Native Instruments recently announced the release of KOMPLETE 9 ($599) and KOMPLETE 9 ULTIMATE ($1,099). The latter product, which includes 65 products that weigh in at 370 GB, comes with all samples and software pre-loaded on a hard drive.

If you own KOMPLETE 8 and are considering making the move to 9 for the upgrade price of $149, you’ll probably what to head up to the NI site (www.native-instruments.com) and check out the chart that details the differences. Battery 4 seems like a genuine advancement over the highly popular Battery 3 drum machine, and NI has also tweaked Reaktor. Two new product lines, including “Solid Mix Series,” an effects package are included. No changes have been made to Kontakt, the sample play back/editing module currently in its fifth version.

KOMPLETE has been among the best values in the software industry for quite some time; I expect that 9 will be worth taking a look at.