I'm considering buying Kontakt 6 Full. Question for Reason Users

[Mistro17]

I'm tired of finding great instruments just to read the dreaded "Kontakt full version required". I really want to use high quality sounds. I started a savings to eventually get it hopefully if/when it goes on sale maybe. But I know once I get it, I will not be buying any more plugins for a long time. Anyone here know if the stock sounds that come with it out the box are good enough to hold me for while? (I do also plan on grabbing all the free instruments that work with it) or does it still require buying 3rd party plugins? How much better are the instruments compared to the stock reason orchestra ones (probably a stupid question). Just trying to gauge if I may be missing something I never tried with Reason as far as high quality stuff. So much info and tutorials with it are mostly being shown with other DAWs.

[TheDragonborg]

Kontakt is not just a rompler it was known as a sampler before everyone and their moms were making instruments using it so it's source of sounds should be limitless. Not to mention how many Kontakt instruments go on sale all the time for like $5. Though I don't own any NI plugins...

[xfxmrl]

You can download free Embertone Arcane that work with Kontakt player and on summer sale get crossgrade to full Kontakt 6 for 125$. Or download free Komplete Start, upgrade it to Komplete Select for 100$ (JRR Shop/summer sale) and then upgrade it to Komplete Standard for 180$ (Bestservice/summer sale). It is 280$ but you will get way more than just Kontakt, and more included libraries for it. Kontakt is expensive cause they want you to get into Komplete.
Comparison chart what included in different versions of Komplete: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... t/compare/

[danc]

I'm tired of finding great instruments just to read the dreaded "Kontakt full version required". I really want to use high quality sounds. I started a savings to eventually get it hopefully if/when it goes on sale maybe. But I know once I get it, I will not be buying any more plugins for a long time. Anyone here know if the stock sounds that come with it out the box are good enough to hold me for while? (I do also plan on grabbing all the free instruments that work with it) or does it still require buying 3rd party plugins? How much better are the instruments compared to the stock reason orchestra ones (probably a stupid question). Just trying to gauge if I may be missing something I never tried with Reason as far as high quality stuff. So much info and tutorials with it are mostly being shown with other DAWs.

Kontakt is the standard platform for great sounds. However... Before you jump... Look at UVIs platform as they produce amazing quality libraries. Very powerful and usable. Not as broad reaching as NI... BUT for me I prefer it. And cheaper if you catch the sales. Currently 30% off all

[esselfortium]

You can download free Embertone Arcane that work with Kontakt player and on summer sale get crossgrade to full Kontakt 6 for 125$. Or download free Komplete Start, upgrade it to Komplete Select for 100$ (JRR Shop/summer sale) and then upgrade it to Komplete Standard for 180$ (Bestservice/summer sale). It is 280$ but you will get way more than just Kontakt, and more included libraries for it. Kontakt is expensive cause they want you to get into Komplete.
Comparison chart what included in different versions of Komplete: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... t/compare/

Yeah, the crossgrade + sale is the way to go. $125 is a reasonable price for Kontakt, and the crossgrade is discounted to that price at least once or twice a year.

(If you already have any purchased Kontakt Player libraries, you can also use those to crossgrade from.)

[xboix]

I'd suggest doing what I did:
Download the hooky version, play with it for a while, wonder what all the fuss is about then uninstall it.
It's heavily weighted in favour of people who make music for film soundtracks and similar. There are a couple of decent arp libraries but nothing else worthwhile to most musicians.

Your value may vary,.

[esselfortium]

Anyone here know if the stock sounds that come with it out the box are good enough to hold me for while? (I do also plan on grabbing all the free instruments that work with it) or does it still require buying 3rd party plugins? How much better are the instruments compared to the stock reason orchestra ones (probably a stupid question).

The stock sounds in Kontakt aren't especially great IMO, you're paying more for the price of admission for third-party libraries.

For orchestra I'd check out either Spitfire (especially Chamber Strings) or Cinematic Studio Series, and wait for a good sale. Many of both those developers' libraries can be used with the free Kontakt Player (and can then be used to crossgrade to full Kontakt later).

If you're super budget-conscious, 8Dio's libraries are put on extremely deep discounts relatively often, though they can sometimes be a bit rough around the edges or more specialized than they seem, so it's good to be diligent with research and make sure you understand exactly what you're getting so you're not dissatisfied. Their libraries all require the full paid version of Kontakt.

Embertone's woodwinds, solo strings, and other libraries are very good, and many of theirs are remarkably affordable (but the cheapest ones tend to require full Kontakt, so be careful).

[joeyluck]

And just FYI...

Any Kontakt library can used inside Kontakt Player for 15 minutes. I'm not recommending that you purchase libraries that require the full version of Kontakt with owning the full version, but definitely don't hold back checking out FREE libraries.

This was very confusing to me at first, and misleading to many when seeing the same disclaimer over and over of "Requires full version of Kontakt. Not compatible with Kontakt Player." I mean, it's good to protect customers from accidentally purchasing something they can't use for more than 15 minutes, but for the FREE stuff, the wording should be a little more inviting.

That said, check out the following:

FREE licensed libraries
These are actually compatible with Kontakt Player, and are licensed so they show up in the lefthand browser.
- Embertone Arcane
- Sennheiser DrumMic'a

Some other free libraries
These require the full Kontakt, but you can still try them out for 15 minutes at a time in Kontakt Player.
- 8DIO Free Angles
- Embertone Ancient Voices
- Embertone Intimate Strings
- ProjectSAM TFO (The Free Orchestra)
- Red Room Audio - Palette Primary Colors
- Sonuscore Free Orchestra Chords
- Sonuscore Free Sustain Strings Chords

[joeyluck]

I still don't own the full version of Kontakt. Maybe some day.

My favorite library is Sonuscore The Orchestra Complete. It's compatible with Kontakt Player. It is so much fun and very inspiring. Great instrument multis and very cool, full orchestra, animated patches. I've used it countless times now to get down ideas quickly. And it sounds great.

[Proboscis]

I'd suggest doing what I did:
Download the hooky version, play with it for a while, wonder what all the fuss is about then uninstall it.
It's heavily weighted in favour of people who make music for film soundtracks and similar. There are a couple of decent arp libraries but nothing else worthwhile to most musicians.

I can't agree that it's not 'worthwhile to most musicians'. I often use samples (or dubious emulations) of real instruments, mostly non-orchestral stringed instruments & percussion. And there aren't really any RE's and very few Refills over the years to cover that sort of thing But I have heard demo's of lots & lots of Kontakt instruments (third party) that I would find really awesome to have in my toolbox, if I had the $$

[Mistro17]

Thanks for the tips. I'm afraid to do the 15 minute demo thing because I know time will go by really fast while I'm in the middle of trying things out. So do you just restart or open a new document in Reason to continue the instruments in demo mode? (the ones that are not player compatible) Also I do plan on making cinematic music for some of my 3D videos which is why I'm attracted to so many of the Kontakt libraries. I read hints that there might be a sale right before summer. I mght as well wait until May/June and see what happens. Part of my question was about instruments already available for Reason users including stock ones. Anyone know of full orchestra instruments made for Reason that can be competitive with those made for Kontakt?

[esselfortium]

Thanks for the tips. I'm afraid to do the 15 minute demo thing because I know time will go by really fast while I'm in the middle of trying things out. So do you just restart or open a new document in Reason to continue the instruments in demo mode? (the ones that are not player compatible) Also I do plan on making cinematic music for some of my 3D videos which is why I'm attracted to so many of the Kontakt libraries. I read hints that there might be a sale right before summer. I mght as well wait until May/June and see what happens. Part of my question was about instruments already available for Reason users including stock ones. Anyone know of full orchestra instruments made for Reason that can be competitive with those made for Kontakt?

You can close and relaunch Reason to reset Kontakt's demo timer to try things out.

Your Reason-native options are extremely limited, unfortunately. There's the Miroslav refill, which is from roughly 70 years ago and is not particularly deep-sampled by any modern standard. There's the ProjectSAM Orchestral RE, which is a stripped-down set of basic orchestral patches based on their more comprehensive Symphobia library for Kontakt -- that might be worth looking into, but Symphobia itself would be a better pick now that Kontakt can be used in Reason. There's Euphonic Strings, which is of dubious quality and which shows telltale signs of having been illegally ripped from other libraries. There used to be some other orchestral refills on the market that were all revealed to be rips from other libraries.

I'd look into Spitfire, Cinematic Studio, Orchestral Tools, and 8Dio, do some research, ask around on VI-Control for opinions on libraries that seem interesting to you, and wait for a good discount. (And depending on the library you're looking at, you might not need to buy full Kontakt for it anyway, though it's always handy to have.)

[Kalm]

Truthfully if you're going to invest in Kontakt at full price, I would just do the Komplete upgrades each year. Get more bang for your buck. I'm at the regular Komplete now because of the double deals on Christmas. The Play series are really nice and think Drum Lab as being comparable to the UJAM stuff.

[QVprod]

Kontakt by itself is not that great of a value unless you intend to sample with it. However, the stock orchestra sounds are considerably better than Orkester. I wouldn’t score a movie with it, but it can be passable within a song. The real value is buying Komplete as it comes with additional Kontakt libraries. Komplete standard is only $200 more than Kontakt. They also have a spring sale every year where the price for Komplete will be lower. If you can a buy a cheap library that has a decent cross grade to Komplete, even better

[Mistro17]

Thanks @Joeyluck for the Arcane suggestion. I activated it yesterday and I just checked if I qualify for a crossgrade discount and yes I can get for $249. Looking hard at Komplete though.

[groggy1]

If you want vintage synths in a sampler, go UVI.


That’s a lesson I learned a few years back. Kontakt is great for huge sample libraries of realistic instruments. UVI wins if you love vintage synths.

[tumar]

I have Reason 9 and full NI Komplete Ultimate. Kontakt is the only NI plugin which crashes Reason (it happens, when I load any of the huge libraries like Heavyocity, Action Strikes etc).

[hurricane]

If you want vintage synths in a sampler, go UVI.

That’s a lesson I learned a few years back. Kontakt is great for huge sample libraries of realistic instruments. UVI wins if you love vintage synths.

While I do like UVI's synth offerings, and have many of their libraries, I prefer some of Kontakt's 3rd party synth libraries for my vintage synth action. Like all the stuff from synthmagic (DRIPPING with vibe), zero-g's phaedra, epica bass, nevo analog machines, the now classic Analog Monsters and Hollowsun collections, wavealchemy's spectrum, and Retro Machines (which comes with Kontakt).