Native Instruments freebies

  • I upgraded to K12 Ultimate earlier in the month and qualified for a free download of Massive X which was released yesterday hence me hanging around their site. Their upgrade policy is pretty good as software companies go..... I hadn’t actually upgraded since version 9 and the price was great value for what it added. It makes these things a lot more cost effective when you can afford to skip 3 or even 4 generations without being hit with a horrific upgrade path.


    Consequently the song I’m working on now has me trying my best to score an orchestra. It sounds good to anyone that doesn’t actually know how to score an orchestra - it’s good to stretch yourself but I’m probably doing the equivalent of some midi files whereby you hear two notes on a virtual guitar that wold require the person to have 3 hands :)

  • Say Gaz, do you know if Massive (the original) is included if one buys Komplete now?


    NI has said that X and the original are different beasts and hence that preset libs for the old version won't work in X.


    That suggests to me that the original should still be included, seeing as they're different products. I don't expect you to know seeing as you were upgrading and not buying it outright; I've heard that the new installation leaves the older VI intact so you'll still have it. Just asking in case you do know, being a user 'n all. Thanks man.

  • Sorry for the slow reply Nicky - timezones plus work :)


    I'll give you my understanding and it is just my understanding so please forgive if I'm getting the wrong end of the stick:-


    The original Massive is included if you buy *any* Komplete 12 version from the 'select' version upwards (so regular, ultimate and ultimate collectors all get it). You do not get it if you download the freebie I linked to.


    The standard Komplete 12 is discounted heavily in a current promo and allows upgrades from Komplete 2 to 11 for £79 UK which is pretty good if you're on an old version! I'd imagine it'd be Christmas for someone going from version 2 to 12. £159 gets you from your current version of Komplete Ultimate to the latest one. It's a crazy amount of stuff..... I haven't installed everything as there is, for example, a cinematic instrument for making atmospheric jumpy noises for movies. It looks very cool and fun but I don't spend much time making atmospheric weird stuff for movies (read that as 'absolutely no time at all and don't think I'll be starting). So whilst I'm sure it's awesome it's another 30 gig of hard drive space so, for what I do, I'll leave it in the library for now :)


    Regarding Massive X, you get it as a free upgrade from the regular Komplete 12 and upwards. It is *not* given as a freebie to folks who own K12 Select.


    https://www.native-instruments…dles/komplete-12/compare/


    On my PC, both still show up as separate plugins and they are very different beasts. I'm pretty ignorant with fully understanding all the nuances of different synths so I can't really give a decent comparison other than to say that I like both :) I've had a quick play through the presets and X sounds very impressive but then I'm still impressed by pretty much every other soft synth I have so I'm probably not the target audience :)


    I know there are folks whinging that Massive X is CPU heavy and it is! My PC is maybe 5 years old and for a typical arrangement I do where I've got plugins on every channel I might hit 50% at mixdown. Massive X has some patches that hit 30% CPU on my system with nothing else running! Obviously it's version one so they might well do a 1.x release at some point soon to cheer that up.


    Hope this helps - I'll be happy to answer anything else I'm able to but if you ask me to explain how to use Reaktor then 'I'm out of here' as it loses me completely!

  • Wow! Thank you so much, Gary! So kind of you, mate.


    Silly me, it didn't even occur to me to check the NI site's breakdown, and there it is - Massive and Massive X.


    I bought a PluginGuru lib for Massive several years ago knowing that I'd eventually own it, so I didn't want it to go to waste.


    The only other Q I can think of right now is whether or not my CPU's have AVX, which is apparently required for Massive X. Even following links provided by KVR (including Wikipedia) I still couldn't figure it out. Intel Xeon 5680 3.33GHz 6 core, for what it's worth. Popped two of them in the cheese grater at least 5 years ago.


    Again, thank you so very much for putting so much thought into your response, mate; you're a champ, brother. <3

  • No worries and glad it helped. I'm afraid I don't know the answer regarding the CPU spec - there's already a growing Massive X thread over on the NI forum that might help you.


    I also saw someone complain that their beloved Massive patches don't work in Massive X so I think your library there will be in the same boat of needing the original. I've no idea if they'll ever be able to add backwards compatibility but the ethos seems to be 'it is a completely new instrument..... the old one is still brilliant and therefore it's sticking around too'. I get that they wanted to generate excitement by using the Massive name but perhaps a different title would have been a good idea if they're sticking with the story of it being entirely different ?

  • Agreed; a distinctly-new name would've "helped".


    Yeah, I've tried to read as much of the KVR thread, which is also huge and firing on all cylinders, as possible, but haven't seen any specific mention of my CPU's, which are mighty-popular for the old cheese graters. Instead, as I suggested earlier, links to Wiki and whatnot have been provided and I couldn't make heads or tails of the data. Didn't want to ask something that might already have been covered, so I'll keep reading.


    Thank you again for everything, Gaz. ;)