KVR Audio

Spitfire31 · Post by **Spitfire31** » Mon May 17, 2010 8:24 am

thysm00 wrote:…some important features (at least for my needs) are still missing

Yes, I hope he adds the filters RSN!

Best,

Joachim

Chrisboy2000 · Post by **Chrisboy2000** » Mon May 17, 2010 8:29 am

Are you serious? Of course it lacks a lot of things, but it has most functionalities that are needed to build any instrument

Well maybe I don't have the right information, but according to this site
http://www.soundzone.info/content/sfz-player

there is no round robin, no keyswitch, and (of course) no scripting or AET-filter.

but when they know that they have to spend like 350€ on a sampler before being able to use a library

I also experienced something like this, but I don't get these people. You sure do have to spend money on a DAW (even if you use Reaper, you need a decent PC and MIDI Equipment), so if you want to work with sample libraries, what is wrong about buying the full version of KONTAKT, since like someone pointed out, it makes every purchase of a new sample library about 100$ cheaper. (because of the licensing fees)

thysm00 · Post by **thysm00** » Mon May 17, 2010 8:38 am

Spitfire31 wrote:Yes, I hope he adds the filters RSN!

Me too

Chrisboy2000 wrote: there is no round robin, no keyswitch, and (of course) no scripting or AET-filter.

well... take a look at this instead: http://www.cakewalk.com/devxchange/sfz.asp , you're right about the AET filter, but it's kind of an advanced feature that is great but most of the time not really mandatory.

I also experienced something like this, but I don't get these people. You sure do have to spend money on a DAW (even if you use Reaper, you need a decent PC and MIDI Equipment), so if you want to work with sample libraries, what is wrong about buying the full version of KONTAKT, since like someone pointed out, it makes every purchase of a new sample library about 100$ cheaper. (because of the licensing fees)

I don't know what to say...in a way, i agree, because i bought everything and think like you, but some people are one time users, they don't even care about the sampler itself (too complicated), they just want a plug and play thing and sadly i think that the second category is the biggest one... and by the way that explains also why the biggest companies in the business ended up making their own player or sampler.

Chrisboy2000 · Post by **Chrisboy2000** » Mon May 17, 2010 9:15 am

well... take a look at this instead

Oops, I take it back... Looks quite promising, but I got used to the KONTAKT exclusive features (AET and scripting). But thanks for the advice, I will keep looking for developments in this area...

Do you know the Independence sampler? As far as I heard, you can make standalone instruments without licensing fees (probably these guys want to gain market shares) I once did the conversion of a KONTAKT-based sample library to the Independence format and was quite satisfied with the possibilities (although of course no scripting and no AET)

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Mon May 17, 2010 9:39 am

Chrisboy2000 wrote:I once did the conversion of a KONTAKT-based sample library to the Independence format and was quite satisfied with the possibilities (although of course no scripting and no AET)

Are there any commercial libraries that actually use AET then? Its only been in Kontakt about 9 months, after all, and Ive not actually come across a library that was K4-only yet.

thysm00 · Post by **thysm00** » Mon May 17, 2010 9:45 am

Chrisboy2000 wrote: Do you know the Independence sampler? As far as I heard, you can make standalone instruments without licensing fees

Yep i know Independance, but i'm not so sure about the standalone instruments. If i remember good, you have to make an instrument that can be loaded in independance free and there is a limitation in terms of number of samples or something else... but i'll check this out as sonn as i can download the manual.

softegg · Post by **softegg** » Mon May 17, 2010 10:54 am

you could use something like synthmaker to build a very detailed sample player.

Chrisboy2000 · Post by **Chrisboy2000** » Mon May 17, 2010 11:06 am

Are there any commercial libraries that actually use AET then? Its only been in Kontakt about 9 months, after all, and Ive not actually come across a library that was K4-only yet.

I'm working on it

. If you are interested in a AET-library you can check out my free melodica library. Its not commercial, but it makes deep usage of AET:

http://christoph-hart.com/volker

AET is very difficult to handle, you have to treat each single sample carefully, or the sound distorts, but you can get very good results with it (especially with woodwind instruments).

If i remember good, you have to make an instrument that can be loaded in independance free and there is a limitation in terms of number of samples or something else

Sorry, I meant the ENGINE player which is powered by Independence. I don't know for sure, but it seems they have a far more developer-friendly licensing policy than NI (in fact, it made me convert a complete KONTAKT library to Independence format to avoid the KP-licensing fees...)

you could use something like synthmaker to build a very detailed sample player.

As far as my experience goes, every VSTi made with Synthmaker was a real performance killer. It's obvious, because the ease of use of these construction kits are on the cost of performance efficiency. If you really want to do something serious, I am afraid you have to dig in C++ and the VST SDK.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Mon May 17, 2010 2:56 pm

Chrisboy2000 wrote:I also experienced something like this, but I don't get these people. You sure do have to spend money on a DAW (even if you use Reaper, you need a decent PC and MIDI Equipment), so if you want to work with sample libraries, what is wrong about buying the full version of KONTAKT, since like someone pointed out, it makes every purchase of a new sample library about 100$ cheaper. (because of the licensing fees)

Yet anybody who wanted to do serious sampling back in the day had to shell out serious dough for an Akai or Roland or Ensoniq or whatever... Everybody wants free and cheap these days, but let's face it even for the plug-n-play crowd those old EMU, Korg, Yamaha, Roland, etc. rack units weren't exactly cheap, especially if you factor in scalability, etc. compared to today's technology.

I do feel "sorry" for both consumers and library vendors from the perspective that a full version of K4 is a non-trivial amount of $$$ when all you want to do is play an awesome piano library (like AcousticsampleS AKAI-EX Pro, for example

)... I've felt for a while now that there is a market for a player version of Kontakt that has no edit capability (other than the basic vol/pan/etc. instrument settings) but that can playback unregistered libraries. How about a $150 download that does not include any library content(or maybe a very small subset)? You could argue that NI would be competing with themselves for full K4 licenses... but how many users out there balk at $380 for full K4 when all they want to do is load up AKAI-EX Pro or OrangeTree stuff? Maybe NI loses a bit on player licenses -- but companies like AcousticsampleS aren't licensees now anyway. Those vendors that are licensees now probably decided to go that route for content protection as much as plug-n-pray. Plus, those licensees still give their customers the free player route even if a cheap play-only option becomes available. IMO, cheapish player version would be good for NI, libary vendors, and consumers.

Oh, and all this sample engine talk, and no mention of HALion?

Chrisboy2000 · Post by **Chrisboy2000** » Mon May 17, 2010 4:09 pm

Another way would be, that NI offers some sort of "middle offer" for developers.
Means: The actual license percentage of about 10% of the sale price still goes to NI, but there is no more "minimum licensing buy" of 1000 units.
Although I understand NI to do this step because the encoding and copyprotection implementation needs manhours who have to be paid, it is a huge disadvantage for smaller companies who doesn't have the financial power to easily pay thousands of dollars before a single library was sold.

But what if there was a middle arrangement like: "You don't have to buy 1000 units, and we don't supply your library with copyprotection and a installer routine, but if we get the usual licensing percentage, the end user could load your library in his KONTAKT-Player without the annoying ***DEMO-MODE***)

I don't know, but it sounds like a win-win to me? Probably the sale number of full KONTAKT licenses would drop notably, but in return the market share would vastly increase.

thysm00 · Post by **thysm00** » Mon May 17, 2010 4:19 pm

Thanks for mentioning the KAWAI-EX

The NI licencing would be possible that way if they did not add the dvd, boxes and everything. They currently don't have any download only model, i think that they thought about it some time ago (at least they let me think they were), but they dropped the idea. Who knows why, but i'm sure they have a good reason... and i agree that it would just be a great opportunity for us and for them.
Even the copy protection could be avoided if they had a small dev kit to let the devs encode the things themselves.

vespers75 · Post by **vespers75** » Mon May 17, 2010 4:53 pm

thysm00 wrote:The NI licencing would be possible that way if they did not add the dvd, boxes and everything. They currently don't have any download only model, i think that they thought about it some time ago (at least they let me think they were), but they dropped the idea. Who knows why, but i'm sure they have a good reason... and i agree that it would just be a great opportunity for us and for them.

Really?

Tonehammer has a download only Kontakt Player library:

http://www.tonehammer.com/?page_id=4088

And Soniccouture's "Glass Works" KP library has the option of download or disc:

http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products ... ass-works/

thysm00 · Post by **thysm00** » Mon May 17, 2010 4:56 pm

Well, maybe they don't want to handle the stocks... i just know what is in the email i got back from NI...

kaviar00 · Post by **kaviar00** » Mon Oct 20, 2014 8:40 am

Hi guys
I have a question about license fee and i wont create a thread, since you were talking about it.
So, just to make sure, i am not obliged to pay for a license fee to create my own Kontakt Library with the intention of selling it, unless i want it to be functioning in NI's free Kontakt player, right?

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:04 am

Holy necro, Batman!

Yes, that's right.

Creating a Kontakt Player Instrument