12 Comments

Loopy C

Hey Peter, do you know if there is a difference between the system requirements of the free Kore Player and Kore Software edition? By that I mean, I am currently running the free player on a 1.67 Powerbook with mostly good luck (I have the Deep Transforms Pack) and the specs for Kore Software Edition states ‘G5 1.8′? as required? I realize there will be some overload issues but is it fair to say the free and software versions perform the same with same patch?

Unfortunately, I am in that grey area of desktop systems product cycle so was going to wait a bit longer before next system upgrade so am going to stay with the PB a bit longer.

btw, NI’s choice of a software-only version is right-on the money for me, the hardware was not needed here and was one of the main obstacles to going ‘Kore’ for me.

Thanks in advance

September 2, 2008 @ 2:45 pm

Peter Kirn

Hey LoopyC:

The system requirements, to my knowledge, should be the same. They’re the same engine. It has more to do with what you’re trying to do with it, anyhow — that’s what will determine the load on your machine!

September 2, 2008 @ 2:55 pm

Loopy C

Thanks Peter for the reply (and the email). Looks like Kore may be in my immediate future

September 2, 2008 @ 5:31 pm

Michael Pearson

Hmmm.

My initial thought on this was “Why would I spend $200 US on the soundpacks when I can save my money and spend $750 US on the Komplete 5 upgrade?”

And then I remembered that I’m not a sound designer, and I’m much more likely to blow $200 than I am $750.

Also: Kore 2 without the hardware? Excellent. IMO the hardware is ‘nice’ but not worth $200, especially without an audio interface. (oh, and if you break one of the knobs off like I did, it’s pretty much unrepairable)

September 2, 2008 @ 6:50 pm

Peter Kirn

@Michael: Out of curiosity, did the knobs break on the gen1 or gen2 hardware? (Supposedly the Kore 2 hardware was more robust.) Did you ask NI if they’d replace it?

September 2, 2008 @ 6:53 pm

Michael Pearson

Loopy C: I’d proceed with caution - some of the patches in Kore 2 will max out one of the CPUs on my Athlon x2 4800.

There’s a time/save-locked demo of the Kore 2 software available - it has many more patches than the vanilla Player - give that a try.

I also suspect that the layering functionality of Kore 2 adds a bit more overhead than the Kore Player - but I may be wrong.

One of the things I find useful is turning on ‘Plugin’ display in the right-hand pane. If it’s a long chain of plugins, or I see Reaktor or Massive in the list, I know it’s probably going to eat CPU

September 2, 2008 @ 6:56 pm

Michael Pearson

Peter: Kore 1. Damaged during transit - I had the controller in my backpack while flying to Queensland.

NI did offer to send me a replacement knob or fix it themselves, but I had trouble finding somewhere here in Australia that would fix it, and posting it to Germany was prohibitively expensive.

September 2, 2008 @ 7:00 pm

Michael Pearson

More clarification: I’d broken the knob in such a way that the entire unit would need to be taken apart to fix it, probably including melting and replacing glue. Cheaper and easier just to get a new one.

September 2, 2008 @ 7:03 pm

Peter Kirn

@Michael: Thanks; I was just curious to clarify. I think quality is better on the new knobs, just sitting the two next to one another, though reliability is impossible to tell from individual units.

I have Athlon x2 3800 here, so it is possible to watch the CPU. The Intel Cores (sigh) do better.

But yeah, it depends largely on what you put on those layers. To my knowledge, there isn’t a difference between the engines in each. So it’s really just what you’re doing.

September 2, 2008 @ 8:40 pm

Loopy C

Thanks for the reply Michael. Yeah, I understand some patches will as Massive certainly does (I have the demo) and I know they use that engine in some of the patches.

I am mainly concerned with it running things that already workon the PB (say a Reaktor patch) where I can get to parameters (to TURN OFF those that annoy me like the many sync’d LFO wobblers in ‘Deep Transformations’) until I upgrade to a new system. The ‘morph’ function and Reaktor would probably be the focus till I had the horsepower for more complicated ‘layers’.

September 2, 2008 @ 11:41 pm

ronnie

I’m also not much of a sound designer. I can spend hours messing around with some sound, but when I’m actually trying to do some music I prefer to start with nice patches and tweak them a little.

The KORE Player was fine for me, great sounds from SoundPacks like the FM8, and easy to tweak.

But what makes KORE 2 so interesting to me is the fact I can use it as a database for my favorite sounds, including my 3rd party plugins. It’s really useful to me to have everything in one place. And the integration with things like Reaktor etc. is great too.

I’m very much used to tweaking stuff with my mouse, even though using hardware knobs can be much better for certain things. My Remote SL has plenty of knobs and sliders which I already don’t use much, so the KORE controller usually just sits on my desk looking cool. I have started to use it more to browse sounds, but since I don’t perform live I don’t think the controller will ever get a lot of use in my setup.

So, to finally answer the question, I think the new pricing (or rather the new option to get the software only) is great because I do love the KORE system, but I don’t need the hardware.

September 3, 2008 @ 12:36 am

Loopy C

Thanks for the further info all Downloading the Kore 2 demo which should answer all questions.

Again, I think making this a ’software’ version (w/option to get the controller later) was a wise move as they just opened up the sales to potential buyers like me who are big NI fans but just weren’t in the IMMEDIATE market for a controller.

And I should add, this ‘Kore’ minisite played an especially important role in that process also, I was most enjoyably ’sucked’ into the potentials

September 4, 2008 @ 3:14 pm

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