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I've listened to many of the audio demos for the non-gimmicky stuff now (I consider most NI products to be gimmicky, and 95% of their demos are in that category and don't do justice to their "natural instrument" products as they are polluted with electro stuff).

Unfortunately, nothing entices me this round, except maybe the India product. I downloaded the manual and it seems unlikely that it is remotely related to the old product, as well as not having the academic nature that the Kore product had regarding proper playing techniques (though of course it is important to talk about tuning the tablas to the song, which many don't realize).

I have most of those instruments covered pretty well by now, but the two that are unique to this library are the single-stringed Tumbi and the resonant low-pitched Pakhawaj double-sided drum.

Hmmm, I own Komplete 5 and am eligible to upgrade! Still not sure if it's worth it though
I tend to be always disappointed by NI products and end up not using them much. Would be good to have Kontakt again in a current version, other than that, the few things I'm interested in are in the Ultimate version which is definitely too expensive...

mhschmieder wrote:... except maybe the India product. I downloaded the manual and it seems unlikely that it is remotely related to the old product,

I don't think it is. I have a good friend from India who worked on that library.. he told me it was all new.

He told me I should get it, and I probably will, just buy it stand-alone. I do need some better India sounds.

I'm looking at the strummed acoustic guitar—stand alone is $99. It's included with Komplete 11 but not 10 so buying the older build is not really cost effective for me.

As I don't own any older versions and don't have an immediate need, I'll bide my time.

Thanks for the follow-up info on the India product. I think that I too will buy it piecemeal, as I did earlier with Reflektor XT or whatever the delay plug-in is called.

The MIDI pattern library may prove worth it as an educational tool, just as I find Twiddly.BITS MIDI pattern libraries extremely useful for getting deeper into genres I have no direct training in (such as Cumbia).

mhschmieder wrote:Thanks for the follow-up info on the India product. I think that I too will buy it piecemeal, as I did earlier with Reflektor XT or whatever the delay plug-in is called.

The MIDI pattern library may prove worth it as an educational tool, just as I find Twiddly.BITS MIDI pattern libraries extremely useful for getting deeper into genres I have no direct training in (such as Cumbia).

I picked up India and Kinetic Metal for $75 each a couple of months ago because I found out that I had two discount vouchers in my account (why I had them I'm not sure, but I did, so they saved some cash). Anyway, check your account to make sure just in case you might have active vouchers.

Oh, good point -- I had one a few months ago and forgot about it. Maybe it's still valid. It's funny though, because India was the only thing I considered using it on at the time.

EDIT: Nope; e-vouchers expire after three months so I no longer have one.

Interestingly, the website lists licenses in the order issues, which is quite helpful compared to NI Service Center as it shows obsolete products and ones that got de-installed by Komplete updates.

The North India Kore product isn't shown, but other Kore products are. I think I had downloaded the manual but never got around to buying it before it was discontinued, then deleted the manual when the new product was issued as I falsely assumed it was an update of the same product.

As for licenses listed on the website vs. in NI Service Center, there's one other difference, which is that my Arturia and Waldorf Virtual Instrument licenses do NOT show up on-line, but in their place (and not in NI Service Center) Softube's Heartbeat shows up for some reason (but not their other products).

Clearly NI isn't good at managing software licenses in terms of the bookkeeping part of it and how it gets displayed in accounts. This may explain why NI Service Center is so time-consuming to use, as we have to deselect dozens of up-to-date products from various eras, no longer how recent or old or how often we run the Service Center. It seems to have permanent blind spots built-in.

mhschmieder wrote:Clearly NI isn't good at managing software licenses in terms of the bookkeeping part of it and how it gets displayed in accounts. This may explain why NI Service Center is so time-consuming to use, as we have to deselect dozens of up-to-date products from various eras, no longer how recent or old or how often we run the Service Center. It seems to have permanent blind spots built-in.

That's been my biggest problem with NI for a long time, especially with Komplete which I've had since like 3. I just can't spend the time and organization to keep all that stuff up to date and current when I have so many other plugins and instruments to manage.

I have a folder right now with about 24 dmg's of updates I downloaded from Service Center recently. I just installed K5 and a couple others that I use, and the rest will sit there until I need them. I suppose it wouldn't take that long to install them all (one at a time), but I just don't have the patience.

I still haven't dowloaded all my K 10 content from upgrading over a month ago.. just haven't had 2 days free on my machine to wait for their slow server.

I received an email today for beta testing a new software management tool from NI, so that is heartening that they are aware of the problem and seem to have decided to do a re-think from scratch rather than try to patch Service Center -- though its replacement is not quite ready for prime time yet, mind you.

Not sure I can afford ti give it a try right yet. I wasn't on the official beta test team so I'm not sure how many people they invited for this final round of testing and trials.

mhschmieder wrote:I received an email today for beta testing a new software management tool from NI, so that is heartening that they are aware of the problem and seem to have decided to do a re-think from scratch rather than try to patch Service Center -- though its replacement is not quite ready for prime time yet, mind you.

Not sure I can afford ti give it a try right yet. I wasn't on the official beta test team so I'm not sure how many people they invited for this final round of testing and trials.

I got this email as well,I will sit this out,not tempted to try this out at all........

I downloaded it just now and am running it for the first time. Big fail, but I'm too tired to be a good citizen and report detailed errors to NI tonight.

As I mentioned in another thread, I was up until 430am last night due to an eLicenser failure that required me to manually transfer almost 100 licenses to a blank eLicenser dongle once the faulty one finally was recognized by the license centre, as I couldn't take the risk on it never working again given that it took eight tries last night.

Anyway, enough of my Steinberg eLicenser rant. Back to NI's new Native Access, it is definitely the future and just needs to work out some kinks. Much smoother experience overall, but the majority of the updates failed and I haven't yet found a place where it (hopefully) stores detailed error messages.

The main point is that this seems to be the same software as Arturia Software Center -- or at least, very similar. Remember how I said my Arturia products mysteriously showed up in NI Service Center when I launched it this weekend? I think the two companies must have partnered on a new way of dealing with products and updates.

There's not much else to say, as this behaves the same as Arturia's updater except that the update runs automatically after the download completes vs. needing to be clicked on.

Interestingly, even no longer available products are listed, along with older versions -- just as in the Arturia product. But the update section of the app is finally smart enough (like Arturia's) to know what needs updating and/or isn't superseded or outmoded or otherwise mothballed. B4 II isn't listed, but the old delay product is. Quite strange.

Only the Evolve products and Scarbee Funk Guitarist successfully installed. In total, 23 Komplete products said they need updates -- probably related to upcoming Komplete 11 changes and compatibility that will be required within the next month. I did check FM8 and its listed version is slightly newer than what is installed, so I don't think the error messages are red herrings.

OK, while I was writing this, the attempt at a full auto-update finished, with 20 failures and 3 successes. I'll see if I can stay awake and alert long enough to search the updater's menu system and GUI for hints of the faults. Definitely too tired to search my system for log files and the like.

UPDATE: There's a third category, of "Not Installed" products, but as the only one not listed was Komplete Kontrol and I don't plan to ever buy an NI control surface, I ignored it.

Just in case there was a dependency on that product by the 20 updates that failed, I installed it just now (it then auto-authorizes), and went back to the updater page. All 20 still fail though.

Also, note that the GUI doesn't refresh until you reboot it, so after an install or an update, the respective page doesn't change its list of available products or counts for that category.

As I said, I wasn't part of the private beta test team, so I don't know how long this new software management tool has been kicking about.

This version is called a public beta. That's why I thought it was OK to talk about it; I usually have to keep mum about these things as that's how most beta programs work (and I'm on several beta teams).

EDIT: Oh, I see there's a refresh icon in the tool bar, but now there's nothing to refresh so I can't verify whether that would have obviated the need for a restart after my earlier updates were run.

Wow, the "About Box" lists 34 contributors to this tiny product! I'm just one guy in charge of a product almost as complex and large in scope as AutoCAD. This is why I'm not very sympathetic to problems in the software of large developers. But I do give NI credit for realizing that NI Service Center is broken and making the strategic decision to start from scratch.

But I do give NI credit for realizing that NI Service Center is broken and making the strategic decision to start from scratch.

Agreed. This is good news.

I have some NI products from the PPC days that never showed up in the current version of the Service Center. As they no longer work and aren't eligible for upgrade, I let it go.

mhschmieder wrote: Twiddly.BITS MIDI pattern libraries extremely useful for getting deeper into genres I have no direct training in (such as Cumbia).

Mark, just think Mexican polka

There is so much of that down here, blasting @ 120db's at 2 AM !!

Haha, I have no interest in polka in any of its variant forms, and blame it for why most people think one of the most lyrical, soulful, expressive, and versatile instruments on the planet (the accordion) sucks.

I do, however, enjoy Banda music, which I heard quite a bit of while in southern Baja a decade ago. It is indirectly related, but more fluid in its rhythmic pulse. I've been meaning to write a song in that genre.