Native Instruments. Ok For Newbies? Options

[Foxyphil]

After (literally) years of reading (not always comprehending!) reviews of software products, but clinging onto hardware methods for dear life, Ive taken the plunge. Limited to an emac G4, I opted for a focusrite Sapphire as an interface and today bought the Native Instruments "essentials" pack - Abysynth 3, Battery 2, Pro 53, and Kompakt soft sampler. Do any of you seasoned experts thing it will be a tall order to get to grips with these? Abysynth, eg, is clearly targeted at sound designers.

And will these as my initial tools, (plus the cubase that gets loaded with the Sapphire) be sonically good enough to make broad-castable material (obviously the songwriting and arrangments are down to me). Or should I have put up with the ocasional clicks and buzzes of the Digidesign M Box to have acces to the plug ins that- it would seem - appear on most hit records?

Sorry the post is so vague, but I would really value any feedback.
Many thanks to ppl for making this such a supportive site for newies.

Phil

[mortalengines]

You can definitely do it with what you got. You will definitely have to watch your CPU & use some workarounds (rendering virtual instruments as audio tracks as soon as you are done etc.). I have to do it with a G4 powerbook (1.5ghz processor) & Ableton Live. Not to knock the bundled version of Cubase either but, I understand that particular version (or any version shy of Cubase SX) is a real bear. You may want to consider upgrading or moving onto Ableton, Logic, Digital Performer, Pro Tools, etc. in the near future...not that you can't get on with what you got for a while.