Native Instruments announced today that Kontakt 3.5 (a totally free upgrade) will be available to all Kontakt users.

This isn’t a minor update, either. Take a look at the info:

• Extended Memory Addressing: Kontakt now supports 64-bit memory addressing on both Windos and Mac platforms. What this means for the user is that you can load up to 4GB of samples into your machine’s memory. And when using Kontakt 3.5 on a Mac, you can bypass OS X’s 4GB limit and load as many samples as your RAM allows – even in 32-bit hosts like Logic or Pro Tools.
• Enhanced Sampling Engine: NI have done a complete overhaul of the sampling engine that requires it to have a much smaller RAM footprint, leaving you more space to load samples.
• Multi-Core Support: Kontakt can now utilize multi-core processors (up to 16, to be exact).
• Direct MIDI Learn: Just as the title suggests, you can now map your MIDI controller to controller pretty much whatever you want.
• Enhanced Library Management: The library management system has been redesigned to be easier to use. Maybe a Kontakt user can fill me in on these changes.
• Effect Bypass: Yes, you can now bypass effects. Why wasn’t this implemented before?
• Improved Automapping
• Pro Tools compatibility under Mac OS X 10.5: Pretty key fix/upgrade for any Pro Tools users.

Visit NI’s website for more info on the update.