Komplete 5 399 .. is it worth it?

[Trip Downtown]

Personally, Massive, Guitar Rig (although only sometimes for guitar), and Acoustik Piano are 3 plugins I use a lot.

$0.02

[mholloway]

hell yes that's a good deal. wish they'd had it year ago when i started buying their stuff. anyone into this stuff would be crazy not to jump on that deal. unbelievable price.

-M

[jonniesparko]

I almost bought Massive for $200, did buy Guitar RIg 3 for $300, and I never opened the box. That was a bit over a week ago. I just called Musician's Friend, scheduled and exchange and now I'm getting Komplete 5, with Guitar Rig 3 and Massive, for only $400!! And then it has 9 other monsters to mess with...

Dudes, you can't beat that with a stick!!!

[Kodama]

I'm tempted just for FM8, some of the samples, and Reaktor.

But - the thought of organizing and dealing with all of the content and installers sounds like a major drain.

Also, they will probably have an update in a few months...

Plus, some major redundancy with stuff I already have.

Still it's pretty crazy! I might get it just for stuff...

[mholloway]

I'm tempted just for FM8, some of the samples, and Reaktor.

But - the thought of organizing and dealing with all of the content and installers sounds like a major drain.

Also, they will probably have an update in a few months...

Plus, some major redundancy with stuff I already have.

Still it's pretty crazy! I might get it just for stuff...

um. you're insane. 399 for ALL of NI's software and you're put off by the idea of --having to install it all????---

also, you think they are going to release updates in a few months for fm8, abysnth, guitar rig, pro53, reaktor, massive, elektrik piano, kontakt........all in the next few months? riiiiight.

do it! it's an amazing collection of stuff. 399 for Reaktor and Kontakt would be a great deal, let alone everything else.

-M

[hereschenes]

Well, I'm in. So glad I didn't pay US$799 earlier in the week for it, which I almost did!

Anyone got any tips for the best place to get it from that ships internationally (Australia)? I guess I'm looking for the cheapest shipping and most-reliable service. I've used Nova Musik before who have been good, just wondering if there are other retailers out there who I should get a shipping quote from as well.

(In case you're wondering, it's generally a *lot* cheaper to buy music software/hardware from the US and ship it to Australia than it is to buy it from a local retailer. Sad but true. I'd love to support local retailers instead, but the price difference is usually too big to ignore (we're talking $100s of difference in the case of Komplete 5.))

[Ben_Binary]

Anyone got any tips for the best place to get it from that ships internationally (Australia)? I guess I'm looking for the cheapest shipping and most-reliable service. I've used Nova Musik before who have been good, just wondering if there are other retailers out there who I should get a shipping quote from as well.

(In case you're wondering, it's generally a *lot* cheaper to buy music software/hardware from the US and ship it to Australia than it is to buy it from a local retailer. Sad but true. I'd love to support local retailers instead, but the price difference is usually too big to ignore (we're talking $100s of difference in the case of Komplete 5.))

Dont NI give free worldwide shipping from their online shop ?

[dave999z]

it is an awesome price.

but it does include stuff you'll never use. and stuff that is redundant with ableton suite.

it's an overwhelming amount of content and tools. i use kontakt, absynth, and massive. the only one i really feel comfortable with is massive. haven't even touched reaktor or battery, just don't have the time.

and, most annoyingly, you'll invest your time in learning on of the synths and then NI will unexpectedly drop it, like they did with Vokator.

[leedsquietman]

There's not much redundancy with the SUite at all - people will point to Elektrik Piano and Electric, they are quite different sounding tone-wise. People will point to Operator and FM8, both have very different preset banks, and FM8 has some great FX controls and is easier to program and has more operators, although Operator in Live 8 has the hand drawn waveform advantage. Sampler and Kontakt - well Kontakt ships with a 33GB sound library, much more than the EIC2 and Sampler, and supports multi timbrality. Sampler though is possibly better for sound shaping and design. Battery has great sample construction kits, for acoustic as well as electro sounds , as much as I love drum racks, Live is more geared towards electronic sounds in the Suite, especially the download version (obviously Session Drums has some sweet acoustic drum sounds suited for rock etc in the boxed version).

The stuff you don't get in Live Suite - a very nice set of acoustic piano samples, a kick ass amp simulator in Guitar Rig, a wavetable/granular based synth especially good for evolving pads and textures - Absynth, Reaktor - build your own modules, or download from 1000s of user based presets, Massive - combine analog VA with wavetable synthesis, B4II, a kick ass hammond organ, etc, etc,

I swear if I had the cash, I would definately splash .... even though I already own GR2, B4 II, FM8 and Massive. Pity I'm broke ... ;(

[hereschenes]

Dont NI give free worldwide shipping from their online shop ?

Wow... it appears that they do! Thanks!

[ghostly]

...and, most annoyingly, you'll invest your time in learning on of the synths and then NI will unexpectedly drop it, like they did with Vokator.

Why does that matter? It won't vanish off your hard drive!

[greta]

crap, this G.A.S thing never ends does it. I've been looking at Kontakt and fm8 for a while now. This surely makes sense even if i have a few of the others. I wonder if my better half will see it the same way .

[nuperspective]

how stable and buggy are they? NI get some shit on here for there support and bugs. Ive never had any of their gear so dont know first hand.

[thumperjack]

just bought it for 400 bucks from sweetwater.

so i paid 400 bucks for Kontakt 3, Akoustik piano, Elektrik piano, B4 II, and Reaktor 5...and now i have two kopies of every thing else to sell or whatev.
like 50 gigs of shtuf.
this is REDICULOUS. i would jump on it before it goes away.

i remember when the LTD Viper 400 was $399. I waited till pay day and went back to musiciansfriend.com and it had jumped to $599 in like two days. NOOOOOOOOOOOO

[thumperjack]

how stable and buggy are they? NI get some shit on here for there support and bugs. Ive never had any of their gear so dont know first hand.

i kan vouch for all the synths... they are rock solid on a core 2 duo 2.16ghz macbook pro. massive is a little hungry, but about the same as a Minimonsta. Guitar rig has never crashed not even once, i use like three or four instances in a lot of sets and my 2006 mbp doesn't even breathe hard.

battery's browser likes to preview samples really really quiet and then all of a sudden kick you in the face with a snare at 119db cause you turned your speakers up all the way to hear. that's pretty fun. keeps you on your toes. battery's library though is worth the money alone. i use the armageddon kit a lot.

I had Elektronik Instruments 2 a while back, and that shit was BUGGY. I don't know how much more stable Reaktor is than those ensembles, but NI EI 2 would kick my dog and eat my goldfish with, like, one instance of, say, metaphysical function. BUT it was verrrrry rewarding to play with, and i recorded a lot of loops and glitches with it, and then just used the audio files.