Leaving KONTAKT behind, experiences?

[Starbright]

It's possible. I think someone of the pianobook community did actually do something about this:
https://youtu.be/ERuOHcfRcZE
I have to say though that not everything can be converted in terms of interface and functionality sometimes

That site seems to be dead.

That's a shame, I didn't check it for over a year when I finally got my hands on Kontakt (too many Kontaktlibraries on Pianobook I needed at the time to do my job)

[Scotty]

It might make make more sense to keep NI Kontakt installed. Just uninstall what you don't want to look at (possibly sell some if you are able) and just don't purchase any more libraries or updates for it. Time is valuable and sample conversion is a time suck and huge pain in the arse. Instruments rarely come out the other side in a usable condition.

For a lot of reasons I'm annoyed by the development of Native Instruments (iZotope, PA) and think about leaving their ecosystem.

I have a lot of old Kontakt libraries from third parties which I really like and would miss (Rhythmic Robot, Hideaway Studio, SoundDust etc). I'd like to transfer these to a new sampler to have them at hand in the future.

Has someone of you guys managed such a transition?
What is your experience?
What are the pitfalls?
Which format you chose to migrate to?

[mabian]

A few days ago I loaded a project I've been working in the past months. It has two kontakt instances. They were not able to load properly the sounds, because twenty-five and hybrid keys were updated and now they are no longer "kompatble" with kontakt 6. This is the hell native instruments is now...

[jancivil]

I've pretty much relegated Kontakt to special things that don't otherwise exist. Mostly SonicCouture, but also including Galaxy Instruments' Thrill and Mysteria. I'm not using it for anything orchestral because its performance is not up to it; if it's all you know you may not get that, but as a VSL user it's a glaring difference. I endeavor to avoid Kontakt 7 if possible. I've idiotically saved a couple of things in Kontakt 7, but not very long after my first uses of it I started saving Kontakt 6 nkis of my Geosonics instances so as to have starting points for new sessions in K6, having that as a reminder.
K7 is bloated or something, here in any case it's a bear. Also it's difficult to determine do I use multicore performance, ASIO Guard or not and in which situations. I think in Cubase multicore on and ASIO Guard on, in VE Pro both off at this point, but don't_quote_me on it.

A number of people at the other forum are reporting K8 loads take less time or even is more efficient. I don't think there was any such optimization at this juncture, for the latter assertion anyway.
I don't need Native Instruments to be closely reflecting my musical aesthetic in general. I mean, the new thing Leap does not even resemble how music is made, in my world. This new and shiny world order is unpersuasive IME. So, I didn't plop down 100 bucks to 'upgrade' it .
If they sell something I think enhances my virtual life for a price I like I'll use 'em. I grabbed Razor for 19 bucks the other day, like that.

[BBFG#]

+1 on SonicCouture libraries. Nice they run on the free player.

[jancivil]

if K8 is actually better performing that's a plus for me. Unless I do a batch resave by force of habit or some other thought-free move, I think they all run on K6. if not K5

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

A few days ago I loaded a project I've been working in the past months. It has two kontakt instances. They were not able to load properly the sounds, because twenty-five and hybrid keys were updated and now they are no longer "kompatble" with kontakt 6. This is the hell native instruments is now...

If you search on the NI forums you might still be able to find links to older installers. I might even have the links saved somewhere (Can check tomorrow).

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

A few days ago I loaded a project I've been working in the past months. It has two kontakt instances. They were not able to load properly the sounds, because twenty-five and hybrid keys were updated and now they are no longer "kompatble" with kontakt 6. This is the hell native instruments is now...

Unless I've misunderstood the issue you're having, try these:

https://community.native-instruments.co ... 1710751455

[enroe]

For a lot of reasons I'm annoyed by the development of Native Instruments (iZotope, PA) and think about leaving their ecosystem ...

Mmm ....

Now - if we step back a little - and look at it from a distance,
we (at least most of us) can see:

1. The interaction of different complex software (libraries, sample
players, etc.) always leads to "mismatches" when the different
components are updated. Such interaction is "alive" - ​​and
therefore does not always work reliably.

2. Securing ownership through protection mechanisms (activation,
dongle, ...) always leads to problems, even total failure, if the
provider no longer exists at some point.

NI, as the market leader with the sampler "Kontakt" and many
libraries, is particularly affected by this - without being guilty of it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
So what can you do?

You can accept (1) and (2) - and thus invest a large part of your
time in keeping the DAW system running.

For (1) one can switch to a more modular system.

For (2) you can switch to non-proprietary systems, which are
much more future-proof. One such system is the sfz sample
system, which you can find out more about here,
and for which there are many samplers.

However, switching over - migrating to another sample system
- initially means a lot of work and time. But the sooner you do
this, the safer you are - and the better it feels (IMO).

[mabian]

A few days ago I loaded a project I've been working in the past months. It has two kontakt instances. They were not able to load properly the sounds, because twenty-five and hybrid keys were updated and now they are no longer "kompatble" with kontakt 6. This is the hell native instruments is now...

Unless I've misunderstood the issue you're having, try these:

https://community.native-instruments.co ... 1710751455

I knew about this page, thanks; they set it up to try repairing the damage after the fact .
But I also think this should have never been necessary if they would keep their libraries backward-compatible - or at least they would make them available as new versions that could work side by side with the previous ones - they did it in the past with something like Hybrid Keys etc. which they did not even declare in advance. I understand this would mean more disk space taken.
Also, in theory, projects already using these libraries were not supposed to be affected since the instrument was already loaded in the project. This is not true as a matter of fact.

- Mario

[Ah_Dziz]

Most good kontakt library developers will have legacy patches that work with older kontakt versions (or the version the library was developed with at least). NI is the only company I know of that breaks compatibility with their library updates. You can work around this manually as long as the sample names and resources are the same (and even this can be worked around but is a pain in the bum).

[pendle]

For a lot of reasons I'm annoyed by the development of Native Instruments (iZotope, PA) and think about leaving their ecosystem.

I have a lot of old Kontakt libraries from third parties which I really like and would miss (Rhythmic Robot, Hideaway Studio, SoundDust etc). I'd like to transfer these to a new sampler to have them at hand in the future.

Has someone of you guys managed such a transition?
What is your experience?
What are the pitfalls?
Which format you chose to migrate to?

Hi Martin,
Thanks for the Sound Dust mention : )
I'm having similar thoughts myself and been looking around at the options. Falcon is an obvious one, but a bit of a beast, even I find it quite scary. Audiomodern's SoundBox format is interesting, it covers similar territory to Kontakt for basic playback engine and has great arps - but lacks the scripting stuff that is great about Kontakt.
The balance between cunning and usability, is a tough one to get right, especially without the long gestation period that Kontakt has had.

[whyterabbyt]

wherever pendle goes, i shall follow....

[martinjuenke]

wherever pendle goes, i shall follow....

I'll come with you !

[whyterabbyt]

I dont know if the licensing/costs are prohibitive (GPL or £50 per month if revenue from it is less than £50K/year or £300 a month if revenue from it is above that), but there's HISE...