The "free" kontakt on NI's website is kontakt player. Therefore you can't do much with it except playback. The real kontakt let's you modify sounds, script and do a lot of stuff. I think it's regarded as the #1 vst sampler by lots of people, because you can hear so many people praising it, and so many companies release sample packs in the Kontakt format. I heard that many professionals use it, and I know one, myself, who uses it extensively.
For the kontakt library, you won't beat it ! Seriously the quantity and quality of sounds is just unbelievable.
IMHO, Kontakt player is not much use, unless you plan to buy one of the sound packs designed for kontakt :
http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/ ... allkontakt. It doesn't comes with the 40 something GB library of Kontakt, and the free sounds are very frustrating : they're design to make you buy the full version of course. Business is business
I also have sampler but I never use it. I honestly -not to be rude to any one- that, regarding sounds, Native instruments is miles ahead of ableton and it's partners. Also, to me, the fact it is tightly integrated into Live is a problem. I want to ave the freedom to change DAWs anytime I want.
On the other hand Kontakt is complicated to use to it's full potential (if you want to use it like a sampler and not just an expander), and most importantly, it's expensive. Also I don't know about your particular genre. I never did - and will probably never do - house music, and I don't know which kind of sounds you're after. I feel like one of the strength of Kontakt library is it's versatility : you have orchestral sounds, regular band sounds, and also a few "electro" sounds but I don't think that's it's main selling point.
Have you looked at other NI instruments, like FM8 or Massive ? They're way more "electro" oriented than Kontakt but not for sample manipulation of course.
Also another option worth having a look too is Camel audio alchemy. Because it does granular resynthesis, it's like a mix of sampling and synthesis . Best of both worlds
So to sum up, Kontakt vs Sampler : I think kontakt is much better than Sampler, both in sound quantity, quality and features BUT it's more complicated to use and way more expensive.
However I can guarantee you that if you can buy Kontakt, and commit yourself to spend a little bit of time on it, there's no going back.
P.S. :
]Theres lots of other sampled instruments available for kontakt; everything from sampled Nord leads
Where do you find those nord leads ? Are they in the Kontakt library, or are they from 3rd parties ?
Either way my advice is to make sure you're not just collecting instruments, that you'll use it if you buy it.
