Kontakt

What can I say: the standard - the legend.

I have been using Kontakt since version 6 and alllthough it's been a rough journey, I still love it.

And since the last version is finally stable and faster it's even more fun than ever.

Version 8 has maybe not the most revolutionary new features but it definitely has its charms.

I really love the new chords, pattern and phrases tool (though it really took me some time to figure out their use for me).

And 11 year old past me would have loved Leap.

But the biggest and best new addition is the new browser and sidebar - it just works, uncomplicated and uncluttered.

One of the only bad things I have are the factory sounds which range from good to very bland. Though the Orchestra and choir is done pretty well... and for the rest I suggest to find some stuff on pianobook.

Overall Kontakt really shaped my career as a musician in a lot of ways and I'm pretty great full for that. I still miss the slice function but maybe it will come back and overhauled one day.

And since it's actually become more affordable than ever through sales, it's a must have.

Though I actually pricewise I suggest to buy Komplete Standard, to get even better libraries and useful stuff. But even on its own it has become a steal.

the update they did from 7 to 8 and the asking price to update is absurd. and there's nothing significant update to the factory stuffs either and its really frustrating how NI is handling stuffs and now they adding ads in my paid software.

Kontakt needs a serious overhaul for 2023 to meet great plugin standards. The Gui should be resizeable, preset management should be modernized, even the way we select a library and add it should be more of a a bunch of smaller squares or something instead of the current large panels on the left. Samples are slow to load, volumes need to be cranked up to hear them.

Is Kontakt the best sampling platform I can imagine? Not even close. Worse yet, the version 6 pitfalls have been among the worst since early version 4 (about 10 years ago). Have they added features? Sure. And gigantic bloat.

Unfortunately, the bloat is not only in the size of the engine. The screen real estate it fills with useless graphics is even worse.

All that negativity aside, Kontakt is the standard of the industry for sampling that sits in your DAW. If you don't license it, you will be missing a significant chunk of available sound libraries and virtual instruments. And that's the cool part: if you want more sounds, get Kontakt for endless possibilities.

At this point, in 2021, Kontakt is very much a necessary evil. If you want to use many of the best sample libraries out there, you need to pay up the cash for the full version of Kontakt. But you probably won't be happy about it.

There are competing products out there that offer (at least) most of the same functionality, for a lot less money, and without using anywhere near the ridiculous processing overhead that Kontakt uses.

Oh, and those competing products have re-sizable GUIs as well. Still not figured that out in Kontakt, Native Instruments, despite what you charge for it?

It's become a bit of a joke how little regard NI has for its customers concerning this and other core products. They keep pumping out new expensive products and focus on drawing in new customers, whilst completely ignoring the problems with Kontakt that existing customers have been complaining about for years (yes, YEARS).

Sadly, it has gotten to the point where I will actively avoid buying Native Instruments products unless there's absolutely no alternative. Their market segment is ripe for disruption and frankly the day can't come soon enough...