reaktor and kontakt or don't bother?

need some input here. if i purchased reaktor would i need kontakt for anything?
kontakt ships with a 3 gigs of sounds does reaktor ship with any libraries? does it load any sample libraries beyond wav format?

 

Yes no sorta.

 

They are two very different pieces of software. They compliment each other. Reaktor can certainly act as a sampler to a certain degree... but it's not a sampler in the sense that Kontakt is. And Kontakt can't really do what Reaktor does... which is many things.

That's probably just as vague as John's reply, but honestly all I can really say is "yeah, what he said".

If you are looking for a software sampler, don't get Reaktor. Get Kontakt. If you are looking for synth, sound design, sample playback, etc... then you are really talking about needing both.

Can you maybe make a list of what your needs are? I'm sure there will be more people willing to chime in with experience-backed advice.

 

RE: Libraries

Also, can you mention what your sound library needs are? The sounds that come with Kontakt are cool, but it's the not the be all end all library of all time.

Reaktor does come with a library of sorts... but it's probably not what you are thinking. It's not a sample library, all though there are samples...

Anyway, sorry for all the vague answers. Come back with some more detail and you will surely get the answers you need!

good luck!

 

well,i know i'm going to buy reaktor regardless cuz it offers so much in all areas. but was thinkig of getting kontakt cuz it surre would make sample manipulation n playback way faster than hardware. the libraries would be nice additions if they had great string,choir or awesome drum kits to cover sounds i use from a rompler i would like to get rid of.

 

Kontakt has advanced sampler features Reaktor doesn't have. For example, I do not think Reaktor supports velocity sensitive samples. If you are intent on using a lot of sample banks, get Kontakt. Reaktor is much more an experimental sort of tool, and falls short on some more traditional tasks accordingly.

 

You can make Reaktor velocity sensitive but it's a pain.

I'll stick my neck out and claim that Reaktor can do anything that Kontakt can. In theory. In practise, however, nobody's gonna care to take it that far.

-Paws

 

Exactly Paws. In theory, a C compiler can do everything Kontakt can too. ;-)

 

kontakt libraries

Yeah, Reaktor is more for experimentation and synthesis as opposed to sampling. I think we can all agree on that.

Regarding the Kontakt library included when purchasing Kontakt... Eh... er... ummm... Again, it's a good place to get started. It's a good batch of your everyday sounds. Piano, bass, some decent drum kits, some cool patches derived from Abysynth, FM7 and some others. There's a lot to get started with, but with any situation your needs might require specific libraries. You will find these from third party developers as well as Native Instruments' "Powered By" libraries. There's tons out there directly compatible as well as indirectly (via import). You won't have any shortage of sounds available. Just don't expect the sounds that come with Kontakt to serve every single purpose all the time. I don't think it's really meant for that honestly.

Anyway, I think the bottom line here is you should have both.

In theory.

 

thanks for the replies they certainly helped! this is a good forum .

 

Carl,

the "clincher" for me is the fact that Reaktor can import akai samples themselves, but not the envelope settigns and velocity splits that you would find pre-programmed in the sample map of your traditional multi-sampled acoustic-instrument sample CD. So if you tried to import a complete sampled piano in akai format (like a multi-sampled steinway or a Rhodes-style ep from a sample CD) you would loose all the countless hours of work some poor programmer put into cross-fadding 8 different velocity-specific samples for each key. . . and you would definietly NOT want to try and re-do all that velocity splitting in Reaktor itself.

So if you're looking to use complete samplesets of acoustic instruments (like you would find in any rom-player type "synth" like a triton or motif), then you would definitely want to buy Kontakt as well, and take advantage of all the great pre-programmed sampleset CDs out there (like "real rhodes"). However, if you're only planning to do non-velocity-mapped MPC-style "beat" and "phrase" sampling (ala DJ Shadow), then the benefits of Kontakt might not be as essential/important. It really depends on the kind of music you're looking to make.

Ok, just had to throw that in, as I had to make that same decision last year,

wh

 

info assimilated. thanks alot wh.

 

Strangely enough... I'd rather go Reaktor + Battery.

Kontakt has a kind of modular design, but to be honest the fx and re-sampling is really not that hot. It's better to just have a simple straightforward sampler like Battery or Linplug's RM-IV for solid sample playback, and then Reaktor 4.0 if you want to do freaky stuff with your sounds.