Kontakt Player Alternative

[johnlewisgrant]

As everybody knows, Kontakt Player works and is free for some libraries, like Vintage Galaxy, but not for others, like Imperfect Samples, which it plays in "demo" mode, only (15 minutes, max).

Not everybody particularly needs a heavy-duty sampler like Kontakt 5, which is expensive and which seems to be the only game in town for many nki-based piano and instrument samples.

All many of want, and will ever need, is a sample PLAYER.

Any new kids on the block to satisfy that market? NI sample players, plain and simple??

JG

[gamecat666]

you wont get anything that will play NI stuff without using kontakt.

But a really good free sampler is :
http://www.tx16wx.com/

kinda surprised there hasnt been more uptake of people releasing stuff for this though.. whats putting people off?

[BBFG#]

Kontakt 5 is also only a sample player. For many, it's all they need. The eternal KVR controversy of sample player and rompler arises and what makes them different (which IMO, comes down often to the amount of parameters you can manipulate).

The available choices of sample players I use are Aria; Kontakt5; and SampleTank.
(And I guess I should add DimensionPro to the list).
And they seem to be used more on my system for the available libraries over their particular features. As far as features and GUI, they all have their pros and cons. None of them are 100% great IMO.

In regards to any sample player, it's the samples you begin with that make the difference.

[Melodyshine]

plays in "demo" mode, only (15 minutes, max).

No, you just need to restart the Kontakt Player.
Though I agree with you

[Zombie Queen]

For just playing samples sfz will do fine and there are actually some free libraries. Short circuit has hype of good sampler and it's now free. However, if you are into sample based music you will want Kontakt sooner or later, like it or not, it has won the market. If you want to playback nki libraries, there is no alternative, many of them use scripting and they are just not convertible. You can get older version in marketplace, wait for another half price upgrade from NI, and you can cut costs in half.

[Melodyshine]

For just playing samples sfz will do fine and there are actually some free libraries. Short circuit has hype of good sampler and it's now free. However, if you are into sample based music you will want Kontakt sooner or later, like it or not, it has won the market. If you want to playback nki libraries, there is no alternative, many of them use scripting and they are just not convertible. You can get older version in marketplace, wait for another half price upgrade from NI, and you can cut costs in half.

I think one doesn't really need Kontakt. There are enough fantastic piano libraries which use the Kontakt Player or use something else. These libraries are probably even the best in the market. Even Imperfect Samples offers a special player. The same thing with strings, epianos, ebass, drums..

[Zombie Queen]

If you just want a piano and drums, yes. But there is a lot of unique, interesting and innovative stuff from small developers and those are mostly Kontakt. Look at Sonic Couture or Hollow Sun for example.

[Melodyshine]

If you just want a piano and drums, yes. But there is a lot of unique, interesting and innovative stuff from small developers and those are mostly Kontakt. Look at Sonic Couture or Hollow Sun for example.

Yes, but even Sonic Couture offers several products that work with the Kontakt Player , for example Xtended Piano or Geosonics.. And then there are also products that offer special instruments but don't require Kontakt, for example http://www.bestservice.de/en/cinematiqu ... ments.html

But of course, if there is a product which one really needs to have and if one doesn't want to restart the Kontakt Player all the time, then there is no way out.

[woggle]

probably the major alternative to Kontakt Player is Kontakt

[bigcat1969]

That is a question that can be taken two ways. The only things that can play nkis are kontakt or kontakt player and there are no others that can play nkis as it is a proprietary format.
Actually there are allegations that Machfive, http://www.motu.com/products/software/m ... ounds.html, will play unprotected nkis made with kontakt 4 and earlier. If you read the forums, there seems to be much debate on this issue. It also has a huge library of its own, never tried it.

There are plenty of alternatives to using Kontakt, just most of them are old or much more limited. I think that is why there is so much hype/tease for Sampletank 3.
http://www.dskmusic.com/dsk-sf2-v2/ will play SF2 of which there are over a thousand laying around on various websites and likely cover every instrument on earth. This is sort of the Model T of music file formats. They are fun for nostalgia but not much more.
http://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando/ or http://www.camelaudio.com/AlchemyPlayer.php play SFZ which is more modern open format successor to SF2. There are some nice little SFZs floating around and they sound better than SF2, but they rarely rise to the level of modern pro instruments.
Edit, with Garritan Instruments they rise to the level of modern pro instruments.
That brings up Dimension Pro,https://www.cakewalk.com/Products/DimensionPro/, which is a fun collection of somewhat smaller and synthy instruments with plenty of expansions available. Fun if you can find it cheap, not at the same sound level as Kontakt.
Ditto Sampletank 2.5,http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/sa ... l-versions. It was excellent a decade ago, long at the tooth now. fun to play with. Never buy at anything resembling full price.
Of course you can use VSTi without any player. Some solid entry level type freebies abound, not much mid level and above.
HALion Sonic 2, http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/vs ... nic_2.html might be one of the biggest alternatives. I can't afford any more big purchases, so I've never used it. Some folks certainly love it.
Of course EastWest does the Play thing, http://www.soundsonline.com/2013-PLAY, in general not many like the Player, but many adore the instruments from EastWest. Again out of my price range, but very high quality instruments.
UVI Workstation, http://www.uvi.net/en/software, also has plenty of instruments. Another one I know little about.
More randomly, Wusikstation-funky, lower quality sounds, VI.One-almost unknown, Independence-Magix killed it, Omnisphere-more of a synth but lots of acoustic type sounds, most DAWs ship with their own libraries, but the sound quality usually is entry level.

[BBFG#]

DimensionPro sound sets are often disappointing. After buying a few sets for it (and I have to admit, I just bought the Gibson bass set at it's introductry price), I've found once again varying levels of nice, with certain notes or sample ranges to be so bad, it's not worth using. (The last one promising everynote sampled, seem to forget to check their relative tuning, and a bass that can't play octaves in equal temperment on every note is missing something. Likewise, the lower octave are completely unplayable in context to anything.) The last set has made me decide to not install it on my new system. Unfortunately, the IKM 64b amp sims and effects are giving me so much problems, I think it is also headed for the abandonware pile, never to be installed again.
Halion and Mach5 unfortunately require the dreaded dongle and UVI still uses the PACE software which is just as bad with or without dongle.
Aria is nice, works very well and looks nice, but for me it's only used for the Garritan libraries.
There is Engine, again though, it seems like there are not enough sound developers using it to give you a ubiquitous selection so it's a hit and miss of whether you find it useful or not. Personally, while I think some of the sounds available for it are fantastic. The sets wind up having more than I want or need just to get the few sampled instruments I want.
That pretty much leaves Kontakt. And I have a love/hate relationship with it also. Not to mention that the best sets for it cost quite a bit and the sounds it comes with haven't proven to be much use at all for me. (I do like their percussion though).

Oh, and Alchemy, Synthmaster, WusikStation, and the like, are in a completely different class than just the SamplePlayers we've been talking about. I use them much differently.

[pljones]

http://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando/ or http://www.camelaudio.com/AlchemyPlayer.php play SFZ which is more modern open format successor to SF2. There are some nice little SFZs floating around and they sound better than SF2, but they rarely rise to the level of modern pro instruments.

Gary Garritan seems to think SFZ is fine for releasing significant sample libraries using ARIA Player (which is the same SFZ engine used in sforzando but with a different front end).

(Yes, I'm touchy about SFZ )

[bigcat1969]

I bought an additional piano for Dim Pro and it sounded awful, so that biased me against any add-ons for it. I'm not gonna pay for instruments that sound worse than the stuff I palm off on you guys... err make.
Also agreed on dongles/PACE rootkits. I installed UVI free, then decided to uninstall it and now I can't burn cds/dvds even though I tried multiple drives. I can't prove cause and effect, but it turned me off PACE forever.

I slightly updated my description Mr. Jones since you are correct about Garritan.

[woggle]

If you are looking to get all sorts of interesting third party libraries then you pretty much have to get Kontakt as it has the largest developer base by a long way. The situation is completely different if you want to roll your own libraries - there's lots of options.

For me Kontakt is my major instrument - I could easily have Kontakt and everything else (synths / fx ) free, or maybe another $100 for reverb.

But I couldn't have another sampler instead of Kontakt.

[BBFG#]

If you are looking to get all sorts of interesting third party libraries then you pretty much have to get Kontakt as it has the largest developer base by a long way. The situation is completely different if you want to roll your own libraries - there's lots of options.
For me Kontakt is my major instrument - I could easily have Kontakt and everything else (synths / fx ) free, or maybe another $100 for reverb.
But I couldn't have another sampler instead of Kontakt.

AS time passes and I get more (and better) third pary samples for Kontakt, I like it more and more. Sometimes it causes me to see if I've given a fair shake to the supplied sound sets and try them out again. but it seems to make them more disgusting each time I do.
So I can see where Kontakt will eventually be my sample player of choice (mostly), but not as an editor. And I'm still searching for a sampler.