Before I buy Komplete 8.

[EvilDragon]

Yes. The hard drive it comes on only has installers.

[The MPCist]

What kind of laptop is it? I know a few people with MacBookPros who've replaced the CDROM drive with an SSD----two HD in a laptop.

[Polarelch]

I don't know how widespread or useful (or not) that is, but I installed the big sample libraries like Battery and Kontakt on an external drive, works without problem for me. I suppose there's not a big difference regarding this between Komplete and Komplete 8.
Also make sure, if you want the hard drive + the full variety of instruments, that you purchase Komplete 8 Ultimate. The standard version of Komplete 8 comes without hard drive and has less products included.
I'm upgrading soon as well, still undecsive for which version.

[projektk]

Install it to an external FireWire hard drive of maybe 500GBs. You could probably get one for around $100.

Sent from my LG-P925 using Gearslutz App

[EvilDragon]

Size of external hard drive is not really that important. What is important, on the other hand, is that it's 7200 RPM for best performance. eSATA or FW.

[Kestral]

I'm interested in Komplete Ultimate 8 as well, are there any group buys or deals that happen? I checked Reddit and awhile back, NI had a sale for 65% off.

Native Instruments Komplete on sale for 65% off [$399] during the month of July. : WeAreTheMusicMakers

[EvilDragon]

NI doesn't do group buys, and any deals are in most cases not happening for Komplete (quite rarely).

[greggybud]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

NI doesn't do group buys, and any deals are in most cases not happening for Komplete (quite rarely).

well....probably not until....lets see.....August or September?

Best deals for individual products...Black Friday?

[rego]

Some facts to help you make your decision:

External HDD cable speeds:

USB 2.0: 480 Mb/s
Firewire: 800 Mb/s
eSATA: 1200 Mb/s
USB 3.0: 4800 Mb/s


Personally, I'd find USB 2.0 to be unbearable. With a sample library of that size you would be waiting a considerable amount of time, especially for large samples to load. Firewire would be borderline. eSATA would be like an internal drive, maybe slightly slower. USB 3.0 requires a matching port on your laptop, which would be difficult to add.

You could also look into external HDDs with Gigabit Ethernet. They are a little more challenging to set up as they require configuration on your router and PC. Gigabit ethernet will transfer at about twice the speed of eSATA.

Hard drive rotation speed (5400 vs 7200 etc) won't matter unless you get into eSATA transfer speeds or higher. You'll bottleneck at the cable, receiving no benefit from faster rotation.

[ohmicide]

Originally Posted by rego

Some facts to help you make your decision:

External HDD cable speeds:

USB 2.0: 480 Mb/s
Firewire: 800 Mb/s
eSATA: 1200 Mb/s
USB 3.0: 4800 Mb/s/
Thunderbold: 10000 Mb/s

fix't

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by greggybud

well....probably not until....lets see.....August or September?

Best deals for individual products...Black Friday?

Last year NI did nothing for Black Friday.


They usually have sales for Thanksgiving, Xmas, Easter, spring or summer. But Komplete is not always on sale.

[Kestral]

I just did some more research about NI and "deals" on Komplete.

It seems that they have a history of doing a sale just before they upgrade product,
so then you end up paying for the upgrade, which really doesn't make it a deal at all.

I guess it's NI's version of being WUP'ed.

[Artist4]

i use a USB external for my libraries (2TB)

i have to say , i got no problems with it

But you need to have a good amount of ram,

When im working with several instances of Kontakt, i have to run Logic at 64-bit

Using 6 to8 GB of Ram

4 or less its impossible

Once you load your Libraries they stays in your RAM until you purge them

[ChristianRock]

Originally Posted by Kestral

I just did some more research about NI and "deals" on Komplete.

It seems that they have a history of doing a sale just before they upgrade product,
so then you end up paying for the upgrade, which really doesn't make it a deal at all.

I guess it's NI's version of being WUP'ed.

You can still use the older version when the new one comes out

Like, if you bought Komplete 7 just before 8 came out, you could still be creating awesome music with Komplete 7. Sure, 8 has new filters in Kontakt, new presets, and some more libraries - plus it works well within Maschine. But the basic stuff is still all there in K7...

[jetplane666666]

Last year the 1/2 off sale started on April 1 (2011). Obviously this didn't happen this year. I'm still waiting for it to upgrade to K8U.

One problem with installing NI content on any drive other than the system drive is it destroys session compatibility with other systems. Once you move your session to another machine that doesn't have the EXACT same path to the library the plugins will prompt you to find every single sample. I've already requested that the "Library Path" setting in Kontakt and other NI plugs be replaced by a "Library Paths" setting, and that this setting should be global per machine, ie. not stored in the current session. Why they chose the current mode of operation is incomprehensible to me, I can't envision a single scenario where it makes sense.

It's a royal pain working in multiple rooms with sessions containing NI plugs. Right now it's better to keep the library on your system drive. Your best option if you need inter-system session compatibility is to buy a bigger hard disk.

If you are only working on one machine and will never ever change your setup then you can put your NI content anywhere. Keep in mind that if you build sessions now with NI content on a USB drive, and you buy a new laptop with a bigger drive later and decide to install NI content on the system drive, your sessions will difficult to load. Unless NI fixes this. I'm not anticipating this fix soon, the NI guys do a lot of great stuff, but also a lot of really dumb stuff.

[MusicManic]

Thanks, jetplane. Good to know.

[TitusRaindrops]

I'm waiting for the 1/2 off sale as well. On the other hand, I've been using it less and less these days... For some reason when they offer 50% off of something and I shell out a lot of money, I still feel like I SAVED money. How do they do that?

[Lucid]

I have also been thinking about using Komplete, i want to buy Komplete 8 but because we are so far into the year does anyone think there will be any discounts coming up soon? because i don't want to pay $560 and then in a month or 2 its like $230. BTW does anyone have a rough idea when Komplete 9 will be released?

[EvilDragon]

You've just missed end-of-March discount for registered owners of Absynth/Guitar Rig/FM8/Kontakt/Reaktor, you could get K8 for $299 (I did).

So I think there won't be a discount for some time.

Komplete 9? I think end of next year.

[Bruno Republic]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

You've just missed end-of-March discount for registered owners of Absynth/Guitar Rig/FM8/Kontakt/Reaktor, you could get K8 for $299 (I did).

Me too.

I've done a lot of research on this. I'm always looking for new deals on Komplete packages. What it comes down to is that 7 is still generally around the $500 price range and rarely below (unless you look on Ebay) and 6 can occasionally be found new for ~$300... and I mean very occasionally. Komplete seems to be one particular product that never permanently price drops. (Even pre-6 packages are still very expensive where you can find them, if not more-so than the current ones.) If you pay $500 for a Komplete package, you can bet your hat it will stay that price almost forever except maybe for a short time right before they release the next one, which for now ain't gonna happen for a long time. (They're still acting like 8 is new...)

My advice is that if you have the money and you really feel like you can utilize everything in there well, get it. It's not worth waiting month after month for a price drop in a way where you'd save $200 when you could just make that much again by then anyway.

As for when K9 will come out, there's no way to really know. I wouldn't count on it being in 2012.

[aunshui]

Originally Posted by Greythunder

As for when K9 will come out, there's no way to really know. I wouldn't count on it being in 2012.

I have to disagree. Typically, they'll release a new version of Komplete mid-summer, but I'm not sure that's happening this year, since there haven't been too many new product launches so far (last year was Razor; this year, as far as I know, there's only been Skanner XT). There could of course be more coming up, but it's generally a bad idea to make purchasing decisions based on speculation.

For the past 2 summers, they've done a big half-off individual products sale around July, and another around Black Friday with less generous discounting. Komplete itself is conspicuously absent from these, though, and the upgrade sale they had in March was an anomaly.

So, if you're dead set on buying the bundle new, I'd say wait until summer to see if K9 comes out, or if they offer discounts during the mid-summer blow-out. If you want something now, your best bet is probably going to be buying K6 used, and waiting for an upgrade sale. YMMV, but that's my plan

The only way I could see NI wanting to make a K9 is if they've been working on a full Reaktor 6. That, Skanner XT and maybe one or two other products they'll release by then might make version 9 worth it. It seems to me they're more worried about the Maschine/Traktor audience than the Komplete audience right now, though. I wouldn't doubt they're working on it as we speak but I still doubt it's getting released this year.

[Lucid]

Thanks for the help, I have decided to buy Komplete 8 because I don't think they will release k9 until next year and there won't be any discounts for a while either. Also i don't plan on upgrading until at least 10 anyway.

[EvilDragon]

Komplete 9 is likely to contain Kontakt 6 and Reaktor 6 (at least that would make the most sense). Perhaps Absynth 6 and Massive 2 as well? :D

[muzikalmind]

Originally Posted by jetplane666666

Last year the 1/2 off sale started on April 1 (2011). Obviously this didn't happen this year. I'm still waiting for it to upgrade to K8U.

One problem with installing NI content on any drive other than the system drive is it destroys session compatibility with other systems. Once you move your session to another machine that doesn't have the EXACT same path to the library the plugins will prompt you to find every single sample. I've already requested that the "Library Path" setting in Kontakt and other NI plugs be replaced by a "Library Paths" setting, and that this setting should be global per machine, ie. not stored in the current session. Why they chose the current mode of operation is incomprehensible to me, I can't envision a single scenario where it makes sense.

It's a royal pain working in multiple rooms with sessions containing NI plugs. Right now it's better to keep the library on your system drive. Your best option if you need inter-system session compatibility is to buy a bigger hard disk.

If you are only working on one machine and will never ever change your setup then you can put your NI content anywhere. Keep in mind that if you build sessions now with NI content on a USB drive, and you buy a new laptop with a bigger drive later and decide to install NI content on the system drive, your sessions will difficult to load. Unless NI fixes this. I'm not anticipating this fix soon, the NI guys do a lot of great stuff, but also a lot of really dumb stuff.

This is the best info I've read about this subject. I have a Mac Pro 8 core with Komplete 8 content installed in the default folder on main drive. I just got my Mac book pro and was looking to get extra external drives for audio and library content. I will be constantly moving logic/pro tools sessions between computers so that different 'library path' won't work for me. I guess I have to bite the bullet on main drive space and performance so I can have convenience. I just feel like having content on the main drive really heavy on CPU. Does it make a difference?