komplete

Keeping new musical instrument announcements under wraps prior to embargo dates is proving, again, to be more or less impossible. Native Instruments’ Komplete updates, teased in a video on Friday, have now been prematurely revealed via one print magazine hitting newsstands (Beat, in Germany), and multiple leaks by dealers (some even crawled by Google, according to a CDM reader). Forum members at GearSlutz have been dutifully reproducing everything, leaving few secrets. From there, the cat’s out of the bag; I’m seeing this spreading through German-language outlets and expect others will pick this up soon. Oddly, forum members and commenters have …

Native Instruments today releases a teaser video which it says is “A glimpse of the future” of Komplete, the production suite that includes Reaktor, Kontakt, and various synths and the like. That video clearly shows some kind of hardware. Now, the degree to which I can speculate about an unreleased product is inversely proportional to the amount I know about such a product. So, with that in mind, let me objectively describe what you see in the video in ways that are truly obviously discernible, for those of you who can’t be bothered to squint at the video yourself. I’d …

Native Instruments has been teasing new instrument software in recent days, and now we get to see what they were previewing: a new virtual-analog monosynth and a remade version of their drum sampler. But, hold on, before everyone yawns and leaves the building – there’s reason to pay attention to this news. First, yes, there is something notably absent in today’s announcement. While NI is making Komplete, their bundle of their extensive stable of software instruments, available for preorder, there’s still no sign of a big upgrade to Reaktor. The fact that the Monark video showed Reaktor patching may have …

Kontakt – is it the answer? Is it the reason that everything happens? 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 …

Still from Robert Henke’s set at Optical 1 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 …

When it comes to software sonic goodies, loads of virtualized gear you can add to the digital, computer-based studio, Komplete is one of the deepest boxes out there. Komplete 7, announced today, is the latest edition of Native Instruments’ bundle of virtual studio software. As always, that means a refresh of what’s in the box to recent upgrades of synths like Absynth, FM8, and Massive, plus drum instrument Battery, guitar effects and amp simulation Guitar Rig, and the modular creation powerhouse Reaktor. In addition, though, today’s Komplete 7 announcement brought some new tools to the table, as seen in the …

I’m sure Native Instruments wants me to open with discussion of realistic-sounding strings in Kontakt 4, but instead, I offer a loose visual representation of Absynth’s sound engine. Photo (CC) Joe Penniston. 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 …

Reaktor… you know, for kids! Oli, age 7. Photo (CC) Laura Whitehead. 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, …

Building and Using a Reaktor Grain Delay in Kore 2 from Create Digital Media on Vimeo. 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 …

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 …