Komplete 7

[Alistair]

Is anyone using NI Komplete 7?

I'm producing/mixing a project at the moment where I've got great sounding tracked vox and guitars, with some virtual instrument keys/drums/bass. Part of the project is getting some great sounds happening for these parts, and that's not something I really spend a lot of time doing. It's fun, but I'm not sure where to start.

They've been created in Logic, using the provided instruments- ESX24 sampler and Ultrabeat. I'm just gonna say off the bat, I hate these programs. I find them slow, hard to audition sounds, and generally don't end up sounding that good anyway.

Years ago I used Battery and some of the NI sampled instruments a bit- mostly the B4, and have fond memories. I see you can get them now, plus some nice synths, and 4 decent sounding pianos for not too much as Komplete 7. They've also got some cool sounding Abbey Road drums thrown in- perfectly useable for jingle/add work. I always found NI easy to use, and whilst the samples weren't perfect, they sounded ok in the mix. I'm assuming they've gotten better by now aswell.

Anyway, anyone have opinions on Komplete? Keep in mind I'm an amateur at this stuff and happy to stay so- I don't want to spend hours loading up new sample libraries or anything like that, just have something user friendly to replace some sounds with good quality samples, that I can easily modify.

Or should I stick it out with the Logic stuff? People say they are good once you get over the learning curve, but I like instant gratification! And the idea of Komplete working in PT/Logic is great too.

[mylesgm]

I use Komplete regularly especially Guitar Rig and Kontakt, occasionally the piano instrument and the hammond. Mostly very easy to use but Kontakt can be a pit of a pain to program (I've created an extensive sampled instrument with it so I do know it fairly well) but does give good results. They do sound good esp. the hammond and the piano is the best VI of piano I've ever heard though it doesn't sound "real", in a track it at least sounds believable. I've not used the drum samplers at all but I know that people do. Honestly as I have said before I don't know how any one uses Logic (for the reasons you've listed as well as a few more) professionally but thats just me.

Though are you saying you already have good sounding VI parts or you want to add good sounding VI parts? If you already have good sounding parts and want them to be better I would say that rather than changing the VI (though that might help) you may just be changing the sound of virtual for another virtual and not actually like the 'virtual' part of the sound. For instance, you might have more joy running a Bass part out a reamp and then actually recording the bass sound like you would record a real bass. This way you'll get the feel of a real instrument rather than a digital instrument. In regards to the drums I would try also running them out speakers cranked in a room and recording that or running out to outboard in the same way you might process 'real' drums. Most of the drums samplers will allow you to buss individual instruments (kick, snare) etc to separate channels in the mix window where you can apply real inserts or plugs to create a bit more of a 'real' sound rather than the VI sound. Nothing makes these sounds come alive though without a lot of work. A snare is never hit the same way twice, variety is the soul of performance and yet incredibly lacking in a VI.

M

[The Tasmanian]

Spot on Myles!
Alistair - sit back with pen and paper, make notes of what would need to be done to each virtual instrument/sound to make the song/work amazing - whilst you have all the tracks going.
Then grab the sounds and individually run them through amps - pedals - bathrooms -anything you can to make them special - doing this with a plug-in is lazy mans work.
By making a bigger effort than the 90% of lazy (plug-in) bastards you will come up with something really special.
Your work will stand out from all the other "plug in sheep"
AND - the most important part is you will discover original processes that others have not discovered through lazyness.
These skills/ original tricks you develop will set you apart from the sheep.
Snares through amps/ using real rooms, home hallways, bathrooms for small reverbs, crap pedels, Eq's, delays, putting ITB reverbs back through rooms and re-blending the reverbs back with the source reverbs.
Also - it does not have to replace the source - it can be used in parallel/blended with the original source too.
Go for it and own the work/production.

[mylesgm]

Your work will stand out from all the other "plug in sheep"
AND - the most important part is you will discover original processes that others have not discovered through lazyness.

Also - it does not have to replace the source - it can be used in parallel/blended with the original source too.
Go for it and own the work/production.

Seems one of the main losses of studios is places dedicated to working on sound and having the tools close to hand. Working from home actually breeds laziness. At least for me anyway its too easy to surf the net, get a cup of tea, check the mail etc.

And further more not replacing the source but keeping it alongside means you can always change it later and finding the original is easy. I learnt this the hardway, organisation is paramount if you want to maintain flexibility, not 'instant total recall' though that of course is very useful, having your tracks laid next to each other cleanly labelled or in folded playlists is the best.

[Alistair]

Thanks guys, to be honest I was going to go down a similar path- not because I thought it would be 'better', but because I know how to use amps and mics and pedals and guitars, but computers confuse the shit out of me! I actually felt a bit lazy for not wanting to learn how to use the computers, and just doing it analog, so it's good to hear that's where its at.
I did a little work today on replacing some block chord choir sounds with multiple tracks of delay/sustain guitar, one track per note of the chord. I dunno if it's better cause it just is, or because it's something I'm comfortable with, but it's better!

I guess at the moment the initial sounds aren't up to 'heavy modification' from my point of view, they are better off getting trashed. The project's not about real sounding sampled piano/drums etc, it's cool if they are electronic sounding and there will be a bit of glitchy stuff too, but at the end of the day I'd rather delay, distort and destroy a great sounding piano track than something terrible. I'd also love to have a bit of software I can control a bit better too, so I can make a 'drumkit' out of guitar scrapes or slamming doors, but the samplers in Logic aren't helping me out with that sorta stuff. It's possible, but slow as all hell.
Sounds like Komplete will fulfill the tech side of things, but I'll still have to get creative with it. Suits me, loud heavy boxes are the fun bit!

And Myles- I'm with you on the Logic thing. It's killing me, I just haven't worked up the strength (or cash) to switch over to the new PT. It'll happen soon. Even so, on this project I'd still be having to get it out of Logic first!

[mylesgm]

Moving from Logic to PT is easy these days as PT9 now has OMF functionality builtin. All you do is save/export your logic session as OMF tick all the right options in the omf window (this should acutally be clear if you think about it) and then open the omf file in PT and follow the prompts. You might need to do it a couple of times with one file first to get a handle on how it works but I've done that a few times in the last week with Logic to PT and Digital Performer to PT and it works well enough. Things like fader moves wont tanslate but tracks, file position, midi tracks (not VI of course) etc do.

All the above aside I find that ultrabeat is probably going to be an easier program to learn and use for beatmaking/manipulation than Kontakt though I don't use drum machines much. But logic editing is atrocious and the program is so clunky you'd be better off working in PT overall.

[Text_Edifice]

Can I play devil's advocate for a minute and suggest you spend a bit of time delving into beat-making / working with exs24 in logic before laying down more cash on the NI Komplete bundle.

Ultrabeat and EXS24 are great tools for working with the types of sounds you describe and you'll find many interesting sample libraries available in exs24 format (including things like prepared guitars and pianos) if you do a bit of a search. The instrument manuals are really very good (though daunting) and there's loads of tutorials out there at places like http://www.logic-cafe.com/Homepage.asp?CategoryID=1 that might help.

Like Myles I find the PT workflow much more intuitive - I think because it's the first DAW I learned - but there's things you can do with sound mangling of samples within logic's included plugins that PT (I don't have 8) can't touch.

If non-acoustic sounds are what you're after and you want something that's a bit more 'fun' I've just started playing with Audiomulch (http://www.audiomulch.com/info.htm) and with a fairly gentle learning curve it can be used to create some really interesting beats / textures etc. with a very improvisatory / experimental workflow.

As you've already put down your hard-earned on Logic and it's capable of doing what you seem to want - as well as routing instruments out of the box and capturing some real air moving - it might make more sense to try and work past the frustrating learning curve.

(Battery is a killer drum-sample-machine though).

[Alistair]

Sorry- I didn't mean transferring session/audio files, I meant the VI's. I'd still have to get them happening in Logic and then bounce out to audio to move to PT, or take the MIDI across to PT and start from scratch sound wise.

[Alistair]

Thanks Dave, I'll check those sites out. I know for a while I was really into downloading the blips kits and doing that sorta thing, which I found easy with and older version of battery, but a bit of a process with ultrabeat. I'll check out the tutorials and see if they can teach an idiot like me!