Ocean Way Drums in Kontact?

[autodafe]

Hi,
I guess it's already been answered but I cannot find the answer

Can Ocean Way Drums DL kits be loaded into Kontakt 3 or do I need to purchase the "ExpandablePlayer" which looks like it's nothing else than Kontakt player?

Just to be sure before I Consider purchasing a DL Kit...

[iain_morland]

I would like to know the answer to this too. The info isn't as clear as it could be on this point...

[jensa]

You have to buy the Expandable Player (kontakt Player 2) and register the serial number that comes with it in the Native Instruments service center. Then you can use OWD in Kontakt without limitations. So, I guess the short answer is, you need to buy the Expandable player to use OWD.

[P.T.]

So, people who already own the full Kontakt 3 still need to buy another player to use these?

[iain_morland]

It seems so -- which unfortunately turns me off what is otherwise an appealing product. I don't want to have to install something else I'm not going to use, not to mention having to pay for it too!

[BERFAB]

The OWD Expandable player is not only a "player," but (similar to the Infinite Player) a license lock on the samples you're purchasing. Previously, companies did this just by including the Kontakt Player (a crippled version of Kontakt) with their collections. NI takes a royalty for providing this, and thus there is a cost involved.

Now, of course, NI is providing a free Kontakt Player to anyone who wants it, along with a 650(!)mb collection of NI samples from the Kontakt library. The OWD and IP players offer unique configuring for the sample collections provided, as well as a customized installation scheme for the sample packs that the customer adds to it. NI, of course, still takes a royalty from the dev for providing this software, which is presumably, passed on to the customer.

If you have the latest version of Kontakt, you still need the 'players' to access the collections. But using the full version of Kontakt is the best way to access the samples.

Cheers
-B

[iain_morland]

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

I wonder how the licensing works exactly. It would make sense that now the K3 player is free for even encrypted libraries not to ship with the Kontakt Player. One would hope this would reduce the libraries' cost, while still giving the devs the security (if that's important to them) of the encryption.

So in other words I'm wondering whether the Kontakt encryption can be licensed from NI without also having to license the Kontakt player. It would mean less costs to pass on to the customer.

[BERFAB]

I believe that the Kontakt Player will NOT load any libraries other than those that it ships with (that's why it's just a "player"). To unlock the capability to have the Player play your sample library, devs need to work with NI and develop a key that will do so. In return, the devs get 2 things: 1) they can freely distribute their libraries to anyone--even if they don't own Kontakt, and 2) they get a built in license lock for their libraries within the full Kontakt platform.

-B

[DarkStar]

I look at it this way:

The OWD Player essentially provides a (NI) licence to use all the OWD kits (as well as some software to use them, if you want to use it). So you buy it once, then you can buy and use as many OWD kits as you wish.

The alternative would be to build a contribution towards the license costs into each OWD kit price. So each time you buy a kit you pay another contribution to the licencsing costs.

Let's say that OWD estimates that people will, on average, but 8 kits - 4 DL and 4 Multichannel. The prices would then be of the kits would need to be about 20% more to recover the same fees for the licensing.

But this pricing depends on OWD getting their forecasts correct. If not, then either they lose money OR the users are charged more than is needed. So it's better to buy the "NI license" once and get the kits for less.

YMMV

As I understand it, the new free Kontakt Player or Kontakt 3.5 will load and play third-party products (e.g. OWD, Drum Masters) fully IF those products have been installed and Authorised.

[Squids]

I believe that the Kontakt Player will NOT load any libraries other than those that it ships with (that's why it's just a "player"). To unlock the capability to have the Player play your sample library, devs need to work with NI and develop a key that will do so. In return, the devs get 2 things: 1) they can freely distribute their libraries to anyone--even if they don't own Kontakt, and 2) they get a built in license lock for their libraries within the full Kontakt platform.

-B

It's a bit confusing I agree. Kontakt Player "Free" is not really the full Kontakt Player but actually just a Kontakt Player that reads some of THEIR content for free. It works only in "Demo Mode" (30 minutes at a time) for third party Kontakt Player licensed products like OWD or Infinite/Drum Masters or other company's virtual instruments based on Kontakt. So if you already have it or even if you already have the full Kontakt 3.5 now when you get something like OWD or the Infinite Player the serial then acts as an "unlock" code as Berfab here is saying. The libraries are encrypted and require this one time registration first.

Unfortunately no costs are saved on our end! So there's no difference in price to transfer over to the user... even though we have made some better prices on www.esoundz.com lately for various Drum Masters and OWD packages anyway.