That said, this would mean you could only run Komplete on one computer at a time - not great for studios that want to offer it to multiple clients simultaneously. There's no doubt the drive-based install will divide opinion - have NI missed a trick by not making it house Komplete's content? While the applications would have to be installed to your hard drive, it might make more sense for this drive to house the libraries and have all of the content premapped in the software. Special mention to the gate-fold box that opens to reveal the vast array of goodies which await you.īe patient though, as a full install of applications and content libraries takes three hours, even though the progress bar frustratingly spends most of this time telling you that it only has 41 minutes left to run. Neatly, if you're installing 'over' a previous Komplete incarnation, the installer has a look at your hard disk and works out if you need a fresh install or merely an update to applications you own already. While you must install the applications to your main hard drive, the Content, which accounts for about 170GB of the total data, can be installed anywhere, so a fast internal or external drive is recommended (again, that's 'anywhere' apart from the Ultimate drive that comes in the box…). Up and runningĪt the install stage, this is broken down into applications (Massive, Absynth 5, Guitar Rig 5 etc) and content, which contains the sample libraries for instruments such as Kontakt 5 and Battery 3, for instance.

It feels weird but it makes sense the more you think about it. So be prepared to sacrifice 200GB of your current hard drive space if you're intending to install all content. Put another way, this drive won't read or play back the samples that make up Ultimate - it's merely a way to provide all of the install files, and once you're done you put it back in the box. Komplete Ultimate arrives on a neat silver USB hard-drive - but don't be fooled, as this is merely a replacement for the 50-odd DVDs you'd require to install the content otherwise. Let's run through the install process first, as it's a little unusual.

Komplete ultimate 11 review