Kontakt Becoming New Standard?

[JoeCat]

Just curious - it seems like there have been a ton of new Kontakt instruments in the last year. At the other end of the scale, there seem to be precious few dedicated Live Racks, ESX "instruments", etc., especially considering the popularity of both Live and Logic. Even producers like Puremagnetik are now producing Kontakt instruments (though happily they have not forgotten other formats).

Obviously building an sampled instrument (as opposed to just providing the samples) is time consuming, and producers and devs will gravitate towards the formats that provide the most exposure. Obviously Knotakt's been around a while, has great scripting facilities, etc., It seems to be increasing in popularity to the extent that it's becoming the de facto standard.

Related - I love Live's ability to collect and save samples as part of a project in Racks - you can work with an external drive and bring samples in easily without re-mapping. How well does Kontakt handle sample library management?
(I know - sample management is a key part of a sampling instrument . But as much as I love NI, they've always been a bit quirky about things like relative vs. absolute links, host presets, etc. - anyone who owns Reaktor and has dealt with its sample maps, snapshots, and ensembles can attest!)

[whyterabbyt]

'becoming' ??

Kontakt's been the de facto standard since before Gigasampler died.

[Sampleconstruct]

Where have you been the last 5 years?

[digitalboytn]

That's what I was thinking exactly

[JoeCat]

'becoming' ??

Kontakt's been the de facto standard since before Gigasampler died.

Where have you been the last 5 years?

I asked for that . Should have formed my thoughts/worded more carefully

Kontakt hasn't had competition in the standalone-market (and once you have 70-80% market share of a platform, devs tend to ignore the rest and tip the scales further). But NI also competes against the DAW samplers, and their percentage of the total potential market seems to be increasing. See this post for example:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4834431

So the trend towards producing Kontakt-only instruments (as opposed to providing multi-sampled libraries, etc.), seems to have had an exponential increase, probably because it's not only tipped the scales for a standalone product, but also away from the DAW built-in products and formats.

The DAW devs will probably continue to ignore their built-ins. If you're Ableton, you not seriously going to consider updating Sampler when an increasingly large percentage of your user-base has purchased Kontakt and will ignore products such as Suite. And library/instrument devs will gravitate towards Kontakt-only instruments, not just for the added features, but because, even though there's a large user-base for Sampler, ESX, those users increasingly own Kontakt.

I suspect more users who were happy with their DAW samplers are gravitating towards Kontakt for the added features and the plethora of new/awesome stuff, which I where I may be headed.

[Sampleconstruct]

EXS hasn't been updated in many years, I think the last time I used it was in 2006...it doesn't even have timestretching, nor does it have scripting, nor does it have decent filters and it lacks so much more - and we're now in 2012. Speaking for myself I would never make the effort to develop sample sets for EXS, even if it would increase my sales, it's just too outdated.

[JoeCat]

EXS hasn't been updated in many years, I think the last time I used it was in 2006...

TY - that's exactly the feedback I'm looking for. If the DAW developers give up, the instrument/library developers will give up. I see little happening for Live (partner instruments, etc.). For sampled instruments, Kontakt may soon be the last man standing.

[1-2-Many]

'becoming' ??

That was my intial thought as well.

Like you said Kontakt hasn't really had any solid competition since Gigasampler died, EmulatorX3 croaked, and Halion languished for so long without attention.

Halion4 recently came out, and boast that it can import Giga, EXS, and Kontakt formats (They claim all the major library and sampler formats). I don't know how well these import since I don 't own it. Pessimistic, but I wouldn't expect much if any soundset development from 3rd parties

As such, Kontakt IS the defacto Sampler in VSTland

[JoeCat]

"becoming" - I will never live that word down...

Just found out I can purchase Komplete 8 for the same list price as Kontakt since it's a crossgrade from Reaktor (which I bought on sale .

My holdout is basically that I don't do a lot with sampled instruments. But I could use a better piano, bass, and don't see investing in anything other than Kontakt.

I'm trying to come up with a reason NOT to spend that money....

[Uncle E]

Kontakt hasn't had competition in the standalone-market (and once you have 70-80% market share of a platform, devs tend to ignore the rest and tip the scales further). But NI also competes against the DAW samplers, and their percentage of the total potential market seems to be increasing.

I'll ask Steinberg if HaLion Sonic SE can open HaLion patches. If so, it would make sense for developers to make HaLion libraries since that'd instantly open them up to millions of Cubase users.

[1-2-Many]

For what it's worth - it's the opinion of many folk that Halion4 has a much better interface design and thus an easier learning curve and workflow.

This might be the edge it needs to threaten Kontakt's hold....?


BTW - with a Halion3, or HAlion Sonic license you can get it for $99. With a Hypersonic license the upgrade path gets you into it for $198

[1-2-Many]

I'll ask Steinberg if HaLion Sonic SE can open HaLion patches. If so, it would make sense for developers to make HaLion libraries since that'd instantly open them up to millions of Cubase users.

It would also make good business sense for SB to offer a free HALion Player like Kontakt Player - to expose the rest of the world

And to be more successful, make it truly free - without the elicenser requirement.

[Uncle E]

It would also make good business sense for SB to offer a free HALion player like Kontakt Player - to expose the rest of the world

Am I correct that Kontakt Free can't open a lot of the available Kontakt libraries?

[1-2-Many]

It would also make good business sense for SB to offer a free HALion player like Kontakt Player - to expose the rest of the world

Am I correct that Kontakt Free can't open a lot of the available Kontakt libraries?

Not sure - no experience with Kontakt Player. Maybe this is where SB could trump NI - offer a free player that would actually Play their own libraries

[zircon]

Right, any non-official licensed Kontakt library will not load for more than 15 mins in Kontakt Player. So for example all of our products will only work in the full version of Kontakt. On the other hand, companies that have shelled out huge $$ for licensing the player, and dealing with NI's wait times, are able to distribute the Kontakt Player with their library.

The thing is, many samplers basically load Kontakt. Sample mapped, velocity, groups, that's the easy part. It's Kontakt scripting and all the super-complex modulations you can do that are just not replaceable.