Why Kontakt?
Hello, I bought Spitfire Studio Woodwinds yesterday. A 200$ investment because I need, urgently, to write and arrangement for live musicians soon. I had tried the LABS first to make shure it was smooth, wich it was, and made my choice for the SSW. After that I installed the Native Access, the Kontakt 5.66 (I'm on Yosemite/Imac and it's the OS that really works with it, I tried High Sierra but it almost died, had to downgrade). Then i activated and it all went fine, but it dodn't show up in Kontakt. Then I found it in users by the "add library" and it shoowed up. But when I press anything I just get the error message "your new library needs to be added before this instrument can be used kontakt". Ok, you say, this is a support thing. I say, how can it be that it is so difficult? I work daily with computers for so many years, and after assisting at least ten different youtube videos, reading all support and trying to talk to an idiot automatic chat, INSTEAD OF DOING MY ARRANGEMENT, I wonder...is this 2020? Are the companies humiliating customers that want to pay instead of using "cracks" etc. Was this the best they could come up with? I'm shure the solution will come up, maybe some small step of confusion of players and the Yosemite, but really... This thing should just work and this is absurd. I have written to the support and no answer yet. I deeply regret buying this product, and I really hate Kontakt now. You can do better guys, the LABS worked like a charm, so easy, so clear...just redo, this is not the right way to do it. Kind regards
-
I have to agree with your post. I've just purchased Studio Brass, not realising I HAD to use Kontakt. I avoid all NI products as I find their whole system confusing and unnecessarily complex. The worst part is the TINY GUI, which so many complain about and have done for about a decade. If I'd known I would have to use Kontakt, I wouldn't have bought Studio Brass. I have many other issues using it too but I cannot even begin to work through them without being able to see what I'm looking at! It's utter madness in 2020. I know that's an issue with NI, not Spitfire, but Spitfire should have the option not to use Kontakt.
I also tried LABS and agree that it's great, clear, easy to use, and sounds fantastic. I did assume Spitfire also had their own software for other instruments that weren't free, and it was implied you needed their software, but now I realise it's the same software as LABS and all their other products use, which is just for downloading and installing.
-
Probably Kontakt simply because Spitfire is not a software company (or were not originally) - they may have had to hire third party developers to make the more simplified recent UI plugins of LABs and the BBC SO 'Discover' (which are great BTW) - but probably are less flexible in terms of laying out instrument variations with massive sample sets.
Kontakt does seem heavy weight but it's something that supports building complex multi-sample sets for sample pack developers and has also the download mechanisms/authorization methods in place that Spitfire probably didn't have the resources to develop originally.
Agreed the Kontakt GUIs seem small - is there no way to zoom/scale?
-
Hey Geoff and Paul,
Nice to read your comments and I think that where we're at is that Kontakt is the best Spitfire got at the moment for bigger sample libraries, right? I really think that the Spitfire products are amazing, and i loved the LABS player. Since the Kontakt seems to be a little like ProTools, something that was fantastic in 2003 but seem hopelessly outdated in 2020. I hope Spitfire takes this positive criticism seriously.
I installed and runned LABS in 30 min, it took me two days for the Kontakt before I got a version 5.7.3 that was not even on the legacy part on the regular site. Just to realize that, from a very generic "library not found" message that that was the problem was tough.
I imagine many would have given up at the third youtube video or chat link. I know I am on Yosemite but a whole lot of people are, and it's where my computer at home works the best. That's the thing about having fools-proof software, everyone can use it and concentrate on creating music!
My wish would be to se the Spitfire Audio app beeing standalone, maybe making the LABS typ of player work for everything from Spitfire. Also it's really strange to have the Spitfire Audio, Native Instruments and Kontakt interfaces together, just messy and complicated. I see all the effort to make allt these fantastic sample libraries, I think Spitfire deserves a dedicated app, such a big and nice company can invest in that, it's not even near as difficult as sampling the BBC orchestra.
Best wishes to all and thank you for all great sounds, Sebastian
-
I am absolutely a fan of Spitfire's. My only gripe is the NI Kontakt window. This is not 1990. I bought Neo today and love the sounds. I run two 32 inch 4k monitors in HD res in my studio for both acoustic and VI recording. After auditioning Neo my eyes are fried. Companies like Spitfire and other giants should stick up to these guys now. Enough is enough. Even if I could zoom it would be great. BBC is a great GUI. The Albions need an interface. How about it Spitfire?
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
4 comments