Native Instruments has announced Kontakt 5 and Komplete 8. After the Komplete 7 discount of last summer, Komplete 8 was already expected by many experts.
Although Kontakt already had lots of capabilities, it seems that Native Instruments has added plenty improvements, including 37 new filters, four new effects, improved time stretching and a new bus system. In addition, Kontakt 5 contains the Vintage Sampling Mode with emulations of the sounds of the MPC60 and SP1200 drum machines. In addition, new customers and upgraders get the vintage synthesizer package Retro Machines MK2 for free.
Kontakt 5 is also supplied with Komplete 8, which contains all Native Instruments plug-ins and sample packages. Also new in Komplete 8 are Guitar Rig Pro 5, Reaktor 5.6 and Studio Drummer. Komplete 8 takes a huge amount of disk space after a full installation. Therefore, Native Instruments offers the Komplete Ultimate version on a hard drive against an additional fee.