Just learning about Kontakt and have some noob questions...

Sampler and Sampling discussion (techniques, tips and tricks, etc.)
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I've been looking into Kontakt lately, but there is something I can't figure out from my researching. When you pull up an instrument sample, are all of the samples the same instrument sampled from all of the different notes, like a sound font bank, or are only a few notes sampled and the rest algorithmically extrapolated from the samples with pitch and time-stretch math?

I've heard so much about the quality of Kontakt samples, I'd assume it's the former, but we know what happens when you assume... :wink:

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The more serious libraries will sample every semitone, many will record multiple layers of.
Below that is sampled at every 3 semitones.
it's not sound fonts.

Kontakt is not through itself any guarantee of the quality of samples.

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jancivil wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 5:48 pm The more serious libraries will sample every semitone, many will record multiple layers of.
Below that is sampled at every 3 semitones.
it's not sound fonts.

Kontakt is not through itself any guarantee of the quality of samples.
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jancivil wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 5:48 pm The more serious libraries will sample every semitone, many will record multiple layers of.
Below that is sampled at every 3 semitones.
it's not sound fonts.

Kontakt is not through itself any guarantee of the quality of samples.
Are you saying sound fonts are better or worse than Kontakt? Or are you saying one must keep an eye out for the amount of semitones a Kontakt library is recorded at?

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Kontakt has nothing to do with this as such - it just gives a sound library developer a bunch of tools to use to develop a sampled instrument.

If you are making a sampled instrument, you can choose whether you want to map one sample across the keyboard, or whether you want to build an 88-note sampled, multi-velocity layered and round-robin-ed instrument - or anywhere inbetween - it's all instrument and application dependent.

In short, it's all down the the instrument you are using, not Kontakt.

(And also, more samples does not necessarily make it a better, or more playable instrument...)

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I'm not sampling anything... I just want to play them and make the usual, minor modifications, ie EQ, Echo, Delay, Compression, etc. I'm not out to sample my skin flute and spread it over 88 keys. I thought the Kontakt libraries were sampled instruments sampled separately for each note and spread out for 5-6 or so octaves and put into a bank.

I'm confuzzled! Can anyone explain to me what Kontakt is like I'm in kindergarten?

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Its a sample player. It plays only what you load into it. The number of samples per patch is determined by the instrument developer, not by Kontact.

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Kontakt is a "sampler" - realized as pure software.

But what is a "sampler"?

Basically you try to make any instrument playable via keyboards.
To do this, individual notes are recorded as "wavs". The sampler
does nothing else than trigger these "wav files" via the keyboard.
The sampler is a kind of "wav player over keys".

"NI Kontakt" is one of those samplers, a playback device. But there
are many others.

The quality and excellence does not depend on the playback device,
but on how well the wav files were recorded - and how they
were assigned to the keys.
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enroe wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 10:47 pm Kontakt is a "sampler" - realized as pure software.

But what is a "sampler"?

Basically you try to make any instrument playable via keyboards.
To do this, individual notes are recorded as "wavs". The sampler
does nothing else than trigger these "wav files" via the keyboard.
The sampler is a kind of "wav player over keys".

"NI Kontakt" is one of those samplers, a playback device. But there
are many others.

The quality and excellence does not depend on the playback device,
but on how well the wav files were recorded - and how they
were assigned to the keys.
That part I understand, but the sample libraries made specifically for the player are what Kontakt is known for, as far as I can tell. What I'm asking is if the samples are that good in quality and if they use a single, sampled note for each keyboard key or not. And I'm talking official, NI sample libraries, not ones made by 3rd-parties.

My early experience with sample sets come from using sound fonts, so that's why I brought it up as reference point for comparison of those vs Kontakt sample sets.

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That’s the thing, some are, some are not. It depends on the individual sample library/developer you are referring to who have chosen Kontakt as their sampling platform. Kontakt enables very high quality and in depth sampling, if a library developer chooses to utilize those features.

Maybe refer to a specific library for your question?

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Karl the Hermit wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 1:24 pm What I'm asking is if the samples are that good in quality and if they use a single, sampled note for each keyboard key or not. And I'm talking official, NI sample libraries, not ones made by 3rd-parties.
Even the official NI libraries vary in quality. Some (like the included factory library) are generally serviceable, depending on purpose and expectations (with some better and some worse). Others for which one plays NI extra are likewise variable. I'm far from an expert (as I don't have many of NI's own Kontakt instruments), but I gather that some are spectacular and most are at least quite good, but it may be useful, as commented above, to ask about a specific library. I know that many NI-sold Kontakt instruments are per-note, round-robin, etc., sampled, but I don't know off the top of my head if that's true for all of them.

Also, bear in mind that NI doesn't itself create all of the instruments it licenses and sells, so in a very real sense, most are "third party" practically speaking, if that matters.

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