X1 and VST Samplers - recommendations

Sorry to hear you don't like Kontakt. I think its the best out there, but it depends on what you do with it. For me its all about the instruments - libraries like Symphobia, LA Scoring Strings, and collections from 8dio, Sample Logic, Vir2, Sound Iron, Sonokinetik - I couldn't work without them. Not to mention the Native Instruments sample libraries and full integration with Maschine. I also use it for sound fx design.
However, if strongly against Kontakt, I can suggest checking out IK Sampletank or Steinbergs HALion.

what version of kontakt though ?  4 has a shedload of videos you can watch regarding it..

it depends what your actually using it for .. I mean straight multisample playback OR beat chopping etc.

I use a few samplers  kontakt / nnxt (in reason) and battery (you can bring RX2's into it)  and loop players like RXP and dr octarex.

there are things like yellow tools / halion / emu sampler

I posted a new free one in the software bit of this forum

http://www.kvraudio.com/db/tx16wx-software-sampler-by-cwi

trust me.. go back to using a hardware sampler with 1-2 lines of text NOT EVEN GFX.. then you won't think the new ones are so bad.hehe


kontakt is pretty much what "akai" was back in the day (the main used sampler)

What do you want to do with it?  Use factory and third party libraries?  make you own and if so do you want scripting.
 
Kontakt has to be the de facto standard and the huge avalability of third party libraries makes it a no brainer if that is important to you. If you build your own "instruments" and learn the scripting the world is your oyster
 
Independence has fallen behind, there is no scripting, but sample mapping, velocity layering etc is very intuative and the decent onboard effects can also be used as vst effects. If you dont want the factory library you can just buy the basic package (but the saxes and basses in particular are worth having) . Try the free version you can only use a limited number of samples if you are making your own instruments but it should give you a good idea if it is for you.
 
Also check out this thread http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2385361
 

Kontakt is where it's at really, whilst I'm not a fan of that being the case there is really nothing to touch it.

However for a good old fashioned sampler for rolling your own patches this one is very under-rated, it takes pretty much anything as an input format so if you are trying to get away from that 'My Kontakt library sounds the same as everybody else's Kontakt library' blues this one makes plain vanilla samplers fun again.  It's a handy little tool to have and stuff like Velocity layers and round-robins are a cinch to set-up with it.


http://www.image-line.com.ocuments/directwave.html