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Komplete vs Omnisphere cpu/ram load?


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So Its tax season and im looking to reasonably update my sound setup with some non stock synths and drum samples. however im currently using a macbook air with 8gb ram and a 1.7 dual core processor and i feel that may limit the practicality of libraries that use alot of cpu and ram. I have a huge ssd inside of it so storage is not a concern. unfortunately, it seems to two best bang-for-buck deals that fit my style of music and price range, would be komplete 10, or omnisphere. Omnisphere would normally win out, except for the fact that at the same price point (roughly) i would be able to get a free maschine mikro since theyre on a bundle sale right now. Komplete also comes with reaktor and kontakt which are both versatile and have alot of free third party packs you can get. So with all of that said, the deciding factor is....

TLDR: between omnisphere 2 and Komplete 10, which has lower load on your computer?  I understand you can bounce and freeze and all that but its a huge pain in the ass. im concerned about komplete because one instance of their FX plugin "Molekular" takes up a third of my cpu usage.

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I got Komplete recently myself and also have 8 gigs of RAM(I have a better processor though). I've had no issues with memory but I haven't pushed it with a massive amount of Kontakt libraries yet. For CPU usage it varies, some of the Reaktor stuff especially doesn't seem super efficient but then other things are in the expected CPU range. Some of the synthesizers like Massive, FM8, and Absynth are quite old and they don't move my CPU meter too far...maybe not stock instrument level but much more efficient than more recent third party stuff like Serum or Bazille.

 

Can't comment on Omnisphere, just my experience so far with Komplete. CPU is probably more of a concerning factor with Komplete than RAM seeing as Kontakt does direct from disk streaming and there's probably plenty of content available for it that isn't a gigabyte plus for every instrument. At least at 8 gigabytes I think CPU would be more of a factor, but again this is more or less my first impressions

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I picked up Omnisphere over a year ago and used it with a 2.66ghz quad core with 4gb of ram for awhile.  I could only run 2 instances of the lesser resource intensive presets before i ran into problems or run only one of the Multi presets which got up closer to a Gb in patch size. If you get Omnisphere with your machine you should expect to be freezing whatever else you're working on in order to JUST run Omnisphere alone, which can be very time consuming but certainly doable.  

Komplete is much more diverse and you'll get a ton of tools of varying resource requirements.  There might be some things you can run and others you can't run at all or only get some limited function out of. For that reason Komplete and Omnisphere don't really compare in this context. Did you want an awesome but power hungry sample based synth and put up with an increase in total time spent on a project?  Or did you want EVERYTHING from NI and hope that you can get as close to 100% function as possible?  I only purchased a Komplete 7 Elements package awhile ago and while it had a lot of stuff on it some of what was in there was too cumbersome to use with my machine or would glitch in some way or another.  

You may want to rethink how you are using your money and try to go with a new pc/mac instead if you want to use resource intensive samplers and sample based synths.  Otherwise if you want to keep your machine, and you don't already have Massive, you could always go with that since it is extremely versatile and runs far lighter than Omnisphere.  

 

 

 

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Omnisphere is not really something you need. It's more of a luxury; Komplete, on the other hand, is something you need, as without Kontakt you're basically dead in the water trying to find any good virtual instruments that don't have absurd DRM or just terrible programming (exceptions maybe for Sample Modelling, VSL, etc.).

Omnisphere is more resource intensive but it is a hybrid synth/sampler (so it has a reason to be). Kontakt has a host of optimizations that tie it to strictly sampling that makes it a better platform for sampled instruments than Omnisphere is.

The Komplete synthesizers are also relatively efficient compared to Omnisphere.

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My recommendation for a first purchase would be Komplete, but I'll give you the positives of both.

With Komplete, you get the four-headed synth monster (Massive, Reaktor, FM8, Absynth), Guitar Rig for morphing sounds (Audio or MIDI) and Kontakt, which is a game-changer.  Owning a full version of Kontakt allows you to use a wide variety of free patches and instruments out there, and many sample library creators require a full version of Kontakt to use their created content.

Omnisphere 2 itself is a staggering piece of software.  I could talk for an extremely long time about all of the stuff I use it for and would recommend reading multiple reviews, because everyone uses it for different things.  I mostly use it for vocal/choir patches and guitars which are two of the few things that Komplete is not fully up to speed on.  Other than that, Omni is chock full of great presets and sound design capabilities unlike anything I've ever used.  You could spend hours a day using it exclusively and after a year, you'll still be learning new things about it's capabilities.  

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