same care and musical love into their software setup as once was limited to tangled guitar pedal rigs. We’ve been watching as intricate computer music studios appear in the CDM Flickr pool.

proem, the gifted electronic musician from Austin, Texas (see Wikipedia, proem’s own site) who regular shares haiku-like reflections in CDM comments, is the latest to post his setup:

• Dual Dell e207 LCD displays
• Windows PC
• FL Studio (aka Fruity Loops), with a custom dashboard for controlling all the hardware and a modded install
• Native Instruments Komplete
• Evolution MK249-c keyboard (Evolution was a UK-based keyboard maker later absorbed by M-Audio)
• M-Audio Trigger Finger
• Wacom Intuos3 6×8 (just picked up the same tablet myself and adore it — mouse, begone!)
• The now-discontinued (sadly) Fingerworks iGesture multi-touch controller. Apple iGuesture any time soon, perhaps? (I’ve heard rumors from a couple of sources that they bought the patents.)
• The not-discontinued Shuttle XPress
• Tablet2MIDI, which translates Wacom graphics tablets to MIDI data for use in performance

proem: midi control over load. this does not include the setups for the p5 glove or my mk-249c keyboard controller. i should probably aslo note that tablet2midi is still in beta and i have to set it up everytime i want to use it
check the 3200×1200 version for good detail.

Whereas hardware fetishists brag about heavy, costly gear collections, the software setup has more to do with clever configuration and control. (Hey, I’m not saying I don’t drool over, say, some of the live rigs we’ve diagrammed in Keyboard Magazine, but the fact that you can afford and lift a great PC setup is encouraging.)

Custom performance setups are definitely where it’s at. FL Studio has Dashboards, Reason has the Combinator, Logic Studio 8 has the new OnStage, Live has Racks, Reaktor has — well, completely custom interfaces, Max 5 promises new performance interfaces, and Native Instruments has Kore. (Just to name a few; SONAR, Cubase, and DP all have custom dashboards with branding I’m presently forgetting.) The basic idea: build a virtual front-panel so you can get right to music making. I personally think it’s interesting all these applications have moved in this direction, with different implementations / design principles. I hope they all continue to go further.

The Tablet2MIDI part is especially interesting. Tablets have unusually high resolution and sensitivity, making them very expressive controllers once you’ve practiced using them. Also on Windows: WMIDI. If you’re on the Mac instead of Windows, you have an excellent (and slightly more polished/stable) alternative, µ midi controller from Music Unfolding. And naturally, on any OS, you can custom-program or patch a solution with Max, Pd, and so on. But this, combined with all the X/Y control, makes for a beautiful set of tools for controlling sound. I’d love to see it in action, proem!

I’ve finally gotten a better tablet myself, a shiny, new, 6×8 Intuos from Wacom. That’s a good thing, because the cheap 4×5 Wacom I had previously first made me feel like I had somehow disconnected my hand from my brain (a combination of the smaller area, lower resolution, and challenge of using tablets in general), then promptly stopped working altogether. I’ll be trying out the Wacom on Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu Linux, and working on hooking it up to Java and Processing, so stay tuned.

Previously:

Flickr Screen Grabs: Infinite Video Theremin, Odd, Free Musical Interfaces

Soft Flickr Finds: Obscenely Complex Bass Effects on a Single Channel

Use Graphics Tablets for Music: New and Updated Software, Free Tablet Theremin