Intakt

now wait! intakt is not as bad as some would have you believe. it may not have the highest fidelity around (like, say, stylus rmx), but it's not the worst either! now i lean more to the synthetic side of soundz and i certainly wouldn't apply intakt to symphonics, but for the glitchy takno type stuff i do, intakt does the job it seems to be built for: loop syncing multiple beat files in a number of different formats. in fact, i'd say it does this in a more seamless fashion than kontakt. the effects are ok too. if you're looking to cook up some deviant beats, they'll do the job. my problem with the effects is that they are, simply, too limited. but, what do you expect for the price of intakt? what i find intakt particularly useful for is mixing and matching loop files from different libraries that don't support multiple loop playback. i use intakt in fl studio, live 6, cubase sx 3, and others. i haven't had any stability issues with it. now, if i need a realtime sampler, i use acid or my k2500rs. however, most of the time i simply want to cobble together loops from different libraries and put a heavy dose of effects on em. intakt does this quite well, thank you. (box or not.)

Guess I'll jump in and be the first to review Intakt. As they mentioned, it is based on Kontakt, although does not have the routing flexibility or selection of modulations or effects that Kontakt does. Its main purpose in life is to manipulate loops, though it can perform many traditional sampler-type functions (for example, it has excellent time/pitch manipulation features).

Its filters and effects are set up in a chain. The order of these can be changed. You can set up zones with different samples, and several different "modes" can be active. The modulation section consists of a pitch env, ADHSR env, env follower, and two LFOs. The effects section has a filter, lo-fi, distortion, delay, and a master filter. You can change the chain order of these effects (except for the master).

As one would expect from a Native Instruments product, the sound quality is excellent, and the fit and finish is quite nice. There is a printed manual, but it doesn't explain everything you would want to know. If you're strictly looking for a beat slicer, you could do better. Phatmatik Pro is, in my opinion, the very best beat slicer available. I think the two can certainly complement each other. Intakt has a really cool beat rearranger feature, but with Phat you can drag and drop MIDI patterns directly into your sequencer.

The main problems I have with Intakt are the following:

* The LFOs act weird when sync'ed to host tempo. I could not ever figure out which subdivision I was set for. It does not display a value (1/4, 1/8t, etc). The delay effect can also sync, and you can select subdivisions from a pulldown menu, but the UI does not display the correct values, and sometimes it seems like the value does not get set properly. So my major feature request would be to update LFOs to let you explicitly set subdivision values, and fix the odd behavior of the delay.

* It's too easy to lose track of which mode you're editing in. For example, I started out editing a zone, and ended up accidentally switching out of zone edit mode and applying all my changes to a single key. So you need to be mindful while editing.

* No velocity mapping capability.

* The VSTi version crashed on me a few times while loading samples. The DXi version seems to be much more stable.

* In Project5, loading large kits caused my machine to slow down, almost like a hang.

* No demo version (although I have heard that NI has one in the works).

What I like about Intakt is:

* It's fun to use, and you can get some pretty cool sounds out of it.

* Instruments can contain many different types of samples.

* Time stretching/pitch shifting abilities provide excellent utility.

* The 1.01 update gives you, among other things, 1400 new loops and instruments. That's quite a hefty pile of sounds for free.

* They have the most beautiful packaging in the industry. I hated to throw the box out because it was mesmerising.

BTW I'm using Sonar 3.1 (4.4.0 VST wrapper)