What is the incentive or motivation for all these sample library developers to get away from Kontakt? Is it because Kontakt is basically a proprietary, closed format and requires the user to own a Kontakt license? Kontakt Player libraries are rather rare and require the sample library developer to pay a hefty fee. The smartest move Native Instruments could make is to open up Kontakt Player to all developers for free, since they are slowly, but steadily loosing their monopoly as a sample playback engine.

 

This is probably better overall than having everyone use Kontakt. Sample companies can control their own technical innovation and aren't stuck with whatever NI does with Kontakt. And hopefully that pushes NI to up their game as well.

But yeah, with this, Sounpaint, Sine, Mirage, Spitfire Player and whatever else I'm forgetting, NI really overplayed their hand on controlling the sample-player market.

 

The thing is that all those samplers suck. Kontakt is much more stable and superior to all of them. Especially Spitfire Sampler. It's god awful.
BUT
I agree that it's a good thing from development perspective - it'll force NI to move faster.

 

Definitely one of the reasons why all bigger sample library developers eventually switch to their own sample playback engines. Another reason might be that it's easier for them to offer the flexibility regarding the mic positions that a user wants. Also, the fact that it allows them to offer subscription services as well must be a motivator.

However, one of the biggest reasons IMHO is piracy. KONTAKT was cracked ages ago and it's quite easy to add and run libraries in k'd KONTAKT. However developing their own engines and moving their products to that engine certainly would help them prevent non-legit users from getting access to their libraries. Consider the fact that East West PLAY Engine was cracked only recently, and until then the only way to access their libraries was to go legit.

 

Imo, having all their catalogue in the sister site is another big reason as well : )

 

I don't think it's ment to replace kontakt, from what i'm getting by looking at the options it's more of a quick access thing, so you'll still have to buy the kontakt library (and kontakt) if you want access to the whole shebang, which kinda make sense to me. It could also be that the contorls are limited just because it's in beta, but idk.

 

I kinda agree with you, but not 100%. Kontakt is still at the top of the totem pole no doubt, but Sounpaint and Mirage have some interesting new features, and NI has been slacking with keeping Kontakt's performance up to modern standards. Some of those new Kontakt libraries use an astronomical amount of cpu/other resources, so much that they're largely unusable on all but top-tier state-of-the-art machines.

 

It's mainly due to library developers, not Kontakt itself. There are libraries that are so heavy that you're ready to use bouncing all the time, but thx to how well it was programed, it doesn't overload CPU and/or disks(even HDDs).
But I agree on the main subject - NI was very conservative so far and probably lazy. Maybe now they'll be forced to do something about it.

On the other hand, like I said - most of those samplers suck(even when they have some new fancy features). Using them on daily basis for lots of users is pain in the ass. I don't think that all those samplers will come even close to Kontakt in the next 3-5 years. Besides, not all developers can afford their own sampler. These facts can calm down NI, which is not good I guess...

 

It's interesting. For years we had many people sayin' Kontakt sucks ballz.
Now they're saying it of Engine2, Play and the rest.
Some are gonna end disappointed...

 

I like Kontakt better,in any case but for drum libraries i hate Kontakt routings... But for anything else it is one platform, no cloud subscription and one plugin... This way we will end up with trillion vsts just in right time when things should be more simplified and minimalistic....

 

Yes, but in many cases Native Instruments is also the developers of the libraries that have issues. The Pharlight/Ashlight/Straylight libraries basically need an i9 or equivalent processor to use more than 1 patch at a time without bouncing. And even the most expensive powerful processor money can buy would only handle 2 or 3 of those patches tops. Very unprofessional for NI to release flagship products with that level performance issues. Hopefully they get a good wakeup call and straighten things out.

 

Kontakt is CPU/RAM/IO heavy. No doubt. I think it does all in a single thread. It freezes FL for a few seconds if it is loading, it is foolish to use it in a session with VSTs, effects, mixing and all going on. Even FL's own Directwave is quite good. Load is inevitable if you have 10 velocity layers per key + round robins @ 96khz // 32bit WAV. The best thing devs can do is come up with lite versions like rollerball and friends do for us

 

I agree only partially. The main reason in my experience for high CPU usage is the reverb. That alone brings down incredibly the CPU.
I think the effects in general in Kontakt are pretty decent but:
1. They're not the best. Understandable
2. They're not fast. Here's the main problem
They're kind of a half-assed embedded T-racks (or equivalent)
On a programming level I discovered Kontakt uses FFTW3, which is way slower that Intel's IPP/MKL. NI you cheap bastards... That alone makes a huge difference in a lot of effects. I always disable the reverbs and put a reverb plugin after Kontakt.

Now, it's also true when loading sometimes becomes irresponsive. I lower the preload buffer size for that. But you can't always do that especially with very big libraries. Biggest flaw for me.

 

Last edited: Jan 19, 2022

Clear and simple... piracy.

 

They don't develop libraries. They just hire someone else.

 

The thing with those libraries is that use the new synth/rompler (however you call it) features of Kontakt 6.
And obviously this is too much. They're doing with Kontakt scripting and the mentioned slow basic effects things that other VSTIs do straight C++ coded.

 

Very interesting. I'd really want more competition for Kontakt out there. What would be best for everyone would be a powerful, free and open source format that people could use. There's Sforzando but apparently it's not nearly as powerful as Kontakt. I can't stand how complacent NI has become with Kontakt. V6 was a letdown for many, it still doesn't have a resizable interface, is still very sluggish and poorly optimized. All the while there's the lingering suspicion that they might wanna go subscription service in the future. Not a happy Kontakt user here tbh, I hope they will see this as a pressure to finally start improving themselves more.

 

100% agree. What would be the best sampler right now? Independence?