#BEST STRING KONTAKT LIBRARIES FULL VERSION#
#BEST STRING KONTAKT LIBRARIES PATCH#
#BEST STRING KONTAKT LIBRARIES FREE#

I’ve included a screen-shot of the patch below for those Max-inclined folks. My application in this instance is using it without any overlay, as a simple XY controller. It is an incredibly versatile controller with a very small footprint. By the way, the Sensel Morph controller uses replaceable rubberized control surfaces such as drum pad, keys and other overlays and is capable of touch sensitivity and MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression, one of the amazing features in MIDI 2.0). So I mapped my Senselcontroller, via a little Max/MSP patch, to control the Thrill interface. With some investigation, I found that the XY parameters were controllable via MIDI CCs 2 and 3. The main XY pad control makes this a playable texture-based instrument that fits well with many film genres such as suspense, action, horror and (obviously) thrillers. This is a fantastic sounding instrument that can morph between a huge selection of searchable textures derived from orchestral and hybrid sources. The Komplete bundles come with a fairly large selection of instruments, all of which are well-designed and capable of great sounds. It seems appropriate to start with Native Instruments, the developer of Kontakt. But all these instruments hit the last point, and it can be argued that that’s the only one that really matters. I will admit that not everything listed below checks every box above.

It sounds great, it’s is fun to use and gets me the sound I want super fast.

It sounds good immediately! When you’re looking for a sound, you want to get there as fast as possible, and clunky or unfriendly interfaces just make the process that much more difficult.

The library should be searchable by keyword or search matrix with presets easily and quickly loaded.

The library sounds should be unique and well-conceived.

Sound design and hybrid instruments should allow for significant user customization.

Electronic and sound design instruments should have a modulation section that might include LFOs, envelopes and step sequencers.

The closer you can get to the perfect sound using a minimum of external plugins the better.

More advanced instruments will also include customized routing capabilities. Robust effects collections will typically include EQ/filtering, distortion/saturation, compression, limiting, delay and reverb.

Sound design-based instruments especially need to have an onboard effects section.

So the existence of a morphing XY pad or other intuitive GUI control that can be MIDI mapped is a desirable feature.

The interface for sound design and electronic-based instruments is important for playability, since with these sorts of sounds it is often more about texture and timbre rather than tonal content.

If the instrument is based around sound design, it should include a large variety of samples and means to combine them to ensure the possibility of unique results.

The instrument is playable with a variety of controllable parameters such as dynamics, expression and vibrato that can be mapped to a MIDI controller and automated.

But this refers to each note being sampled with various velocities, articulations, playing techniques, round robins, various mic choices & positioning, etc.

The instrument is “deep-sampled,” a term that might be used a bit often lately.

If applicable, the instrument has a wide assortment of articulations, including standard and extended playing techniques.

Orchestral instruments and ensembles are the most challenging and expensive libraries to produce, hence the associated prices.

The sounds sound real (if they are intended to, that is).

I base these recommendations on 12 criteria: But what is here I can strongly vouch for. Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to play everything available on the market, and there are many I hope to try in the future that are not on this list. I have assembled a list below of my current favorite Kontakt instruments. But if you want access to the largest variety of 3rd party libraries you really need to get Kontakt. Check out my article “The Fundamentals of Sampling Instruments and Libraries” for information on samplers in general. If you choose to make your own sampling instruments these are great choices and are definitely more user friendly. There are of course many other options for sampling instruments and libraries including Sampler & Simpler from Ableton and Sampler (formerly EXS24) & Quick Sampler from Logic Pro.

#BEST STRING KONTAKT LIBRARIES FULL VERSION#

The full version also comes with their entry-level bundle, Komplete 13, currently selling at $599.

#BEST STRING KONTAKT LIBRARIES FREE#

There is a free version that has limited functionality and the full version which sells for $399. Kontakt, the sampling instrument from Native Instruments, is arguably the most used sampling platform on the market with hundreds of 3rd party sample libraries available.

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