Maybe you have heard about Native Instruments Komplete Start?
But maybe you haven’t.
I think that it is a great way to start with some virtual instruments that are outside of the FL Studio ecosystem. I have been using their products for years, and they are an integral part of my workflow.
But in the last year or so they started offering Komplete Start, which is a free sampler of some of their products that you can use in your projects.
DOWNLOAD NATIVE ACCESS
To get them installed on your system you have to go the Native Instruments website, and navigate to the Komplete Start Page.
And it directs you to a page to download Native Access.
Native Access is an installer, updater, and key management system that Native Instruments uses to allow people to install products on their systems.
Once you get an account setup with Native Instruments and download Native Access, then you can log into Native Access with your free account and take a look at the products that are available for you to install.
This will be the Native Instruments Komplete Start package.
You should see instruments like Kontakt, Reaktor, and Guitar Rig.
PROBLEMS YOU MAY ENCOUNTER
Now I want to warn you about something.
It seems like the installation process can be a bit tricky. I’m not sure why, but I have had problems getting things installed with the latest version of Native Access. You may have to contact support to walk you through getting everything installed and setup to work on your computer.
Honestly this is the biggest weakness that I see with the Native Instruments ecosystem. They make it very hard to get it up and rolling.
But I promise that once you get through the pain of getting it all installed and working, you will love the products.
You can see Andrew Huang in this video use the package to create a song.
So let’s talk about what we have to do in FL Studio to get the Instruments setup for use.
SETUP A FEW FOLDERS
Before we jump into FL Studio, I’m going to have you do something.
I’m going to have you setup a few folders.
It won’t make sense right now, but it will make life easier down the road.
If you are working in Windows, open File Explorer and navigate to:
C:\Users\username\Documents\Image-line\FL Studio\Presets\Plugin Database\
*username is whatever the name you use to log in to the computer.
You will see a few folders: Effects, Generators, and Installed.
Let’s go into the Effects folder first.
Create a new folder and name it Native Instruments.
Now back up to the Generators folder.
And create another folder, and name it Native Instruments as well.
The reason we are doing this, is that once we load in the new instruments and effects in FL Studio, we will be able to save them to these new folders we created, and access them quickly.
So let’s move on to installing the plugins in FL Studio.
INSTALLING NATIVE INSTRUMENTS KOMPLETE START IN FL STUDIO
So when we open up FL Studio, you can go to the plugins tab on the left side in the browser window.
Right click on it until you see the menu appear and go to the “manage plugins” option.
This will open up the plugin manager window.
ADDING FOLDERS AND SCANNING FOR NEW PLUGINS
You will need to add the file folders where you installed the Native Instruments plugins.
This is different than the folders we just set up a minute ago.
If you don’t remember, you can open up Native Access to see which folder the plugin was installed into.
You will add this folder to the list of folders that FL Studio scans to find plugins.
I kept the defaults for plugin installation from Native Access, so the plugin folder was located at:
C:\Program Files\Native Instruments\VSTPlugins 64 bit
Check and make sure what your folder name is.
Scan your computer with these new folders added.
You should see the new instruments show up on the right side list of items available.
They will be highlighted in a yellow color, indicating that these are the new plugins that FL Studio found when it searched your system.
Great! So far, so good.
Now we need to get the instruments loaded into the project, and then make them easy to access for future projects as well.
FINDING PLUGINS IN THE BROWSER
So now that we scanned the folders in FL studio to find the new plugins we installed from Native Access, we can close the Plugin Manager.
Now let’s go back out to the browser window.
If your browser is not open on the left side of FL Studio, you can press ALT + F8 to open it up.
Then click on the plug icon at the top of the window
Click on Installed.
This should show you Generator and Effects.
The difference between generator and effects in fl studio is that generators create the sound, effects modify the sound.
Let’s start with adding the generator plugins.
ADDING GENERATOR PLUGINS
Click on the generator folder.
The click on VST.
When you do that you should see the new plugins from Native Instruments.
I see Komplete Kontrol, Kontakt, and Reaktor.
If I want to load one of these instruments, then I can left click and drag it over to the channel rack.
I will drag over Kontakt.
When you do that, Kontakt will open up.
And after it loads in the new libraries that you installed you should see a window that looks like this:
I navigate under the factory selection, pick the band folder and drag the upright bass into the empty part of the window on the right side.
You can click the keys on the bottom of the window to hear the sampled notes that will play for the upright bass.
And now you can use that instrument in your project.
You can go into the piano roll and create a bassline, or you could use a midi keyboard and record the notes that you want to play.
SAVING THE PLUGINS TO A QUICK SELECT FOLDER
So now that you know how to load up the instrument for the first time, I want to show you a way that you can save Kontakt to a list. Then you can load in Kontakt to the channel rack more quickly and easily.
Under the Generator folder in the browser window click on that line that says Native Instruments so that it is highlighted.
Then I will go back to Kontakt.
Click on the arrow at the top left of the window.
A drop down menu will appear.
Choose the option “add to plugin database (flag as favorite)”
Another popup will come up to ask you if you want to add this to “Native Instruments”
Click okay.
Now when you click on Native Instruments folder in the browser window, you will see Kontakt appear.
You can repeat this process for all of the Native Instruments generators:
- Load them into the channel rack.
- Make sure the Native Instruments folder is selected under generators.
- Use the drop down arrow on the instrument to add the instrument to plugin database and confirm.
So why do you go through all that trouble?
LOADING INSTRUMENTS FROM THE QUICK ACCESS MENU
If you look at the bottom of the channel rack window, there is a plus icon.
Click on the + icon and you will see a list appear.
Now that new list of instruments you just created under the heading Native Instruments is there in that menu.
It means you can quickly load up Kontakt, Reaktor or Komplete Kontrol.
This is super handy. Now you don’t have to navigate through all the different layers and folders to find the instruments in the browser window.
You just have to click the + icon and select the instrument you want.
Now let’s move over to the mixer, and I’ll show you how to do the same thing with the Native Instruments effects.
LOADING EFFECTS INTO FL STUDIO
Start by pressing F9 on your keyboard to bring up the mixer window.
Let’s go over to the right side of the mixer window where you see the 10 open slots labeled Slot 1 – 10. These are the places that you can load in effects.
You click on the arrow that is next to the Slot name and a drop down menu will come up.
Navigate to the more plugins option at the top of the window.
A menu of all the available plugins in FL studio will come up that looks like this:
Scroll to the bottom of the window and you will see the plugins from Native Instruments that you installed.
Double click on one. I chose Guitar Rig.
It will take a while for all the presets to load for the first time. So while that is loading up, go to the browser window on the left side of FL Studio.
Under plugin database, select Effects , and then choose the Native Instruments folder you just created.
After guitar rig has finished loading, you can click on the arrow at the top left of the plugin and choose the “add to plugin database (flag as favorite)”.
Or you can right click on the effect in the slot and choose the same option.
A pop up will come up and you can say okay to adding it to the Native Instruments category.
Then you can repeat the process for the rest of the plugins from Native Instruments.
When you are finished you should have a few plugins available under the Native Instruments heading:
Guitar Rig 5, Reaktor 6, and Supercharger.
Now you can easily load these into any of your mixer tracks.
CONCLUSION
I think that Native Instruments Komplete Start is a great package to use in FL Studio. I think their products are amazing, and after using the free package for a while, I think that you will probably want to upgrade to a paid version.
But for now, whenever you want to use a Native Instruments Plugin in FL Studio, you have quick access to them, and you’ll know where to look.
If you want to learn how to use each of these plugins in FL Studio you can check out the following articles.