Why should I buy Kontakt?
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- Опубликовано: 4 авг 2024
- I take a ramble through the woods to discuss a frequently asked question on Pianobook: why do most instruments need the full version of Kontakt and why you may consider paying for a copy.
NOTE: I'm not sponsored by Native Instruments, Spitfire Audio or Bunker Samples!
Some links:
- Kontakt Licensing: www.native-instruments.com/en...
- Kontakt Crossgrade: www.native-instruments.com/en...
- Time+Space Komplete 13: www.timespace.com/products/na...
- Spitfire Audio Albion One: www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-...
- Spitfire Audio LCO Textures: www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-...
- Bunker Samples Bunker Strings: bunkersamples.com/bunkerstrings/
- DecentSampler: www.decentsamples.com/product... 
Видеоклипы
Great video! I agree with all these points. Kontakt is still a great buy. There are literally thousands of free instruments out there for Kontakt Full (almost two decades worth). I still use some Kontakt 2 instruments from like 2004. 🤣
Thank you for sharing your time and insight with us. Quite informative indeed. Peter from Canada
Thanks for watching Peter!
I resisted the full version for ages, I didn't realise back then that owning third party libraries enabled a discount. I got it in a sale and it's well worth it, especially when you consider the world of free stuff like pianobook it opens up.
Most sample companies give away free Kontakt instruments for the full version so you really get your money's worth in the end.
Great points, very clearly communicated.
Great video. Thank you Stephen.
Thanks, Stephen. This video comes along timely, as I've just been looking to get involved in the pianobook community and specifically by helping to port instruments to Decent Sampler. I take music-making seriously and wouldn't consider myself a hobbyist but even though I take definite steps toward finding clients and my audience, I have no serious expectation of ever making a living in the "industry". So, limited resources and Kontakt is expensive, and I'm a DIY guy from way back so try to do the most with the least. I'll never exhaust the possibilities of the kit I have at present, but it's an ongoing temptation to want to keep up with persons I admire, such as yourself and David and Christian and... And so it goes!
Excellent stuff. I think that porting Pianobook instruments to Decent Sampler not only benefits Pianobook it also helps Dave prioritise what things to implement next in the plugin. He will freely admit that he’s not going to rebuild all the features of Kontakt but more focus on the core features needed by most sample libraries.
Thank you for this info! Super helpful.
Thanks for watching!
Kontakt is 50% off right now I think and this was really useful info, thanks, I might just go get it!
Wish I could buy all those libraries, but 1-I'm still a starting composer, and 2- I live in Brazil, our budget reality is VERY different.
Absolutely agree!
Excellent insights Stephen ! Excellent analogy re hardware samplers... in comparison, Kontakt is the deal of a lifetime !
Indeed it's quite incredible. I remember when music magazines used to come with a bunch of free samples on CDs but you really needed to buy a hardware sampler to make any use of them. This is basically what Kontakt full provides at a much lower cost (and is much more powerful!).
@@StephenTallamyMusic Well, except software samplers are a dime a dozen these days, and Kontakt, which apparently has never been given a once-over by a UI usability expert, is an exception. Somehow it became a near-standard and developers take it for granted as the default platform, resulting in super-high prices for everyone, whether one wants to buy Kontakt or not. But please, let's not act as it were the only sampler in the world.
@@SongOfItself for sure there are alternatives, but with all de facto standards, developers are likely to target the ones that they know best and where they can find the most examples of how to do various sampling tricks. I do hope a modern cross platform alternative emerges as competition can often get the incumbent to raise their game. What I see right now is slightly too much fragmentation outside Kontakt to really identify a solid challenger.
I'm always reticent to hand over money for anything unless I know it will be worth it in the end (it took years, mind you I was working as an apprentice at the time, to realise that buying proper tyres over Reynolds was financially the better investment).
As I had been bassist in a cover band prior to Lockdown, it took months to decide trying production music as a potential additional income. Over six months later and still no sales, I feel that crossgrading to Full may be beneficial. I had bought Spitfire Studio Woodwinds during the summer and that allows the crossroads price. I still haven't gone through with it, but it's likely given the extra 50% off.
I bought Kontakt 6 full version as a stand alone purchase towards the end of summer 2020 and yes
I did pay the full £359. Just to be able to use freebies alone Kontakt is still worth the investment plus
you get over 1000 sounds in the full Factory library including half a decent orchestral library as well
as world instruments and even some vintage 60s and 70s synth sounds.
It's certainly one of the best investments I've made.
Thanks. Looking to buy Kontakt so I can use Outerworlds Vol 1 from piano book, but the price. So good tips about discounts.
Summer sale should kick off in the next few weeks so keep a look out!
Great video! Hey guys! HOW DO I REMOVE THE DEFAULT PAN IN KONTAKT? I have found it difficult to find information on this. Essentially, for example, if a key is played on the left, the instrument will sound louder on the left side of the headphones. The same goes for keys played on the right side, which makes the sound on the right headphone louder. How can I remove this effect so that is sounds centered and not based on key position? Thank you!
Hey Stephen - great stuff! I always wondered how much developers paid. Time to buy shares in Native Instruments I think 💰 😀 It raises an interesting question - with so much income coming from developers, NI could afford to give Kontakt away free. It's like Amazon selling cheap Kindles as they make their money from the sale of the books, or razor blade compies selling cheap holders as they make their money from replacement blades.
Anyway, I do find NI's pricing, particularly upgrades, odd. Even though it's twice as much, Komplete is such a far better deal it doesn't make sense to buy Kontakt alone unless you are really, really strapped for cash. Oh, that's most musicians isn't it? 😀
Discovered you via Henson 👍
Komplete certainly seems the way to go with NI - lots of really useful instruments, synths and effects in that package. Almost every track I write uses something from Komplete so it’s definitely been a good investment for me.
@@StephenTallamyMusic Yes, I think it's a great bundle. I use it a lot along with Arturia's V Collection 👍
You know what I hate? I think of Kontakt as almost a form of musical gatekeeping. Last year, I had worked some extra hours, and Kontakt came up for sale....so I decided to buy it and see what it's all about. Excepting the somewhat pain in the hind (In my limited musical software experience) end you can get when installing libraries, especially with multiple hard drives....it really is a steal, if only for the free libraries you can get with a full version of Kontakt. In short, I hate how much of a good deal it really is in the long run, after being a naysayer.
It certainly does open the door to a lot of free libraries. DecentSampler has come a long way but for developers who want to build sophisticated instruments or for people just getting started, Kontakt is still the king
Well, nice though it might be to have the full version of Kontakt, at the present time - and for the forseeable future - my budget for any new gear (hardware, software, upgrades, whatever) is - quite literally - $0.00. So it's Decent Sampler or nothing, isn't it! So, Decent Sampler it is! As far as I'm concerned, David Hilowitz, Frederic Poirier & the whole Pianobook crew are Heroes!
Pianobook and DecentSampler are incredible ways of making music creation accessible to everyone!
@@StephenTallamyMusic Exactly!!!!
Great video. Kontakt is worth every penny. If, as Stephen said, you can get it in a sale - it's no brainer!
Thanks Joe - it certainly opens the door to a lot of independent sample makers as well as being a great starting place to make your own sounds and share them!
Why is buying Kontakt in addition to buying Kontakt libraries/Instruments better than buying libraries/instruments that are directly compatible with your DAW that you already paid for?
There are a huge number of libraries that work with the free version of Kontakt but then there are a very large number of free or independent libraries that only work in the full version. It really depends on what type of music you want to produce. Personally I’ve found it to be a worthwhile investment, especially when bundled with Komplete, which itself has a wide range of great instruments that I’ve used on a lot of tracks.
am aoing to buy this and a paar glasses and a doctor
Ramble is right. I'm halfway thru and keep looking that the title of the video to make sure I'm actually watching a, "Why should I buy Kontakt" verses a video about software development -- very interesting, but not why I clicked.
The short answer is that it supports independent sample developers because Kontakt is still the easiest way to build sample libraries. That said, DecentSampler is always improving and hopefully we’ll see more and more developers adopt it.
As slavery is not allowed in our civilization I've absolutely no problem to pay for the hard work of other humans. It's perfectly normal, it's moral.
My real problem with Kontakt is not its price it's because I realy don't like its tiny not resizeable & clumsy GUI.
Maybe I'll buy it one day but it will be under the pressure, not by pleasure.
Kontakt 6 has made some progress on this front in that at least developers can set the performance view (the skin of their Kontakt instrument) to widths bigger that 633px - that's how the new Noire piano UI has a lot of space to work with - not resizable but a least bigger. I expect a lot of developers are not using this feature as it would stop them from being able to release in Kontakt 5. The Kontakt editor itself is still tiny and definitely could do with a revamp. However, if people aren't spending their money on full Kontakt then likely Native Instruments will prioritise features that promote player libraries (where they get license fees as described) rather than spending time improving the full Kontakt editing environment.
@@StephenTallamyMusic As my own economic philosophy is more based on the supply principle, and its embeded business risk, as on the demand principle (sorry, John Meynard...), just for the sake of my old poor eyes I'll not buy full Kontakt just to give to Native a good reason to improve it. :-)
If people buy a music it's because they like it not because they feel obliged to do so or just because they have the money for (I hope...) .
@@FLH3official sure - I see it from both perspectives. I know how software companies run and they have to balance investment in product based on where they see revenue or revenue opportunity. Actually I've seen some pretty good updates to help developers, for example creator tools, which really can help automate a lot of work that you would have needed to do inside Kontakt previously. But yes, I would be very happy to see an updated editing UI.
But is Spitfire switching their libraries to their own player? When they will fully switch you will not need kontakt anymore. I know that there are other libraries but who cares. Spitfire rules!
Ha ha! Well certainly Spitfire hasn’t released a library that requires Full Kontakt for a long while. There are some gems in their back catalogue that require it but all the headline stuff is either in their native player or free Kontakt player. Maybe they will go back and convert those remaining Full Kontakt libraries to their own player, maybe not! I guess my point in this video is that not everyone has the resources Spitfire has to build their own player and so many Independent sample developers depend on using Full Kontakt to release their samples. As mentioned in the video, DecentSampler is a great platform and a major step forward for independent sample developers. It still is missing some of the developers tools that Kontakt has to make it easier to build and test sample packs. It is also missing a scripting engine to allow you to really customise the UI and control the way samples play/react to performance - for example see the limitation I had to make for the DecentSampler version of my Cymbal Swells library - no ability to sync the swell to the downbeat and no way to change the UI based on note played. Take something like Beep Boop sample pack on Pianobook and you’ll see the power of being able to script the player heavily. This is not me being down on DecentSampler - I think it’s incredible and I try to make sure anything I make is available for it, I’m just saying it is designed deliberately to be focused on the core needs of sample libraries, but not offer all the flexibility of Kontakt.
So what you’re describing here is a horrible, extortionate business model. NI created a shabby player (it’s almost 20 years old and you still can’t mark favorite presets) and they’ve been milking it forever. It’s exactly the opposite of what you find everywhere else. Elsewhere, you get a free (or cheap) platform which allows you to utilize free or paid 3rd party products, and you get a premium version of the platform which comes with extra functionality, including development (think for example of the Adobe Acrobat/Reader).
Kontakt does the opposite: it’s as if you had to pay 400 euro to read a free PDF in Acrobat. Who would ever use it?
Question 1: if I want to use 3rd party libraries, why should I have to pay for the stock instruments in Kontakt, which I do not want? I just want to pay for the bare platform - but this isn't possible. It’s like Microsoft bundled a library of commercial ebooks with MS Word, which you would never read, but you’d have to pay for them to use Word.
Question 2: If I make music, why do I have to pay for the features in Kontakt that are used to create sample libraries? Again, it’s like I wanted to buy Word, but it came with the entire software development environment, including a compiler, a debugger, a profiler… Does that make sense to anyone except those who profit from that? Does it make sense to 3rd party developers whose customer reach is thereby severely limited, unless they too agree to pay NI off?
I wish vendors stopped buying into this ugly scheme. As things are, they'd have to do more work up front, but this investment would bring much bigger returns, since (a) many more people could buy their products - there must be millions of hobbyists and enthusiasts who will happily buy a 20 or 40 euro library but cannot afford a useless shell that sells for 400. And (b) they would owe licensing fees to no-one.
Let there be a paid version of Kontakt, but one that costs around 50 euro tops, comes with no stock instruments and no development environment for library makers, and can play any sample library, free or commercial. That would be fair, especially that NI aren’t really going out of their way to make Kontakt usable or (apparently) to fix bugs in it. (Again: a 20-year-old piece of software can still crash when you open the presets menu and try to close it without selecting an option).
And, no, your “pay for music” argument is not relevant here. Of course I want to pay developers for their libraries; in the last year I have spent so much on various VSTs that I'm afraid to even add it up. But I refuse to buy into a scheme of extortion.
I’m a little confused by some of what you say… there is a free Kontakt player that supports a wide range of libraries from a large selection of developers. There is nothing for you to pay as an end user to use any of these libraries in Kontakt. Those sample developers have paid for the license to use the free player so you don’t have to pay for full Kontakt. It’s pretty much the same as an iOS developer paying Apple to sell in their App Store.
I certainly don’t disagree that the interface of Kontakt is well overdue an uplift, but the internal engine continues to get improvements on a regular basis. Also, I’m not sure there is an alternative in the market that offers all the features it does for developers to build libraries.
Certainly I agree it’s not worth the full price of £359 but if you pick it up in a sale like they have on right now then for £112 (using the crossgrade offer) you get a full sampler to build your own samples with as well as access independent sample developers.
stephen great video but why in the everloving fuck are you walking through the woods talking bout kontakt
That may remain one of the unsolved mysteries of our time