Native Instruments Kore: What exactly does it....do?

[hduncan]

I have a few NI plugins and plan on getting more as time goes on, but I don't really know what Kore has to offer.

Does it allow me to stack multiple Native Instruments synths into a single instrument track?

Is it just an interface that allows me to easily search through sounds and presets?

I've been reading reviews and what not but I still don't really know what this thing does!

[jenkzy56@]

a bit of legwork goes a long way

NATIVE INSTRUMENTS : Products : Kore Line : KORE 2

[hduncan]

Do you really think I haven't already looked at NI's own page on this? Why would I go through the trouble of typing out my questions and then waiting for responses, if I could just read it instantly? Their page simply does not help me.

Can someone give some examples of why I need Kore if I already have these synths individually?

As I understand it- Kore doesnt even come with any synth, you have to own them all first... so I still don't understand what is so great about this system.

Edit: Sorry if I came off as a jerk, but I really did look and your post just made me feel dumb. =)

[Silver Sonya]

Native Instruments = very smart company.

Kore = kinda stupid product, IMO.

You can't be a genius all the time. I had Kore 1 and I have never felt sillier. Just a clumsy, unfun product. I know Kore 2 has some serious improvements but... you can live without it, I say.

Skip it. If my memory serves correctly, I think I gave Kore away. I don't think I sold it. Can't remember.

For some reason, they have spent the last year marketing that thing very intensely. I personally think they should move on and continue to make the amazing software they make.

- c

[soupking]

I recently purchased Battery and Absynth.

I guess having more strings, organs, etc. would be nice, but between these two apps and Ableton. I've got plenty to chew on and learn.

What NI products do you have already?

[siddhu]

@OP,

Check out the Create Digital Music Kore pages.

Excellent information on how to use it practically.

[hduncan]

Originally Posted by soupking

I recently purchased Battery and Absynth.

I guess having more strings, organs, etc. would be nice, but between these two apps and Ableton. I've got plenty to chew on and learn.

What NI products do you have already?

I have Battery 3, Kontakt 3, Massive, and I plan on buying Reaktor and Guitar Rig 3 soon...

It sounds like maybe this is more useful for someone with Komplete 5?

[hugol]

Originally Posted by DarkEcho

As I understand it- Kore doesnt even come with any synth, you have to own them all first... so I still don't understand what is so great about this system.

Actually it DOES come with runtime engines for all the NI synths, but you can't deep edit the sounds without owning the full product. I like it - it sounds fantastic.

The controller is more useful for live stuff, but provides some nice controls for tweaking preset patch parameters (usual stuff like filter cutoff). Other than that it gives you an organised view of all your NI sound patches and fx patches and also has an arp.

[hduncan]

does it allow me to stack several NI plugs together on a single track?

[technog0d]

So lets talk a little bit about Kore. There are really multiple pieces that you need to consider. There is the Hardware kore controller, the software, and then the VIs.

Hardware (Kore 1 (includes audio interface), Kore 2 (No Audio interface)):
The kore is a great controller for tweaking values during your performance. It allows direct control of many of the values that you see in the Kore software. Things like morphing between a snapshot of several presets to another snapshot of several different presets can be configured. You can scroll through patches. There is much that can be done. It basically gives you a tactile feel to the software.

Software: Kore 2 - This software is really very powerful. Because of it's power and complexity it has the potential to scare many people away. NI gives you the ability to buy the HW and software or just the software now. The Kore 2 SW is great if you do nothing else but use it as a way to quickly find sounds over many VIs. But, It is much more powerful than that. Here are some of the things that I find useful.

- The ability to combine multiple VIs (NI or not) into a single playable patch
- The ability to combine effects with the VI patches
- The ability to create muti-timbral instruments with different zones
- The ability to create morpable scenes
- built-in effects
- built-in appregiators and sequencers
- Comes with Multiple NI engines - the difference between the engine and the actual products is that the engine can playback the sounds and the whole product includes the editor to tweak. In saying that, realize that each patch contains tweakable parameters that are preset even if you don't own the full Komplete set.

So what do I use it for?

I use Kore 2 with the controller in the studio to create complex sounds that are made with multiple VIs and effects and sometimes appregiators or sequncers into a single patch. Then I capture some knobs that I want to tweak and control them in my performances. I might capture 2 knobs like filter and cutoff and set them to 1 and 50 in one scene and then set them to 127 and 100 in scene 2 and then use a morph knob to gradually morph between scene one and two. There are so many possibilities. You really need to check out the kore pages on createdigitalmusic.com.

Feel free to ask any questions.

P.S. I did go through alot of headaches in Kore1 software, but Kore 2 is greatly enhanced and has none of the headaches that I saw in Kore 1 SW. I beleive a lot of people did not give it the appropriate chance after it hit Kore 2. Tty the demo and follow the videos from Creat Digital Music to really decide for yourself.

Regards,

[soundrick]

Originally Posted by technog0d

So lets talk a little bit about Kore. There are really multiple pieces that you need to consider. There is the Hardware kore controller, the software, and then the VIs.

Hardware (Kore 1 (includes audio interface), Kore 2 (No Audio interface)):
The kore is a great controller for tweaking values during your performance. It allows direct control of many of the values that you see in the Kore software. Things like morphing between a snapshot of several presets to another snapshot of several different presets can be configured. You can scroll through patches. There is much that can be done. It basically gives you a tactile feel to the software.

Software: Kore 2 - This software is really very powerful. Because of it's power and complexity it has the potential to scare many people away. NI gives you the ability to buy the HW and software or just the software now. The Kore 2 SW is great if you do nothing else but use it as a way to quickly find sounds over many VIs. But, It is much more powerful than that. Here are some of the things that I find useful.

- The ability to combine multiple VIs (NI or not) into a single playable patch
- The ability to combine effects with the VI patches
- The ability to create muti-timbral instruments with different zones
- The ability to create morpable scenes
- built-in effects
- built-in appregiators and sequencers
- Comes with Multiple NI engines - the difference between the engine and the actual products is that the engine can playback the sounds and the whole product includes the editor to tweak. In saying that, realize that each patch contains tweakable parameters that are preset even if you don't own the full Komplete set.

So what do I use it for?

I use Kore 2 with the controller in the studio to create complex sounds that are made with multiple VIs and effects and sometimes appregiators or sequncers into a single patch. Then I capture some knobs that I want to tweak and control them in my performances. I might capture 2 knobs like filter and cutoff and set them to 1 and 50 in one scene and then set them to 127 and 100 in scene 2 and then use a morph knob to gradually morph between scene one and two. There are so many possibilities. You really need to check out the kore pages on createdigitalmusic.com.

Feel free to ask any questions.

P.S. I did go through alot of headaches in Kore1 software, but Kore 2 is greatly enhanced and has none of the headaches that I saw in Kore 1 SW. I beleive a lot of people did not give it the appropriate chance after it hit Kore 2. Tty the demo and follow the videos from Creat Digital Music to really decide for yourself.

Regards,

Very interesting.

If I pick up the software alone, can I use a controller I already have for assigning the parameters? Or is the Kore controller proprietary to the software and vice-versa?

cheers

[technog0d]

The latest version of the kore 2 software has midi assignment. However, I believe the Kore controller is higher resolution being that it is not midi.

[vixapphire]

Kore2 blows away Kore1, and actually delivers on the promise of the concept (which 1 failed to do imho). In addition to the above extended comment with examples the gent made, I'll add (and it may sound dumb, but this is the age of plastic, after all) that to the physical hardware device's credit, it's built solid as hell, and the knobs and buttons are obviously (to the touch) of very high quality.

I have the first version, and the audio interface isn't anything to base your studio around but it is workable enough while traveling around with a laptop away from homebase.

Overall, I like Kore's ability to make the whole komplete shebang fairly manageable, putting everything in a one-stop place. On the other hand, it's a crayzay cpu hog.

[djanogil]

I'm digging out an old thread here, but I'm just puzzled as Kore is described here as a module that plays sounds from already installed NI soft synths on your computer.
I have the demo version, and to me it is a sound module that comes with its own library of sound as diverse as can be, and very easy to use with a friendly user interface.
The way I see it is as a massive sound library, but I don't understand the relation with your existing sounds from existing softwares.
Could anyone explain, as I'm thinking of purchasing the software Kore.

Thx.

[Virtuoso]

Kore has a load of presets which use the different engines of the synths that NI sell. You don't need to own or install these individual synths to get the sounds from Kore. The sounds are tweakable in a limited way that is optimised for live performance. You can also morph between sounds which can give interesting results.

If you tend to just use presets with minor changes, this may be all you need. You can buy cheap Expansion packs for Kore which give extra sounds using the different NI instruments.

However, if you want to edit the sounds at a low level, you need to own the individual instruments. If you have Komplete and Kore, you have a hardware controller and a huge database of sounds for every instrument, plus the ability to fully edit the presets and create your own sounds.

I have Kore2 and Komplete5, but I don't do much editing of the sounds. Kore2 comes with metadata for all the presets in Komplete5, so the main advantage for me is the ease of searching that vast database to find exactly the sound I want.

N.B. Kore can also use third party effects and instruments, but I've personally never used that feature.

[Simon Kaind]

I use Kore 2 to control all my plugins. You can load multiple channels of different instruments in your daw and page to each one when needed with the controller, after you have initially set up your independant plugins on the control surface the way you want them, you can refer back to them in Kore so that each time you load any plugin, it automatically maps your desired controls to the pots and buttons. You can also audtion presets in most plugins by using the hardware controller, where individual presets are shown in a similar manner to a hardware synth. I picked it up for bugger all and upgraded the software, and personally I think if it got stolen, I would pay full price for a new one.

You can also use the controller as a midi controller in the new software, and apparently the new drivers coming out add full midi control too, which will be handy for controling live stuff too. Personally I havent got into the whole kore as its own instrument thing, but i did a tutorial tonight and it actually seems like it might be useful. I also use it extensively as an effects machine in my live sets.

Hope that helps

[jamwerks]

Has anybody tried controling the Kore 2 software with the new Novation Zero SL MKII and automap? Can you map all the controls to the Zero as if it were the Kore 2 hardware?

[djanogil]

Originally Posted by Virtuoso

However, if you want to edit the sounds at a low level, you need to own the individual instruments.


.

Do you do that directly from within Kore or from the instrument?

[Virtuoso]

From Kore itself you get access to parameters like filter cutoff, resonance, harmonics, brightness etc which are defined as part of each sound and may be different for each sound. You can also morph between up to 8 pre-defined variations of each sound (letters A-H in the screenshot below).



If you want to go deeper, you need to load up the instrument to edit. You can just click 'edit' from within Kore, but you will of course then need to own the instrument.

[nyne]

what the CPU hit like ? PPC and Intel.

[greggybud]

Originally Posted by technog0d

So lets talk a little bit about Kore. There are really multiple pieces that you need to consider. There is the Hardware kore controller, the software, and then the VIs.

Hardware (Kore 1 (includes audio interface), Kore 2 (No Audio interface)):
The kore is a great controller for tweaking values during your performance. It allows direct control of many of the values that you see in the Kore software. Things like morphing between a snapshot of several presets to another snapshot of several different presets can be configured. You can scroll through patches. There is much that can be done. It basically gives you a tactile feel to the software.

Software: Kore 2 - This software is really very powerful. Because of it's power and complexity it has the potential to scare many people away. NI gives you the ability to buy the HW and software or just the software now. The Kore 2 SW is great if you do nothing else but use it as a way to quickly find sounds over many VIs. But, It is much more powerful than that. Here are some of the things that I find useful.

- The ability to combine multiple VIs (NI or not) into a single playable patch
- The ability to combine effects with the VI patches
- The ability to create muti-timbral instruments with different zones
- The ability to create morpable scenes
- built-in effects
- built-in appregiators and sequencers
- Comes with Multiple NI engines - the difference between the engine and the actual products is that the engine can playback the sounds and the whole product includes the editor to tweak. In saying that, realize that each patch contains tweakable parameters that are preset even if you don't own the full Komplete set.

So what do I use it for?

I use Kore 2 with the controller in the studio to create complex sounds that are made with multiple VIs and effects and sometimes appregiators or sequncers into a single patch. Then I capture some knobs that I want to tweak and control them in my performances. I might capture 2 knobs like filter and cutoff and set them to 1 and 50 in one scene and then set them to 127 and 100 in scene 2 and then use a morph knob to gradually morph between scene one and two. There are so many possibilities. You really need to check out the kore pages on createdigitalmusic.com.

Feel free to ask any questions.

P.S. I did go through alot of headaches in Kore1 software, but Kore 2 is greatly enhanced and has none of the headaches that I saw in Kore 1 SW. I beleive a lot of people did not give it the appropriate chance after it hit Kore 2. Tty the demo and follow the videos from Creat Digital Music to really decide for yourself.

Regards,

This is a great review.

The problem when this question is asked is that people use KORE2 for different tasks. For some it's simply editing VSTI's and a good librarian/browser. For others it means using the hardware in a live situation. Others love it for sound design taking numerous VSTI's, and through the morphing process creating new sounds...or morph live for special effects. The possibilities for sound creation are endless.

It is a very deep, flexible, and for myself useful tool. You don't learn it overnight, and it comes with a poor manual with no practical examples...just a description of the functions which leaves you watching the tutorials and going to forums to learn more.

It is far from a perfect tool, but updates/upgrades continue to happen. fxb & fxp import issues still need to be addressed. And there are issues out of NI's control such as not being able to do any batch imports with Arturia products.

It appears the future of all NI products (notice FM8, and Massive) will have direct integration with Kore. I doubt Kore will go away, but be continually modified for the next several years.

[The MPCist]

I have Kore.................sitting in its box on the shelf.

It's a great concept but I still feel that NI needs to work on it a bit more. So it's on the shelf until NI puts out Kore3 or whatever version along with a usable manual/tutorial.... As it is now, I'd rather work without it.

[bendish]

So.....

1. how would i define which of the 8 parameter pots is connected to which plugin parameter (assuming i the full versions of the NI product)?

2. How do i take a snapshot of the plugin state?

cheers

guy

[topperf]

Reaktor scares the s*** out of me...

[Nuno_F]

Originally Posted by bendish

So.....

1. how would i define which of the 8 parameter pots is connected to which plugin parameter (assuming i the full versions of the NI product)?

2. How do i take a snapshot of the plugin state?

cheers

guy

1- You assign them to the parameters you want and save a page (which contains the assignments of the 8 encoders).

2- What's a snapshot? A preset?

[bendish]

So the 8 squares at the top are presets which u can morph between?

[Nuno_F]

Originally Posted by bendish

So the 8 squares at the top are presets which u can morph between?

Yes. There's a lot to Kore, its definitely not a "stupid" product.....

[JustinAiken]

Does it add any latency? How much CPU hit?

I just got Komplete 5 (yay sales!), but not really interested in using Kore for it... I'd like to be able to have chains of EQ/compressors though, like channel strip presets in DAWs that have them... and control the plugins from the controller; can the Kore 2 controller assign the knobs to any parameter in any plugin?

Of course, none of these questions matter now, because I'm waiting to see if Kore comes in the Komplete upgrade...

[Nuno_F]

Originally Posted by JustinAiken

Does it add any latency? How much CPU hit?

I just got Komplete 5 (yay sales!), but not really interested in using Kore for it... I'd like to be able to have chains of EQ/compressors though, like channel strip presets in DAWs that have them... and control the plugins from the controller; can the Kore 2 controller assign the knobs to any parameter in any plugin?

Yes it can. And it displays what knobs are doing what. I am not sure you can have parameters on the same page assigned to different plugins though. You'd probably have to switch pages from the controller to access your next plugin. I never tried that.