Hi all - I'm getting back into writing/recording after a 10 year hiatus.

I'm on Mac/Logic and just got a new MacBook Pro.

I bought Komplete 9 a long time ago and haven't really kept up on what's the latest and greatest from a library and UI perspective; my understanding is that Kontakt is still super clunky and non-intuitive.

I don't do anything super complex; no fancy routing, no custom synth programming. I predominantly use samples of real instruments (drums, piano, "real" synths, horns, etc..) but do some stuff with electronics (think Radiohead).

So ultimately my question is: is Komplete 9 still a good option in 2025, should I consider cross grading to the newest version, or is there a different company and ecosystem I should consider instead?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Well, Native Instruments certainly has gone downhill in the last decade since you've used it unfortunately, mostly in regards to the new ownership and their poor decisions and whatnot... from their deprecation, or lack of interest in some products a lot of us like or liked from Absynth to Reaktor not being a focus, or the community involvement etc..., and "end of life" being somewhat signaled on others....to seemingly shifting their target user base...

But I think it's still safe to say Kontakt remains king of the hill in terms of ITB samplers.. especially if you have an existing established library of stuff you still want to use...

I still use Kontakt all the time, and I dont' think that is going to change anytime soon.

I'm not sure what your upgrade cost is, or if there are any current sales etc, but they come up frequently enough... I don't know if I would go for the full NI Komplete Boat right now if you only figure you are going to be using Kontakt... but I don't know the price difference or options you have etc...

Thanks for the feedback.

I can upgrade to the newest Komplete Ultimate for $400, but I've heard that there's a lot of sales throughout the year, so I just might install the version I have now and then upgrade later.

Was just curious if there's an ecosystem out there that's better than NI that I should be looking at.

no worries.. I would probably wait for a sale, and hopefully the version you have of Kontakt etc works with your macOS...

I guess I'm not sure what you are looking for in an ecosystem or what you already have or have invested in etc... are you talking about instruments? just sample stuff? fx? drums? etc etc...

Like you, I took a year or two or more off and came back to find Native Instruments to not be the company that it was (especially if you are talking ~10 years ago, which imho, was their golden era, with many great years before obviously as well....)..

Obviously these things change over time, and some companies come and some go and some unfortunately go out of business (and with a pandemic in-between and all etc)...

I've always pulled from a large menu, but with my new system (like you, got a newer apple silicon machine last year) I took my time deciding both what I was going to install or what would replace other stuff that had gone to crap or not up to snuff or didn't make the translation over chipsets etc.... and I took my time for the most part... hell, still doing it... ~trying~ to go with less than more, and so far been extremely impressed and happy with what the machine can do and what is out there, even though I obviously lost some old friends.....

But I will say this: owning and having NI Ultimate etc whatever... the ONLY thing I am using from them right now is Kontakt, as I have been reliant on it for years having transferred decades of sample libraries to it's format and invested heavily in the ecosystem of it's libraries and whatnot... Reaktor I have on hold... but spent so much time with that and it's predecessor Generator in the past .. I'm just not going there at the moment.. hmmm.. I use GuitRig7 for some things (but usually not for guitar actually)...


and since they have said f'off to a lot of the things I liked previously... and/or the writing is on the wall for dropping some of them... I'm not investing time in it as I have lost more time to Native Instruments ownerships idiocy, changing plans to race to the bottom, dropping hw support (some fair, some not) over the years ....

that I can absolutely say I would not recommend you go full in on them for anything right now, and outside of Kontakt, (or my being beholden to it).... I can't think of anything they do better than anyone else...

could be forgetting something... but nah. I'm not worried too much about it.

I guess it would probably be easier if you said what kind of things you were looking for, as the market has gotten more crowded, pretty good on a lot of things (especially with your new machine), and competitively priced... in that it's not your 2012 UAD bulls1t pricing on stuff etc, and one doesn't have to choke on often plastic Arturia synths to have very fine emulations of things, or fx etc....

@ lestermagneto - when I was using NI 10 years ago, it was mostly Kontakt and mostly samples of "real" instruments; Abbey Road drums, acoustic and electric pianos, strings, horns, analog synths, etc... I did use Battery a bit and played around with some of the synths, but I'm more of non-fussy synth guy and prefer tinkering around with a Juno or Moog.

Kontakt is still the dominant sample PLAYBACK application. It's never really been a sampler per se.

Companies get bought and sold and things change. Native Instruments has changed..so what. That's life. Either buy what they offer or don't. NI doesn't develop any products anymore, all their Kontakt libraries are now produced by third-party devs and licensed through NI. And many of those products (like all
of the products with "Session"
in the name) are awesome and useful.

My recommendation...don't waste money on Komplete. Just get Kontakt 8.
It's important to always have the latest version of Kontakt because the newest products will only run in the latest version.

If you still have Absynth and Reaktor, u can still use them. I still use both every day.

One thing that I feel is much improved is NI's Native Access app, which is the only way you can download and install their products now. When Native Access was first introduced it was something of a hot mess, but it has matured and improved greatly and I find it works very smoothly now.

I think we all know what we mean when we are discussing an ITB sampler these days for the most part... Hell, my nubus SampleCell card from 1991 or whatever was considered or referred to as a "sampler" but it wasn't sampling anything obviously...and was getting just what I tossed over to it from SoundDesigner or Turbosynth or StudioVision etc....

there are a few out there itb that 'sample', mostly stock things and some others.. but it is what it is...and I think we all pretty much get the shift in nominalism on that, in that a "sampler" is now pretty much considered an instrument that allows one to load in audio recordings (‘samples’) and then play them back at various pitches via MIDI for the most part.

And yeah, I agree, companies get bought and sold.. but NI really had an apex thing going on 10 + years ago where they had a great mixture of in-house devs that cared, and appropriating different ideas (some coming out of user Reaktor ensembles as you know, or hiring great people or their IP like Brian Clevinger for Absynth, or hiring people like EvilDragon who are excellent at scripting, and possess knowledge, and have ideas and vision that can improve things... (and was pretty much doing CS regardless), and brought something solid to the table, of which I believe (without evidence of course!) they are ignoring some of his sound reasoning on certain things... and others apparently who are more vocal about it due to circumstance.)

So yes, I agree, times change, and things and companies are appropriated, and bean counters ideas of how to squeeze money out of the assets sometimes run very counter to what us long time end users really enjoyed and/or were inspired about in the first place with their products.

It's just kind of a shame that the Francisco Tech Bro Chachi's probably wouldn't even entertain the idea of something like Reaktor if it was brought up then or now I imagine, as they just seem to want to sell/shill low rent sample packs to influencers, and get their money and move on... which is fine for them, and that IS their job...as they are responsible to their investors etc... so I get that... just sucks for me and a lot of others I guess enough that I don't have to be either excited about it or silent.

I do believe the culture at NI certainly is nowhere near as cool and vibrant as it was back when these intrepid devs at the nascent Native Instruments were creating some really clever stuff... ranging from Absynth to Generator/Reaktor to Vokator to Battery to everything else... and I remember visiting their offices often and giving feedback and talking with them ...and the excitement in the room between all of us with their passion etc....

sigh...that's pretty much stale toast now sadly.

I'm sure there are still a few great people there, and we see a few of them on this site... but I imagine they aren't as psyched with what's going on and I understand completely why they can't really vocalize it.

So it is a bit of a shame. We used to be excited for their new developments. Now, well... not so much, as things tend to get hobbled, more boxed in, or fan favorites and devs over there get unceremoniously dropped, and the company is in retrograde.

So I'm not celebrating them. And I don't think it's unreasonable to feel that way.

But I can respect what your saying, as a lot of their stuff still does still work (moreso for one platform heavily)... and that's good, but the writing is on the wall for a lot of it... or what one reads and hears on these things.

(e.g. Absynth won't natively on my system as like the OP here and why he is asking, as we are on macOS running their chips that have been out for 5 years or whatever....)... and Reaktor devs are actively looking for work on LinkedIn etc...and take pity on a lot of us who invested time and money in multiple dropped ecosystems of theirs ranging from Kore 1/2, Maschine hw or implementation, their controllers, interfaces etc...

(and I completely get that, hey, there is a reasonable amount of time one can expect something to be supported, or hardware on that, and apple changing chips etc.... ) (but that's coming Windows soon enough right? unless people love stacking inefficient vm's atop each other when just trying to record a synth or use a plugin etc....)

..and I also get this stuff isn't built for 'forever', and keep machines on ice for legacy mode, and so it goes... as it's not a good business model to spend a lot of resources to support products they have already sold and are not profiting on in.... I'm just saying I believe NI "in general" has handled some things very poorly.

But absolutely Dave, tl/dr: I agree with your advice here without question...

upgrade Kontakt as the OP in @ tfunster has a history with it, I'd imagine requires an upgrade after 10 years and new hardware, has pre-existing libraries, hopefully will get a solid crossgrade/upgrade price, and should be all good with that... as I don't think Kontakt is going anywhere anytime soon,

It's just gotten a little more clunky in terms of handling things and databases and locations and quickload not being able to deal with snapshots and whatnot.... but that doesn't seem to be of utmost concern to the OP here, and is another conversation and I'm just ranting a little bit for fun and certainly with no intent to either insult or argue with you at all respectfully..

So hey, I may not like the full direction they have gone with it, or certain decisions. but it's a strong sampler (playback!) unit that I think around v4-5 morphed into additionally an instrument in it's own right with scripting sophistication, and I love what it can do.

my little petulant rant over. and absolutely no disrespect meant to you or anything like that if I came off wrong in my slop typing ...I've just been a bit frustrated with them over the last few years...