Quite possibly their most underwhelming and desperate release to date. I was actually looking forward to it and I am on K9 standard and just got the s49 keyboard a few months back, my goal was to upgrade to ultimate 11 which for me can work out but not at that price at this time.

*Opens email*

*Sees email regarding Komplete 11*

*Check if someone competent has added note repeat in Battery 4*

*Sees all these minor updates that no one could truly care for*

*Sips tea and smiles that my money is not going anywhere*

Seriously, I am still on Komplete 8 and 3 updates later no need to upgrade.

Really disappointed! I got excited when I saw the mail, but that faded pretty quick! I thought there might be something exciting, update wise, but nothing. Can't see any reason to move from Ultimate 10 to 11!

Does it need to be? I mean what is it lacking for you? What do other vendors of similar product to GR have that you think GR lacks that it needs to be updated?

I am looking at the pricing and comparing to the K10 sale.

K10 was $399. K11 is $599
K10U was $699 K11U is $1199

I guess K10 was a pretty good deal.

Significant resolution improvements have been developed for amp sims since Guitar Rig 5's release in 1973.

I do hope they release the GR upgrade without forcing me to upgrade the entire Komplete. That would be disappointing.

Yea man I us it in Battery 3 all of the time, but honestly it never sounds the way it should tho...

My Alesis VI61 and Maschine does it better!

I'd think Kontakt could do note repeat better as its sync function is a lot better! Not that they couldn't add it to battery?

Yes, it desperately needs to be updated! Are you an electric guitar player? If you are, you will notice a difference in how GuitarRig sounds and feels compared to some of its competitors like Amplitube, BIAS, and S-Gear. Amp and speaker cabinet simulation has come a long way since the release of GuitarRig 5 and while it is a great piece of software, the amps in it could play more realistically and overall sound better.

Personally, I wish they'd make it much easier to hot-swap different amps/cabs. In Cubase's native Amp Rack, if you load amp A, tweak the tone controls, then load another amp B and likewise tweak them, when you swap back to A it will remember the settings you had - making it a LOT easier to A/B (and, in fact, A/B/C/D) amps and cabs.

Scuffham at least, remembers adjustments to the amps for as long as you have the plugin open in your DAW. But if you close and reopen later, then if you swap back in any of the other amps/cabs, they'll be back to the default settings.

As the concept of A/B-ing has evolved in the plug-in world, my feeling is that all amp sims should be set up so that they recall any on the fly tweaks you make to any amps/cabs In That Session, so that if, later on, you do want to listen to an amp you tried earlier, it will be set up the way you had it.

Yes. I am a electric guitar player. To my ears GR 5 sounds much better than BIAS and Amplitude.[1]

Notes:

[1] I only have BIAS and Amplitude on iOS. I use the desktop version of GR on OS X.

To each their own and I respect your opinion, but you are in the minority then. There have been countless threads on this forum discussing the realism and sound quality of various amp simulations and the general consensus of the GS community (me included) seems to be that GuitarRig's sound can't keep up with Amplitube, S-Gear and BIAS (MacOS version at least, I've never used the iOS version).

Even GuitarRig 5 Pro's MusicRadar review from 2011 when it was released already noted that sound-wise, there were better alternatives - even back then!

Everyone else in amp modeling has evolved since then while Native Instruments has been doing nothing as it seems.

For me it's the same, GR5 is the most versatile and creative amp and multi-effects sim for my money, I love the way it works and how much you can tweak everything if you want, I'm a heavy tweaker (I said 'tweaker' ; ). And you can get interesting and usable sounds out of the amps too, but often they are a bit flat, fizzy, not organic enough and can sound 'superimposed' on the raw guitar rather than really breathing with it.

So for me, first thing I'd like to see is improved amp and speaker simulation - for speakers not just static impulses, but also modelling the interaction between amp and speaker, things like membrane modelling and other non-linear interactions (speakers are dynamic, not just static EQ).

But also more effects. For example I use choruses everywhere, and there are only two flavours of them in there (one is actually a delay that can pitch-shift). Saying that, I don't necessarily need more one-trick choruses, but more versatile effects that can do all kinds of flavours would be just as good. Something like SoundToys' EchoBoy which can simulate all kinds of different delay flavours. I'm not into the 'make it sound exactly like a pedal, and have hundreds of limited one-trick pony effects like that'. It's about new sounds to me, not just perfectly copying existing gear with limited controls. That's why I can't stand sims like Amplitube, pedal style effects with two knobs give you no flexibility to really create your own sounds.

YMMV of course.

The other thing that would be cool (and NI could surely pull off, smart as they are) is amp profiling, really capturing every nuance of real amps. I mean if they're going to rework their amp sims anyway, a new model might allow that.

Maybe I got to listen to Amplitude and BIAS again. To me they sound just as "not the real thing" as GR. I tend to use very little over drive & distortion (< 20%) and a lot of clean sounds with limiters and compressors. I get what I need out of GR.

i had to finish a mix for a client but I didn't have the plugins he used on guitar so I just new GTR5 would do the trick!

But no I was wrong!

Basic stuff like chorus and flange wasn't even close to the Korg plugins he had used. I was shocked.

I do like guitar rig it they have a few really bad sounding plugins in there.

I was also looking forward to upgrade my K9 Ultimate, but I see nothing makes me want to, which is kind of sad.
Well, maybe next year...

Disappointing.

Hmm I was just looking into KU myself but I have big reservations. Here's the thing, it is a very good deal if you plan to use all the included stuff but, in practice, most people who buy KU won't use half the included stuff, heck not even 10% of it, so for most it's a waste of money.

Of course the dilemma is that buying the bits you'd actually use separately would cost more! The problem with NI's pricing model is that it's all or nothing. Individual plugin prices are too high, and bundled plugin prices compellingly low--but the combined price of the bundle is still too high if you don't plan to use all bits in it.

This pricing model has proven very effective from NI's perspective, but it leaves a sour taste among customers who are being tricked into purchasing a bunch of bloat they don't really need. They might as well price FM8 at $999 and sell KU for $899. It's all the same BS.

Then there's the issue of value. With most decent software companies, when a plugin is purchased individually, it has a certain value, and the transaction gives the buyer not just the product but also a sense of ownership and investment--if the owner decides to sell their license, the product retains much of its original value. NI products, by contrast, have the re-sale value of a used condom if purchased separately: basically nobody will buy your second-hand individual license when they can get it for much less if they buy brand-new KU--exactly what NI wants.

Also, there's the issue of planned obsolescence. Since most people will buy the bundle instead of individual plugins, NI have little incentive to continue development of old products, all of which are eventually dropped sooner than we'd like. Sure, support for any commercial product is invariably eventually dropped, but some companies support their stuff for much longer. U-He, for example, still updates even his old freebies, which IMO is very respectable. It shows the company takes pride in the quality of their creations and customer care. In the end, NI's focus is not on improving existing products but stuffing more into the bundle. Quality vs gigabytes.

Finally, those yearly KU updates worry me. A license purchased today is worth very little next year when the next version is released. Furthermore, with each update it becomes increasingly more difficult for NI to keep updates interesting, so what will they do when they run out of ideas, add more gigabytes of Kontakt libraries? Or simply drop Komplete support because it no longer makes them enough money?

I'm under the impression NI has become too big and too money-hungry, and perhaps it's time to move on.

I have Komplete Kontrol 10 Ultimate. When R11 was released I was underwhelmed. For what you get for the upgrade price, I'm not impressed and it's not worth it for me to upgrade.

For someone who doesn't own Komplete, it's a good deal for all that you get, but for existing owners not so good.

I still believe Komplete is an excellent package and worth all that it's capable of but the update is meager IMHO.

I agree. But I'm money-hungry too. If I were Daniel Haver I would rather make more money unless it's just no longer any fun. Considering their beginnings I would guess it was mostly about fun and the resulting incredible tools we all loved that made NI stand out over the competition. Reaktor and Kore creator Stephan Schmitt left NI years ago for a reason.

I don't think they will ever run out of ideas. Creating some of these tools seems to have become like creating...art. For myself I have to ask does this "art" contribute toward a completed track, or is this tool going to tickle my toes and ultimately waste my time? Has Rounds really inspired my creativity or streamlined my audio objectives? I think there could be a lot of toe tickling happening for a wide prosumer market base. Just look at all the expansion packs, and endless samples regardless of if its for another piano, guitar strums 2, or Siberian chants from monks in Eastern Mongolia. It's limitless as long as prosumers keep buying or upgrading.

But, with the exception of blocks, I think NI ran out of ideas...meaning real innovation or cutting-edge technology that translate for their core user base many years ago.

It's not just NI potentially running out of ideas though, their competitors are also either reinventing the wheel or working hard to keep themselves interesting and profitable. Churning out multi-gigabyte Kontakt sample libraries is factory conveyor belt work.

Well, Adobe make me pay around $400 a year for their subscription software, which is also a lot of bloat. I guess if NI are asking the same for software for my hobby, its ok I guess. I only update every 2-3 years anyway and it keeps them in business.

I bought a K9 update last and paid extra for some specific things. I'm just glad its still all going, and not abandon-ware.

I'm running fine with Komplete Ultimate 9. Didn't see a need to go to either K10 or K11 Ultimate. Especially since there is no Kontakt 6, and non of their Synths have been upgraded. Except for Reaktor. (which I don't use).

Where is Komplete 11 headed by next year ? ... No Clue .. and not sure if I will bother upgrading to K11.