Native Instruments Komplete 4

Native Instruments is a company located in Berlin, Germany that makes some incredible-sounding virtual instruments for Mac and PC. I've been on board with them for several years now, since I found a steal of a deal to get Reaktor 3 with a free upgrade to Reaktor 4 for $200 (the software retailed for about $400-$500 at the time). After that, they offered Komplete, a collection of virtually every instrument in their arsenal, for a few hundred dollars more for registered users of one or more of their products, so I bit on that as well.

Then came along Komplete Care 2005, a subscription service for the instruments. 2005 would be the greatest year for Native Instruments products, a press release stated. So for another couple hundred bucks, I was in for a pound, as they say.

2005 turned out to be a great year indeed. We were treated to such wonderful products as Absynth 3 and Battery 2. . Then came along Reaktor 5 and Kontakt 2, the flagship synthesizer construction kit and sampler, respectively. Either one of these two would have been worth the investment.

Komplete Care 2006 came along, and I managed to find it for about $150, which was about $75 cheaper than anywhere else. I think it was a database error over Thanksgiving weekend last year that wasn't corrected in time, but I took advantage of it while it lasted. I looked forward to any products that NI might put out in the 2006 calendar year, but I knew all along that it would be impossible to top 2005.

It turned out I was right. As the year went on, customers started to become agitated. The company's Kore system, their first foray into the hardware market, was met with mixed reviews. No new products had been announced that fell under the Komplete Care umbrella, and the natives were getting restless.

To quell the troops, NI sent out a free update to Komplete 3, which included the B4 organ, Guitar Rig II (software only) and Elektrik Piano, all excellent pieces of software. A few more months passed, and they sent out copies of the Absynth 3 and Kontakt 2 Tutorial DVDs. This was a nice gesture, and as I already had the Absynth 3 DVD, I decided to make a few bucks selling it on eBay. It went almost instantly.

After a few more months of nothing, NI upped the ante by offering an upgrade to Komplete 4. This was substantial, because it included Akoustik Piano, the one piece of software I'd been seriously considering buying. They also threw in a gift certificate for $180 to be used in their online store before the end of the year. Nice.

Then when they started sending stuff out to people, their registration center went belly-up. People were pissed off all over again. So the company's brand-new synthesizer, Massive, was offered as a free download. Good move on NI's part.

NI posted a forum entry for users to write when they'd received the software, and the reports started flooding in. From Germany. It turned out that they'd had a serious issue with their American distributors.

Well, if you're still reading this, here's my post on the NI forums in response to all of this.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi All,

I got mine (Komplete 4 Upgrade DVD set) on Wednesday here in San Diego, CA. There were a few issues with installation (mostly related to my DAW's DVD player and the fact that I had to clear out several gigs of data to get the Akoustik Piano library to fit!), but I did manage to get everything up and running by last night.

A few things:

1. The service center update FAILED all night on Wednesday. AARGH!!! There's nothing like getting a brand new toy and being told you can't play with it because the company's having technical difficulties. I accept that NI can't be up 24/7, but come on people, can't you give us ONE DAY of slack before you forbid us from using these fantastic pieces of software?

2. I was messing with some registry settings and I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it, but Kore complained about some dlls not being available on startup, and then proceeded to scan a TON of dlls. This took over 10 minutes and it still hadn't loaded, so I forced quit. The error message suggested that reinstalling could solve the problem. So I uninstalled, reinstalled, re-registered, everything went fine from there.

Why was I playing with registry settings? For some reason, on a previous install of Komplete 2 or 3, I accidentally told my VSTs to live in C:\VSTPlugins\VSTPlugins. So I searched the registry for that string and replaced it with simply C:\VSTPlugins. I'm not recommending this, but it seems to have worked for me.


3. Nuendo 2 froze after installing Komplete 4. It was hanging when it was trying to load the Absynth 4 Surround VST. CPU spiked at 98-99% and it never recovered from that.

I fixed it by moving all four Absynth 4 VSTs out of my VSTs folder and onto my desktop temporarily. I started up Nuendo 2 without incident. Exited Nuendo 2, put the VST dll files back into the VSTPlugins directory, started Nuendo 2, haven't had a problem since.

I haven't had much chance to play with the new stuff yet, but I will say that Akoustik Piano sounds absolutely AMAZING. I'm just stunned at how great it sounds. And I really like the potential of the arpeggiator in FM8. Massive's got some nice sounds in it, and I'm happy to try that out as well. Anything that sparks inspiration.

For all my complaining, I have to say this: I told myself that if NI managed to get me my update by Thanksgiving, I'd be pretty impressed despite everything else they've done this year. Actually, I think they've done some very nice things for the Komplete Care class of '06. Sure we complained, but when I purchased KC06 I knew nothing might come of it, but I liked the idea of "software insurance." I'd still purchase it for '07 if it's offered, and I'm sure many others would as well.

My one overall grievance with the company is that they refuse to send US customers product updates from the US. Why? I have friends who work for NI in Los Angeles, which is just over 100 miles from here. I could have been playing with my new products over a month ago.

Just my $0.02.

Cheers,

-ix