Best Software for quality R&B production?

Z

Zippy1

New member
Hi all

I write R&B music and I'm currently using the stock instruments that come with my DAW (Sonar), whilst these are OK, they're a bit limited, I'm also using a few free VSTi's (notably DSK Mini Drumz 2, which although quite useful, is again fairly limited).

I now want to purchase some decent sounds / VSTi's and I've been looking over the 2 main options (East West Complete Composers Collection and NI Komplete Ultimate 8) - now, I've ruled out the East West bundle because it's not expandable and seems more geared towards orchestral / cinematic type stuff (which I would also like to do, but it's not my priority). I love the idea of Komplete 8 as it's so vast and I think one of my favorite producers (Teddy Riley) has used sounds from this before (from session strings). I'm guessing there will be a ton of stuff that I would never use in the NI collection, but that will probably be the same for any collection).

Now, is this a good choice for R&B music? I'm not into producing 'Dance' or 'D&B' or 'Dubstep' etc.... purely R&B (and 'mainstream' R&B/Pop - think Beyonce, R. Kelly Babyface, Usher etc. from uptempo to R&B ballads).

I think I was settled on NI Komplete 8 Ultimate and BPM for the drums (as I believe Maschine isn't great for this type of music although I could still utilise it).

I just want something that gives me everything I would need (to an extent), is expandable and sounds top quality/professional.

My budget would be about 1,000 (UK Pounds, sorry, just got a new laptop and the keyboard is mapped incorrectly and I can't find the pound Sign!!).

These 2 should just fall within my budget.

Any thoughts and advise would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
You don't need the EW Complete Posers Collections. You were right in it has a lot of great stuff but really overkill for what you are trying to do. Komp 8 is a good choice. I would hold off on buying BPM at first because you can do most of everything you can do in BPM in Battery.
 
I would just get Komplete. I am thinking about getting it myself after using the lighter version while trying out Maschine at Guitar Center.
 
Bpm is kind of a joke to me. It's entire drum library is about 250mb ( I sampled it into Kontakt format). The rest is a cut out from Motu Mach Five sound library. Geist is the most satisfying drum software, then comes Ableton's drum racks, then Maschine, then MPC, then Battery.

 
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To the OP, do you have a song page. Just trying to get a sense of what your current sound is.
 
jus a head ups...

not sure if you've tried the sounds that come with Komplete yet, but I would suggest trying them out for a little bit...

I had komplete a while ago and I ended up getting rid of it...

the package seemed like it would be cool, but when I got the sounds, they didnt really seem too inspiring...
the synth sounds are pretty good, you'll actually get more than you need with they synths...

but the bread and butter everyday type of sounds just seemed lacking to me... pianos, guitars, etc...

I know allot of people will say you can tweek them etc... but for me, I like the presets to be inspiring on their own and then if I want, I'll tweek after... not sure if you're like that as well...

battery and guiar rig are DOPE....


but yeah, that was my experience...


I'm looking into total worksation by IK multimedia right now... its pretty much similar to the Komplete package.... only thing with this package is that its kinda old, they havent really updated it for a while..

theres also Halion 4.... i'm leaning more towards this one right now, I have to go and test it out though..


you said ur budget was a stack right?

I think you might be able to get both Halion 4 and total workstation for that or one of the two and Komplete 8 (not the ultimate version)...

that actually might be the way to go...
if you really want to get Komplete, get Komplete 8 cause it'll give you they synths, battery, guitar rig... and then get Halion 4 or something like that...

but yeah just my thoughts....
 
Interesting.. if you find Komplete uninspiring, I don't is IK being any better at guitars, pianos or even synths. Their Philharmonik bank sounds great, but limited where articulations are concerned. Kontakt's orchestra sounds better, especially with the addition of Session Strings. Drums are better too. Guitar? Have you ever heard Ilya's Nylon guitar for Kontakt? Yes is a 3rd party library, but worth listening to. I bought Komplete 8, but the synths barely get use as Omnisphere crushes them all. But anyway the OP said he wants to do RnB, not electronic...I think Komplete Ultimate suits the genre better than IK Workstation Bundle.

I have most of these plugins anyway, so if you want me to compare any, let me know and I'll produce a lil something to showcase the differences.
 
JBlongz said:
Interesting.. if you find Komplete uninspiring, I don't is IK being any better at guitars, pianos or even synths. Their Philharmonik bank sounds great, but limited where articulations are concerned. Kontakt's orchestra sounds better, especially with the addition of Session Strings. Drums are better too. Guitar? Have you ever heard Ilya's Nylon guitar for Kontakt? Yes is a 3rd party library, but worth listening to. I bought Komplete 8, but the synths barely get use as Omnisphere crushes them all. But anyway the OP said he wants to do RnB, not electronic...I think Komplete Ultimate suits the genre better than IK Workstation Bundle.

I have most of these plugins anyway, so if you want me to compare any, let me know and I'll produce a lil something to showcase the differences.
Click to expand...


yea, i mean maybe it was jus me, but I remember loading up kontakt to go trough the sounds for the first time and jus being a little disappointed...

maybe I should go back and take another look...

I have heard of the ilya guitar stuff, that does sound really good...

but like I was saying i think the OP would be better off with getting 2 of the three...

you have Halion 4? how you feel about that?
 
youngjboy , I don't have anything up on the net at the moment, I'm just getting back into my music after a few years out, hence, updating my set up. I've used hardware modules in the past, but I want to go all software now and sell my hardware units.

DaKillaB, yepI also like the use the presets and like them to be inspiring, the less time I'm tweaking sounds, the more time I can be writing music!

I guess I would agree that I would be using 'Real' or 'Bread and butter' (Piano, acoustic guitar, strings etc) more than I would synths, but would probably still use the synths now and then.

stillfunkin - My PC is an i7 2600k clocked to 4.7Ghz with 16GB of RAM - unfortunately I'm still only running my two SATA-1 drives from years ago! But no doubt they will be updated at some point in the near future. I assume I won't have any issues running Komplete with this set up?

The reason I'm leaning more towards Kontact is because it's expandable. I'm don't know anything about the IK Multimedia, but I'll have to check it out too!

Yep, budget is around 1,000

Thanks for the advice!
 
stillfunkin said:
i would have to agree...

i think the problem with "some" of these young music makers is they never been around real instruments... i.e. bass, electric piano, drums ets... because those drums, basses, keys, strings, organ, etc in komplete sound really nice...
Click to expand...


unnecessary, lol ...

but yea,
Zippy, theres a free version of sample tank on IKs website that u can try, it comes with a giig of sounds and you can pretty much use it forever... their soundbank is expandable too... but like I said they havent updated their stuff for the longest time..


Im going to look into Komplete again, jus to see if my mind changes about it, but Im thinking you'd be good with getting both Halion 4 and Komplete... allot of the sound categories will overlap but they both sound different so it'll give your more options... they both also come with a good amount of synths so you'd be good in that area too...

i think Komplete is 6bills and Halion 4 is about 350 so thats pretty much a stack.. not sure what the conversion to pounds would be though....
 
Zippy1 said:
youngjboy , I don't have anything up on the net at the moment, I'm just getting back into my music after a few years out, hence, updating my set up. I've used hardware modules in the past, but I want to go all software now and sell my hardware units.

DaKillaB, yepI also like the use the presets and like them to be inspiring, the less time I'm tweaking sounds, the more time I can be writing music!

I guess I would agree that I would be using 'Real' or 'Bread and butter' (Piano, acoustic guitar, strings etc) more than I would synths, but would probably still use the synths now and then.

stillfunkin - My PC is an i7 2600k clocked to 4.7Ghz with 16GB of RAM - unfortunately I'm still only running my two SATA-1 drives from years ago! But no doubt they will be updated at some point in the near future. I assume I won't have any issues running Komplete with this set up?

The reason I'm leaning more towards Kontact is because it's expandable. I'm don't know anything about the IK Multimedia, but I'll have to check it out too!

Yep, budget is around 1,000

Thanks for the advice!
Click to expand...

Okay, just wondering. I use all hardware at this time myself and only use cubase for recording for the most part. I liked Komplete when i played with the included Maschine sounds. I will say that when i downloaded the Komplete free demo, the synths were great and the bread and butter not as great, but i seem to remember the bread and butter sounding good on maschine.

I may eventually go software, but it does seem that mostly everyone does synths great, but bread and butter only a few do well. For now i am sticking with my hardware, and may eventually cross over to software, possibly Logic, or i'll stick with Cubase and get some decent VSTs
 
Well, after reading through this thread and looking at all the available options, I think I'm going to go for Komplete U8, will cost me about 750, so that leave another 250 which I can use later if I need to! Thanks again for all the advise :cheers:
 
Sorry, one other thing, Maschine that comes with Komplete 8 Ultimate, does it include the full Maschine sound library or is it a cut down version? I ask because I've read that the Maschine library is 6.5GB or something similar, whereas on the NI website if you look at the included products with Komplete 8 it says that there are 20 kits of 16 sounds each, which doesn't seem a great deal - it also says the download size is something like 55MB?! Sorry, but confusion reigns - Thanks again :-)
 
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It's OK, it comes with 'Maschine Drum Selection' which is 'taken from the Machine Library'
 
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