Top Kontakt 5 Instruments

I just installed the full version of Kontakt 5 and the content.  (I already had the free player and cross-graded since I have some Vir 2 products.)  Since there are over 1,000 instruments included, I thought you experienced Kontakt people might point me to what you consider some of the best samples in the included content.
 
Since I already have Vienna Symphonic, Hollywood Strings, Ivory II, and some excellent guitar libraries, I may want to check out other instruments first instead of jumping right to piano, strings, and acoustic guitar as I normally would.  That said, if Kontakt has something better than what I have, I am not married to any of these libraries.
 
Any stand-outs come to mind?
 
Some things I seek, whether in Kontakt or elsewhere:
•  I could always use better basses
•  I need some good melodica and banjo samples (not together!).  (I have an excellent Vir 2 banjo but the lowest notes don't play nice with the others.)  I understand Kontakt's World folder has melodica.
•  Most pads are either too weird or have attacks that are too slow, either condition making them hard to use as filler in simple ballads.
•  I like using alternate but non-electronic sounds in place of snares for strong backbeats.
•  I can never find a tambourine sample with the full, jangly sustain of the real thing.  (In real life, I would normally hand the player two tambourines to hit at the same time.)
• Handclaps, which should be a simple thing to sample, usually sound like someone slapping two pieces of wood together.
 
Thanks from The Mighty Konrad
 
 
PS A long time ago I bought a pedal steel sample library.  I thought it would work with the free Kontakt player, but it wouldn't. (I considered the company's ad misleading, but maybe it was my fault for not understanding.) I am looking forward to using the pedal steel at last.  I was able to demo the product in the free player and it is incredibly good, though complex. 

I use hand claps from Battery 3, sorry.

For Kontakt 5 pianos, I went retro.  I happened to have had the Komplete software, beginning with version 3 on up to the current 8 ultimate.

I mention that because when NI got rid of Akoustik Piano by rolling it into Kontakt 4, they did not include all of the pianos, and my absolute favorite one was one that had sampled overtones from someone named Oliver, or something like that.  If you played and held notes, you could literally hear the overtones moving up in the most natural sounding manner I have ever heard from a sampled piano.

So, I have maintained keeping the Akoustik Piano sample libraries - the 24-bit samples, all the way up through current, and I just add those libraries to Kontakt 5 after installing it, and I can then access that piano and the others that hadn't made the journey into Kontakt when they nuked Akoustik Piano.

I LOVE the Je T'aime organ sound as my go to Tony Banks sort of organ tone - it is FABULOUS.

Kontakt 5 is DEFINITELY my go to sample player - I even used Kontakt (version 4 actually) to build the opening clocks and bells from scratch for the beginning of Pink Floyd's 'Time', so that I could play that out live with my band.  I did the same thing for the cash registers and money clinking sounds from the beginning of Floyd's 'Money', again built from scratch.

I really like the Rhodes sounds, some of the strings sounds, that Je T'aime organ, and the Classic Bass sound.  I guess those would be my favorites.

Bob Bone

Konradh, Just a suggestion which you might not like, but I'm just throwing it out there since it's something I've found useful... Between Dimension Pro, Rapture, Z3TA+2, DSF add-ins to all that, and Kontakt 5 with its wealth of sounds I found it hard to keep track of the sounds that I liked and remember them in some way. So I ended up making a spreadsheet that contains a few columns and tells me which one of each of those, and the way to get back to the sound, and then a column that describes the sound in some way, like "sounds like the Cars" or whatever comes to mind. I cataloged them as I toured through, and now if I'm looking for a "Cars" sound, I can pull out the several potentials from each of those separate collections. It's the only thing that's kept me sane, other than the sheer enjoyment of the sounds. Probably too much effort, but I did it and I've found it's saved me effort as a result.

lawajava, Not a bad idea at all--thanks.
 
MarioD, thanks for the help and I will check the link.
 
I have Kontakt installed and running, although I can't get the Wavelore pedal steel library to work.  I have reached out to them.
 
The various Rhodes and clav sounds in Kontakt are great.  The Akkord strumming guitar is also pretty cool.  Nothing beats RealGuitar for strumming flexibility or either RealGuitar or Vir 2 Acoustic Legends for solos, but I can see using this Kontakt thing in a number of situations.

lawajava


Konradh, Just a suggestion which you might not like, but I'm just throwing it out there since it's something I've found useful... Between Dimension Pro, Rapture, Z3TA+2, DSF add-ins to all that, and Kontakt 5 with its wealth of sounds I found it hard to keep track of the sounds that I liked and remember them in some way. So I ended up making a spreadsheet that contains a few columns and tells me which one of each of those, and the way to get back to the sound, and then a column that describes the sound in some way, like "sounds like the Cars" or whatever comes to mind. I cataloged them as I toured through, and now if I'm looking for a "Cars" sound, I can pull out the several potentials from each of those separate collections. It's the only thing that's kept me sane, other than the sheer enjoyment of the sounds. Probably too much effort, but I did it and I've found it's saved me effort as a result.

+1000 - I do this too.  I have zillions of sounds and every week I spend a dedicated hour listening to and cataloging sounds for further use in Excel.  I ignore the stupid ones and note the usable ones in a similar manner to yours - describing the sound and alluding to its future use.  I do this for all of my synth sound collections.


I also build custom banks of them, so that I don't waste space in a bank where the existing bank may have 1 good usable sound - instead, I build banks where all of the sounds are usable.


I still have tens of thousands to go through, but march steadily towards a better grasp of the ones I do have, and am creating a reasonable way to combine them for later use.


Bob Bone

I'll second the Noisefirm recommendation above. That library does sound pretty good. Another nice one (larger but also more expensive at $200) is the Flying Hand Percussion library.

Let me know when you find some decent handclap samples. I have perhaps a dozen, and none of them sound right to me. 

As for tambourine, I've come to realize that there are a LOT of variations for playing such a simple instrument, and no sample library I've found so far covers them all. I've just given up looking and decided a real tambourine (or two or three) is the way to go.


BTW, when I need a quick 'n dirty tambourine that's not going to be too prominent in the mix, I just use the TTS-1 with some reverb.

I just bought and installed the Noisefirm tambourine and shaker collection.  Will report back.

Looking at Boldersounds right now for banjo.

Bitflipper, Flying Hand looked cool, but seemed to be mostly world stuff—which is cool: just no tambourines; or at least there doesn't seem to be.  Could be cool, though.

There are so many really great libraries, and developers, it's hard to figure where to start!

For general symphonic stuff, and especially cinematic orchestral stuff, I think Cinesamples is the best. Not yet perfect, but really great sounding, and very playable brass, winds, and percussion. (caveat - I'm not a fan of EastWest's Play engine, so I don't use their Hollywood Strings, Brass, or Winds, but they are great sounding!)

Strings are tough - my favorite is LA Scoring Strings, but Cinematic Strings is a different approach and also sounds lovely.

Concert Strings 2 and Concert Brass 2 from Kirk Hunter are worth a listen - I still turn to them often.

For a wide array of everything from conventional to bizarre check out SoundIron and 8Dio - they used to be Tonehammer. Unbelievable value, and they both run the gamut! I especially love their percussion libraries, and their more experimental stuff.

OrangeTree is, for me, the best guitars and basses. I am a guitarist, and I still use them a little!

Indiginus Torch s another amazing guitar library, and you might want to check out Impact Soundworks as well.

For more sound design type stuff check out Heavyosity Evolve, or the newcomer Project Alpha from Hybrid Two.

There are a lot of choir libraries, if you need that sort of thing check out Cinesamples, 8Dio, SoundIron, and another newcomer, Stresov Sampling.

Wavelore is likely the company that sold you a pedal steel library. I'm kinda bummed, but their steel sounds better than my real steel. They also have a couple of resophonic libraries that are cool, but be forewarned, they'be been difficult to reach lately.

Bolder Sounds has some great stuff, including a really useful banjo.

HollowSun has amazing synths, and synth-like stuff.

SampleTekk is still my favorite for pianos - acoustic and electric - and they have the original 10CC choir from I'm Not In Love, which is a lot of fun to play with, even it if does suggest a particular song<G>!

I probably have, or lust after, some other stuff, but that's what comes to mind!

Unfortunately, almost every library I listed is not available as a player enabled library. Very few libraries, other than the stuff published by NI, are enabled anymore. Some developers, SoundIron for one, provide some of the more popular titles as enabled for a small additional fee. I always buy the non-player-enabled versions because I've given up on the library tab. Quick-load is so much easier because it lets me organize the instruments in a manner that makes sense to me.

wst3


There are a lot of choir libraries, if you need that sort of thing check out Cinesamples, 8Dio, SoundIron, and another newcomer, Stresov Sampling.

I love my Soundiron Mars and Venus choirs.

I would have to say I am underwhelmed by the Kontakt factory library. But there is a lot you can add on.

For basses the Scarbee and Orange Tree stuff takes some beating. You can find some good, inexpensive bass guitars from Lyrical Distortion.

For Banjo - Bolder sounds is the only way to go!

Pads - at least pick up the free stuff from Hollow Sun,

konradh


Thanks, guys.  Looking now.

Hey, dumb question:  I had the free Kontakt 5 player before.  When I open Kontakt now and see the content, how do I know if I am in the free or full player?

Konrad, if you look at this image: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://images.cinesamples.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/HWW_KONTAKT.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cinesamples.com/2010/07/hollywoodwinds-now-with-kontakt-player/&h=205&w=636&sz=66&tbnid=nTRRt0Ea8Zx9BM:&tbnh=40&tbnw=123&zoom=1&usg=__24_kldAxjtTx7XleYNU2s_9wJ7Y=&docid=MekKyztZIJ0h5M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qioqUf26LsXw0QGC8oEI&ved=0CEYQ9QEwBw&dur=42
 
(sheesh sorry about that long link!)
 
You'll see a little wrench in the top left if your "full version" is working properly. No wrench on the free version. It also will not time out while editing sounds etc. Hope this helps.
 
-Danny

Thanks, Danny and Loptec.  All is good now.

personally I wouldn't bother buying into anything NI from now... no doubt they well "mess" around with the format of NKI etc.. so you have to re-buy old libraries or something along them lines.. all the stuff in komplete 8 was no doubt recycled from their sound packs.

they did the same with Kore at short notice , so compatibility links to new versions of their software.. the patching side isn't guaranteed.

nice of them to be economical with the truth regarding the "b4" update.. not showing the "sticker type graphic" to say it was included in komplete 7.. then not caring about users folking out for something they didn't need.

NI ... "not interested".. and the way they are carrying on I bet more will feel the same in time.

other vendors who don't **** over their customers exist..  Why would I want to give money to such a company any more ?

I actually hope something other than Kontakt becomes more than industry standard.

konradh


•  Most pads are either too weird or have attacks that are too slow, either condition making them hard to use as filler in simple ballads. 

Hey konrad! the cool thing about kontakt is most of the factory pads have envelope modifiers so you can shorten up that attack time.  you can also open the editing screens to take off any lfos or filters that are adding the weirdness...