Komplete 7 needs host?

Ok brother let me try to break it down a little and quickly.

1 if you have a sound card and a midi keyboard then all you need is komplete and it has every sound you can imagine and you can tweak every sound as well. You will not be able to record though but even that is questionable.

Think of it like this, if you play a guitar and you have a cheap tape player you can record on that cheap tape player, it will be one live take and that is it. You will only hear exactly what you just played and nothing else will be able to be added. Which brings me to the second point.

2 A sequencer is what music is recorded into. it is like a multitrack recorder. You can record a live take then start from the beging hear that music idea you just recorded and add another music idea on top of that. It can be a rhythm on guitar with an added lead on guitar or it can be a rhytm guitar with a completely different added instrument. you can add alot of instruments in a sequencer and edit all parts of the music you record in a sequencer. So this would be the host for komplete. Some of the more famous sequencers are Protools, Cubase, Abelton, Logic and Reaper. Reaper use to be free im not sure now but if it is download it and screw around with it till you get a basic idea of what it does. There are plenty of free vsti that you can download and use inside of reaper (i think it has vst support) A vsti is a virtual instrument, which brings me to my last point.

3 komplete it a bundle of many virtual instruments, not just basic instruments that come with most sequencers but very powerful instruments that can be tweaked beyond most others and sound quality is amazing. Every instrument in Komplete has a standalone mode for each instrument which does not have to be opened in a sequencer, so you can just open it and play and choose from hundreds of sounds per instrument that Komplete comes with. If you play a real physical instrument like a guitar or piano already then this is what this would resemble.

If I was you id look into getting a sequencer first and learning that. Like i said there are many free things you can download like sequencers and virtual instruments and effects, i would probably go that route before i made a purchase.

Maybe someone can give you some links to free stuff.

Also take a few months to read up on forums and get an understanding for what this stuff is all about. Check out some recording forums learn about mixing and mastering in software. Learn what plugins are. Learn what midi is. Learn all this stuff.

Best regards hope that helps a little and is not confusing.

 

Thanks alot.
Does komplete have a good drum machine sequencer or something? Make awesome drum beats and lots of sounds?

 

im not sure you can sequence drums in komplete. I do all my drum sequencing in cubase. Has very good sounds all the way around drums, pianos, ambient, soundscapes, effects, Every thing has great sounds and some weak ones as well but the weak ones can be tweaked to sound better. And thats just talking about presests. If you can think of a sound you want to make then it can be made in komplete.

 

You first need a host DAW! Any one will do since NI software comes in VST, RTAS and AU. I personally use Acid Pro and Pro Tools. Works great with either or. If you are on a tight budget don't plan to get both at the same time. Professional level DAW cost $300 or more and Komplete cost $ 500.

 

Dude Komplete is a BUNDLE of stuff its NOT 1 PROGRAM KOMPLETE IS THE NAME OF THE BUNDLE. Its a collection of a bunch of different virtual instruments that are made to be ran in a host program like ableton or logic, those host programs let you open your virtual instrument like Massive within the host program and compose melodies with the programs sequencer that it plays back thru the virtual instrument all within the program. YES YOU CAN RUN EVRY INSTRUMENT IN KOMPLETE SIMULTANEOUSLY IN YOUR HOST PROGRAM. Ableton, Logic, FL Studio all have virtual instruments that come with them already loaded into the program. The instruments in Komplete ARE WAY BETTER THAN THE instruments that come standard in your host program. The idea is to pick a bad ass host program, (their called DAWs, Digital Audio Workstations) and build up your own unique collection of virtual instruments (their called VSTs) to run in your DAW. Reason and Garageband are DAWs too but you can't really load 3rd party virtual instruments into them. Dude u need to get Ableton, Logic or FL Studio, load the instruments in Komplete into them and you've got yourself a bad ass platform that any pro could make amazing beats on. Also dude the more **** you use the more options you have. I started on FLoops on a shitty laptop. now I Run a HP Tower with FL Studio with all the Komplete 7 insturments and a few other VSTs in it which i make alot of melodies and beats in, I make beats and melodies in Reason 5, and I render audio files from both of those programs and mix the audio down in Ableton Live, which i pretty much use only for recording and mixing audio. THEN I also have a macbook pro with logic pro on it, I like Logic Pro because its has the most built in instruments, effects and features and so it is great for just making a great track in 1 program. Almost every1 thats into independent producing especially electronic/dance music uses 1 of those DAWs I mentioned.
---
But yea dude it can be confusing as hell when your first starting out. For YEARS i used only fruityloops with no 3rd party plug ins. I would render my melodys and drum loops into individual audio files from fruity loops and mix down the audio in Acid, eventually doing the same thing with Reason and ACID. I did that for like 5 years. Anytime you install a VST their should be a .DLL file that is installed, sumtimes in the programs folder and sumtimes the whole VST is just the .DLL file. Put the .DLL files from all of your VSTs into 1 folder and, in your DAWs prefs, set that folder to be the source of your 3rd party VST plug ins. If you do that all of your 3rd party plug ins should load into your DAW and be fully manipulatable to the capabilities of your DAW. I recomend Logic Pro and/or Ableton Live for your master program. With Ableton it so simple to just drag any audio clip into ur sequencer even from winamp or itunes and its so easy to map out the twerks of any knob or parameter on any of ur VSTs. However, Ableton is supposed to run in real-time but many of us who run :high end" vsts like komplete, dcam synth squad, rob papens instruments, are finding that even though we have really fast computers and interfaces, were having serious issues with latency and RAM. Granted I have a feeling that when I clean up my comp and re-install ableton its gonna work fine as it did at first, hopefully. Logic Pro is great because it has every feature a major DAW should, and it has a TON of truely quality virtual instruments and effects that come with it. You seriously can make a banging track of any kind, tech ass trance, fat ass dubstep, nasty drum and bass, bangin electro house, you can make it all with Logic and just Logic and it will sound really good. My advice would be spend the money, it's only 500$ for the latest Logic Studio and you get Logic Pro and a few other programs, and get at it always trying to get better sound quality, catchier rythms and melodies, all the little things that make good tracks good. Buy Logic first, then save your money and buy Ableton, i think its only like 400. And remember, if you want to make music, you have to know music! Make a Beatport and just start listening to everything! And keep in mind that alot of the stuff your listening too, probably most of it, was made in Logic or Ableton and more of it is VSTs than you would think! Skrillex and Wolfgang Gartner... all just Ableton and VSTs.

 

To make music with your computer you need:

1) a computer (obviously - but OS and technical specs do cast limitations to the following)

2) hardware (usually at least a midi controller, could be keyboards or pads etc, and an audio/midi interface, mics & preamps if you want to record audio like vocals and real instruments)

3) virtual instruments / sounds ( this is what makes the sounds for your midi controllers, which are just controllers and do not have sounds. Komplete is a complete solution in this regard. Many virtual instruments can run in stand alone mode, so that a controller+virtual instrument will make a totaly playable instrument, but if you want to "record" what you play, look for the next step)

4) DAW = Digital Audio Workstation (this is a computer program that "connects" all the previous steps, it is where you record audio from mics or midi controllers. Recording midi is called sequencing. It is also the place where recorded sequences are connected to sounds from soundbanks such as komplete. This will be what you mainly work from, you put data in it from your audiointerface or controllers and play with the performance with sounds, effects, midi editing etc. Some DAWs or their versions incorporate the previous steps, i.e. they come with sounds/instruments, usually not as complete or high quality set as komplete.)

This aims to give you the total picture of making music with a computer, please complement the steps if I left something out. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU NEED IS SOMEONE TO DO ALL THE AFOREMENTIONED STEPS. None of the above, or the above perfectly combined do not make the music. You need to set up a DAW system, you need a musician to play the music, you need an recording engineer to record the vocals, you need a producer to put together the music a songwriter has come up with and to polish the tracks. YOU can be all those persons yourself, but it's going to take time to learn all this. When you master all this, you might still want someone to play the piano or sax for you or to master your tracks. Someone who really can.

 

Can I just add at this point that if you get the Komplete+Kore bundle you do then pretty much have everything you need, but you require the ability to play a keyboard really well, and a bit of knowledge on audio engineering.

Let's stop ****ing about huh? If you are new to the world of digital music making then using something like Komplete is going to teach you nothing other than patch surfing. Programs like Reaktor and Kontakt are the highest end of this game, with only Physical Modelling being done better elsewhere, but the flip side of that coin is that it is NOT FOR BEGINNERS!

If you wish to learn synthesis, sampler technique and programming, I can highly recommend Propellerhead Reason+Record. I am myself a 10-year veteran of this program, and it's waaaaay better suited to beginner and intermediate levels, but at the same time it can also produce the goods at pro level once you know how to use it.

I think most newcomers would be too likely to quit after a few months of Komplete, and then they would miss out on all the benefits that music making would have given their life had they started on the bottom rung.

Essentially what you are trying to do Buggs, is step from the floor to the top rung, and although some VERY rare individuals can pull off this Jackie Chan esque move, most faces will know the feel of a "gravity driven floor impact".

HTH
B

BTW - knowing to research stuff a bit before going out and buying, is an excellent start, so you're doing pretty well in that sense

 

Is it realy that complicated and unintuitive? Any comments on that? What is it in Komplete that wrecks learning and what others do better?

Propellerhead Reason doesn't support VST, so you couldn't go to NI komplete even if you wanted to, right? I personally don't like closed systems...

 

IF you are trying to produce electronic music , hip hop, r & b, pop, techno so on and so forth I would recommend FL Studio to start out with because it has everything you need and as you grow it is expandable.

 

buggs1a. No one answered ur question straight up. I got you.

Komplete needs a host (DAW - google the term) to RECORD music, and sometimes add effects to that music - i.e. an echo.

Komplete is a "complete" package of instruments.


So, komplete has a piano. You can play piano sounds. It has a drum kit. You can play drum sounds. It has a ton of other instruments.

But to record those sounds into a song, thats where u need a "host"


If ur just starting, Komplete may be over kill, its professional software. You should try GarageBand for mac. Once u master that, you will see why you would want to upgrade to Komplete.

 

Complicated - Yes
Unintuitive - No

One of the biggest problems is that the toolset itself is massive, and covers pretty much any operation. Someone who is looking at getting educated on a particular piece of software needs to have a relatively closed environment, because they should not be trying to write a hit on the frst day. They should be tweaking synth parameters and sample settings repetitively until they know what each one does instinctively.

So if you use as an example the Subtractor in Reason, which is their analog modelling synth. When a newbie comes in and wants to learn about analog synthesis, which most would agree is the logical starting point, the first thing they need to do is acquaint themselves with the oscillator section, and get a listen to the basic waves, saw, square and sine. This is a 1-click operation in Reason from a standing start and doesn't require much brainpower to get to it, this most basic of set-ups.

Now let's match this off against Reaktor, what quick ways are there to get to an "open" sound? Many, if not all, of the devices are not designed to do basic, they are designed to do highly complex. How would a newbie know that to get to the basics they need to go into the legacy library and find something really old with a nice simple structure? You're then left with a new user that thinks a basic square sound like godzilla's fart, as designed by a big name hollywood sound artist. The latter of these 2 sounds is obviously the better of the 2, but it teaches the new user nothing about the basics; on day 1 it's the basics that the user needs.



The argument about Reason+Record being a closed environent isn't strictly true nowadays, and in truth never really has been. For a start any VSTfx' you want has always been available through the ReWire protocol. This requires a suitable DAW of course, but then again so does Komplete. Again for a newbie this is less of a concern anyway, as using the internal fx that Reason has can provide most required fx setup's, and they need to learn the basics first before doing anything more complex. As for VSTi's there are now numerous ways to get the sounds in, either by recording them from the soundcard, or using a SCSI connection if you have a USB card, using a duplexing driver etc... dependent of set-up there's a lot of different ways to do this...... BUT AGAIN, this is something to look at once you find your feet a bit. Learn the basics first, and all of this will come pretty easily.

The other misconception is that Komplete is seen as one program by a lot of people "looking in from the outside". It is essentially a collection of plugins, it has no "host" environment. Reason/Record is the whole thing in one, but maintains a relatively closed environment, but there are many advantages to doing it this way. You should bear in mind that in order for Reaktor to do a whole lot of stuff Reason can do with a few click's, you would actually need to be at a fairly advanced level within Reaktor learning terms, and it's still a lot more work to get you there.


On the whole, if you already have a bit of experience musically, and engineering wise, say if you're done audio tech, and are only just looking into synths and samplers, then Komplete is still an excellent choice, and is arguably the strongest software music package on the planet (the argument being the host issue); But if you're at basic level, go with Reason/Record, learn a bit and then look at Komplete later, by which point the options for getting VST sounds into R+R will have improved even more, and it's already beginning to become a bit of a moot point now.

 

I agree with this, it's very easy to get blinded by choice with Komplete.

 

Actually just get something cheap like cubase 6 artist or one of the LE versions of ableton or protools or any of the main "host" programs. Then down load the free Komplete 7 players package. It will be the most feesible way to do this.

All Light cheap versions of "host" programs have Cheaper update paths to Full pro versions which you can do once you have reached your limits on that "host"

You may even want to go to a local music store and some of them sell LE/light versions really cheap like 20 bucks and you could try 2 or three of them. Hell they might even be free depending.

Find some free 30 day trial versions.

With the LE or trial versions of the "hosts" and the free Komplete 7 players you can see how everything works together for little or no money. Then move forward from there. Once you get into it it will become a natural evolution to the more professional programs, controllers, hardware, instruments, microphones, and all that stuff. Befor you know it you will have a 100, 000 dollar studio.

 

I use Sonar 8 in one PC for recording, the other PC I was planning on mostly for live triggering of samples, sounds, loops, etc

I am sitting on Komplete 7, trying to figure out the best Host for that would be..?

Some here have said Pro Tools, Acid Pro, Fruity Loops, etc.

I have a dual core Pentium PC, with 3 GB of memory (I know, not much by current standards) and a M-Audio Delta 1010LT PCI interface

So, for live performance using Komplete, which DAW?

 

For my live host I use Kore 2.

 

So, Kore 2, which I guess is included with Komplete 7....is a stand alone app or still needs a host/sequencer?

I use midi percussion controllers.....drumkat,malletkat,trapkat,v-drums....

will that work, or is the Kore Hardware controllers required?

 

To the original poster... I honestly wouldn't go near Komplete or Kore2 and spend this sort of cash at this point in your development, it would be overwhelming for you (it's sometimes overwhelming for me and I've been doing 'this music thang' for a while! )

What might be well worth checking out for getting to grips with the whole DAW + instruments + effects thing is to jump on audiomidi's no brainer deal for Presonus Studio One Artist DAW at $30:

http://www.audiomidi.com/Studio-One-Artist-No-Brainer-Deal-P15624C0.aspx?SID=3&ClearCache=1

This is a great DAW which comes with some instruments and effects... you could teach yourself the basics for the price of a night out and then move onwards and upwards when you are ready.

I will be upfront with you, the Artist version of S1 does not allow you to use Third Party plug-ins (VSTs like the one's included in Komplete) though it would be possible to upgrade at a later date to Pro (for $199). But this would be a good way to learn and worth $30 even if you went to another DAW. I also believe that Artist comes with light versions of Guitar Rig and Kore Player that you can install.

I came from using Logic and Live to using Studio One and for me it's been a breakthrough as far as ease of use and workflow... might be worth giving it a shot?

Good luck!

Alan

 

Kore 2 is a standalone app but also a VST/RTAS/AU plugin, so it can work both as a host, or as an addition to other programs.

Sorry if I have added to any confusion here by stating that Kore2 finishes the job and makes anything possible. Ok, it does, but it does not make for an easy workflow like this, so in most cases you would still be better to use it within another host program.

Essentially what Kore2 does is hosts VST's and especially designed soundbanks, in an environment that allows for a vast array of possiblilites, adding serious power to plugins. Think of it as a host within a host. You end up with one host ready to perform all the plugin work, set with all sorts of otherwise impossible MIDI functionality and controller capability, but still with your regular host on top of it to do whatever else you want in there.

It is NOT part of Komplete 7, it is a seperate application that comes with it's own controller, although quite often there are deals available to both as one package. I can't find this deal right now, so don't take this as gospel.

hth
B

 

yes, a little more confusing, but not I guess, I think...

looks like Kore 2 software may be a free download, once Komplete is registered:

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/kore-player/

so, may be I should just use Sonar 8 studio again on this 'other' PC of mine (the one in question) or maybe this will do:

http://backstage.musiciansfriend.co...ed-8-DAW-Software.site1sku580123000000000.sku

?

thanks for your input so far

 

Be aware that this is "Kore 2 PLAYER" - NOT the full-blown Kore 2.