There are two kinda pricey pieces of software that have entered into the portion of my mind I reserve for thinking about ways to justify spending money. As a musician who uses a computer for a lot of the heavy lifting, Virtual Instruments have become the bread and butter of the work I’ve done.

The two things I’m torn between, The Complete Composers Collection and Komplete 8, are both incredible products. The former is more acoustic, symphonic, and ethnic in nature while the latter contains top-of-the-line synthesizers and some other incredible instruments and collections of effects and digital amplifiers.

The reason I’m torn is that both are (when not on sale) about the same staggering $1000 price. And both are absolutely enormous tools. From what I’ve gleaned from composer’s forums, Komplete has an incredible player that allows a composer or musician to tweak virtually every aspect of the instruments. Some of the synthesizers and keyboards are unbelievably amazing.

Complete Composers Collection, on the other hand, contains a word-building choir which sings what you type and sounds great doing it. It features a number of symphonic instruments, a rock collection, a drum suite that is used in feature films, and various other libraries ranging from pianos to acoustic ethnic instruments.

At this point, as I have in the past, I’m leaning towards CCC. While someday it would be great to get both and unite the two into an unstoppable musical force (assuming I myself possess even the remotest chance of utilizing what these programs are capable of), I think the acoustic, symphonic, rock, and ethnic libraries better suit my needs. As several film, television, and game composers use this exact collection, the temptation only grows.

Komplete sounds like a great help to musicians, while CCC sounds like a great help to composers. I consider myself to be both, but certainly use my computer far more for composing than for performing. As I begin to use it in both areas, perhaps Komplete will finally reveal itself as the piece of software I truly can’t live without, but for now I believe CCC is going to do everything I need.

The composer for Stargate uses CCC anyway. How can you deny something that awesome