Kontakt 2 Experience
·Sep 16, 12:44 AM“Dear Boss…It was about a month ago we decided to do a complete review of the ‘Sound Package’ that Native Instruments brought out for their ‘Sampler Instrument’ Kontakt 2 at Summer NAMM. I have been at it more than a month now. I can tell you that if you want a complete review of this virtual instrument sound library, go ahead and fire me. I do not think it can be done.
Instead of firing me, I really hope you ask why I think it can’t be done?
My answer is simple. Kontakt Experience is so easy to use, and so broad and deep in what it shows Kontakt 2 can do, I do not think I will ever get to check all the great power user tools and useful sounds demonstrated by the package.
In fact, I think I would have to write a daily diary or blog for a year to describe what can be done let alone just list the Kontakt 2 tools that Experience shows the user.
I use the words demonstration sample package to describe Kontakt Experience because that is what Native Instruments says it is, even though it gives users 128 perfectly usable and unique sound groups at an exceptionally low price.
Experience is actually designed to present stuff they put under the hood of Kontakt 2 when they originally engineered the upgrade from Kontakt 1.5. These are functions and powers I never would have discovered in K-2 without hearing them in Experience. Maybe this is because I never completely read the manual and had been using K2 without its full power.
Native Instruments apparently understands guys like me. After introducing K-2 they felt that people thought K-2 was just an “upgrade” and did not represent the completely new and powerful approach to sampling and synthesis included under the hood.
This is sort of like someone building a 50-room mansion with top technology in it and then turning it over to a new occupant (like me) who knows how to turn on the lights, dust, do laundry and lock the doors. Six month later the builder comes over with a DVD and and shows the occupant the automatic carpet sweeper, an entertainment center that pipes video and 5.1 sound into every room of the house, a security system better than most banks have, a robot who dusts, a hidden microwave, dishwasher and a lot of other stuff the occupant did not know was there.
Kontakt Experience is what I would call the hands-on demonstration of what is actually in the K-2 mansion. And did I mention the sounds work on their own as a free standing collection?
So, I am going to make this short and sweet so I can get back to actually using Kontakt 2 with the new stuff Experience has revealed to me, even if you fire me.
– Gregory Chmara Sr.”
P.S. – Here’s the review:
KONTAKT EXPERIENCE, is more instrument than Paul McCartney, Sting, the New York Philharmonic, Tomita, Bond, and Yanni all rolled into one ever had. You access it on just one computer screen.
In fact working with this sound sampler system package blurs the word “instrument” into what could soon be an archaic description only applied to a single piano, a single trumpet or a guitar. It opens a whole new meaning to the word “virtual instrument.”
First, let us get one thing straight: Kontakt Experience only works in Kontakt 2, the robustly featured Native Instruments sample playing system introduced last January. Experience takes 128 instruments, and uses 10 Scripting Modules with a wide variety of control, hooks it through the scripting system in Kontakt 2 and does amazing things.
A series of ten “instruments” are listed as groups, but I would more call them module packages than instruments in the classic sense. I guess if you are used to very arduous layering of multifunctions in deep and wide function synths, you could call these module packages “instruments.”
Each module sound group package highlights the use of various scripts (modules) and what they can do with the sample sounds. Each of the scripts and their functions can be cut and pasted, as it were, into groups of other classic samples and sounds brought up in Kontakt 2. The end product is then a similar but completely different sound.
Huh?
Think of the “Kontakt scripting functions” as being actions and effects you call up much like you would reverb and EQ. Instead of applying general effects after the sample is played, you insert these script instructions between the key you press and the computer’s production of a fully tweaked, layered, plotted, harmonized, melody-ized, arpeggiated, rhythmic short, long or intermediate duration sound (our group of sounds) based upon the original sample and your instructions (script). That sound can then be EQ’d and reverbed by the usual means at the other end of the CPU.
As you can guess, the lines between sequencing, sound layering and instrumental control really get blurred in this highly controllable K-2 sound production environment. And believe me the explanation I tried to write may be hard to read, but using Kontakt Experience is easy once you see and hear it on your own rig. That’s what makes this fun.
Of course, reading the manual for Kontakt 2 really gives you a better handle on the use of the ten script modules that come with Kontakt Experience. These modules provide the ability to quickly do things you never had dreamed of doing live without having to create a nightmare set of keyswitch commands and having the arms of an octopus to run your MIDI controllers in real time.
The biggest complaint I have about the sound set is in the naming of the “instruments.” Mostly, the names are cute and seem to have little in common with the sound produced, even when you consider the Category names that segregate the instruments.
I do not know about you, but for me names like Caustic Surges, Tumid Linemants, Amalgam, Cubic Moon, Olive, Get Out of My Head, Aladdin’s Curtain, Hemlock, Magic Shmoo and Drowning Tines Rhythms, Trancator, Helix Seq, Hey Monkey and Pisces do not evoke memorable sound images that require only minimal auditioning time before use. Cute, yes. Useful, no.
The ten categories into which these “instruments” are placed are a lot more helpful.
The first of seventeen sound sets under the Performances Category is called “All My Soldiers.”
Just hit any key. All of a sudden you discover you are not dealing with just any sound set. From the first strike you are putting out a full background of sound in tempo while floating harmonizing rhythms, watching them operate on your screen keyboard as if an invisible player had moved inside. Sort of like watching the keyboard on a player piano.
I tried overloading polyphony and volume by multiple keying and hard strike. This did not seem to overload the CPU, but the combination of the patterns and sounds had little musical relevance to anyone who might not be overloaded with some very strange substances from the 1960s.
Ba Dop-beedee-dop is what my drummer friends would call this sound pattern. It moves seamlessly between pitches and allows one finger players to record or perform a rhythm easily. A lot of elements came together in what could be a just loop sequence, but the parameters of the loop have been applied across the all 88 pitches on my keyboard – keeping rhythm, changing tone.
Just hearing the beat action of this first sound prompts you to look under the hood, clicking on the Crescent Wrench pictured at top left of the module. This reveals just how this was put together, what scripting modules are in play and what you can do to tweak them and when you go deeper how you can change the script for completely new active sound sets to be saved in a library similar to the way “multis” in the past have been saved for sound layering.
Here you find the modules that have created this sound set. Note the drum machine has inserted its pattern in the first module. It has three steps running, and each step can have an independent 64 parts to it. These are command rhythms inserted between the key depressed and the production of the sound just as if you had the dexterity to play this by hand on your keyboard.
Insert up to eight effects, spacial relationships, velocity and key for the group. Send this through insert and send effects lineups and then into the modulation editor. Roll over into the screen that maps the keys and zones.
Now you can switch over in the mapping editor and discover how the keys and zones have been mapped, insert scripts for harmonization, chord splitting and more.
If you really want to change things around and/or copy the complete script for any sound in order to apply it to a different sound set—open the edit window—and there is a complete set of instructions in the simple but powerful scripting language developed by Native Instruments to allow musicians to write their instruments actions in any way they want.
And that is how they got the Ba Dop-beedee-dop called “All My Soldiers.”
This makes Kontakt Experience much more than a collection of sounds. It helps move samples closer to the controllability of high-powered multifunction synths combined with mini-sequencers for each “instrument” load, turning the captured sound into a loop or texture as it hits the CPU for audio output or recording on just one instrument line of your sequencer.
And here is what is nice: unless you save all your tweaks and changes with the same name, the default “instrument” remains the same. Your changes can be easily saved under a new name in Kontakt 2’s user favorites.
Jazz Combo was the next call up under the performance group. Here the scripting was used to split the keyboard into a keen Rhodes Piano tine sound at right pre-chorded with nice jazzy sevenths on each single key (one key pushed = 4 keys sounding.) The left hand is a combo bass and brushed ride cymbal and drum combo for some nifty one finger rhythm in real time.. unless you want to go in and pre-script it.
A look at the keymap shows how easy it would be to change this up with various pianos, guitars and horns. This script is kind of ideal for recording accompaniment for yourself on guitar when you want that quiet small smokey jazz club sound.
As a last look under the performance category, I went into HipHop Kit 100 BPM. It delivers some interesting ideas for live performance with maybe two fingers—more if you need them. The left hand is working with drum loops scripted onto specific keys. The right hand is working zones that contain riffs assigned keys for mix and match. It offers some very easy and some very credible slap together pieces that fit right in.
When I switched over to the Motion and Pads Category, I finally started running into some latency and polyphony problems that I can put down to not enough RAM in my machine or not resetting my buffers. “Insecta Ecol” is a nifty tine sound that develops over time with both reverb and flange effects modulating the sustained signal.
If you move too fat here, the developing sound’s latent needs in the sustain envelope and in the release can pile atop the needs of subsequent notes quickly. Soon you are hearing clicks instead of beautifully developed tones.
I do not think this is a problem with these sounds, and feel it is a problem with me trying to push too many notes with some pretty intense script math through my CPU too fast. Just take time and adjust the script, your buffers, or tempo, as the case may be.
Switching into the smaller set of scripts but still heavily used delays and follow on harmonies included in Kristall Cave Pad I did not experience the same problem. This pad develops using what can best be described at the ping of water drops in a crystal cave imagined by some new agers. Crisp and memory evoking.
But these two samples reveal one tricky problem with Experience. Insecta is a small instrument of 1.63 Megabytes. Kristall is a bigger instrument at 5.8 Megabytes.
Now when I first was learning about samples the rule was the bigger the sample the smaller the polyphony, the number of notes that can sound simultaneously.
Here, between these two pads that rule does not apply. Why?
Well, it is a simple question to answer, and something to remember as you audition these sounds:
The lines in the script that build in the delays and FX around the base sample(s) that make up the called up instrument are counted as part of the sound, and that line often calls up a delay or extra harmonic and cannot predict how much CPU will be used when the effect is kicked in or placed in a sustain envelope.
Therefore the old “this many pieces make this sample” count is not applicable in judging CPU usage here. It is best to test each of the sounds created with scripting to ensure you can use them without pushing your CPU out of shape just as you are building up steam. (“Logic’s Freeze function is a perfect way to handle this.” -Ed.)
In the Vocalized Category ten sets use the vocalizer effect inserted for things like Mumbles, Random Whispers and Space Jazz (kind reminds me of “Be Happy”) in ways that reminded me how versatile “Chorus” can be when applied in a synth.
Harmonized offers nine examples of scripts that bring harmonization into the scripts. Psycho Strings builds minor chords for you and maps them for one finger playing. Just think of the mayhem Vincent Price could have wrecked with his other nine fingers not playing organ in his horror movies.
Mikrowelle in the harmonized category was another of those sounds that snuck up on me and pulled out some massive latency problems. It is listed as the smallest sample in the group at a mere 4.17 MB—but took only three keys in sequence a little too hard and too fast to put me in click hell.
I guess since most guitars have only six strings the guys at NI only put six sample sets in the Guitarized Category.
Torrential Guitar is the heavyweight here with 175.43 MB listed as the sample. It sounds like a solid Mick Jagger lead in the good old days of distortion: clear, loud and perfectly fuzzy. And here’s the fun. I could not get this heavyweight to click, Pounding on keys and deep polyphony are available. I did not rip into the script but I will bet the raw sample is not heavily processed by the script modules to get the sound. What you do with it will be between you and your RAM and CPU.
The e-Harmonics guitar uses an octave split rhythm and fuzz to bring up a beat in the drum machine. Sort of to get you thinking of easy to script, easy to run rhythm guitar.
Nineteen sample packages make up the Exotic Category. Aladdin’s Curtain is a fun bell sound that evokes palaces built in Disney-esque colors with carpets flying around. Electric opera offers an organ with an exceptionally long decay. Harmonic Choral will bring back memories to anyone raised in the days of tube radios trying to pick up a musical broadcast at night, DX’d across several state borders.
I truly must comment on Smeared Cymbalscape. This is a truly innovate script presenting a developing cymbal crescendo smoothly all the way from a gong sounding low C to the scratchy surfaces of high C. Unique, and possibly not something you would need less than 2 people to create using the acoustic instruments heard.
The Melodic Loops category contains only six loops. These are probably in the package more as a reminder of what can be done with Kontakt 2 than as starling examples on their own.
Lead and Bass Synths have eight entries, some rhythmic, some just processed by the scripts to show you what you can do.
Arpeggiatied Category – Eighteen scripted sound sets. I have to admit I have been spoiled by working with arpeggiation in various Rob Papen instruments, particularly Albino. While these textures and sounds are nice, they are on the simple side and could be worked very well into real time performance for relief and harmonic variation in long droning sections.
I did find the Drowning Tines Rhythms charming for slower work and not as modern as many slower sequences often sound. Jupiter Flai offers a series that sounds mightily like an electric banjo and could be handy for country arrangements. Running through my Brain is a tool any movie score could use for those amnesia or heavy dangerous thought sequences. It moves like Back and welds together well while saving you a lot of real time finger flinging.
Also in the movie score vein, Trickle Theory sounds like it was derived from an NPR show covering heavy business news. Moving and deliberate without being too somber. Again it is a one fingered play-me script saving those of us who are digital-dexterity -impaired the trouble of having to learn to play good arpeggios.
Group 10 in Experience is named Drumkits & Drumloops. I think it is a complete kick to work with this set of scripted sounds. It was so much fun I almost forgot to stop playing and work on this review. Using the beat machine, drum sounds, processing scripts, splitting the keyboard produces a lot of ideas and a lot of beats.
The last two sets in Drumkits & Loops are called The Ultimate Trance Kit and the Ultimate Urban Kit. They may be aptly named.
I am not even going to start to describe the sounds that come from Couture Percussion other than to tell it is mapped with very interesting and unique variations across the complete keyboard. They really got my fingers figuring some unique things that will go with these progressions.
Now, I am going to stop here. This is because Kontakt Experience is NOT your ordinary set of sounds. It IS an extraordinary set of scripts that put together sounds in ways only previously available through multiple steps in sequencers, processors, key mappers, and drum machines when you switched back and forth, plugging in and pulling out applications and mini applications.
Therefore I must declare that it is impossible to completely review Kontakt Experience. If you just use the components scripts supplied and apply them to your music, you will be shortcutting a lot of hard work and creating music faster than I can move my fingers accurately across this keyboard.
GC
P.P.S:
I think so highly of the examples and scripts that this Kontakt Experience shows, I think you should make it a policy to never sell Kontakt 2 to anyone unless you give them a very special deal on KONTAKT Experience. Then they will know they got a lot more in Kontakt 2 than just another sample player.
GC.”Discuss this article in our forum!