KVR Audio

mhog · Post by **mhog** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 1:33 am

Armadillosound wrote:
mhog wrote:in my opinion there is no alternative.
That makes it a monopoly, which is never a good thing
It's better to have several formats.

well, Kontakt loads whatever format you like. It's a complete solution in case you have old formats (akai, giga, etc.). I don't think it makes it a monopoly, just a good standard in sample players field. No need for anything else. MachFive could be an alternative maybe? It is very similar, but there are no commercial libraries for it, besides it needs a dongle, as far as I know... Halion, too... and it is more difficult to program. Kontakt is very easy, just drag your wav/aiff samples and you get a basic instrument. Or just put your commercial formats libraries into and you have them ready and playable. For instance, I put all my logic (EXS24), NNXT (Reason) and (old) halion instruments in it. Besides: scripts, deep manipulation (filters, effects, etc.) and you can have 64 different instruments in one single instance! So.... for me there is no alternative, Kontakt is "the beast" (in my opinion, of course).

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 1:53 am

Well, Kontakt isn't very good to quickly load sf2. And I remember that there was a problem with sfz loading, but it was awhile ago. I guess that's an old bug who's been resolved by now. I should do a test.

BasariStudios · Post by **BasariStudios** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 1:57 am

Its Biased, there should be a NONE option too...since none of the above mentioned is worthy of being next or compared to Kontakt.

mhog · Post by **mhog** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 2:07 am

SampleScience wrote:Well, Kontakt isn't very good to quickly load sf2. And I remember that there was a problem with sfz loading, but it was awhile ago. I guess that's an old bug who's been resolved by now. I should do a test.

Kontakt 5 here, sf2 perfectly loaded/converted. The only format it cannot load is the sampletank one. But it is an IKM issue, not a kontakt one. Sampletank is "unconvertible" by anything, alas.

Sampleconstruct · Post by **Sampleconstruct** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 5:44 am

mhog wrote:
Armadillosound wrote:
mhog wrote:in my opinion there is no alternative.
That makes it a monopoly, which is never a good thing
It's better to have several formats.
well, Kontakt loads whatever format you like. It's a complete solution in case you have old formats (akai, giga, etc.). I don't think it makes it a monopoly, just a good standard in sample players field. No need for anything else. MachFive could be an alternative maybe? It is very similar, but there are no commercial libraries for it, besides it needs a dongle, as far as I know... Halion, too... and it is more difficult to program. Kontakt is very easy, just drag your wav/aiff samples and you get a basic instrument. Or just put your commercial formats libraries into and you have them ready and playable. For instance, I put all my logic (EXS24), NNXT (Reason) and (old) halion instruments in it. Besides: scripts, deep manipulation (filters, effects, etc.) and you can have 64 different instruments in one single instance! So.... for me there is no alternative, Kontakt is "the beast" (in my opinion, of course).

Too many uneducated guesses in this posting, both M5 and H5 support drag and drop, M5 supports scripting and there are many more synthesis options available bot in M5 and H5. More difficult to program? Not at all. 64 instruments in one instance? Yes, in both of them. Complex filters and advanced FX? Yes, in both of them, more advanced and better sounding than Kontakt's options, and so on and so on....

hueynym · Post by **hueynym** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 6:48 am

As stated by the OP:
"Bear in mind that my libraries are simple and lightweight. I want to focus on a more oldschool way of sampling and I plan to sample mostly old synthesizers from the eighties as well as acoustic sound effects."

Since prior releases have been either WAV or AIFF or REX2, it seems (to me) to make the most sense to use either SFZ or the raw samples.

He's not looking for "complex" anything...

murnau · Post by **murnau** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 7:24 am

hueynym wrote:As stated by the OP:
"Bear in mind that my libraries are simple and lightweight. I want to focus on a more oldschool way of sampling and I plan to sample mostly old synthesizers from the eighties as well as acoustic sound effects."

Since prior releases have been either WAV or AIFF or REX2, it seems (to me) to make the most sense to use either SFZ or the raw samples.

He's not looking for "complex" anything...

very true, but then again what else you should do with it (sample-wise)? i ask because mach5 can't handle very big sample instruments (which is necessary for many kind of orchestra libraries a la spitfire for example) as well as kontakt can. UVI made any progress in this?

on a sidenote: we definetly need a serious competitor to kontakt, it's only good for us all.

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 4:58 pm

SampleScience wrote: I want to focus on a more oldschool way of sampling and I plan to sample mostly old synthesizers from the eighties as well as acoustic sound effects.

The question remains on what you're using to sample with first. Most of your choices import samples but don't sample by their self.
'Old School' would sample and edit, not just edit. And if you're simply making samples for import, then it's not about the various engines at all, but about the format only. As most designers have their sets in multiple formats, it seems best to choose the ones with the largest markets most widely in use.

So, not a alternative to .nki, but in addition to...

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:41 pm

Indeed, but if I limit myself to plain Sfz, there isn't much things I could ad effect wise among other things.

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:46 pm

mhog wrote:
SampleScience wrote:Well, Kontakt isn't very good to quickly load sf2. And I remember that there was a problem with sfz loading, but it was awhile ago. I guess that's an old bug who's been resolved by now. I should do a test.
Kontakt 5 here, sf2 perfectly loaded/converted. The only format it cannot load is the sampletank one. But it is an IKM issue, not a kontakt one. Sampletank is "unconvertible" by anything, alas.

Weird, when I tried that all I've got was a error message. Maybe I should update...

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:58 am

SampleScience wrote:Indeed, but if I limit myself to plain Sfz, there isn't much things I could ad effect wise among other things.

Not to limit, but expand. Many designers do two or three formats.
You just want to pick the top two or three used on the market.
Kontakt is ubiquitous, so like it or not, it should be a given.

There's a couple that could really use more designers than what is currently available, but it's kind of hazy whether new sounds can revive them at this point, (aka SampleTank; DimensionPro) At least Dimension uses a common format though.

So .nki & .sf2/.sfz would probably reach the largest numbers in the markets.

mhog · Post by **mhog** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 1:04 am

SampleScience wrote:
mhog wrote:
SampleScience wrote:Well, Kontakt isn't very good to quickly load sf2. And I remember that there was a problem with sfz loading, but it was awhile ago. I guess that's an old bug who's been resolved by now. I should do a test.
Kontakt 5 here, sf2 perfectly loaded/converted. The only format it cannot load is the sampletank one. But it is an IKM issue, not a kontakt one. Sampletank is "unconvertible" by anything, alas.
Weird, when I tried that all I've got was a error message. Maybe I should update...

I confirm it works perfectly with sf2 programs, both in K4 and K5.

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 7:32 am

BBFG# wrote:So .nki & .sf2/.sfz would probably reach the largest numbers in the markets.

This is pretty much what I'm thinking - Kontakt as the "main" version, SFZ as the alternative, simplified if needed.

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 4:26 pm

To make things clear, my next sound library will be called Sf2Z Contact SampleBanks.

davidv@plogue · Post by **davidv@plogue** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 1:26 pm

I was in fact thinking of sf3 to confuse things even more for SFZ 3.0

KVR Audio

Kontakt best alternative?

Kontakt Best Alternative?