Why I love Native Instruments Kontakt and why you should too

It’s time for another native experience, taking a look at some dope software from native instruments.

Today I’m taking a look at Kontakt, their flagship sampler they sent over for me to review.

You can’t be around software instruments, sampling, and production for long before you come in contact with Kontakt.

Whether it’s because some sample company says they support the kontakt format, or a sample library comes as a kontakt player instrument, you’ll see it everywhere.

And for good reason.

Kontakt has become pretty much the standard cross platform sampler for everyone from sound designers and composers to electronic musicians and producers.

It’s a replacement for that huge rackmount sampler you have sitting there… you know, the akai s whatever or z whatever…the emus, all that.

Some may argue it won’t sound the same, that’s fine…at times it may not. But as far as functionality, features, and universal compatibility is concerned, Kontakt is a dream come true.

Why I love Kontakt

Coming from hardware, I was looking for a big replacement.  I needed something to replace the sampling functions of my mpc 4000. It is a full sampler, meaning I had collections of samples in various akai, roland, and other formats.

I need to be able to use all the instruments and kits from my mpc, which are in akai format.

I also want something that I can easily expand, well into the future. Basically something that is both backwards compatible with my hardware sample library, as well as future proof by being able to be constantly expanded.

Kontakt covers both. It not only reads my akai format samples and programs with ease, it is also expandable by the thousands of sound design companies providing samples and libraries in native kontakt format.

This allows you to put together your own custom sound workstation. If you just need better guitars, you can find the best for your music, and bring those in, if you need pianos, strings, bass, whatever…it’s out there and ready to load into kontakt.

The sounds and content

The sound library is good, I like it, it’s extensive, but again, it’s open.

With my fantom, or a motif, triton, etc…you can only expand so much.

After you fill all the card slots, that’s it, no more expanding.

With kontakt, that’s not the case, you can just keep expanding it well into the future.

Of course there are tons of sound design tools inside, but as I said, for me…it’s more used as a huge sound module, and it fills this job easily and effortlessly.

The user interface

With a sampler this powerful, you may expect to get lost, and many are intimidated and never give it a chance.  Let me tell you, this thing is as easy as it can be.

Open it up, load a sound, and play. Each sound you load after that will automatically be set to the next midi channel, making it easy for multitimbral playback.

There are a few features that make it easy to browse your sounds, including the “library view” which gives you a graphical box representing all the kontakt libraries you have installed.

Not all kontakt sounds are actually a library, libraries are made by companies that license the kontakt player. So if an instrument or sample collection says “powered by kontakt, or kontakt player” then Kontakt will see it, and give you a box that shows your library.

From there, you can browse the sounds easily by clicking the browse button on the box, and you get a normal file structure that has your sounds. It’s very quick, and I loved this addition in the 3.5 update, it wasn’t there in Kontakt 3.

But, even with sounds that aren’t actually Kontakt libraries, you can scan them into the database, which then allows you to browse for them easily via a drop down menu.

I just love it, period.

Bottom line is that I’m in love with this sampler. It does everything I need it to, it let’s me use all my sounds from my hardware gear, and let’s me customize the sound library to fit exactly what I want to do.

The fact that so many companies support the format is huge, just like the akai format was in years past, kontakt format is the universal language that many sound and sample providers speak.

That’s great news.

They have recently released version 4 of Kontakt, it has more enhancements, includes a kore style sound browser, some new sounds, including all the presets from their electrik piano instrument.

It also has a new choir, some more strings, and other little goodies. As soon as I upgrade, I’ll do a follow up and show you what’s there in version 4.

If you’re like me and you need a good replacement for a hardware sampler that can use what you have as well as expand well into the future, checkout Kontakt.

Why you should NOT buy Kontakt…

Usually right here I’d tell you to go pick it up, but I gotta be real with ya.

With the recent price changes over at NI, you’d be better to pick up komplete 6 instead of just getting kontakt 4.

Kontakt 4 by itself is 399, well worth it, but when you can get komplete 6 for 499, which includes kontakt 4, it just makes more sense.

Over at zzounds.com you can get komplete 6 for 4 payments of 124.75 no credit apps or anything.

I love these payment plans and once again zzounds.com comes through with the best price for it.

Being able to get Kontakt, the best software sampler around, plus 6 other dope plugins like absynth, fm8, reaktor, massive, battery, and guitar rig, it just makes more economical AND creative sense.

So if you’re looking for an all around sampler/sound module like I was, then Kontakt is what you want. Check it out at zzounds.com

let me know what you think, or if you have any questions.

leave me a comment below.