NI Komplete 13

[Guy Rowland]

First details are in via Guitar Centre - https://www.guitarcenter.com/Native-Ins ... 0331803.gc . For Ultimate:

New additions include: GUITAR RIG 6 PRO, STRADIVARI VIOLIN, PHARLIGHT, PICKED ACOUSTIC, CREMONA QUARTET, MYSTERIA, STRAYLIGHT, NOIRE and SUPER 8

Looks like they've jumped the gun on the official word, will update with full details when they're up. But nice to see Stradivari in there (thought it might be Collector's), and v interested in Guitar Rig 6 Pro - I still use Guitar Rig heaps, it's fabulous for effects-ambient stuff, if less so for crunch.

[kpc]

The page is now live:

Komlete 13

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks Kayle. Worth noting that Guitar Centre has Cremona Quartet incorrectly listed in Ultimate, that and Arkhis are Collectors.

Ultimate still looks good. Almost certainly I can wait another 9 months for the half price sale though.

Here's the page on Guitar Rig 6 - weird that they've taken all the visuals off the cabs. I know its just UI, but it messes with my head. Lots of interesting looking stuff otherwise though.

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... =91k4_gj17

[wst3]

something wrong with me I guess. There is nothing there that interests me, I mean I don't even use everything in Komplete 12, so perhaps I really am becoming a non-consumer? Oh my! (in my defense I did just buy a lovely Regal RD-30M, which is a mahogany, spider style, round neck resophonic guitar. Waiting for the Wells Fargo Wagon with some patience<G>. I do own a 1932 National Duolian, which uses the biscuit bridge, and is an all metal guitar. It sounds great, but it really needs some work, and my go-to restoration guy retired. I might even sell it and replace it with another metal bodied guitar, this time probably a tri-cone. Or not? Who knows?

[Guy Rowland]

What's folks' take on the Cremona Quartet?

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... a-quartet/

First demo sounded pretty bad, the second sounded pretty great. Pretty confused.

[Guy Rowland]

Just to say that some UK and Europe retailers are offering boxed upgrades of K12 at half price, and NI will then upgrade to 13 on release, so it's a way of getting the half price upgrade now for those who qualify. Just caved on the Collector's upgrade here - https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/native-inst ... upg-ku8-12

[Pablo Crespo]

I saw that on VIC but, I am not in Europe or US, don´t know how can I grab it!

[Guy Rowland]

I saw that on VIC but, I am not in Europe or US, don´t know how can I grab it!

I'm surprised US retailers aren't doing the same thing...

I was just off out when I saw the deal, so it was a bit of a rash decision, but I think its a good deal even without missing an edition. There's a lot here that looks genuinely useful and useable.

[Pablo Crespo]

Yeah, I was going to wait for the 50% off summer to upgrade, but this is very tempting. Just to far for me for a boxed version!

[Mike Marino]

Likely not bothering to upgrade whatever version of Komplete I have. But a new version of Guitar Rig is certainly intriguing. Something I'll be keeping an eye on.

[Guy Rowland]

Likely not bothering to upgrade whatever version of Komplete I have. But a new version of Guitar Rig is certainly intriguing. Something I'll be keeping an eye on.

I'll keep you posted - I use Guitar Rig all the time, very keen to see what they've done. As I understand it, it will come with just three new amps sims, BUT with technology that lets you model other things, so they're anticipating a lot more down the line.

But unlike many, I really like the sound as it is for cleaner and especially ambient / sound designy stuff, and really looking forward to having many more tools to play with there.

[Lawrence]

I do as well. It’s just not a great one for a creamy sustain, for me anyway. Too much hash. For basic guitar tone and soundscape stuff, excellent. Oh, and with an expression pedal, very decent wah wah and MIDI volume pedal,

[Guy Rowland]

My K12 CE arrived safe and sound today - very quick turnaround.

How I believe it works is you register the serial. and all the new stuff arrives via Native Access automatically on release for 13. They've done something similar in the past IIRC. Anyway, I'll likely install all the Symphonic Series to get a quick hands-on feel for it all, then expecting to quickly delete Strings and Brass, likely also Percussion and maybe Woods.

Aside from Guitar Rig, these are the products in 13 I'm most interested in:

Cremona Quartet
Noire
Straylight
Pharlight
Mysteria
Mallet Flux
Arkhis

Also Super 8 - though I really don't need it it's likely got a nice tone to it. I'll give the Electric Sunburst Deluxe a whirl too, might just have some uses... there's a track I have with real guitar picked lines at the moment but am totally redoing, upping the tempo from 137 to 185, and I'm not at all sure I can ever play it that fast...

Then there's some Massive X expansions to try to see if it will ever make a sound I like, and a handful of other curiosities like the Butch Vig drums. So even if I chuck away the entire Symphonic Series, £250 seems a steal for that lot - £25 each for the products I'm likely to use, and that includes the £360 string quartet. Whatcha gonna do, eh?

[Guy Rowland]

A first whizz through the Symphonic Series and by some way my favourite is actually the strings from Audiobro. Really pretty nice actually, well programmed and the auto-divisi works well. The tone is quite lush, much more so than LASS, but they are very different beasts. I'm not yet sure if I'd ever reach for it over the many other options I'm lucky enough to have, but will give it a whirl in the template and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it as a good basic strings ensemble library. I've heard a lot, lot worse.

The brass was horrible. And I was surprised to find the woods almost as bad - I really didn't like the tone of almost any of it, the oboes were particularly horrific. The percussion is largely forgettable, but I did like a few of the tuned ones - nice Glock and Marimba, but I'm not sure if I'll keep it all installed just for those two.

So in short - I seem to have acquired yet another string library.

[Guy Rowland]

Just a heads up as we hit launch day that one unannounced thing is that the Reaktor Super 8 synth now has a standalone R2 version, and it'' be NI's first ever VST3 plugin. I don't know if there's any other changes, but one wonders if this is a taste of what is to come from all the Reaktor synths.

[ok_tan]

ahhh....living in the jungle in a faraway country....no komplete 13 yet in my native access...

[Guy Rowland]

ahhh....living in the jungle in a faraway country....no komplete 13 yet in my native access...

FWIW, none here in British suburbia either. Dammit, might have to do some work instead.

[Guy Rowland]

The magic has been performed, and my downloading commences.

[Pablo Crespo]

me too, wow hd space sure flies!

[Guy Rowland]

Oh my goodness Arkhis is absolutely gorgeous. Scoring and documentary nirvana. I've been a fan of the Symphobia multis forever, this is the first product I've tried that takes it up a notch. So many playable patches, and I've barely scratched the surface.

The biggest thing to watch for I've found so far is that the releases tend to be unrealistic, with release values that are too long. But it seems simple enough to adjust, and then add reverb as a more natural tail. (That said I haven't got the hang of the internal effects yet).

It's going to take a long time to go through all this. Arkhis alone is half a day to get round the main content and basic workflow.

BTW, for some reason Guitar Rig 6 Pro was missing for me in Native Access - after the refresh everything else appeared by magic, but not GR6. A restart of the app sorted it, just in case anyone else finds any anomalies.

[Pablo Crespo]

I am loving arkhis and straylight so far, high hopes for super 8, and Noir is gorgeous too

[Guy Rowland]

Just doing some systems checks...

I am loving arkhis and straylight so far, high hopes for super 8, and Noir is gorgeous too

Noire! It's just gorgeousness taken to absurd limits. It's a lovely sounding piano in both variations, but that particles engine... its hard for even me to sound anything other than wonderful. So clever and musical.

The Stradavari Violin also sounds highly promising. This I think will likely be my goto when I need precise control - I love Bohemian so much for its aliveness and its tone, but you have to take what it gives you to some degree. This is very impressive when it comes to the smoothness and variety of vibrato and dynamics, and there's some great articulations in there.

Guitar Rig Pro seems pretty good, and I'm delighted to see plenty more ambient patches that sound stellar. Not quite sure about the metal stuff yet... maybe I just can't play metal. I don't love the look of it, but that's trivial. The UI is good in many ways, but I do wish there was a consistent master unit for mic placement and choice of room. I can't even figure out how to change the room for that matter, and the manual is a 404 web affair right now.

Super 8 sounded great, didn't really explore the blocky interface too much. Probably won't use it much / at all given everything else I have.

So much I haven't even loaded yet. This is the most ridiculously good deal I can remember, and that's just on a single upgrade. Come Black Friday I simply have no excuse to spent a cent.

[Lawrence]

I either have 11U or 12U, 12 I think. What was your cost, Guy?

(Arkhis has been on my list for a while.)

[Guy Rowland]

I either have 11U or 12U, 12 I think. What was your cost, Guy?

(Arkhis has been on my list for a while.)

I was 12U to 13CE, and that was £250 with one of those end of stock grace period upgrades. Stupid money. Its a shame most of the main orchestral series is rubbish, but probably a good thing for the industry - if every product was stellar it would be even harder for smaller developers to compete with the likes of NI.

Speaking of which, on a quick whizz through my other new ones, some made a less favourable impression. Mallet Flux was nice though - lovely tones actually - but very niche. Pharlight also had some great stuff but feels just a bit unessential perhaps. Mysteria was the biggest disappointment - despite lots of tags promising beautiful lush loveliness, everything sounded like a fairly humdrum horror score to me, and given the usual asking price I was quite surprised. The Sunburst electric guitar series seems unnecessarily convoluted, 2 different products that do almost the same thing, feels like that should be unified. It sounds pretty good if you purely play to its strengths, but I couldn't make it do hammer-ons or other basics so it feels a very limited toolkit. Other companies I think are ahead of them on virtual guitars.

The rest of the string quartet sounded good, but don't think the QC is quite up to the Stradivari level - not all the portamento transitions flow seamlessly, and tonally I wasn't always bowled over. But they're perfectly serviceable and in skilled hands I don't doubt they'd produce good results.

So for my £250, Noire and Arkhis alone easily justify it, and there's lots more that will find a decent place. Noire is perhaps the most surprising for me - although everyone told me it was great, I had to overcome my "yeah, great, another piano" reflex. Playing with that particles engine really is quite magical.

[Guy Rowland]

I forgot Straylight. Really good playable patches, though moving the XY pad overs my CPU on some in standalone and nothing else running.