Kontact NI

[Stephen Simmons]

So I'm pretty unfamiliar with synths and samplers. Oh I have Cakewalk Studio instruments and Rapture and session drummer and dimension Pro and that stuff but I'm wondering about Native Instruments and kontakt. Is this one or both similar to Dimension Pro?  Meaning a program that has lots of sounds built in? And used the same way? I've heard some demos of some sounds that are incredible particularly the piano Noir

WSS

Edited October 1, 2019 by Stephen Simmons

[dcumpian]

Kontakt is a sampler. As such it can play sample libraries that are Kontakt-compatible. It is the most common library format out there, at the moment. When you purchase Komplete, you get several Kontakt libraries in the package. However, the big benefit is, once you have Kontakt, you can buy Kontakt libraries from many other vendors.

Dan

[Stephen Simmons]

18 minutes ago, dcumpian said:

Kontakt is a sampler. As such it can play sample libraries that are Kontakt-compatible. It is the most common library format out there, at the moment. When you purchase Komplete, you get several Kontakt libraries in the package. However, the big benefit is, once you have Kontakt, you can buy Kontakt libraries from many other vendors.

Dan

Thank you. So I would be best off to grab one of the versions of Komplete for the library of sounds. And I would probably want to install them on a separate, possibly an outboard SSD drive?

WSS

[Tezza]

I have mine on an internal SSD drive but I guess if you have a macbook or something like that and you have limited internal drive functionality then I guess an outboard drive would be the answer.

I have Komplete Ultimate 10 and there is still plenty of stuff there I have yet to use. You will need a good internet connection to download and install komplete, even if you buy the hard drive. I upgraded mine to 12 but then had to return it because I couldn't install it on my bad internet even though I bought the hard drive to try to avoid this. 

With 10 I don't have to worry about this because 95% was on the hard drive I bought and then I manually downloaded the updates from another computer and put them on the a USB stick. I can just install from the hard drive, install the updates from the USB stick and then go online for a few seconds to authorize. After 10 they changed it so you must be online to install anything. You can't even install anything from the hard rive without being online.

[dcumpian]

6 hours ago, Stephen Simmons said:

Thank you. So I would be best off to grab one of the versions of Komplete for the library of sounds. And I would probably want to install them on a separate, possibly an outboard SSD drive?

WSS

You can install each library wherever you want. Some sample libraries need faster disk than others, so those should go on an SSD, but not everything has to.

Dan

 

[Michael A.D.]

You can get the Kontakt 6 player (and some other freebies) with Native Instruments Komplete Start:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/bundles/komplete-start/

Note that this includes the Kontakt player - for most instruments you will need the full version of Kontakt.

I would suggest you wait for NI to have a sale on one of the Ultimate collections as that will include the full Kontakt 6 and lots of other stuff you will probably find useful.

[Stephen Simmons]

8 hours ago, Michael A.D. said:

You can get the Kontakt 6 player (and some other freebies) with Native Instruments Komplete Start:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/bundles/komplete-start/

Note that this includes the Kontakt player - for most instruments you will need the full version of Kontakt.

I would suggest you wait for NI to have a sale on one of the Ultimate collections as that will include the full Kontakt 6 and lots of other stuff you will probably find useful.

Yes. Actually I was going to download the free player because I really fell in love with the piano. Noire. As little as I use synthesizers and MIDI I hesitated to drop the six hundred bucks. I see there are some free aftermarket libraries that will work but hard to believe they be any better than I have in dimension Pro? What do you guys think?

WSS

[Robert Bone]

Kontakt is the king daddy of samplers, and there are all kinds of libraries available for it - lots of free ones too.

As was noted above, the free Kontakt Player will give you a good idea of the quality of sounds available for it, and well worth checking out.

Bob Bone

 

[dcumpian]

15 hours ago, Stephen Simmons said:

Yes. Actually I was going to download the free player because I really fell in love with the piano. Noire. As little as I use synthesizers and MIDI I hesitated to drop the six hundred bucks. I see there are some free aftermarket libraries that will work but hard to believe they be any better than I have in dimension Pro? What do you guys think?

WSS

Way better.

[Mánibranðr Studios]

Kontakt has a very deep internal bussing and FX-chaining system that can let you do a lot of creative things to your samples, even better since you can script your own user interfaces for the instruments you create.

[Leighton Cooper]

The other Sound collection that is real good is Arturia.  When it goes on sale you get 22 instruments for $250.  I love that package.  I have Komplete too which is also great but between those two youo have every synth emulated pretty much.  There's also Omnisphere but I don't think it's a substitute for either of these 2 packages.