Kontakt Full library deals to look out for?

[jngnz]

Thanks everyone. I checked all of these out and will provide some feedback.

First, let me make it clear that I have next to zero interest in orchestral libraries. I'm mostly looking for traditional / eastern / abstract instruments and anything that isn't "bread and butter" or whatever, so keep that in mind.

Keepforest - everything is "epic" and/or "cinematic". Hard pass.

Sound Yeti - one of the worst professional websites I've ever seen. No idea if they even have an overview of their Kontakt libraries anywhere or how to get there, but none of the products I've come across are interesting to me anyway.

Zero-G / Ethera: don't need choirs, don't need any orchestral/cinematic stuff. Some of their eastern/world stuff seems interesting, so I might have a look next BF or something.

Indiginus: seems like good stuff, but they don't do sales apart from intro prices it seems like. I wouldn't go as far as to say their products are "always on sale" because they're not exactly bargains. I'm particularly interested in the Mandolin and Banjo, but I can get those for less and possibly in higher quality from OTS during the group sales.

Sampletekk: got the Rain Piano. I'm too well covered in every other area they're covering, but their libraries certainly seem like bargain bin gems at those 90% off prices.

Fluffy Audio: I will listen to Drummer Boy and pass.

Sonuscore: I've had Symphony Series Percussion in my sights for a while. It's Kontakt Player though. Also, I got Evolution World Percussion and UVI World Suite so not sure I need it anymore. Everything else is a little too orchestral for me.

Osterhouse: seems like good stuff, but almost exclusively orchestral. Might grab the upright bass on sale.

8dio: well aware of them. Too much stuff to choose from. Not a fan of the Soundpaint stuff and I'm guessing 8dio stuff is of similar quality. Might grab some ridiculously cheap stuff during flash sales or BF anyway.

Orange Tree Samples: mostly Kontakt Player, so I own a handful of guitar and bass libraries already. Obviously amazing stuff. Will grab more during the next group buy. Looking at the baritone guitar, banjo and mandolin.

Skybox Audio: don't need any more keys instruments, but I might look at the prepared pianos during the next sale.

Sound Dust: seems wild. Love it. Will probably raid their site during the next sale.

NI / Komplete: don't know, I'm just not interested. Lots of stuff seems high quality, but also not the highest quality out there and everything is quite ordinary. Komplete is great when you need to cover the basics, but I've got those well covered already.

SoundIron: yup, well aware. Will go wild during the next sale. My wallet is already weeping.

Xperimenta Project: f- yeah. Great stuff. Got the Fisarmonica and Indian Organs and will most likely grab the Preparato and Classica Double Bass (for the upright).

Soniccouture: I love and own Sun Drums, although it pales next to BFD. Used to own Grand Marimba and deeply regret selling it because it has to be one of the most beautiful sounding libraries ever. Still own Broken Wurli and Hammersmith and have no use for them, but nobody seems interested in buying them.

Embertone: great stuff. Will pick up everything that isn't "cinematic" during the next sale.

Cinematique: absolutely hated the KLANG stuff and how wet it all is. Not looking any further.

Production Voices: seems like keys only. Not interested.

Waverunner: seems great and cheap, but they have nothing I'm not more than well covered in already.

Heavyocity: I did grab all of the Foundations stuff, but none of their paid libraries are speaking to me.

Westwood: didn't like the free Felt, don't care for anything else.

Sonixinema: heavy focus on cinematic libraries, but I will probably grab Abstract and Bowed Metals. Possibly Resonate, but I do own Spitfire Resonate already.


Now for stuff I discovered, mostly by looking at current sales or freebies:

Strix Instruments: had the Pripyat pianos already, got Emisynth. Pretty good.

Impact Soundworks: I think they're quite well respected on VI-Control. The free Heritage Percussion is decent. I might pick up a couple of their world instruments on BF.

Paper Stone Instruments: picked up Creative Junk and German Log Drum. Great and extremely unique stuff.

Unearthed Samples: dirt cheap and very creative. Picked up Bowed Fences, Sawmonium and Tension Drums.


Looks like the next MacBook will have to be the 4 TB version.

Edited March 14, 2023 by jngnz

[Fleer]

Better get 8TB. 

My 4TB has not much left. 

[jesse g]

4 hours ago, Grem said:

 

K7 not included with KU13? 

Sorry Grem,

 

Nope,  K6 came with KU13

[jesse g]

1 hour ago, jngnz said:

Thanks everyone. I checked all of these out and will provide some feedback.

First, let me make it clear that I have next to zero interest in orchestral libraries. I'm mostly looking for traditional / eastern / abstract instruments and anything that isn't "bread and butter" or whatever, so keep that in mind.

Keepforest - everything is "epic" and/or "cinematic". Hard pass.

Sound Yeti - one of the worst professional websites I've ever seen. No idea if they even have an overview of their Kontakt libraries anywhere or how to get there, but none of the products I've come across are interesting to me anyway.

Zero-G / Ethera: don't need choirs, don't need any orchestral/cinematic stuff. Some of their eastern/world stuff seems interesting, so I might have a look next BF or something.

Indiginus: seems like good stuff, but they don't do sales apart from intro prices it seems like. I wouldn't go as far as to say their products are "always on sale" because they're not exactly bargains. I'm particularly interested in the Mandolin and Banjo, but I can get those for less and possibly in higher quality from OTS during the group sales.

Sampletekk: got the Rain Piano. I'm too well covered in every other area they're covering, but their libraries certainly seem like bargain bin gems at those 90% off prices.

Fluffy Audio: I will listen to Drummer Boy and pass.

Sonuscore: I've had Symphony Series Percussion in my sights for a while. It's Kontakt Player though. Also, I got Evolution World Percussion and UVI World Suite so not sure I need it anymore. Everything else is a little too orchestral for me.

Osterhouse: seems like good stuff, but almost exclusively orchestral. Might grab the upright bass on sale.

8dio: well aware of them. Too much stuff to choose from. Not a fan of the Soundpaint stuff and I'm guessing 8dio stuff is of similar quality. Might grab some ridiculously cheap stuff during flash sales or BF anyway.

Orange Tree Samples: mostly Kontakt Player, so I own a handful of guitar and bass libraries already. Obviously amazing stuff. Will grab more during the next group buy. Looking at the baritone guitar, banjo and mandolin.

Skybox Audio: don't need any more keys instruments, but I might look at the prepared pianos during the next sale.

Sound Dust: seems wild. Love it. Will probably raid their site during the next sale.

NI / Komplete: don't know, I'm just not interested. Lots of stuff seems high quality, but also not the highest quality out there and everything is quite ordinary. Komplete is great when you need to cover the basics, but I've got those well covered already.

SoundIron: yup, well aware. Will go wild during the next sale. My wallet is already weeping.

Xperimenta Project: f- yeah. Great stuff. Got the Fisarmonica and Indian Organs and will most likely grab the Preparato and Classica Double Bass (for the upright).

Soniccouture: I love and own Sun Drums, although it pales next to BFD. Used to own Grand Marimba and deeply regret selling it because it has to be one of the most beautiful sounding libraries ever. Still own Broken Wurli and Hammersmith and have no use for them, but nobody seems interested in buying them.

Embertone: great stuff. Will pick up everything that isn't "cinematic" during the next sale.

Cinematique: absolutely hated the KLANG stuff and how wet it all is. Not looking any further.

Production Voices: seems like keys only. Not interested.

Waverunner: seems great and cheap, but they have nothing I'm not more than well covered in already.

Heavyocity: I did grab all of the Foundations stuff, but none of their paid libraries are speaking to me.

Westwood: didn't like the free Felt, don't care for anything else.

Sonixinema: heavy focus on cinematic libraries, but I will probably grab Abstract and Bowed Metals. Possibly Resonate, but I do own Spitfire Resonate already.


Now for stuff I discovered, mostly by looking at current sales or freebies:

Strix Instruments: had the Pripyat pianos already, got Emisynth. Pretty good.

Impact Soundworks: I think they're quite well respected on VI-Control. The free Heritage Percussion is decent. I might pick up a couple of their world instruments on BF.

Paper Stone Instruments: picked up Creative Junk and German Log Drum. Great and extremely unique stuff.

Unearthed Samples: dirt cheap and very creative. Picked up Bowed Fences, Sawmonium and Tension Drums.


Looks like the next MacBook will have to be the 4 TB version.

jngnzn

I said the same thing too,  and to be honest, I haven't used at least half of the library that came with KU13, but some of the stuff I thought I'd never use make excellent  background sounds.  I'll either hard pan it off to the left or right and it is a hint of a beautiful sound in the mix.

[jngnz]

Just an update on stuff I have bought since my last post:

Grabbed a bunch of stuff in the Soundiron spring sale like I said I would. I have to say I am a little disappointed in the quality of pretty much all of them. I would consider them to be good quality, but not superb.

BestService had the 2 for 1 spring sale for Cinematique stuff so I grabbed a couple of ethnic/world instruments. Very much liking these, especially for around $25 a piece, but need to play around a bit more.

Edu Prado is a dev I think I haven't seen mentioned in this thread. They recently had a sale (might still be going on) and also a freebie (Electric Reed Organ) that was posted here. For what you pay, this stuff is really good. They have an amazing sounding Pipe Organ for $44 that I would absolutely get if I needed one.

The Fluffy Audio freebies Koto and Khim are surprisingly good, though I find most if not all of their non-free products to be  laughably overpriced, even on sale.

Grabbed some more Sampletekk pianos and the Reed Organ at 90% off. Absolutely ridiculous value. Top shelf stuff for peanuts.

Looking for an oud library because the one from Sonokinetic is awful, I discovered Sonic Zest and specifically their ethnic string instruments and grabbed a handful. I'm surprised I haven't heard about them before because their libraries at $16 or less have got to be some of the very best price-to-quality ratios on the market. Again, top shelf stuff for next to nothing, even without sales.

I am also looking to get the Sonuscore Origins bundle but I'm a little irritated about it having been $10 (yes, 10, not 100) during Covid and now being $249 or like $149 on sale.

Just realising I've had Kontakt for maybe 2 months and already have around 70 libraries, most of them paid. This is not going to end well...

[antler]

12 hours ago, jngnz said:

Grabbed a bunch of stuff in the Soundiron spring sale like I said I would. I have to say I am a little disappointed in the quality of pretty much all of them. I would consider them to be good quality, but not superb.

Which ones did you get?

[jngnz]

On 4/12/2023 at 9:32 PM, antler said:

Which ones did you get?

I'll have some fun rating and very briefly commenting them:

Ancient Greek Compendium - 6/10: the plucked instruments are OK but nothing special (I imagine they all sound almost the same in a mix, so maybe it should have been fewer of them more deeply sampled), the percussion is "meh" at best (a dull sounding frame drum with no ringing... really?) and the wind instruments are borderline unusable. 

Antidrum Machine - 9/10: no wonder this is a Player library, as I feel like it's curated with a little more effort than a lot of their other stuff. There's barely any fluff in here, everything sounds great and is usable in many ways. I do feel like this library makes a bunch of their others redundant and it sounds like it maybe even includes some sounds of their other libraries...?

Bizarre Sitar - 3/10: maybe the worst non-bargain-bin-prices library I've ever purchased? I know the name says bizarre, but it sounds wonky AF and nothing like a sitar. Deleted it from my SSD because it's a waste of disk space.

Metal Bundle - 7/10: well sampled and versatile. The Rust libraries are especially great, while the Tuned Artillery and Bronze Bin ones made their way off my SSD already.

Little Epic Percussion - 6/10: nice for a little sparkle, but it includes so little content that it should probably be a free "get a taste of..." library. Also, I'm not sure why so few sounds need almost 2 GB. I have deep sampled string instruments needing less space.

Little Pump Reeds - 9/10: a fun little thing. Way more than a toy and incredible value for the money.

Luftballon & Phonautograms - 5/10: meh, but what did I expect at 5 EUR. The walkthrough videos showed some promising atmospheric patches, but for a handful of those it's just not worth the disk space.

Overall, I feel like most things they do are extremely well recorded and sampled from a purely technical standpoint, but the usability is lacking for a lot of these. My theory is they're not using musicians fully acquainted with the respective instrument all of the time. It really does make a difference.

 

 

[jngnz]

Also, there's two sales worth mentioning over at Loot Audio:

Audio Reward (made by Channel Robot and Divergent): highly recommended for sound design or if you need atmospheric background stuff.

Marcos Ciscar: a couple ethnic libraries that might be worth getting.

[X-53mph]

On 3/10/2023 at 7:00 PM, jngnz said:

What are some of your favourite libraries? Must-haves? Secret weapons? 

One thing to remember about sample libraries is that when a new 'magic bullet' comes out, it's used to death on productions (especially TV scores). Sometimes while watching TV shows with my wife, I drive her mad by naming the sound libraries used in the soundtracks (I suppose it's a step up from naming nuts). ?

With that in mind, a different approach is to make your own libraries. What a lot of people never seen to get into is using Kontakt in this way. My last few songs have all contained my own bass instrument (made from a detuned flamenco), and my own drums (Cajon). This will make sure your sound is at least as unique as your sampling ability. ?

Leading on from this: check out Pianobook for some interesting DIY Kontakt instruments.

[Fleer]

2 hours ago, jngnz said:

I'll have some fun rating and very briefly commenting them:

 

Antidrum Machine - 9/10: no wonder this is a Player library, as I feel like it's curated with a little more effort than a lot of their other stuff. There's barely any fluff in here, everything sounds great and is usable in many ways. I do feel like this library makes a bunch of their others redundant and it sounds like it maybe even includes some sounds of their other libraries...?

 

 

Thanks for your thoughts on Antidrum. Got it for years but never tried it. Will do now. 

[audioschmaudio]

Rigid Audio has good deals from time to time. You can profit from their 24 hours flash sales where they sell single products rediculously cheap for a day if you subscribe to their newsletter. Or if you're lucky they might sell their everything bundle for $49 again, like they did in February. It contains 32 Kontakt libraries of all kinds. You can check it out here: https://www.rigid-audio.com/products_everything_bundle.html

 

[Reid Rosefelt]

Welcome to the full Kontakt club,, where you can get hundreds of great free instruments.  So you can start looking at articles and videos like these:

https://blog.native-instruments.com/best-free-kontakt-instruments/

https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2020/04/27/free-kontakt-libraries/

https://producerhive.com/buyer-guides/sample-packs/best-free-sample-libraries-for-kontakt/

Check out "Primary Colors" and "Snap, Claps, Slaps, Stomps and Shouts" at Red Room Audio
https://redroomaudio.com/product-category/free/

In fact, the majority of developers offer free instruments.   If you add in all the free instruments that come with other Players like LABS and SINE, you can go a long way without spending any more money.

BF and holiday time will be special for you from now on because so many freebies that require full Kontakt are given away.

Enjoy!

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Reid Rosefelt

[PavlovsCat]

@jngnz Seeing Reid's links to lists of freebie KONTAKT libraries, it just occurred to me that I don't think I or anyone else has recommended one of my all time favorite KONTAKT freebie libraries, the Pocket Blakus Solo Cello  library. It's really special, IMO.  I love the tone / character of the library and have often chosen it over paid solo cello libraries I own.  

https://vstbuzz.com/freebies/pocketblakus-cello/