uber alles
When I write about samplers or tools that include sampling I find myself comparing this or that feature to Kontakt. This is better, this is worse, I’ve made many references and I had yet to write anything about Kontakt. It’s curious but I think the answer is the sheer ubiquity of Kontakt in software sampling. Voilà – it is done. The winner. It is taken for granted. It has existed since 2002 and pretty much since dot has been the thing you use. The other things you might use are preserved only by their status within a particular DAW – Reason or Logic. It’s fun to check the first reviews ‘will this thing compete?’ with the second version reviews ‘will anything compete with this thing?’ Pow!
The interface is misleading. Other samplers sprawl across the screen, looking like part of the operating system – even Halion which once sat in a little box now spreads out like a man on a train. But no, Kontakt 6 is very tight lipped even when dragged out. There are a lot of shelves that open and close so to tuck away difficult things. Where Falcon screams YOO HOO LOOK I AM FILLED WITH DIFFICULT THINGS because that makes it seem more clever, Kontakt 6 is playing a game of ‘little old me’ and hiding its shotgun under the petticoats. (NB update – all of this is for 6 – version 7 is fatty fat.)
There’s a lot of stuff in there that you might miss, especially if you are prone to load up a bought library. Without even going into the basic elements of streaming samples and ranging them over the keyboard there is too much to talk about: filters, effects, layering, scripting, an optional mixing desk… you could use this thing and a sequencer and need nothing else. For example did you know that you can morph between two sounds by layering them and switching on the AET Filter? It’s supposed to work a bit like Roland’s Supernatural to provide an infinite change in texture over velocity. You might do wildly stupid things with it if you can figure out to get the damn thing working.
Kontakt is not perfect. It’s much too hard to create a front end for your own instruments compared to Falcon. The wavetable feature is half assed, invisible and not explained at all well, and only makes you wonder why they added it seeing as there’s no other synthesis modules. It’s happy to take files from other software but not too keen to give them back, locking everything inside a proprietary shell.
But as my old man would say about a person you could trust – you could go into the jungle with Kontakt. It’ll look after you.
Updates in 2023 – my samples are coming out of Kontakt format. Often because PadShop can do most of it with one waveform, made additive. But also version 7 is a big fat clunking pain in the ass, which really doesn’t do sound better – just bigger. Just keep version 6, and just a few of their enormous libraries, there for when I need something groomed and manicured.