Opinions on software samplers

[vitaminman]

Hey,

We got a copy of Kontakt at work and I've been playing around with it a little, it seems like a really nice program and I may be interested in getting a copy.

However, I know that there are other soft samplers out there, I wanted to ask if anyone here uses them and why they chose that brand of sampler over another...

The big boys would be Kontakt, Gigasampler and Halion...any opinions?

Thanks

Nick

 

[Fade]

I've used Gigasampler and Vsampler. I prefered Giga because of the ease of use. There's tons of options and importing huge samples and mapping them across the keyboard was easy. I haven't used it lately but I'm hoping to soon enough.

I've never heard of Kontakt though, which company is that? You have any screenshots of it?

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

http://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?id=kontakt_us

Nick

 

[Some Guy]

I've used Halion, Kontakt, and Vsampler. I think Vsampler is the best value for the money. But Kontakt definitely has the most features by far. That thing is a monster. Its the only soft-samp I use now. If you want something stable to play sample libaries and loops with nice envelopes and filters you might want to check out Vsampler. But if you want to tweak your sound beyond recognition you should peep Kontakt.

 

[Fade]

Oh yeah, now I remember Kontakt! I've heard a bit about it but never actually used it myself. It seems like you can do a lot with it.

 

[" Killah! "]

I think that any of the current software sampler solutions discussed, like Gigasampler, and Kontakt, give more than enough power to today's music user. However, one must look at it in perspective....

In the eighties, and early nineties, many of your favorite artists, like Dre, was doing brilliant things with very limited disk space on hardware samplers.

The key thing is to use your samplers creatively, record "samples" from nature, like "field recordings" and throw them into the sampler, and see how you can layer that, or use it. Imagination is more powerful than any sampler. Everyone these days has so much power with the new music software, just make sure you really do interesting stuff with.

 

[Some Guy]

NI also has a smaller version of Kontakt called Kompakt. Even Kompakt has more features than Vsampler or Halion combined. Plus it costs less. Thats the only drawback of Kontakt, price. Last time I checked that shit was almost $400 bux. Vsampler is about 80 or 90 I think.

 

[PG13]

Recycle Does the Job for me

 

[MaximeRobin]

I only use the sampler in reason (dr. rex, nn-19, nn-xt). Should I go with Kontakt or halion or another? I'm pretty happy with what I got tho but just wondering...

 

[Some Guy]

Originally posted by dnt
I only use the sampler in reason (dr. rex, nn-19, nn-xt). Should I go with Kontakt or halion or another? I'm pretty happy with what I got tho but just wondering...

Nah man stay with NN-XT if you're happy with it. Now that Reload is out you can use akai libraries with it. I have Kontakt and its dope but so is NN-XT. Just make music.

 

[HaZwaiOh]

i use vsampler and i am pretty happy with it. vsampler3 looks mighty and i can´t wait to get it. it has the basic infos i am looking for
check out www.vsampler3.com

 

[PHILharmonic]

Been using Halion for almost a year and-a-half and I can't complain. May not have every feature from other soft-samps but it gets the job done so if what you got ain't broke then don't fix it. Unless you're ballin' like that...lol

 

[Thelonius]

I've used Halion and Kontakt. I like Kontakt with the new DFD (direct from disk) they added in the last update. Halion is suppose to have an upgrade to 2.0. Halion seemed to be more of a resource hog than Kontakt, but Halion handled my emu libraries without a hitch. Native Instruments has also release a scaled down version of Kontakt, called Kompakt.