Do you ever find Kontakt instruments to be too much trouble?

[dune_rave]

yeah, discovery series is f***ing awsome

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

I barely use it. I only upgraded because there was a sale and I needed 64-bit support to port projects using orchestral strings (very subtly) from Logic 9 to X.

That said...

Depending on the songs, I think “realistic” sounds mixed with “less realistic” sounds can work if the “less realistic” ones are less realistic because of tech limitations that give them their own unique synth-like character (like ancient samplers). Using samples to create synthesis works better for me than many sample players that try so hard to reproduce acoustic instruments with few resources (short samples).

I think it started to be a problem when ROMplers got to be “close but not quite”. When PC sound cards moved to what they called “wave table synthesis” (which was the wrong term), and General MIDI proliferated. There’s a kind of “uncanny valley” effect with these products, where sampled instruments seem wrong because they’re actually much closer to being right. What’s wrong stands out more. Then there is the disconcerting “tiny sustain loops” problem (resulting in an off-pitch buzzy synth sound), and the “too much / too perfect vibrato” problems.

As a result, I avoid such sounds (close enough to sound wrong) and prefer sounds that are interesting, regardless of whether they’re natural or not. This may be why I don’t use samplers much. It’s so easy to fall into the uncanny valley with either bad samples, bad sample-player patches, or just the incorrect usage of them (and with all the articulation functions, not hard to mess up). I also am not fond of how SAMEY most soundtracks sound today, and the orchestral sound libraries (and human behavior of copying each other endlessly) have caused soundtracks to all sound the same.

Vary well said.....
I generally prefer to program a cool synth patch on a great sounding oscillator

[buzz1]

I barely use it. I only upgraded because there was a sale and I needed 64-bit support to port projects using orchestral strings (very subtly) from Logic 9 to X.

That said...

Depending on the songs, I think “realistic” sounds mixed with “less realistic” sounds can work if the “less realistic” ones are less realistic because of tech limitations that give them their own unique synth-like character (like ancient samplers). Using samples to create synthesis works better for me than many sample players that try so hard to reproduce acoustic instruments with few resources (short samples).

I think it started to be a problem when ROMplers got to be “close but not quite”. When PC sound cards moved to what they called “wave table synthesis” (which was the wrong term), and General MIDI proliferated. There’s a kind of “uncanny valley” effect with these products, where sampled instruments seem wrong because they’re actually much closer to being right. What’s wrong stands out more. Then there is the disconcerting “tiny sustain loops” problem (resulting in an off-pitch buzzy synth sound), and the “too much / too perfect vibrato” problems.

As a result, I avoid such sounds (close enough to sound wrong) and prefer sounds that are interesting, regardless of whether they’re natural or not. This may be why I don’t use samplers much. It’s so easy to fall into the uncanny valley with either bad samples, bad sample-player patches, or just the incorrect usage of them (and with all the articulation functions, not hard to mess up). I also am not fond of how SAMEY most soundtracks sound today, and the orchestral sound libraries (and human behavior of copying each other endlessly) have caused soundtracks to all sound the same.

Vary well said.....
I generally prefer to program a cool synth patch on a great sounding oscillator

+1
It is why I never spend big money on a "realistic" orchestral library. The act of trying to imitate an orchestra accurately- which they never quite do, even the best ones -often sounds worse than just going with artificiality but still making good timbres.

[Cinebient]

Now sometimes indeed.
While i love those great solo instruments like Emotional Cello and Violin i do not use my huge orchestral libraries that much.
They often really need a ton of work to sounds good and not too synth like.
Then i sampled a sound i liked from an iOS app called iSymphonic into the sampler because it sounded not great and dynamic but i loved the timbre i could not get out of all my 100GB+ Kontakt libraries. And then after importing them into the Logic sampler and was able to edit envelopes to my needs and give it more (fake) dynamic i love it really. So yes, sometimes a few MB can sound better as 100GB.
If a sample has the timbre you want there is no need of 20 microphones and 10 velocity layers, round robins and whatever. Sometimes just one sample (or even less) per semitone is all i need.
I also these days prefer more dry as bone samples where i can use my own spatialization and reverb.
I mean i still like some of my big Kontakt Orchestra libraries for some specific things but often it is indeed a waste of space.
Things like Staffpad also shows that quite the same samples even stripped down extreme can sound much more dynamic as well if they are optimized for the right playback.
Then i prefer some more unique timbres i cannot get at every corner (like some of the Heavyocity NOVO expansions f.e.).
The most thing i hate is if there is such a tiny GUI and/or not enough control (like no envelopes at all).
That said Kontakt seems still the best thing for bigger scripted and very expressive sample instruments for me. Mostly Kontakt is more cpu and ram friendly and A LOT faster to load as other multi-samplers (like Falcon f.e.).
So for real legato style and expressive solo instruments there is nothing better (beside some expensive physical modeling tools maybe) as Kontakt but for some vanilla orchestra stuff i prefer the good old EXS24 or now Logic sampler or any other simple multi-sampler on other platforms.