The Sound Board

Running Kontakt 7 full on an iMac and M1 Bmpro.

As the Kontakt 8 full upgrade is now €50,- I am considering. Partly because certain updates from Noire and Percussion lib from NI block content due to higher version needed ( kinda very tricky to me…)

Anyone willing to share pros/cons of their experience with K8 full on mac?

On VI-c there are mixed reviews with minor advantages and CPU issues on Mac.

After many years abstinence from any NI products, I used to own Komplete, I also just upgraded to K8 for 50 bucks only this year. My main reason were some libraries I owned in the past. So far I have not experienced any show stopping issues. I use Kontakt at 6kb pre load buffer in Logic under Seqouia 15.7.2., streaming Libraries from a fast NVMe. CPU issues I have not encountered so far. That being said, my main sample players are Opus and Sine. Thankfully the overbearing dominance of this NI sampler is long over.

My name is Nobody wrote: ↑Dec 09, 2025 6:46 am Running Kontakt 7 full on an iMac and M1 Bmpro.

As the Kontakt 8 full upgrade is now €50,- I am considering. Partly because certain updates from Noire and Percussion lib from NI block content due to higher version needed ( kinda very tricky to me…)

Anyone willing to share pros/cons of their experience with K8 full on mac?

On VI-c there are mixed reviews with minor advantages and CPU issues on Mac.

I have Komplete 15 Ultimate, and I don’t seem to have the latest version of Kontakt 8 as a few libraries won’t open. I don’t really understand why-Kontakt 8 is included in Komplete 15, and I don’t see the latest in Native Access.

Lawrence wrote: ↑Dec 09, 2025 10:05 am I have Komplete 15 Ultimate, and I don’t seem to have the latest version of Kontakt 8 as a few libraries won’t open. I don’t really understand why-Kontakt 8 is included in Komplete 15, and I don’t see the latest in Native Access.

Not quite following you there Larry - I have Komplete 15 and Kontakt 8 appears normally in Native Access. What aren't you seeing?

I try to load library “Leap 80s New Wave “, I get a message telling me my version of Kontakt is too old, that it was saved with v8.2.1000. Native Access shows my version as 8.1.0.
There’s no update available.

Lawrence wrote: ↑Dec 09, 2025 10:29 am I try to load library “Leap 80s New Wave “, I get a message telling me my version of Kontakt is too old, that it was saved with v8.2.1000. Native Access shows my version as 8.1.0.
There’s no update available.

Is this Native Access 2? If it is I'd maybe try uninstalling it, something's gone screwy there. We're at 8.8 now.

Wowie zowie! Thanks for the heads up.

Further exploration tells me my version of OSX (Monterey) only supports up to Kontakt 8.1.0. My version of Native Access is 3.2.1. Hmm.

I upgraded to Kontakt 8 finally because of the discount, which I didn't realize until reading this thread, so thanks for that.

I see Native Instruments is maintaining their trend where every new major version gets slower to open (just in terms of opening the window after the instrument is loaded). And the main page of default view is an abomination: is there really no way to search products without having to open the browser? Thankfully the classic view is still available. For now.

Anyway, grumbl, at least the upgrade price was finally within my range of acceptability.

Lawrence wrote: ↑Dec 09, 2025 11:26 am Further exploration tells me my version of OSX (Monterey) only supports up to Kontakt 8.1.0. My version of Native Access is 3.2.1. Hmm.

Ah bugger, that'll be it. You might well be stuck. Grr.

Guy, what’s your version of Native Access, please?

Lawrence wrote: ↑Dec 09, 2025 11:48 am Guy, what’s your version of Native Access, please?

3.21.1 it says ere

Tanx. That matches. Ah well.

My name is Nobody wrote: ↑Dec 09, 2025 6:46 am Running Kontakt 7 full on an iMac and M1 Bmpro.

As the Kontakt 8 full upgrade is now €50,- I am considering. Partly because certain updates from Noire and Percussion lib from NI block content due to higher version needed ( kinda very tricky to me…)

Anyone willing to share pros/cons of their experience with K8 full on mac?

On VI-c there are mixed reviews with minor advantages and CPU issues on Mac.

MacBook Pro M2 here, Kontakt 6, 7 and 8, for compatibility reasons, and laziness, really. I’m quite getting used to v8 after stubbornly rebelling against it. It’s a departure in usability from K6 for sure, but I’m starting to find the searching mode approachable enough. Having Leap is a boon: instead of simply recording into a project, I now import the recordings into Leap for later use and mangling as well. It’s a nice extra tool to have if you’re not part of the Output eco-system.

The way I see it, things are moving forward; I can continue to be a curmudgeon or re-learn a new version, which apparently is beneficial to my brain in some capacity (might be too late for that). Runs smoothly on Sequoia 15.7.2, load times seem fine, certainly not holding me back from working. Having said that, I will keep v6 around for a good while, but v7 is likely gone after the holidays.

Now if you’ll excuse me. I have to go yell at some cloud I saw earlier.

interesting (!) to see the various experiences !
Thanks to all responders which is much appreciated , and in an adventurous attitude I will upgrade….knowing I might run into obstacles or not.
I gotten used by now to the clickety-clacks needed to open a library or file by now with K7.