If you have read previously, you would have seen that I was mulling over whether to upgrade from Logic Pro 7 to Logic Studio or upgrade Kontakt 1.5 to Kontakt 3. Well in the end Kontakt won out over Logic. It was a hard decision but over the past few weeks I began to realize that going with the kontakt purchase was a better idea.
I realized as I was working in Logic, ProTools LE and Cubase SX 2 recently that I’m constantly using different samplers. I was using Kontakt 1.5 for Cubase. Unfortunately that version does not work on my macbook. So I ended up using EXS24 in logic and for ProTools I tried the Structure Free.
The EXS24 is a cool and efficient sampler that integrates well in to logic, but I just don’t like the way samples are loaded up in it. It didn’t really fit in my workflow. To import a sample you have to open the EXS editor and then create zones, then import the sample and after all that you have to save your instrument. It really reminded me of using Mesa when I had an Akai S2000. I didn’t like that thing that much. The EXS24 is a great sampler and pretty powerful, but there was just too many extra windows and clicks that seemed to slow down the workflow for me.
Digidesign’s Structure sampler seems pretty powerful, however I only got to experience the free version. The reason I downloaded it in the fist place was so that I would have some sort of sampler available in ProTools sessions. Since I don’t really use ProTools for production, I figured the free version would suit my needs. I thought it would be useful for whenever I need to do some last minute additions or small changes when I am doing mixdowns. The lack of being able to edit sample maps was the deal breaker. It’s really just a sample player. I only tried it a couple of times, and it seems decent, but it just doesn’t fit my work style.
The main reason I decided to go with Kontakt was that I realized it would help if I had a universal sampler that I can use in any of the sequencers that I have. Structure can only be used in ProTools and EXS24 can only be used in Logic. Although both can import quit a bit of sample types, I just feel like I will end up converting a sample in 3 different formats, one for each sampler.
I can’t really say I am happy with Kontakt 3 yet. I have barely used it. So far I just used it to tweak some samples and create a multi instrument for a remix I have to do. Usually I can’t wait to open and play with my new toys, but this time I was not really excited. Truthfully I was pretty happy with version 1.5. It did everything I wanted and was not full of extra things. Some things appear a bit more complicated now like the whole mixer section and routing. I do miss the simple routing options of 1.5. However this is something that can be taken care of if I setup the program to be a certain way when it loads. Although the program is more complex and I need to learn some of the new features, it still fits my work flow style. When I write I like to try different samples all the time. Especially with drums. Keep the part playing and just load up different samples to hear if I like it. This is the problem I had with the EXS24 I couldn’t do this unless I premade instruments. At this point in time I don’t feel like spending a great deal of time turning all whatever amount of gigs of samples I have into EXS instruments. Truthfully I don’t know how many gigs of samples I have. All I know is I have a hard drive that has only samples and a cd case full of cd’s that are either sample cd’s or just backups of sample packs I downloaded. I prefer to have a file browser available and to be able to drag and drop samples.
One last note on samplers. I just downloaded the free DiscoDSP High Life sampler. Although it’s only a Windows program it has a feature that I am interested in. It is supposed to be able to auto-sample from vsti’s. This seems pretty useful. I can sample patches from my favorite windows only vst instruments and use them in logic. Also if there is a cool patch on some demo I can easy sample it. I will report more on this sampler later.