sampler ok? or buy kontakt 3.

j2j · Post by **j2j** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:47 am

Just what it says.

how good is sampler. its only 200 usd, and can afford that. Kontakt is the industry standard, and its a stretch, but if its a must have I can find the money for it.

bassically I want make my own sound design on my synths, and then start sampling it.

simpler is way too basic. I need multlayering.

is sampler good? does anybody have both? whats better?

lunabass · Post by **lunabass** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:00 am

i have sampler and kontakt2. i find sampler does everything i ever need so just use that...i'm an ableton fanboy though

j2j · Post by **j2j** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:15 am

I'm a fanboy too, but if you really think it does the whole complete job, and for 200 bucks... yeah that is how I am going

Landser · Post by **Landser** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 12:54 pm

I have both and use Kontakt2 way more often. The reason for me is, i couldn't convert already existing EXS24 instruments without copying the samples into another directory. Kontakt allows to keep the old samples and only creates it's intrument files in the folder where the original EXS-instruments are, without wasting space by duplicating samples.
Too bad, 'Sampler' restricts the user in that aspect, because otherwise it would be for me, what the EXS24 in Logic was.

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:31 pm

I've found Kontakt is amazing at crashing Live and also excellent at hogging the CPU.

orgul · Post by **orgul** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:40 pm

sampler is integrated into the "live system". that should be a big argument. the workflow of kontakt is horrible in my opignon...

Macrostructure · Post by **Macrostructure** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:58 pm

personally I find Kontakt, like the majority of NI sampler type stuff, is actually very hard to use.

R.J.Dubya · Post by **R.J.Dubya** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 4:56 pm

For me it's dead easy:

Sampler for stuff you create yourself in Live, simpler conversions or single drum hits with drum racks. Drag and drop is especially handy for something you've recorded yourself.

Kontakt for it's own library and all other sampled instrument libraries (like exs), and also for slicing beats. Also can be good for creating instruments out of just one sample, because it can pitch shift and time stretch separately, meaning you can alter pitch without the sample length changing. Can be quite good actually.

c1c2 · Post by **c1c2** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:18 pm

1+, Kontakt has a great library, that´s it. If you don´t need that library
or have something to compare to it, you won´t need Kontakt.

R.J.Dubya · Post by **R.J.Dubya** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:40 pm

c1c2 wrote:1+, Kontakt has a great library, that´s it. If you don´t need that library
or have something to compare to it, you won´t need Kontakt.

I disapgree. Yes, the library is excellent. But even if there was no library, it's still the best at importing my EXS library, and also, now with version 3, one of the best slicers out there. Oh, and excellent effects.

j2j · Post by **j2j** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:12 pm

interesting thoughts...

Yeah I reckon it's sampler then. I mean, Kontakt has a great big library, thats true.. but I am more into wanting to take and sample my own stuff and all.

as for Kontakt crashing live.. arrg, Rapture crashes live all the time. cakewalk wants to do shit about it.

I don't need another headache. Its almost a no-brainer where live is going by putting all the instruments in the host...

I am sure everybody lately is seeing more and more plug ins cause problems for the daws.

Too many dev's too many different coding styles.. and human mistakes...

I guess by intergrating everything together, you can add things on the cheap...

200 for sampler, as opposed to kontakts 600, and you get no crashing, less cpu use.. etc...

I think I really understand.

Not to say anything against NI, I have a few of their plugs. but I just mean, yeah, I guess the ableton suit is starting to make sense to me. what they are saying with it, and how its coming about and all....

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:22 pm

I love Live as a DAW, but come on? If you can afford Kontact 3 it's a no brainer. Samplers one single advantage is that Live will save the samples with a self contained song project, beyond that Sampler is over priced for what it's capable of.
Sorry man, but Ableton should really stick to refining their DAW. I really appreciate what they've done with Live, but the add on stuff is all less feature rich and not any easier on the CPU.
Even the browser in Kontact is set up better for the end user. Live add on instruments are all dumbed down for people who don't want to ever pick up a manual or read up on their software. It's sort of sad, and I'll never get why Ableton equate that paradigm with a live performance sequencer? It baffles me to no end.
Just to be fair, Logic 8 has a whole new set of "features" that are basically in place for newbies, that hinder creativity and workflow for the old timers like me. It seems to be the direction the industry is headed in.
I give credit to Ohm Force, Uh-He, Cycling 74, and NI for not playing that game.
I was hoping Ableton were moving in the direction of Cycling 74 a bit, and expanding the capability of Live in a modular way, but the AAS simplified instruments, and lack of any Cycling 74 partnership announcements is frustrating.
Also, it's blatantly obvious to me that for whatever technical reason, Ableton are stuck at 128 parameters for MIDI control. The instruments are I think half dumbed down from the AAS versions for simplicity, and half because Ableton can't use the extra features in it's submenu.

I'm sure people will disagree, but the simple fact is Sampler isn't even in the same ball park as Kontact, and don't use Racks as an excuse. You could easily Rack up Kontact instruments as well, that's a feature of the DAW, not the plug in!

R.J.Dubya · Post by **R.J.Dubya** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 7:02 pm

Machinesworking wrote:I love Live as a DAW, but come on? If you can afford Kontact 3 it's a no brainer. Samplers one single advantage is that Live will save the samples with a self contained song project, beyond that Sampler is over priced for what it's capable of.
Sorry man, but Ableton should really stick to refining their DAW. I really appreciate what they've done with Live, but the add on stuff is all less feature rich and not any easier on the CPU.
Even the browser in Kontact is set up better for the end user. Live add on instruments are all dumbed down for people who don't want to ever pick up a manual or read up on their software. It's sort of sad, and I'll never get why Ableton equate that paradigm with a live performance sequencer? It baffles me to no end.
Just to be fair, Logic 8 has a whole new set of "features" that are basically in place for newbies, that hinder creativity and workflow for the old timers like me. It seems to be the direction the industry is headed in.
I give credit to Ohm Force, Uh-He, Cycling 74, and NI for not playing that game.
I was hoping Ableton were moving in the direction of Cycling 74 a bit, and expanding the capability of Live in a modular way, but the AAS simplified instruments, and lack of any Cycling 74 partnership announcements is frustrating.
Also, it's blatantly obvious to me that for whatever technical reason, Ableton are stuck at 128 parameters for MIDI control. The instruments are I think half dumbed down from the AAS versions for simplicity, and half because Ableton can't use the extra features in it's submenu.

I'm sure people will disagree, but the simple fact is Sampler isn't even in the same ball park as Kontact, and don't use Racks as an excuse. You could easily Rack up Kontact instruments as well, that's a feature of the DAW, not the plug in!

I agree with most of this. As opposed to what many others have said, kontakt is not that hard to understand if you have spare hour or two. And it certainly is not more cpu intensive than sampler. If anyone actually took the time to load a third-party patch into both, you will find that often sampler is more cpu hungry, especially with pads\patchs where the polyphony can rise.

I do still like sampler for it's interface and drag and drop functionality. It's the one ableton instrument that I really do appreciate the integration with Live.

j2j · Post by **j2j** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 7:37 pm

Machinesworking wrote: I give credit to Ohm Force, Uh-He, Cycling 74, and NI for not playing that game.
I was hoping Ableton were moving in the direction of Cycling 74 a bit, and expanding the capability of Live in a modular way, but the AAS simplified instruments, and lack of any Cycling 74 partnership announcements is frustrating.

You're entire post made quite a bit of sense to me. It's good to read other opinions. That is the thing... I have a bunch of third parties... From Devine Machine, to Virsyn, and all over the bored...

Mutli samplers, in software form, still seem to me, few and far between. And I don't mind spending the extra money on Kontakt, but for me... a 9 or 30? shit, a massive gigabyte library is not going to help a whole bunch.

SO... if Kontakt is ten times more powerful than sampler, it's certainly worth the extra 300 bucks, but just for the library... its a bit much for me...

I reckon I will do both demo's then.

cheers.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 7:41 pm

R.J.Dubya wrote: I do still like sampler for it's interface and drag and drop functionality. It's the one ableton instrument that I really do appreciate the integration with Live.

I just don't see Sampler and Kontact as even close to on the same playing field. Sampler is OK, but the routing and usefulness in multi sample arrangements with different FX routings etc. is entirely dependent on multiple instances, and Racks. it bears no resemblance to the routing and FX chains you can do in Kontact. There's no destructive editing, no FX, no slicer, and only one filter per instance.