Personally.....I think apples sound better than oranges.

 

Parlophone sounded better than Apple.

 

This brings the issue of differences in sound quality between DAW's into the debate also then right? Why would there be a difference between kontakt and other samplers but not in other audio apps? Personally I'm still convinced of a difference in DAW sounds and am happy with Kontakt but I'll leave this thought unpacked here.

 

Jesusss Chrissst! Don't open Pandora's Box!!!

 

I had no idea this particular option existed (did it always exist, or did they add or change it for v6?). From what I can tell, at least on v6.1 on the Mac, it's an "offline" option, as it defaults to "same as real time", so I'm not sure if it's something you can use while you're actually playing or recording, just when you do an offline bounce (Ozone also has an option like this on its Maximizer module that goes into super high-quality mode that won't play properly in real time). I'll have to mess around with it, but if it's something that actually does work in real time, it's useful to me, as I usually lay off all my VIs to audio tracks and mix the audio, rather than record VIs live at mixdown. You could do all your MIDI composition at a lower quality, then record all your Kontakt tracks at the highest resolution, one at a time.

I still have and use IK Multimedia SampleTank 2 (and Miroslav Philharmonik and Sonik Synth 2), which is about as low-profile as a sampling workstation gets. I have no idea how SampleTank 3 stacks up, and based on the fact that nobody ever mentions it, I'm assuming it's not all that great. SampleTank 2 is also 32-bit only, so I have to use it with 32Lives in order to work it it in a DAW (and after Mojave, Mac is dropping 32-bit support, so I'll no longer be able to use the standalones), but I always dug the sound and the sample quality, even if it's extremely limited. As an actual sampler, it's pretty great and super-easy to use ... it also plays and converts a lot of different old-school sample formats, like Giga and Akai -- it'll even read Akai-formatted CD libraries.

Most DAWs tend to use the host computer's audio engine, like CoreAudio on the Mac or WASAPI (or whatever the hell it is now) on Windoze, and thank God, because the old way, where every DAW had its own proprietary audio and MIDI engine, really sucked. If they sound different, it might have more to do with what the DAW does to the audio in the processing stage. I don't think that has anything to do with stuff like Kontakt, though, so I agree!

It seems like most of the people on this thread who actually do dislike Kontakt either hate the GUI for whatever reason or hate it as a sampler. I've never used Kontakt as an actual sampler, and considering the main reason I have it is because I want to use professionally-recorded sample libraries made for the format, I have zero problem with it. Like somebody else on here just wrote, if you want to bitch about a shitty sample player, bitch about EW Play -- their proprietary libraries are lousy and overpriced, their customer service is non-existent and they're the only sample player with extensive in-app purchasing.

 

Last edited: May 28, 2019

And when you have payed you get a bias opinion just saying

 

Mu Ha Ha Ha

 

Three dBs on the snare, matey.

 

This thread was just a fucking trap, in which all the posters, me included, fell, and that's why went off topic.
"Why kontakt is disliked?"
By whom? Why? Any credential? Numbers? Statistics?

An equivalent question could have been "why dogs are disliked" or "why cats are disliked".

Beside the fact that AUDIO difference between halion and kontakt or whatsoever else is not like between chocolate and shit ("EEEHHHH kontakt is a total crap!!!") but could be like chocolate 70% and chocolate 80% (maybe less), the only way to say which is better (and we're speaking of so small audio differences) is to render/record a reference wav in both samplers, non pitched/streched and pitched/streched, open an editor, align, reverse polarity, null test, and spectrum analyse the remaining noise (very small, I suppose, maybe well under the audibility, given you perform correctly the procedure).

For ther rest is just gui preference, like someone likes blondes or brunettes.

Happy testing, I don't fk care, I use kontakt engine engine since late 90's with Bosendorfer virtual piano, (kompact, actually), and I'm happy with that.

 

Last edited: May 30, 2019

This was not about whatt NNXT can do, this was about how Kontakt fails to be user friendly when it comes to actually using it as a sampler!

 

Ummmmm..... we sort of got to the bottom of it. It can be summed up as some people feeling nostalgic for the good old days of 8bit sampling. How much more character a Fairlight or an Emulator had over Kontakt which is why the whole topic (which I am sorry I started) then veered off into the whole dirty versus clean thing. So let's end this now.

 

got it! yeh indeed the GUI of NNXT is more appealing than Kontakt.

 

OMG....

I don't know if it's the case, but I read a recent comment (here or in AZ) criticizing Kontakt sound quality.

 

Again, ask for numbers. Distortion, frequency response, noise, jitter, and for comparison null test. Anything else is just an opinion, you can find as many as the number of users in a forum.

 

I don't agree with the criticisms about "sound quality".
I was pointing out what I believe the OP was talking about.

 

To this very day

 

Yeah exactly.
It took quite a long time to load, and DFD was a separate utility to install. Compared to modern virtual pianos is not exceptional, but at the time it was jaw dropping.

I think the same was later included in NI Akoustik along other three pianos.
I actually copied the Akoustik instrument folder in Kontakt 5.x and it worked, though only by browser. I don't know if they work in Kontakt 6, I erased them, not using them anymore.

 

Oh nooo it disables your multicore cpu and only use 1 ;-)

 

What I don’t like about it is that it takes a extremely long time to load large libraries. Why on earth is not batch resave made automatically during the first load of an instrument? At least it ought to be an option.

 

Yes that's the best way to go, especially if you don' have a i9 8 core serial SCSI.

I also still have and use SampleTank 2 + Miroslav Philharmonik, I actually got rid of the MP interface and integrated its library in ST2 cause is perfectly compatible.
I tested ST3 too, but I still prefer ST2.
I think that MP is pretty damn good, to be an old generation virtual orchestra.