Native Instruments: Expansions

[Guy Rowland]

Well it's taken them long enough, but they finally figured out that they can sell expansions for Battery and some of their synths. They seem to be all genre-based bundles - so it might have stuff for Battery, Maschine, Massive and Prism for example. While lots won't be of too much interest here, I've been quite surprised that Battery in particular is fairly expansion light and some of these might be very welcome. I was pretty impressed with the demos of the first ones I listened to, Prismatic Bliss and Halcyon Sky. And in general, likely to be useful for nailing specific genres.

Native Instruments has announced the release of Expansions. Based on the Maschine Expansions series, these 50+ genre-based sound packs contain everything a musician needs to create a full track in a specific style, say NI. From preloaded drum kits to specially-designed synth presets, construction kits, samples, and song patterns, Expansions have been designed to fully integrate with a range of NI products, including Maschine, Battery 4, Massive, Monark, and Reaktor Prism.

Expansions are created hand-in-hand with top artists and sound designers from a wide range of genres. Producers can find everything from the gritty beats of Mobb Deep producer Havoc, to grime from scene pioneers like Roll Deep's Flowdan, or the heavy-hitting tech house of Umek.

More than just samples and loops, each Expansion equips musicians with all the necessary tools to build a track in a specific genre, from start to finish.

This includes:

Pre-assembled drum kits for Maschine and Battery 4
​This is the first time that Native Instruments has released new drum kits for Battery. Every kit is tagged and color-coded for clear, intuitive browsing, and Maschine ​kits come pre-mapped and enhanced by Maschine's FX chains.

New synth presets for Massive, Monark, and Reaktor Prism
These provide genre-specific sounds like deep basses, lush pads, and razor sharp leads, without the need for expert programming.

Construction kit loops, samples, and one-shots
Coming in WAV format and compatible with any DAW, construction kits work as versatile creative building blocks. Samples and one-shots slot into any sampler and are 100% royalty free.

Pre-made MIDI patterns and FX chains for Maschine
Using Expansions with Maschine gives even more flexibility.​ Pre-made patterns act as editable construction kits, allowing users to make them their own on the fly, for super-quick creativity. Plus, FX chains allow users to dial in a genre-specific feel at the turn of a knob.

Current Maschine Expansion owners can enjoy a free upgrade to Expansions by updating in Native Access. Once the update is downloaded, they get all the extra content detailed above. Plus, they can now use their Expansions in any DAW.

Over 50 Expansions are available now, and a steady flow of new Expansions are on their way covering even more styles of music. Musicians and producers can find their flavor by browsing through genres on the Expansions home page.

Price in GBP is £44.00 each.

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/s ... xpansions/

[Arcana]

I looked at this last night.

As I got a S61 recently, I've started to use Battery a lot more. But until now, you've more or less been stock with the factory kits, as there's really not that much available in terms of extra kits. So, this is a very welcome addition.

I've just realised that I still have my K10U voucher so I could essentially have these for 1/2 price.
Quite tempted to try out Byte riot, Neon drive or Solar breeze.

[Guy Rowland]

One thing that appears to be a bit of a shame is that for Battery, I think it'll just be appearing as user kits, with no tagging (there's my hobby horse again). I think you get some tags if going va Komplete Kontrol, but that's likely to be pretty basic. A real plus of Battery is that you can search for an analogue snare or what have you on a sample by sample basis, a real missed opportunity that these can't integrate with the factory library in that way.

[Arcana]

Outside of Omnisphere I'm not that bothered about tagging to be honest.
For example, I use Diva and Serum a lot, and have quite a few expansions for each, but it's generally a case of 'I'm looking for a Pop bass, so I'll go to my Pop soundsets and go through the basses'.

In Battery for example, with these expansions, if I'm working on EDM, I'll go to my 'Deep matter' or 'Electric vice' expansions, and leave 'Basement era' or 'Sweet swarm' until I'm working on Hip hop.