Experience with Komplete

[M.E.T.H.O.D...MAN]

I just bought an m audio keyboard and a korg padkontrol to use with FL Studio 10 and I am almost set to start making much better music. Just wondering if it is worth it for me to get Komplete for making boom bap hip hop. Situation is that don't want get something super advanced to figure out because I am still learning things in FL every day and want to exploit everything in FL before branching out to 3rd party plugins, BUT the stock sounds in FL are not up to par and do not sound good to my ear. In addition, the stock plugins like sytrus and harmor, etc. all sound way to electronic and seem lend themselves better for making trance stuff. I don't make trap beats or things that require a bunch of saws and crazy delays and electronic style sounds I really just need a great quality sounding bass, a few nice trumpets and saxes, a couple realistic pianos, maybe a few old school synths, a bunch of great sounding drums for boom bap, maybe a couple R&B strings and some nice choir vocals. That is it, everything else that I do involves sampling. I just want the option to make my own tracks with some high quality sounds to then chop every once in awhile instead of always searching for new songs to chop. Or to add some instruments to an already chopped sample without sounding like the extra instruments don't belng there. I was told to look at EastWest Orchestra... way too expensive for me and I hear that as good as they sound, they pretty much sound a certain way and don't lend themselves to tweaking much. BUT on their website under loops, I found a ton of urban and R&B loops for 50-100 bucks that I could use Edison to chop the individual hits and make my own kits, and still the high quality of the Eastwest sound for cheaper. Although I do not really have the option of tweaking those sounds because they are loops as opposed to instruments. OR should I simply buy a few of the Native-Instruments instruments separately (I like session horns, studio drummer, George Duke, vintage organs). Would they get me what I am looking for? (Gang Star, Curen$y, Wu Tang, MF Doom style beats). I do not know if I need everything that comes with Komplete. But I will probably buy it down the road if I do not save up for the eastwest package.

 

[sharif]

This is a great question. While the Komplete 8 software does come with tons of sounds and instruments that really do cover a wide spectrum, I find it pretty lacking in some areas.

I mainly got Komplete because I really liked their orchestra brass and string libraries, found them very easy to work with and modify. But I almost never use anything else from Komplete so really figure out if you are going to utilize all the instruments which is what you are paying for, or are you going to be using specific soundpacks from NI... You can get the lite version and just buy the addons for premium strings and brass.

From my experience the East West libraries are the best for orchestra and even brass. Incredible sounds and quality. But same issue, are you really going to use the whole set or just one or two libraries? I know buying the full editions for both are really expensive so if budget is an issue, its time to key in on which instruments/sounds you really want or need.

 

[Oxygen Beats]

Komplete has some awesome stuff, and you could spends years trying to learn everything in it. I would suggest learning everything you have now, and then buying Komplete. Once you've learned how to use everything in Komplete, then you'll have a solid understanding of things and could start branching out. But really, Komplete is very well rounded and very cheap when bundled. Of course you're going to want more sounds/vsts down the road, but it's really an awesome starting point!