KODA Sampler - coming KONTAKT alternative?

[bermudagold]

Another sampler/sample player seems a bit risky at this point. It takes many years to establish a new platform. I don't see me to commit to another system on top of what i already have and start buying libraries all over again. A new sampler wouldn't make much of a difference for most users anyway. Basically, they all just play samples. Better GUIs are always welcome, but don't outweigh the costs of switching platforms.

Kontakt has already been dropped by most or even all of the larger sample library developers.
They have developed in-house sample players.
So if you are using a lot of large sample libraries from multiple vendors, you are already used to having to use multiple plugins to play them.

Kontakt hasn't aged well, so the medium sized sample library developers that don't have the resources or interest to develop their own player can benefit from a new modern platform.
I think this is a win for the community.

and they have been doing that for the last few years with Hise, Gorilla, Bestservice, Falcon, and Halion...Koda will just be another option

[bermudagold]

There is the case of Light & Sound. They have a chamber strings and a piano library. They ditched Kontakt and developed their own player, Incirios. To me, it looks like a strategic failure and sunk cost.

Clever companies at least still sell and support Kontakt versions. Spitfire, Orchestral Tools, Cinesamples to varying degrees. Their own players aren't great success stories, imo.

you don't have anything to base that belief on...if when you run the numbers and it turns out the investment is recouped on savings on NI licensing, then its not "sunk"...since most consumers are merely using Kontakt as a player, as long as their products have still been selling, how is it not a "success"?...since none of them have opened up their samplers to the user except soundpaint and spectra at the surface level, there is no known metric of demand

[sellyoursoul]

and they have been doing that for the last few years with Hise, Gorilla, Bestservice, Falcon, and Halion...Koda will just be another option

Best case here is that Koda provides some good competition, someone continues Kontakt, and Kontakt and other samplers improve usability in response to Koda.

[robisme]

I never bought from Bunker Samples, Soniccouture, Realitone because i'm not their target audience. But if a company i've bought libraries switches platform, i'll never buy anything from them again. I may not like the new platform for whatever reasons and i don't like if someone else makes such decisions for me. Too unpredictable. A product has to stay on the platform it was in when i bought it, because that was part of my decision to buy it.

To me, the most used platform is the least risky. But maybe let's talk about this in 10 years again. With the advent of AI tools on the consumer market the situation could be very different in a few years anyway.

I would think the exact contrary. If my favorite sampler library (Audiobro for instance) decided to transition to Koda, provided Kodad would be Linux compatible, I would ve very glad even to pay a fee to an update on this side. I would call this "not to be stick to a player", rather than "lack of predictability". And that would be future proof and confidence.

[mi-os]

There is the case of Light & Sound. They have a chamber strings and a piano library. They ditched Kontakt and developed their own player, Incirios. To me, it looks like a strategic failure and sunk cost.

Clever companies at least still sell and support Kontakt versions. Spitfire, Orchestral Tools, Cinesamples to varying degrees. Their own players aren't great success stories, imo.

you don't have anything to base that belief on...if when you run the numbers and it turns out the investment is recouped on savings on NI licensing, then its not "sunk"...since most consumers are merely using Kontakt as a player, as long as their products have still been selling, how is it not a "success"?...since none of them have opened up their samplers to the user except soundpaint and spectra at the surface level, there is no known metric of demand

Sorry, you have no idea what you're talking about. NI licensing fees are nothing compared to developing and maintaining your own player and infrastructure.

[Spitfire31]

Clever companies at least still sell and support Kontakt versions. Spitfire, Orchestral Tools, Cinesamples to varying degrees. Their own players aren't great success stories, imo.

Not to forget Sonokinetic that are heavily invested in Kontakt libraries. They just recently sent out free major upgrades of a handful of their older libs: Sotto, Maximo and others.

However, Best Service are using their very much improved Engine Player for Eduardo Tarilonte upgrades … Their first Engine was a disaster, but the new one is quite smooth.
/JHS

[Korg Supporter]

No mention of supported OSes. I would sure love native Linux support.

Soundbox just got Linux support.

[mi-os]

There is also 8dio and Soundpaint, which doesn't look like a great success to me. At least i'm not their customer anymore, because i don't want to install another player. It's too tedious to maintain and learn/remember all the idiosyncrasies that come with another sample player. And for what? The same old samples?

[seangm]

del

[dune_rave]

AFAIK Currently Falcon ( + UVI libraries) is the nearest to be a Kontakt Killer....

[Uncle E]

Haven't watched the video. Does it load Kontakt libraries? If not then that was it most probably already with it, unfortunately.

It doesn't.

Seems like a missed opportunity. MOSS was able to figure NKI's out.

[bermudagold]

Haven't watched the video. Does it load Kontakt libraries? If not then that was it most probably already with it, unfortunately.

It doesn't.

Seems like a missed opportunity. MOSS was able to figure NKI's out.

but anything sophisticated in kontakt is prolly using scripting...neither moss nor halion is auto porting that...so the nkis they open aren't going to behave anywhere the same...koda has already stated they are investigating/debating providing a ksp to Cminor translator to aid/expedite developers porting libraries...i'd assume every sampler that has a scripting api (hise, gorilla, falcon, koda) is an alternative...its never going to be instant, but its not starting from scratch either

[EvilDragon]

del

[thcrock]

I think if Koda can truly deliver on the promise of being easier to use than Kontakt (for library developers), it could do well very quickly. Although there are lots of people who truly don't want to leave the Kontakt ecosystem, not every musician has this massive sunk cost (financially or mentally or both). There are new musicians starting out every day, who don't have arbitrary attachments.

[apoclypse]

I think if Koda can truly deliver on the promise of being easier to use than Kontakt (for library developers), it could do well very quickly. Although there are lots of people who truly don't want to leave the Kontakt ecosystem, not every musician has this massive sunk cost (financially or mentally or both). There are new musicians starting out every day, who don't have arbitrary attachments.

This. The reason a lot of sample lib devs stick with Kontakt is because they've probably been working on their toolset for years and they don't want to break what they have. However if a new tool came along that makes it easy to do custom UIs, makes it easy to do articulations and round robin with no scripting and is built on modern codebase, with modern features. They'd be fools to not at least look at it and see if it viable for them.