kontakt 5 player

[vicarito]

I would appreciate some information about KONTAKT.
i would like to download the free KONTAKT 5 Player and then get the Scarbee Rickenbacker Bass, an harmonica and saxophone
I would like to know how well does Kontakt work with Mixcraft 7 and if these instruments will work with the KONTAKT free player. I am asking because some blogs that I saw indicated that not all instruments will work with the KONTAKT free version(they would need the full version). For financial and space (in my C drive) reasons I can not get the full version.
Also, if somebody can give some advice on some good alternatives for vst instruments that will work in Mixcraft 7 for :
1) cello 2)saxophone 3) harmonica
I would be very grateful.
I read some older posts about problems (and complications) about using KONTAKT in Mixcraft. I do not now if things have changed by now.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

vicarito

[Albee]

I don't have an answer for you, but I'd like to add my own 2 cents.

I'm willing to download and install and use just about any "freeware" VST that is available, however, the free KONTAKT Player from Native Instruments is just too complicated. I did download and try it, but it was just too confusing for my brain, so I deleted it. It wasn't a problem with Mixcraft, it was a problem figuring out how to use KONTAKT itself and install the "freeware" libraries for it that are available on the internet. I'd love to learn how, but since it isn't really an issue with Mixcraft, I felt like I needed to ask my questions on the Native Instruments forum (which I don't belong to). But I hope someone can assist us to learn how to use the program.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

Forum regular chibear has made some very helpful videos on using Kontakt with Mixcraft.

Multi-timbrals & Multi-channel VSTs in Mixcraft (new)

3 more videos on Kontakt in Mixcraft

Check them out!

Greg

[fredfish]

According to the Native Instruments web site Rickenbacker Bass works in Kontact Player

http://www.native-instruments.com/en/pr ... cker-bass/

I quite like the DVS Saxaphone (free) - you can find the link just under 1/2 way down the page.

http://www.dreamvortex.co.uk/instruments/

Here is a link to a song created (not by me!) that uses the DVS Sax vst - the sax cuts in just under 1 minute in to the track.

http://samborouge.bandcamp.com/track/floating-in-blue-2

Cheers

John

[fredfish]

Also for bass I quite like 4front bass which is free.

It is limited in itself having no settings but if you run it through one of the Bass amps that come with Mixcraft you can get some very good sounds from it.

http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?id=190

[Mark Bliss]

I have used Kontakt and Scarbee P-Bass.
Good sounds, but I rarely use it because I find the Kontakt interface far too difficult. I think its the hardest program I have ever tried to learn to use, by a good margin. Confusing, unintuitive, I could go on.

I don't know exactly what the functional limitations of the player edition are as compared to the full version off the top of my head. I wish I could say it was a stripped down easier to use version, but....... I never got far with it personally.

I do know that many of NI's own libraries, and most desireable third party libraries mention the requirement of the full version. Some may work and time out, others not at all. I believe the Ricky bass will work. Whats missing, functionally, I dont know. The others mentioned I have no experience with.

You may also find this path is a bit heavy on the computer resources.

As far as I am concerned, it works OK with Mixcraft, other than an annoying trait where it loads a bunch of lanes by default and so help me I couldn't figure out how to make it stop doing that. I just deleted the extras I didn't need.

Its a shame, but for me..... Hey, I just want to make some music not become a programming engineer.

[Albee]

Also for bass I quite like 4front bass which is free.

It is limited in itself having no settings but if you run it through one of the Bass amps that come with Mixcraft you can get some very good sounds from it.

http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?id=190

I just downloaded Ample Sound's bass VST which sounds very good. I was already using their free acoustic guitar VST, I think they just released the freeware bass VST very recently.

Bass demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0tm-LYEzxI

Guitar demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kugVy24IIc

[fredfish]

I just downloaded Ample Sound's bass VST which sounds very good. I was already using their free acoustic guitar VST, I think they just released the freeware bass VST very recently.

Bass demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0tm-LYEzxI

Guitar demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kugVy24IIc

Thanks for that Albee - I knew of the Acoustic Guitar but not the bass.

Cheers

John

[James Klutho]

I have the Scarbee bass and it works fine in the Kontakt Player.

[vicarito]

thank you very much for all your replies.
I did like that DVS saxophone.
It seems to be that almost everybody agrees that the Kontakt interface is kind of complicated.
I watched the videos suggested and I agree.
thank you again

vicarito

[Mark Bliss]

Well Vicarito, if in doubt, you could always load up the free player and mess with the included factory libraries a bit, see how you feel about the interface before investing any $ in additional libraries.

Everyone's tolerance for pain varies. I will plod on endlessly to learn how to do some things, but generally, with most technology, either it works reasonably intuitively or it gets pushed aside. Unless its absolutely necessary, it shouldn't take a semester of a college level course to learn the basics. Know what I mean?

Maybe I am spoiled by Mixcraft.

[Starship Krupa]

I use it with Sennheiser Drummic'a with no issues other than the complexities of the Kontakt player itself mentioned earlier.

[vicarito]

I think it is a good idea to download the free player and try to make it work with the free samples.
I have been doing some more reading about good sounding vst instruments but everytime I come back to kontakt.
There are good 3rd parties vsts but they are all made to be played thru Kontakt.
I was kind of optimistic with the SONIVOX harmonica (wich does not need Kontakt) but the reviews were really bad.
So it seems that there are not too many options(if any at all) if you want to get good quality vst instruments without
having to go thru the pain of Kontakt. (where is the competition?)
Or maybe its just me that I haven't done research enough to discover those good quality vsts that would download easy into
Mixcraft and play without issues.
I will keep looking.

thank you again for all your answers and suggestions....

vicarito

[Mark Bliss]

I am no authority but from what I have seen:
There are excellent instruments and libraries available that run on other platforms. The high end stuff on the Play engine for example. But the good libraries are going to generally oriented toward the more common and popular instruments. Orchestra, choral, world percussion all seem to be popular.
An instrument like the harmonica has such a huge potential range of styles and articulations, it would require both a DEEP library of samples and a very advanced engine and GUI to do it any justice. Even a mediocre result would require a pretty good effort I would think. And I doubt the volume of interest is large enough to support the effort and expense.
And the computer resource requirements would also likely be pretty high.