kontakt? triton?? question on strings and backing instumentation

[AudioAstronomer]

Really, Robert? You find Kontakt superior to Giga? Do you own both?

I have Giga 2 (and Kompakt with EWQLSO Plat/Gold). Considered uping to Kontakt (as well as to Giga 3). Any words of wisdom?

TIA,

I work very closely with alan developing for all sampling platforms (i dont use any libraries, but im his work dog for recording/editing etc.. heh). I strongly suggest moving to kontakt instead, it offers a lot more options for providing realistic sounds and fixing many of the issues with other sampling engines.

Giga 3 is really great, but in a multitrack environment kontakt is superior for ease of use, size and immediacy.

[mghtx]

Native Instruments continues with their online challenge and response copy protection;

Hmmm.....don't like that. How many times can one do this before the company throws a fit?

available for Windows XP and Mac's OSx as a VST®, DXi™ or stand alone application.

I quess for MWS one would need the VST version?


Edit:

I tend to do a lot of my sound engineering in SAW Studio, where I am using Kontakt as a VST plug-in.

I read some more of the article so.....still reading.

[Alan Lastufka]

Mike,

The challenge/response allow you to have two active licenses at a time. If you reinstall XP alot (I do a fresh reinstall every 6 months or so to clear out all the internet crap, unfortunately my DAW is also my office/gaming/3D and surfing workstation - lol) then you can deactivate old licenses in one click to get a third, forth, fifth, etc...

When you buy - you get all formats on one disc - I use it as a VST - but you may choose to install DXi or any other format that SAW reads. Or standalone routed to an audio track in SAW if you prefer another sequencer.

Any other questions feel free to ask - also - I believe NI has a K2 demo up on their site you could grab and test it out in your setup.

[mghtx]

OK, thanks Alan. I too do a fresh install of XP often so that's always a concern with these copy protection deals.

[trock]

so if you buy a library of some sound, do you need kontakt? or can i just play them with my triton and MWS??

what does the sampler really add to the mix??

[Pedro Itriago]

so if you buy a library of some sound, do you need kontakt? or can i just play them with my triton and MWS??

what does the sampler really add to the mix??

That depends. Risking sounding condescending since you may already know this things, I'll try to explain.

Sampler are machines that recorded sounds which you were able to later replay at your convinience. Most of them record those sound in propietary formats, so there,s the Akai format, the Kurzweil format, the Ensoniq format, etc.

Nowadays there are also Soft Samplers like Kontak or Gigastudio or the new Emulator X, all of them with propietary formats. Generally speaking, today's samplers can play different sampling formats but usually not many (generally 3 or 4 different formats), so if you buy a Giga format library, most likely you'll need gigastudio to use them. You can always use programs like Awave to make the conversion, but you're likely to loose things like loop points, layers, etc.

If your Triton is any but LE, then you can play samples from it provided that the Triton can read the format the library you buy is in. If you have the Triton LE, you're out of luck unless you buy the sampling option.

Sorry for the lecture

[trock]

Hey Pedro

thaks for that info, you are not talking down at all. i have never used software to develop music in terms of instrumentation. well i use the triton sounds etc but ihave to play the keys. the triton is a triton pro 76 key..

i am still a little confused so let me clarify my question some.

say i want new strings and bass guitar sounds. can i buy these "sounds" in some library of sounds that i like the sound of, load them onto the PC somehow, then again, somehow use the triton to "play" these sounds onto a SAW track. if so, what is the best way to accomplish this??

is it Triton ->kontakt (with sound loaded) -> track?

or do i need MWS in there too?? i mean can i just play the sound live? not midi it? not sure if this makes any sense.

the reason i am asking is again, the only bass guitar, strings, effects i have are what are on the triton, so if i wanted to get new sounds and be able to play them onto a track what is the best way to go??

thanks!

[Pedro Itriago]

Hey Pedro

thaks for that info, you are not talking down at all. i have never used software to develop music in terms of instrumentation. well i use the triton sounds etc but ihave to play the keys. the triton is a triton pro 76 key..

i am still a little confused so let me clarify my question some.

say i want new strings and bass guitar sounds. can i buy these "sounds" in some library of sounds that i like the sound of, load them onto the PC somehow, then again, somehow use the triton to "play" these sounds onto a SAW track. if so, what is the best way to accomplish this??

is it Triton ->kontakt (with sound loaded) -> track?

or do i need MWS in there too?? i mean can i just play the sound live? not midi it? not sure if this makes any sense.

the reason i am asking is again, the only bass guitar, strings, effects i have are what are on the triton, so if i wanted to get new sounds and be able to play them onto a track what is the best way to go??

thanks!

If you want to load the sample libraries into your Triton, these are the formats the library has to be in for you to be able to use (taken from the Korg's Triton Pro page):

"Stereo or mono AIFF files, Windows WAVE files, AKAI S1000/S3000 (Samples and Mapped Multisounds only.)(Floppy and CD-ROM) and Trinity format data can also be loaded into sample memory"

If the sounds on the library are either aiff or wav, then you have to process them, that means you'll have to set the loop point for every sample, map the sample to a keyboard range, set the layer & trigger points if they are layered and/or multitriggered, etc. This is because a sample library are samples of instruments (or anything that makes sounds) each sample is used for a keyboard range. E.g.: if I sample the open g string of a guitar, I can use that sample to be used for the d3 to a#3 on my keyboard, then I have to use a sample of c4 to the next range, and so on. With the avalability of a huge ammount of memory in todays computers & samplers, you can a not only have one sample per key, but layers of the same note for different intonations & aftertouch conditions (soft plucked string in one layer, hard plucked string in the other)

If you load the library to your Triton (provided is compatible), then all you have to do is either play them in your Triton & record them into Saw thru analog (or digital, don't know if the Triton has spdif I/O), or you can record a midi track on MWS or whatever midi sequencer you use & synch it to Saw; here again you have to make an analog or digital audio connection to your computer when you want those tracks saved inside the Saw multitrack.

If you download/purchase soft samplers/sampler players like soundfount players, kontak-played libraries, gigastudio libraries, etc. you need to have that soft sampler loaded into Saw or MWS, either assign their virtual outputs (or have loopback from out & ins in your soundcard if the sample player does not have virtual output options) to a multitrck input in Saw & use your Triton to send the MIDI data to play them. After you have the MIDI data saved in MWS (or your taste of sequencer), you won't be needing the Triton any longer since the libraries will be played from the soft sampler/sample player.

I strongly suggest you to start with free stuff, that is either a demo of a kontak-player-containing library or with soundfonts. Soundfont players can be found for free in different places, even from the creative labs page (Soundfont was a format created by both creative labs & emu when creatives bought Emu). Soundfonst libraries can be found for free in the net, just make a search for soundfonts or .sf2 (which is the file extension for soundfonts). There are companies that make giga and other format libraries which also do those libraries in soundfont format (sonic implants is one of them, I've bought sf2 libraries from them). Emu even used to sell soundfont version of their rack mount synths, like the Planet Phatt, Proteus, etc.

Then, once you get the hang of it, you can move on to better (paid) things, just my 2 cents

[Bob L]

Yes... you can play the sound live directly through the VST synth that can load and play the samples you purchase...

You plug the VST synth (Kontakt, Kompakt, etc) into a SAWStudio track in the Pre Patch... you load the sounds into the plug... then you tell the plug which port to look at for trigger information... left-click the blue options logo at the top of the SAW Plugin window... select the SoftSynth Midi port... if you want to play directly from your Triton, point the plug to the midi port the Triton is connected to... if you want to use the MWS, you point the plug to one of the Virtual MWS ports that link between SAWStudio and the MWS. Then on any combination of tracks in the MWS, you can record and edit and manipulate midi data that will then trigger the plug to play when you start the MT playback. Any MWS track that is assigned to the MWS Virtual port that you hooked the plug to will receive the midi data from the MWS directly.

Hope that helps.

Bob L

[kent]

Trock,
SawStudio IS a sampler (among many other things)
MWS IS a sequencer (among other things)

There are other SOFTWARE samplers (like Kontakt) and sequencers.

Your Triton HARDWARE IS a sampler AND a sequencer

Samplers store/play audio data in digital format.

Sequencers store/play MIDI data only. This MIDI data is strings of instructions that tell Samplers what to play. There's quite a variety of Sampler/Sequencer combinations one may use to generate sound.

Hope this helps too.
Kent

PS. I want to add this black box description. MIDI controller ->Sample library ->Sampler. Here the MIDI controller can be a sequencer with a pre-programmed string of MIDI intructions, OR your Triton keyboard to inject live MIDI instructions to your sample library. In your Sample library, you will have chosen which Sample/Patch/Instrument (all the same) should receive the MIDI input intructions. Then your Sampler will play/record/(or both) the samples from you library as instructed by the MIDI controller.