Native Instruments has been a leader in software-based musical instruments almost since personal computers became fast enough to play live. (The word "native" reflects the software's ability to run on the computer itself rather than expensive DSP cards.) Over the past dozen years, NI has created an impressive lineup of soft synths and effects, including:

• Absynth, a powerhouse of wild, swirling soundscapes
• FM8, a fresh take on frequency modulation synthesis (see our FM tutorial)
• Guitar Rig, which transforms your computer into a mile-high rack of boutique amps and effects (see our Guitar Rig 2 review)
• Kontakt, perhaps the most popular software sampler, featuring scriptability for enhanced control and expression
• Massive, a huge-sounding blend of analog synthesizer beef and digital wave scanning
• Reaktor, the modular synthesizer of doom, which you can "wire" yourself through the onscreen toolkit (see "My Five Favorite Soft Synths")

Each of these is deep, powerful, and priced from $229 to $449. But with Kore 2, NI has taken the sonic engines from each and integrated them into a single "greatest hits" instrument with a streamlined, accessible user interface. Here, your $229 gets you 500 of the best sounds from these six monoliths, and $449 buys that plus an elegant hardware control surface. Kore 2 provides the full, high-end sound of the component instruments, but without full editing capabilities.

Kore 2 combines six of Native Instruments' high-end products into a single, streamlined software synthesizer, and then piles on an elegant hardware control surface. (Click to enlarge.)

Want even more sounds? NI offers expansion packs starting at $59. There's even a free version, the Kore Player, that lets you try out the sounds and then expand as desired.

You can also expand laterally, bringing third-party AU or VST plugins into the Kore environment. You can warp them in complex ways, spruce up the resulting sound with the 32 built-in effects modules, and store your creations as new, self-contained sound patches. Kore 2 can, in turn, run as a plugin (VST, AU, or RTAS) itself, or as a standalone application.

In a way, Kore 2 is like Apple Logic's Environment: a simple general principle, but so flexible that it's not easy to grasp. Tagged "the Next-Generation Workstation," Kore 2 aspires to be the central sound-creating, shaping, and organizing hub of your studio, as well as a go-to instrument on stage. Does it achieve that lofty goal? I've been exploring Kore 2 for months; here's what I've found.

Installing Kore 2

Kore 2 uses a standard installer. When it asks where to store the sample content, I suggest you choose Library/Application Support/Kore 2 (or the equivalent "all users" directory for Windows), so that the samples can be accessed from any user account on the machine. Note that the installer's progress bar is a bit misleading: even when the bar has reached the end, the installer is still busy writing samples to the hard drive.

When you install Kore Soundpacks, you're again prompted to select a folder, but this is just for documentation. The installer writes the actual sample content to the folder you defined previously.

Copy protection is handled via an application called Service Center. This controls licensing for all Native Instruments software on your computer: just enter a serial number, register the software, and never worry about copy protection again. Service Center is also where you manage software updates. With the exception of a hardware driver update, which Service Center never detected as installed, this update process worked flawlessly during my testing.

Now that the software is installed, it's time to play, manage, and perform with Kore 2.