TAXI.com

Hi everyone,

I've started working with Alchemy (one tension cue so far) and it's very impressive.

My question is to those of you who have both Alchemy and Komplete. I would like to, in the next year or so, start working on tension, EDM, Hip Hop, and drone cues.

Can I manage on Alchemy or do you recommend Komplete? And if you can comment on Massive and Battery, I would really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Alchemy is great and you can do a lot with it, and so is Logic in general. But comparing Alchemy to Komplete is like comparing a Chevy Camaro to the whole line of Ford automobiles. Camaro's are great, but if you can have the whole line of Fords, that's an entirely different scenario. Massive is great, but there are other things in Komplete, primarily Kontakt and Reaktor that I personally use much more. Absynth is killer so is FM8 both are found in Komplete. If you have Logic X and Komplete X, and you can afford it, there's enough in those 2 to do almost anything you want. And regarding Battery, Ultrabeat in Logic is similar and very powerful as well.

Happy shopping,
Jon

once you have at least Kontakt Player, or the full version of Kontakt, there are a lot of packages that you might find useful for tension type stuff.

Namely:

Output REV, Signal, etc. - which have tempo synced patches.

Alchemy is great, and if you keep on finding new sounds by effecting it in different ways, or by using your own audio samples to make custom patches, it can really take you a long way - OTOH there are a lot of other cool things out there.

Massive is great. Some of the pre-sets are a little old school sounding now, but you can program anything from scratch if you have the chops - and you can also buy lots of Massive preset collections from various sources on the web. Battery I never use as I have Komplete Ultimate 8 - and if I had upgraded to Ult 10 and had Battery 4 instead of 3, I might have more to say about it.

I didn't buy Komplete; that or Komplete Ultimate are great if you're flush and you're just starting to build a sampled arsenal, but if you're on a budget, I'd recommend getting the full version of Kontakt, ASAP. If you've been collecting instruments for a while already, the bigger bundles might have redundancies. (I have so many Steinways and and e-pianos, it's taking a lot of time to pick one) There are other samplers/platforms, but most of the best third-party stuff and all of NI's stuff run on Kontakt; imo, if you have to learn one sampler, it's the one.

+1 Jon

If you are only looking for software synths, there are a gajillion,lol!

Alchemy is great with many different types of synthesis. It doesn't have FM synthesis though, and FM8
would be a nice complement to Alchemy.

The first thing I would do shopping for synths, is 1) type of synthesis, if you are looking for a variety of synth types. Most are virtual analog, or subtractive synthesis. You might not want to have all VA synths if you are looking for variety of sounds.

Something similar to Battery is Mdrummer, the small one is free and has a demo of the Mdrummer large
https://www.meldaproduction.com/MDrummer%20Small

I dont have Alchemy but....

Andy is right, Massive's stock presets do have a datedness about them. Maybe it's because we've used it for such a long time. You might have a hard time using the stock presets for current edm/trap/hip hop. but there are countless third party sound designers that sell very affordable preset packs that are geared towards contemporary urban music, such as adsrsounds.com.

It's also a great synth to learn synthesis with. Once you follow a few tutorials on youtube (pick a lead or bass from a popular song and theres a very good chance there's a tutorial on how to recreate in Massive) it will start to make sense and you may even find yourself being able to tweak the stock presets to your liking.

I usually use Battery to trigger third party drum samples i load manually but from what i've heard of its drum library, it's very useable.

As Mojo mentioned, Kontakt is a fantastic product. There are so many third party developers that use it as a platform for their sample libraries. If you can, though, I would recommend spending the extra $100 and get Komplete. You may be getting a few different piano libraries, which does feel redundant, but you get Battery, a bunch of other Kontakt libraries and a few more synths (including Massive). I'd say it's pretty good value, especially if you're just starting to build your library of sounds.

That is for the regular Komplete. As to whether you should go for Komplete Ultimate, now that would be a rather lively debate.

Henrietta

You can get the free Kontakt Player and it will play quite a few things BUT there will be a time when you want something that only plays on the full version
Black Friday is a great time to buy Native Instrument stuff Most at 50% off

I have both Alchemy and Komplete. It's like having a super huge toolbox. But the secret is to know the sounds and grab the appropriate sound when you need it

I bought the Kontakt Full version during this time and was quite pleased with it then bit the bullet and upgraded to Komplete 10
You better get an external drive though

It did come a long with some duplicate programs I had already purchased but It is worth it.
I would say keep on researching, get used to the sounds you have now, then move forward when the sales are on



Just my 2 cents

Best
Don

Here's some good free ones
http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/12- ... ths-615790

Reviewed paid ones
http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/the ... day-621799

[quote="ochaim"...... As to whether you should go for Komplete Ultimate, now that would be a rather lively debate.[/quote]

IMO - when you go ultimate, you get the whole deal on an external drive from NI. And that right there is enough to justify it, IF you get it on a half price sale (which as mentioned above happens every year, but not necessarily on black Friday - one year it was in the summer).

While you cannot use the external drive to actually run Ultimate as you need another of your own drives to actually host it - it does allow painless and quick installation of the entire Ultimate library. No sitting for hours swapping DVDs. When I have upgraded computers or added more sample drives this has made re-installation SO much easier.

I think the extra range of sounds included in Ultimate make it worthwhile as well - and every year they add another couple bells and whistles to it. Especially if you favor cinematic stuff, or synths, or like their Studio drummer series.

http://www.native-instruments.com/en/pr ... e/compare/

Again - half price upgrade is the key.

NOTE** once a year there are also half price upgrades to Kontakt full version (if you have any third party library that runs in Kontakt player - like LASS Lite etc. - there is a list on the NI site of qualified purchases for cross-grades), as well as upgrades from just having Kontakt Player or Kontakt full version to Komplete, and Komplete Ultimate.

Hey Henrietta, one thing that I don't think has been mentioned yet is that you'll need to be careful of the plug-in "type" that your DAW uses.

When I upgraded my ProTools from 8 to 10 a few years back, ProTools had just launched the .AAX format, and wouldn't recognize any synths that were other formats any longer. Back then, Alchemy (when it was owned by Camel Audio) wasn't doing AAX, and so the plug-in that I'd paid for was totally unplayable and useless. I lost the Alchemy Player, along with 3 or 4 synths that I purchased as upgrades. Bummer, cuz there was some good stuff in there.

So, if you're using ProTools, just make sure that all of your synths & virtual instruments are made in .AAX format.

If you're using a different DAW, then this won't be an issue.

P.S. wasn't Camel Audio purchased by Apple or something a year or so ago?

~~Matt