I picked up kontakt at the crossgrade from exs24 price..now I have the best of both worlds it seems like an intense beast and i haven't spent much time with it yet..but a straightforward question..since it has timestretch i presume it can harmonize vocals? i.e. play multiple vocal layers at differnt pitches but original time? if so, has anyone used it like this and what's the quality like? Good enough to avoid getting a dedicated vst plug for this such as Akai's decabuddy???
Cheers and TIA

No pitch shifting program is worth diddly doo IMHO. Learn to sing.

Cheers....CL

er, CL, I don't sing...i do dance stuff and use alot of vocal samples...I just want to be able to play "chords" with some of these samples, obviously with everything kept in time.....

I am VERY VERY interested at finding out how vocal harmonies are arranged. Any tips?? I mean manually, of course, without the aid of any sampler/pitchshifter. Suppose I can sing the lines, what do i do next?

Kontakt can sort of do it, but it sounds like a vocoder.
You should download and try the demo.

TristezaOrange wrote:

I am VERY VERY interested at finding out how vocal harmonies are arranged. Any tips?? I mean manually, of course, without the aid of any sampler/pitchshifter. Suppose I can sing the lines, what do i do next?

It think it depends on the code. If the combination of the note of the main melody + the alternative note(s) agrees with the code, the harmony tends to sound fine. You could of course try dissonance, too, though.

Download some Beach Boy midi files with the vocal parts and examine them from there. If you're gonna try and learn how to write vocal harmonies why not try and learn from the best ?

Kajiki wrote:

It think it depends on the code.

Just realized that was a lame advice.
One thing that just came to mind is that often there is a contrast between the main melody and the sub melodies (like between the main vocal and the backing vocal). The main melody is usually dynamic and the sub melodies are more static.

For example, if the code is C, the main melody freely moves on the white keys (I hope you’re a pianist/keyboardist), whereas the sub melodies tend to stay on C, E, or G (like E->E->E->C). And of course you can reverse the dynamic/static when you want to shift the focus to the sub melodies.
I hope I’m making sense.

look for "tone-machine" you canmake harmonies and the legato mode makes you change the melody all together(without starting fromm the beginning when pressing another note)

Thanks for the answers guys