UVI SELECT BUNDLE
KK-ACCESS PRODUCT OVERVIEW
It’s always good news when a new developer joins the list of Native Instruments NKS partners, and UVI certainly already have a long and respected pedigree of releasing some popular and solid sample libraries through their own UVI Workstation & Falcon sample platforms.
For this initial and official NKS release, UVI have gathered together a collection of no less than 11 products, waved the magic NKS wand upon them, and released them as a tempting Native Instruments partnership promotion.
The Select Bundle consists of Augmented Orchestra, Emulation II Plus, FM Suite, IRCAM Prepared Piano, Meteor, Nagoya Harp, Quadra – Muted and Harmonics, Shade, Synth Anthology 4, Whoosh, & 8-Bit Synth.
The whole bundle usually retails for £1600.00, and with 89% off during the promotion period, this collection represents a genuine saving with it’s comparatively modest £179.00 price tag.
TECH SPECS
To be clear from the outset, UVI sample libraries have no connection with Kontakt, Kontakt Player or even Native Access.
The products instead use the UVI Workstation, which can be thought of as their own take upon the NI Kontakt player system.
The collection can be downloaded through their dedicated UVI portal, or they can also be obtained through the ‘my products’ section of their website when logged into your account.
Authorisation is achieved through Ilok, which for the uninitiated is a third party licensing platform, allowing customers to authorise products locally to their host computer, or to a dedicated Ilok USB drive which can then be used portably across any number of machines.
The whole download and installation process requires several components, the UVI portal, the Pace Ilok Software, and the UVI Workstation Software which is the sample player for your soundbanks.
This can at first appear a little convoluted for newcomers to this system, it’s not as straightforward or intuitive as Native Access, particularly as adding the new NKS support has one final step of finding and downloading an NKS installer for the included titles, which can be somewhat of a treasure hunt.
Narrator seems to be the screen reader of choice on Windows, although there were occasions when I actually had NVDA running simultaneously in order to mop up the things that Narrator missed, which for any casual onlooker must have seemed to be a complete cacophony of text to speech voices!
I cannot attest for MAC users, but with only one screen reader, and VOCR, there is only that single option anyway, but I’m sure it will be achievable.
KOMPLETE KONTROL PLUGIN EDIT NKS PARAMETER MAPPING
With 11 products included within this bundle, on this rare occasion I am sure you will forgive me for opting not to write down every page of every instrument, as both you and I may well be here until next Christmas, or at least until the promotion has expired 🙂
Instead I will offer brief insights into each product, with my take on the available NKS controls.
Augmented Orchestra
this is a large 19GB library consisting of organically real orchestral instruments manipulated and processed into a bold and cinematic style.
There are certainly still plenty of synth sounds included, but this is not a purely hybrid library. With the exception of percussion, the instruments do cover the whole orchestral family and have been filtered, and treated in a dynamic and polished collection of presets.
Good use of the modwheel has been implemented to merge between different instrument layers, there are static sounds, ensembles, solo, rhythmic and a variety of articulations which will happily lend themselves to contemporary media composition or trailer work.
Banks include: Action, Ambient, Augmented Layers, Electronic, Future, Heavy, Hybrid, Lo-Fi, Natural, Orchestra, Pulses, & Small Sections.
There are four pages of NKS mapping, with controls for filter, Resonance, Layer Octave, Layer Crossfade, Bus Drive & EQ.
There are no controls to turn off the arps for relevant presets, and sadly this is also the case for important FX like reverb and Delay.
EIGHT BIT SYNTH
This library is a tribute to those old chipsets of yesteryear, with some interesting and really quite appealing presets on offer.
Despite the retro vibe, the library still manages to gobble up 11GB of disk space, which for me as a vintage Atari ST owner would have been unimaginable back in the eighties when sampling was still very much in it’s infancy.
Again there are four pages of NKS controls which include, Levels, Colour, Pan, Filter Cut-Off, Resonance, Filter Envelope, Velocity, EQ, Phaser, Delay & Reverb.
There are some nice presets in this library, which defy the common perception of crummy lo-fi sounds, and many would work perfectly well and perhaps compliment more state of the art libraries.
EMULATION II PLUS
This 10.4GB library pays homage to the Emulator sampling keyboards, again hailing from the 1980’s, but at the serious side of music sampling which was big bucks back then.
The Emulator went through several iterations, and the sound quality of the sounds included here are still perfectly respectable and usable in today’s productions.
Banks included are: Drumulation, Emulation I, Emulation II, Emulation III, Multi’s, & Stack Sounds.
Particularly enjoyable are the Drumulation, Multi’s & Stack sounds sections, the drums offer a whole bunch of retro drum kits (as if you haven’t got enough already!), with playable kits as well as pre constructed patterns at opposing ends of your keyboard range.
The Multi’s combine both drums and instrument sounds for some instant one man (or woman), band shenanigans which is a lot of fun.
The NKS mapping varies a little depending on which type of preset is loaded, but the custom with this UVI Selection seems to be four pages maximum.
FM SUITE
Some may think it perhaps a little strange to create a huge 35GB sample library of FM based sounds, especially when there is the existence of a plugin with a small data footprint like FM8 which can readily generate real FM based synthesis.
Ordinarily I would agree, especially if the included presets were all just those vanilla FM classics, however FM Suite still gives you those nostalgic offerings alongside a great selection of new combinations, which prove there is still plenty of life yet in the old FM dog!
The banks are divided into four, 4 operator FM, 8 Operator FM, plus two further variants, all of which deliver plenty of examples of Bass, Strings, Piano, FX, Arps and the usual suspects.
There is again some variation in the NKS mapping between the various bank categories, with filter, Per Layer Octave Switching, Unison, EQ, Delay & Reverb, being the most consistent controls.
Only the FM GS bank has any ADSR envelope controls, and none feature parameters for arp or sequence based presets, which means that you cannot turn them either on or off.
IRCAM PREPARED PIANO
This 5.49GB library takes a Japanese C7 Grand Piano and samples it in all sorts of interesting ways, with up to 45 different treatments.
Recorded at the IRCAM Institute in Paris, this piano potentially takes the ivories in new experimental directions, in a similar way to Native Instruments Noire.
I was not overly impressed when I began working my way through the presets, however I did eventually find a few hidden gems which I am sure will certainly find their way into something I use in a future project.
It’s not really that IRCAM Prepared Piano is not capable of delivering some potentially interesting sounds, it’s just that the sparse NKS mapping offered simply does not provide anything beyond minimal sound control, which for a sound design orientated library will leave you wanting.
The many types of preparations, extensive arp features, bowing, mallets, scraping and all and sundry have not been mapped to the NKS template, so what we have amounts to Tuning, Velocity Curve, Tone, Dynamics, Global ADSR & EQ, Pitch Shifter, Drive, Delay & Reverb spread over, yes you guessed it, four pages!
METEOR
This 6GB library is billed as a Swell & Impact designer, and has some great presets if you are in any way involved in film or media creation work.
There are lots of presets covering many genres, with bank categories such as Ambiences,Booms, Cinematic, Combat, Dark, Destruction, Downers, FX, Instruments, Orchestral, Percussion, Risers, Slams, Stutters & Pulses, Synth, Trap Brass, & Wooshes.
Unfortunately the good news does not extend as far as the NKS mapping, although it was encouraging to see that time controls switchable between Beats & Seconds were included for the Risers & Downers which allow you to sync these elements to your projects.
Annoyingly there are no volume controls for each of these elements, this means that if you wish to increase the level of your impact hit, you are unable to do so, as there is only a single global volume control simultaneously covering both riser and impact.
Somewhat perversely, individual pitch controls have been mapped for each of the 4 possible risers, and 4 impacts, taking up two pages of the NKS template.
This odd decision is carried through to individual reverb sends and delay sends, again one for each of the four possible layers.
We are also restricted to working with the pre-loaded sounds for each preset, so if an impact has not been included by default, we cannot add one ourselves, or swap it for another, as the sample selection browser is not accessible.
This is not an entirely uncommon situation though, as the same circumstances are true for Native Instruments Rise & Hit, Thrill, and many other similar libraries, but this lack of per layer volume controls is darn right annoying!
NAGOYA HARP
A 6.4GB library dedicated to the Nagoya Harp which dates back to it’s invention in Japan in 1912.
Like the IRCAM prepared piano, this deeply sampled harp library straddles between the traditional, and more avant garde experimental sound design territory.
Although there are clearly some superb sounds to be found here, the playing concept behind the product seems to have beaten me at this point in time.
There are a handful of tempo synced presets available, however the more elaborate strumms and glissando playing techniques referred to in the descriptions have eluded me thus far.
There are no NKS controls that relate to such articulations, and the hunt for traditional keyswitches has proven fruitless, it could be a classic case of RTFM, but at the time of writing, my initial face value findings have been thwarted.
Again for such a sound design oriented product, the provided NKS template is inadequate for all but the most basic of adjustments.
Expect to find, Velocity, ADSR, Volume Levels, Tremolo, Vibrato, EQ, Drive, Phaser, Delay & Reverb.
QUADRA – MUTED & HARMONICS
Quadra Muted & Harmonics is a 5GB multi instrument and sequence designer which melds together acoustic, Electric & Electronic instruments into an impressive sounding cinematic toolbox of delights.
There are dozens of well crafted sequence based presets which are fantastic as idea starters or maybe the underpinning of a whole track.
Like most arp or tempo synced sequence patches, the notes you play will naturally dictate how the pre defined patterns respond, and this is great for building up a chord structure.
Once again for such a potentially complex product, the NKS implementation can at best be considered as rudimentary, there are volume controls for each of the four sound layers, X & Y Controls to morph between them, Dynamics, filter cut-off & resonance for each layer, Octave controls, and finally reverb & delay send levels for layers A,B,C, & D.
SYNTH ANTHOLOGY 4
Synth Anthology 4 is UVI’s slightly cut down version of their flagship Vintage Vault, but still represents a significant number of classic synths and an impressively large number of presets.
Clocking in at 19GB of required disk space, it includes lots of vintage analog and early digital and sample based synthesizers.
There are lots of standard flavours that hail from the original machines, along with sound designed arps and sequences, plus a bank of presets by guest UVI sound designer Venus Theory.
<pre class="wp-block-syntaxhighlighter-code"><br /> When it comes to the NKS mapping, the two layer sound engine has four pages of controls for Volume, Pan, Velocity Curve, Unison, Detune, Stereo Spread, Pitch, Octave, Filter, Tone, Bit Crush, and some also include Reverb & Delay.</pre>
WOOSH
Woosh is a 1.34GB sound design library geared toward the creation of Woosh type sound FX.
This one is not dissimilar to the Meteor library mentioned earlier, and also features a useful collection of textural, organic, electronic & foley type presets
There appeared to be something strange going on with the sync feature within Woosh for the NKS controls. Both Time & Beats are available depending on whether sync is turned on or off, however the Beats option values when selected did not seem to correlate to the actual number of beats within my DAW.
It’s not a deal breaker but it would be nice if it worked as expected.
The NKS template has Sync, Loop, Movement, Volume, Pan, Tone, & Tilt Controls for the Noise layer, but only Tilt & Pitch for the Texture 1 & 2 layers with volume being omitted.
Finally, there are Tone, convolution, & Delay, Valve, Limiter & Reverb rounding off the overall mapping template.
SHADE
Shade is an effect plugin rather than a sample library, and is described as a creative filter & EQ effect.
This could be a useful tool for adding movement to certain elements of a track, the LFO controls enable synchronised stereo & animation of your instrument when placed onto a Komplete Kontrol FX slot.
Some presets are more subtle than others, offering more utility based material such as EQ, and the NKS mapping is variable depending on the type of preset loaded, there was no initial Shade preset, which might have served as a good starting point for some general effect tweaking.
There are plenty of YouTube reviews available for these featured UVI products, and for your convenience I have also included direct links at the review footer to each product on the UVI website.
CONCLUSION
The UVI Select bundle really does represent fantastic bang for buck considering the overall value of the products when purchased individually.
The whole collection will take up almost 120GB of disk space, and in exchange you will have somewhere in the region of 9700 presets to explore, that’s my own guesstimate by the way!
For me at least, Augmented Orchestra, Quadra Muted Harmonics, Synth Anthology 4, Emulation II Plus & Meteor are the standout products in this collection, and are well worth the bundle price alone, meaning the other six titles are bonuses.
On the downside however, the NKS implementation appears to have been rushed and perfunctory, with seemingly little thought being put into what controls were prioritised, and my hunch is that accessibility was not even a consideration as a part of the final road map.
My recommendation if purchasing this otherwise excellent bundle, would be to budget for another fifty Australian dollars or so , and buy any of the equivalent available matching NKS packs from Freelance Soundlabs whose mapping templates represent what UVI & Native Instruments really should have ideally created for this collection.
Just as an example, with the Freelance Soundlabs mappings, Synth Anthology 4 has 18 pages, Augmented Orchestra has 17, Quadra Muted & Harmonics has 11, & Emulation II has 15 pages all in comparison to UVI’s miserly 4.
I have already pointed this out to UVI, who tell me that they may do an update at some point with no ETA, which is also the case for further NKS support for their other products.
Let’s hope that they will perhaps at least just consider commissioning Freelance Soundlabs to do the job for them, it would make far more sense, and result in many more happy NKS users!
The UVI Select Bundle is available from the Native Instruments website at the promotional price of £179.00 until January 22nd, 2024.
Native Instruments UVI Select Bundle Product Page:
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/komplete/uvi-nks-offer/
UVI INDIVIDUAL PRODUCT LINKS
Augmented Orchestra:
https://www.uvi.net/en/orchestral/augmented-orchestra.html
Emulation II Plus:
https://www.uvi.net/emulation-ii-plus
FM Suite:
https://www.uvi.net/en/vintage-synth/fm-suite.html
IRCAM Prepared Piano:
https://www.uvi.net/ircam-prepared-piano-2
Meteor – Swell & Impact Designer:
https://www.uvi.net/en/soundfx/meteor.html
Nagoya Harp:
https://www.uvi.net/nagoya-harp
Quadra – Muted and Harmonics:
https://www.uvi.net/quadra-muted-and-harmonics
Shade FX:
https://www.uvi.net/shade.html
Synth Anthology 4:
https://www.uvi.net/synth-anthology-4
Woosh:
https://www.uvi.net/en/soundfx/whoosh-fx.html
8-Bit Synth:
https://www.uvi.net/8bit-synth
UVI Select Bundle Walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/VguODqnTdjw?showinfo=1&rel=0&hd=1&cc_lang_pref=en&cc_load_policy=1
Freelance Soundlabs UVI NKS Packs:
https://freelancesoundlabs.com/index.php/downloads/komplete-kontrol-vst-packs/itemlist/category/109-uvi
(c) Chris Ankin
KK-Access.com
3rd January 2024
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Disclaimer
The author can not accept any responsibility for subsequent purchase decisions made as a result of this review,or Any inaccuracies found therein. All opinions and product functions stated are based solely on information perceived as a blind user whilst using the product and/or gathered from official factual sources such as the developer, web or supplied product manual.
About the Author
Based in Buckinghamshire, England, Chris Ankin has worked as a freelance review writer and contributor with articles published in Sound On Sound, Home & Studio Recording and ST Format Magazines.
He has also successfully worked extensively in and around the music, recording, film Soundtrack scoring, Game & media composition, the creative arts, Charitable trusts,publishing, music streaming and property investments since 1982 whilst continuously and deliberately managing to evade any mainstream recognition under his own name by the use of various pseudonyms.
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