“We know you want it, but do you really (really) need it?”: Native Instruments Komplete 26 review

What is it?

Native Instruments’ Komplete is the company's ‘everything you could wish for’ bundle of instruments, effects and sounds, and it has just been upgraded to 26, from 2024’s v15. This isn’t a jump of 11 versions that you missed, rather NI’s new and logical annual naming convention.

And now that NI has been bought by InMusic, you can be pretty sure that Komplete has a decent future, into the '30s at least, we’d hope.

As ever, when it comes to reviewing Komplete, we’ll give you the meat of what’s new, and assume you have some knowledge of the more established NI titles. Don’t expect 340 individual reviews – we’ll give you a flavour of each level, but the ‘konclusion’ might end up back in your court with the old ‘how much can you handle’ versus ‘how much do you want to save?’ arguments.

Performance

First up the various Komplete bundles are still called Standard (£494/$549 for 315GB of 180 instruments and effects, 70+ expansions and 63,000 sounds); Ultimate (£1,124/$1,249 for 950GB of 280 instruments/fx, 100+ expansions and 116,000 sounds); and the Collector’s Edition (£1,754/$1,949 for 340+ instruments and effects, 150 expansions and over 180,000 sounds).

Yes, when it comes to Komplete, reviews tend to be numbers, lots of them, and large ones at that.

And before we delve in deeper, we should mention the three additional Komplete Select editions: Electronic, Beats and Band, where you get titles dedicated to those broad genres and styles. At just $99, these are a very good intro to the Komplete universe and even pay for themselves with a $99 discount should you upgrade to Komplete Standard.

On to the more expensive bundles, and each of the three comes with what NI rightly calls its flagship products comprising Absynth 6, Massive X, Kontakt 8 and Guitar Rig 7 Pro. Just in the last title alone you have pretty much every effect ever created, and not just for guitarists – it's a superb suite of plugins.

The synths are pretty awesome too. Absynth 6 is new to all three and is an update to one of NI's longest-serving instruments and slots easily into a 2020s DAW rack, while Massive X has become the mainstay of dance music producers everywhere. Between the two, you have all your dreamy textures and pads, and feisty basses and leads properly covered, and a lot more besides.

As for Kontakt 8, well, this instrument shell, player and organiser has also recently been beefed up with more creative tools and we're using it more than ever. You pretty much have everything you need with these four titles, then, and we've only just started.

A lot more newbies

Time for the newcomers at each level, so grab yourself a big cuppa. Starting with the Standard edition, you get two titles from NI's Definitive Electric Keys Collection, namely Jade and Teak. Jade is designed more for gritty and punchy sounds, suitable for more pop and rock piano styles, while Teak has a warmer tone with a '60s vibe, better for sparser arrangements to our ears.

These new electric piano titles now increase depending on the Kontakt bundle you buy, so for the Ultimate edition, you get two more (Ember for more rhythmic and percussive keys and Moonshell for light and soulful), and with Collector's Edition you get all six pianos, with the addition of Phoenix, more of a Fender Rhodes/'70s style piano, and Diamond, a '60s version more suited to jazz. That's a lot of electric pianos – overkill perhaps.

Back to the newcomers for Standard and you get Electric Neon Essentials, one of NI's Session Guitarist titles and aimed at pop and EDM guitarists, although there's a decent amount of flexibility under the bonnet, meaning you can easily stretch these sounds into a wide variety of genres. It's slick, and the very definition of 'mix ready', almost too smooth on occasion.

As with the pianos, you get more guitars as you step up Komplete levels, so Ultimate adds Session Guitarist – Electric Ruby Deluxe. However, both Ultimate and Collector's have the same 12 Session Guitarist titles and, as it turns out, the same pianos, organs and drums, so if sampled instruments are your thing, Ultimate might get you what you need for less outlay than Collector's.

In fact, as far as major upgrades go, that is it for the Standard edition, as most of the new fun does sit with the more expensive options. For example, both Collector's and Ultimate now feature Claire: Avant, a virtual version of the world's biggest piano.

Bigger doesn't always mean best, of course, but Claire does deliver an impressive and varied sound covering jazz, soundtrack, mellow, distorted and even harpsichord. In the (perhaps unlikely) event that you find yourself short on piano sounds, this definitely fits the bill. Collector's Edition (of course) boasts more, another Claire piano called Avant, which adds a more experimental edge to your piano sound.

Another big, new title – again only for Ultimate and Collector's – is Erosia, an instrument for cinematic sound design. This is one of the most impressive of the new additions, combining four soundscape parts for eerie pads, grain effects and shimmering atmospheres. It also has a very decent amount of tweaking available, where you can dig into some waveshaping, harmonic resonance and effect parameters – a very solid '26' inclusion.

Along similar lines, but with a very different UI and approach – although, it has to be said, a similar soundscape vibe – is Circular, only available for the Collector's Edition. It's essentially an instrument that combines layers, each with its own sequencer, so you can create dynamic and evolving chords, while being able to adjust parameters on the UI circle.

You get 30 sound types to choose from, each with its own presets, so there are a lot of ingredients, and while it is basically another way of layering four parts, it does offer some intriguing and usable results.

The final two big NI offerings are both orchestra-based and available for the Collector's and Ultimate bundles. LCO Strings is a recent release that allows you to combine those four layers – NI loves its four layers – with high-quality samples from the London Contemporary Orchestra. Bland UI aside, it manages to not only deliver realistic orchestra sounds pretty quickly, but also has enough articulations, LFOs, and core samples to deliver expressive and flexible results that can be pompous and dramatic or eerie and atmospheric.

Cremona Quartet Ensemble is another orchestra engine, this time with a string quartet taking up those four layers. The instruments are modelled on the kinds of antiques that cost tens of thousands, including a Stradivari cello and violin, and Guarneri and Amati violins.

Of the newcomers we have discussed so far, this is probably the one with the most realism attached to it. It includes a playing style where the quartet only plays its individual parts as mono instruments, so if you play two, three or four notes, the other instruments kick in; or play them polyphonically – your choice. Either way, the results are very good and this is likely to be one of the additions we'll be keeping on our drive.

Other brands

Of course, NI is now offering Plugin Alliance/Brainworx and iZotope plugins as part of Komplete. Rather than attempt to go into depth on all of these, all three levels of Komplete offer the iZotope Elements versions of Ozone 12 (for mastering), Neutron 5 (mixing), and Nectar 4 (vocals), so that's pretty much all your production plugins sorted, albeit with less grunt than the full-fat versions.

Other iZotope highlights include FXEQ, which is a rather brilliant (and cheap) workhorse plugin that lets you add effects with ease as you would an EQ. You also get VocalSynth 2, which might be old but still does exactly what it says on the tin; and Trash, a distortion, filtering and convolution plugin which is a production favourite, although we were less than impressed by its current version. Still, good to have anyway.

The Brainworx/PA standouts for all three Kompletes include the bx_enhancer saturator/ compressor/EQ, and the multiband compressor, bx_glue. Ultimate adds the bx_XL mid/side mastering plugin and bx_clipper, while the top-tier Collector's bundle adds the excellent bx_console AMEK 200 (our only criticism was the price), and bx_masterdesk PRO, a full mastering plugin which delivers great results, fast.

While Komplete can often look like NI throws everything at the bundle, these third-party inclusions do make sense in the overall scheme, as the iZotope plugins bring their AI assistant technology to your productions, while both Plugin Alliance and Brainworx fill the gaps and make it more hands-on if that is your thing.

Finally – and we're almost breathing a sigh of relief just writing those words – all three Kontakt bundles now include 28 Play Series titles (that is, streamlined sound collections/instruments for Kontakt) which have been bolstered by half a dozen newbies including Marco Polo Drums, 24k Drums, Hypr, Halo Vox, Luxa and Roux. Look, they're free, there are 28 of them, you get them whatever. Never look a sonic gift-horse in the mouth.

Verdict

It's so easy with Komplete – whatever the bundle level – to get swept away by the sheer numbers, the savings and the absolute might of these great tools and how they could and really should positively impact your music making. We all love more for less, right? And with that in mind, Komplete is as big a bundle, upgrade, bargain, and bloody huge outlay as it’s always been. Better in fact!

You will not need another plugin (whichever version you opt for).

But right about now, and in every Komplete review, we get to that nagging question as it starts emerging from our sugar-rushed brains: do I really need it all?

Here we go again, back at this argument and always the Komplete Kaveat: that throwing plugins at a project doesn’t always make it better or indeed finished. The tyranny of choice is real and sometimes a deliberately slimmed-down plugin setup can be more creative.

Yet, short of allowing you to pick and mix your own titles – which would be great but, we suspect, messy – NI has probably got the balance just about right between the various Komplete bundles in 26, and, of course, upgrades are possible if you just want to go small to start with.

But do balance up your needs, your hard drive size, your time, the style of music you make and, of course, your budget. There’s no doubting that Komplete really is 'complete' but, as we pointed out above, certain editions might just do – Ultimate over Collector's for example, especially when it comes to recreations of 'real' instruments.

Either way, with the incorporation of many excellent titles from Plugin 'The Rebel' Alliance and iZotope, Komplete is still the greatest music software bundle(s) you can buy (or subscribe to from $15 a month with NI's 360 deals).

But is your music missing focus or plugins? That is the question, and only you can 'Komplete' the answer. We've done our job and warned you about the tyranny of choice, but we're still quietly making space for the Collector's Edition anyway. As your dad used to say: 'Do as I say, not as I do, my young Padawan'. (Well, ours did anyway.)

Hands-on demos

Native Instruments

Introducing Komplete 26 | Native Instruments - YouTube

Watch On

Alternatives

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Arturia FX Collection and V Collection: at arturia.com

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Universal Audio Ultimate and Spark: at Universal Audio

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Read the full review: Universal Audio Spark. Read more: Universal Audio Ultimate

Specifications