Perhaps you should have qualified that with "in my personal opinion", since that's what it obviously is?

For sample based musical instruments that aspire to more than playback of transposed and filtered recordings, the Kontakt scripting feature is a gamechanger with no corresponding features in the SFZ format.

So, IMHO, the Kontakt format is currently the best option for most musicians, as opposed to sample tweakers and recordists.

/Joachim

Hey! Are you calling us tweakers?!?!





Seriously though, I get what you and Brent are saying, and I agree to a large extent. A dedicated sampler with scripting is going to produce very high quality instruments, such as guitars, where scripting is essential to produce a good sounding strums. But here's the thing to consider--not many of us will be spending months, or even years to develop a single pristine instrument (think Orange tree samples or other popular guitar library developers). This is where I think Kontakt shines and has a place--for using purchased libraries that developers have created.

However, for the everyman or for the more casual indie developer, SFZ is ideal--especially with a GUI-based multi-sample editor such as Wusikstation.

* SFZ industry penetration is second only to Kontakt. Which I've always stated from the beginning.
* SFZ allows the user, to a great extent, choose the platform to be used.
* SFZ has several Indie developers that are offering high quality sample-sets inexpensively.

--Sean

Kontakt loads SFZ aswell

Exactly!

--Sean

Really? If you had said, techies instead of musicians I would agree with you. I am both, and when I want to make music, the last thing I want is to try to figure out a scripting language. I am not interested in making instruments at that point. I am interested in making music. Scripting is an impediment to making music. I think most musicians would agree.

On the other hand, if I wanted to create an instrument for distribution to others, then I can see the benefit in being able to use a scripting language to specify its exact operation and features. But that would be the techie in me talking.

Well, not exactly, last time I tried it. It loads them very approximately. Has it improved lately?

Actually, in the context of the thread, I was meaning:

"Exactly" as I was saying in the posts above, that most samplers have the ability to load import SFZ.

not:

Kontakt loads SFZ perfectly ("Exactly").

But I'm sure you knew that already.

--Sean

You can't even convert anymore Kontakt files. Extreme sample converter and Chicken systems translator are going to be obsolete because if they offered kontakt conversion, they would violate NI policy. There are tons of good quality soundsets (many are cheap or free) that I would buy if only I could convert them to sfz, even if I loose the power of Kontakt scripts.

Same here

Have NI changed their policy so that NI format files cannot be converted into anything else? I know that Kontakt's new compressed file format cannot be converted but that's a technical rather than a legal reason. However, if they have changed their policy so that even uncompressed nki's can't be converted then this will be a sad day indeed

I think that it refers to the ability to have sample libraries with more features not available elsewhere. I agree with you that most musicians don't want to script to make music (luckily there are few who will...) but most musicians want, for example, a nice interface with the right knobs to tweak the patch without going under the hood of the sampler...almost like the 8 macro controls in Massive. Browse the bank, tweak some (main) knobs, you are done. And I saw that most of the times those musician don't even use knobs to edit, they just want that preset/instrument but, somehow, the fact that there is a performance view along with a sample library is a plus.

If its so obvious that that's what it is, then why does it need qualification?


Anyway, none of my business really, so back OT:

I knew Kontakt would be by far the most popular choice - and for many good reasons - but I'm surprised there are so few EXS24 users. Has logic gone massively out of fashion, or is everyone using Kontakt in Logic?

I don't believe this is the case. Uncompressed nki's are still available for conversion, but as you say, it's a technical rather than a legal reason. It's too bad that conversion tools haven't kept up with the times. The best bet available there would be Chickensys' products.

--Sean

Well, for my part anyway, I honestly didn't think past the windows platform.

However, SFZ is cross-platform, and works GREAT with cross-platform applications such as Alchemy, so I'd still say that it is one of the best options.

So, I guess I should clarify my opinion as such:

Most Popular Native-Windows Format: Kontakt
Most Popular Native-Mac Format: EXS24
Most Popular all-around completely open format platform independent format: SFZ

I'm not sure if I'm expressing my thoughts the way I want to, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

--Sean

Edit: I just checked, and Kontakt is available for Apple OSX systems, (I don't deal with Mac much), so I have to go back a bit on what I was saying. I would have to say that Kontakt is the most popular overall platform independent format, and SFZ is the 2nd most popular platform independent format for Windows, and EXS24 and SFZ probably tie as 2nd most popular format for Macs.

Feel free to disagree though, because I really don't use Mac systems, and don't feel qualified as an expert on Apple OSX subject material.

--Sean

That!

I gave up supporting EXS24 because A) it's not as flexible as Kontakt, C) half of my stuff couldn't be ported to EXS24 as it relies on the scripting and C) very few people were buying them. Those who did buy have subsequently come back to me to ask for the Kontakt version of what they bought as they've now dumped EXS24 in favour of Kontakt.

I think some still use it but for mundane purposes (bunging a quick piano down, whatever) and for Logic's own supplied instruments (obviously) but my understanding/experience is that most Logic users pretty much use Kontakt now.

Shame to see Mach 5 coming so low in the poll - the new version looks as though it could give Kontakt a damned good slap on the bottom with better scripting and functionality.

Cheers,



Stephen