Is Kontakt still the best sampler?

[EvilDragon]

Oh you meant THAT!

[EvilDragon]

Something as simple as taking a sample synth note and then pitching across the keyboard isn't exactly straightforward.

It's literally just a drag and drop onto empty Kontakt rack, it auto-creates the instrument with the note already stretched between C-1 and C8 with middle C as root. Not straightforward?

[fmr]

Something as simple as taking a sample synth note and then pitching across the keyboard isn't exactly straightforward.

It's literally just a drag and drop onto empty Kontakt rack, it auto-creates the instrument with the note already stretched between C-1 and C8 with middle C as root. Not straightforward?

[Biome_Digital]

Kontakt is of course immensely powerful. However there are things about it that drive me crackers! There's quite a few annoyances with the way menus work and the GUI its self. I use it a lot but personally think it's showing its age and needs a major update. I am finding TAL sampler to be a great alternative, not for big libraries or fancy GUIs, but when you just want to drop in a vocal, or a bass and get it going in a track. I find the work flow very fast and with the oldskool sampler modes it sounds great too! Give it a go.

[Biome_Digital]

Almost every other sampler you could think of is easier to use Zampler, EXS, NNXt, Tal Sampler etc etc

Disagreed. NNXT and TAL Sampler are sort of idiosyncratic and in many ways slower to use than Kontakt.

NN-XT is not on the same level really and not easy to use, but I think TAL sampler is quicker to use than kontakt. I particularly like the file menus for browsing samples.

[EvilDragon]

Mapping stuff in TAL Sampler is slower tho. Doesn't seem to do velocity layers (but yeh it's probably not supposed/wasn't intended to) or zone key/vel crossfades.

It's all just tools. Different tools for different purposes

[Biome_Digital]

Mapping stuff in TAL Sampler is slower tho. Doesn't seem to do velocity layers (but yeh it's probably not supposed/wasn't intended to) or zone key/vel crossfades.

It's all just tools. Different tools for different purposes

Yes exactly, but I haven't looked at the mapping too much but it is there if needed. I actually found the looping in TAL very good. Can't say the same to NN-XT, which is a shame because I have to use that sometimes. lol

[Uncle E]

Is there any plugin or program/app (not necessarily a sampler plugin) that will record audio like hardware samplers, starting and stopping based on threshold?

[bluesawsq]

Mapping stuff in TAL Sampler is slower tho. Doesn't seem to do velocity layers (but yeh it's probably not supposed/wasn't intended to) or zone key/vel crossfades.

It's all just tools. Different tools for different purposes

Kontakt is good for mapping samples to zones but how do you load and swap those already mapped multisamples easily?
It feels like an obvious core feature is missing. If you could save the mapped zones as some multisample-zone-file and easily browse and load those, that would be a huge improvement.
Could be similar to selecting sound sources in Omnisphere.
Some Kontakt libraries, like Analog Dreams, use scripts to add that functionality. But those script solutions are somewhat limited and locked to those libraries. Would be much better to have native support for loading multisamples, like sources in Omnisphere.

[EvilDragon]

Yeah, that is a good point. There is only functionality to exchange a single sample, and beyond that, there's facility for exporting/importing whole groups - but not solely the whole keymap of the group.

Alternatively, you can just keep on mapping things to separate groups, then use Group Start Options to add keyswitching or changing which groups are active based on MIDI CC, etc. No need for scripting (although a generic script for picking between any number of groups from a menu is quite simple to do).

Is there any plugin or program/app (not necessarily a sampler plugin) that will record audio like hardware samplers, starting and stopping based on threshold?

CWITEC TX16WX does that, and I bet HALion too.

[ChamomileShark]

Yes HALion does it. I have a project in Cubase with all notes sequentially, I hook up a hardware synth hit play and I get a full set of sampled notes - you can also set the format of the file names which I think means some other samplers then recognise them when you drag them onto another sampler.

Sample Robot I think does a similar thing but it's more sophisticated, not something I need for the relatively few samples I create for my own use.