Kontakt - am I missing much by not having it?

[jancivil]

Thanks guys - so I guess the only way to really go is get the full Kontakt Player - iirc the web store does allow the purchase of JUST the full player only, so I might re-visit it.

Great replies and much appreciated.

There is no 'full player'; there is Kontakt Player which they do not sell and Kontakt. IE: if you get a demo of Kontakt, once installed and run it will behave as/it will be a de facto Kontakt Player until you purchase a license for full.

[pottering]

For my taste, I found most libraries that caught my attention run on the free Player.

The 30 minutes and no preset saving demo limits for non-Player libs are not a big deal either, IMO, as 30 min is workable and you just play the "presets" with most sample libraries, it is not like Reaktor.

Well, it's 15 minutes and has been for years. There are things I would do with fairly bread and butter instruments I need to get under the hood for. Yes, I did Kontakt Player 5 for a long time like that but Kontakt 4 was a lot more viable for developers then. So it's not a big deal for you but it is for me. And I do not like timing out and reloading, the whole thing is just too broke-ass for me.

It's not Reaktor, but the Reaktor Player vs Reaktor full is the same concept, if you are someone that gets under the hood you do full. And I'm not a very fancy user of Kontakt.

Thanks for the correction, I had both free Kontakt and Reaktor, and in free Reaktor the limit annoyed me a lot more, so I got the wrong idea that Kontakt had a longer limit. But it was the same time all along...

[jancivil]

it used to be 30 minutes. I remember when the thread [in Samplers, etc] had to be edited to reflect the change.

[geqfreq]

I've been using Kontakt Free player - I see it hitting the CPU hard from time to time much more than any other vst synth I own - is there any significant difference in cpu hit - Kontakt Player vs Kontakt?

[waltercruz]

These days, a lot of 3rd part libraries work with the Player, so , if you're short on money, maybe it's a good idea to do a research before to see what you really want and if it's available for the Player.

[iPlogger]

I don't yet have Kontakt, but it's on my list because I really want to get The Giant. I've thought the power of full Kontakt allows deeper editing and also lets you make your own sampled instruments. I really like the sound 'Soft Pad' from the Korg 01/wfd and have wanted to sample that for many years since I no longer use my Korg live, but I still want to use that one sound. I was hoping I can do that in Kontakt.

[progtronic]

It really depends on the kind of sampled instruments you are interested in.

For me.. I really need highly detailed, deeply sampled guitar, bass and orchestral instruments. The advanced scripting Kontakt provides is just crazy good. There's really nothing else out there like it.

I'd say, roughly half of my collection.. is 3rd party stuff, that requires the full version. Most of your best deals will come from places like vstbuzz and audioplugin.deals.

I still think that owning Komplete (standard) is the best bang for your buck.. in terms of a solid collection of vst's, with a very reasonable upgrade cost.

[miden]

yeah, I might look at selling off my Sampletank 3 licence if I jump for Kontakt...cannot afford to have both haha!

[funky lime]

I've been using Kontakt Free player - I see it hitting the CPU hard from time to time much more than any other vst synth I own - is there any significant difference in cpu hit - Kontakt Player vs Kontakt?

It depends on which sounds/library you are using. Some libraries use Kontakt's convolution reverb as part of the sound (often with custom impulses), which can lead to some pretty big CPU spikes. Usually, there is a way to disable this per instrument. In my experience, this is usually the culprit if I have trouble with Kontakt.

Sometimes it can have to do with the scripting of a particular instrument as well; stuff like Adventure Brass has this "Morph Stacking" technology that actually plays all the articulations at once for every key press, but uses clever scripting to determine which one it thinks you want based on your playing speed and how long you hold the notes. So if there's a lot of complicated stuff going on behind the scenes, it can really add up on the CPU usage just because of all the voices and math operations happening in real time.

Aside from libraries which implement either of these things, I find Kontakt to be really quite efficient in terms of system resources. I'm running a pretty low-spec system (Pentium G3240) but I find that having my libraries on SSDs helps a lot. There should be no difference between Player and Full versions as far as I know; Player is full program but with some features time-locked.

[jancivil]

Actually, eg., Kontakt Player 5 when you do not have a license for Kontakt 5 will not let you under the hood.

If a lib. uses its convolution reverb it's simply removable from (probably) sends.

[gaf_thit]

I really like the sound 'Soft Pad' from the Korg 01/wfd and have wanted to sample that for many years since I no longer use my Korg live, but I still want to use that one sound. I was hoping I can do that in Kontakt.

Kontakt isn't a sampler in that sense. It is really a sample player.

[progtronic]

I really like the sound 'Soft Pad' from the Korg 01/wfd and have wanted to sample that for many years since I no longer use my Korg live, but I still want to use that one sound. I was hoping I can do that in Kontakt.

Kontakt isn't a sampler in that sense. It is really a sample player.

You can just record stuff in your daw, then render out bits as wavs. Then, import them into something like Audacity or Sound Forge. Normalize, loop, etc.. Export back out to wavs.. then, import into Kontakt for final instrument design.

I did this with almost all my old KORG hardware (M1ex, 01RW, etc.. capturing the individual, raw waveform multi-samples) and also a bunch of old audio CDs of various instruments and fx.

[geqfreq]

They have the black Friday sale now... Does full Kontakt run more efficient then Kontakt Player?

To me player seems to run heavy. Still trying wrap my head around routing multiple channel instruments to save cpu....

[whyterabbyt]

They have the black Friday sale now... Does full Kontakt run more efficient then Kontakt Player?

They're the exact same engine.

[Zombie Queen]

Does full Kontakt run more efficient then Kontakt Player?

No difference. But Kontakt is quite efficient, it all depends on patch/library design, if you stack up HQ resonant filters, bunch of modulators and lots of voices it can get heavy.