Native Instruments Kontakt 8

Kontakt 8 features a User Interface refresh with several new content categories available within the main Browser.

NI’s long‑established software sampler gains a raft of new features and other improvements.

Over the last 20 or more years Kontakt has become an essential tool for countless musicians and producers. A new version is, therefore, something that both the user and developer communities will look forward to with anticipation and, perhaps, just a little trepidation. So, with the release of Kontakt 8, what have Native Instruments done to refine and improve upon one of the world’s most widely used pieces of music software?

First Kontakt

As before, Kontakt 8 is available in both full (paid‑for) and streamlined Player (free to use but with some limitations) versions. Both can run standalone or in a plug‑in (VST3, AU and AAX) format. As well as an individual product, both Kontakt versions are also available as part of NI’s various Komplete bundles. These bundles have also been updated and a separate SOS review of Komplete 15 will follow shortly.

For existing Kontakt users, the reworking of the UI will be the most immediately obvious change in v8. This exploits some significant graphical enhancements under the hood but, if you prefer the previous look, just opt for Classic View from the View menu and you can switch back to the earlier design.

There are a number of notable changes in the redesign. For example, on the Library page, there are now six main tabs — Instrument, Combined, Tools, Leap, Loops and One‑shots — and I’ll touch on all of these below. Once you have selected and loaded a specific preset from a library, as before, the main instrument UI dominates the Kontakt window, but you now get the Side Pane (it can be toggled on/off as preferred) on the left. This contains sections for Tools (more on these in a minute) and Instruments but, very usefully, it provides a compact version of the browser, giving you instant access to your entire Kontakt content including the presets for any loaded instrument.

Conflux Instrument

The full version of Kontakt includes a significant new instrument called Conflux. NI describe this as a something of a first in that it blends synthesis with Kontakt’s usual sample‑based sound creation in a hybrid design. This is provided by a complete reworking of Kontakt’s existing wavetable synthesis engine, adding FM, phase modulation and ring modulation wavetable oscillators to the existing PPG wavetables.

Conflux’s control set is laid out across three pages; Play, Edit and Settings. The first of these provides easy access to the presets and a set of macro‑style controls but the Edit page is where the full potential of the synth engine can be accessed. Here, the Source panel provides access to the Wavetable and Sample oscillator choices, and the ability to blend and adjust the balance of these two elements. The Audio Mod panel adds an additional sound source, offering three modes; Audio Mod, Shaper and Oscillator. The first two provide additional manipulation of the wavetable source but the third provides an independent virtual‑analogue oscillator that can be blended into the overall sound.

Conflux’s Edit page provides plenty of sound design options for those wanting to go beyond the included presets.

The engine offers a filter, two LFOs, two envelopes, two flexible effects slots, delay, reverb and a step animator. Alongside the six macro controls (each of which can be used to modulate multiple parameters), this makes for plenty of modulation sources and lots of suitable modulation targets. Linking sources to targets is all done graphically and is easy to configure, although a MIDI Learn option for linking the six macro knobs to an external hardware controller would be a nice thing to see. That said, hardware control was easy enough to map using the features in my DAW host.

Sonically, Conflux is impressive and involving. It perhaps won’t be an obvious pick for your bread‑and‑butter pop or EDM sounds, but for media composers or the more experimentally minded looking for some quirky sonic elements or evolving otherworldly soundscapes, it’s a great choice.

New Tool Box

Kontakt 8 includes a new Tools concept. This first iteration sees two such Tools introduced; Chords and Phrases. I’ll explore these below, but two things are worth noting. First, these Tools can be used with every Kontakt instrument. As shown in the screenshots, the side pane includes a Tools section at the top, allowing you to add Tools that might then be utilised with whatever instruments are also present.

Second, and quite impressively, these new Tools are included in both the full (paid) and Player (free) versions of Kontakt with no restrictions; every Kontakt user gets access. NI have suggested that there will be further Tools to come so watch this space.

Chords

Systems for triggering full chords via a single MIDI note are a familiar concept and many DAWs or virtual instruments have such options built into their feature set. However, the new Chords Tool embeds chord triggering directly into Kontakt and is usable with any Kontakt instrument. The Chords UI shows the seven chords with a chord set as concentric circle graphics that represent the chord’s notes. The tag‑based browser lets you easily search the impressive selection of presets to find either a new chord set or an individual chord, while dice icons allow you to randomly change chord sets or individual chords. There are also plenty of options to adjust or adapt the presets. For example, at the top right you can adjust the key/scale used and the individual chords within the currently loaded set will adapt themselves automatically. If you click on an individual chord circle, you can access the ‘record’ option and manually create a chord, including its full voicing, and you can save your own chord set presets (just right‑click on the Chords entry in the side pane to access the appropriate drop‑down menu).

The new Chords Tool embeds chord triggering directly within Kontakt for use with any of your installed libraries.

Chords does, of course, let you create a full chord performance (including velocity sensitivity) with a single finger, and chord labels can be displayed as you trigger them. You can also apply a little Humanize (including velocity/timing variation and note skipping) or Strum (up or down with control over speed) while performing. If you record your performance, it’s the trigger notes that get recorded (and then re‑triggered on playback) rather than the full chord voicing. You can drag‑and‑drop MIDI data for individual chords, or the full chord set, to your DAW, but you would then have to build a performance from these MIDI notes. It would be a nice addition if Chords had an ‘export full MIDI note data’ option built into its UI. I did think Kontakt’s Send MIDI To Outside World setting (found in the Options panel) might make this possible, but I couldn’t seem to make it function as I expected. That comment aside though, Chords is both very easy to use and the presets contain lots of interesting chord set combinations that — paired with the right sound — can be instantly inspiring.

Phrases

With a similar UI, Phrases offers you a set of seven melodic phrases that can be triggered via the white keys. Again, a circular display provides a graphical indication of the note pattern within each phrase. Key and scale can be adjusted, and the phrases will adjust to fit.

The Phrases Tool provides instant melodic part inspiration when used with any suitable sound source, as shown here with the new Piano Uno instrument that’s included with both the full and Player versions of Kontakt 8.

Phrase triggering behaviour can also be adjusted (including a Latch option) and, via the Edit page (accessed from the small pencil icon located top right), you can adjust a whole range of parameters such as note length, quantise, velocity, phrase length and playback direction, either globally (all phrases in a set) or to a single phrase. Equally, things like the Rotate and Invert knobs, which both create interesting changes in the performance of a specific phrase, can be automated in your DAW to add further performance variations on the fly. The large Randomize button randomises many of the time, pitch and velocity parameters, and the mod wheel acts as a global dynamics control, letting you add further performance variation. As with Chords, you can save your own Phrases presets.

While you can drag and drop Phrases MIDI to your DAW for further editing, Phrases doesn’t currently let you manually edit or create phrases of your own. If you record a Phrases performance, you get the trigger notes rather than the full melodic performance. That said, Phrases is a great source of inspiration to get an idea started.

Leap

Kontakt’s other major new addition is Leap, which NI describe as a ‘sampler within a sampler’. Leap’s UI is divided into four main pages; Play, Edit, Send FX and Perform FX. Users of Output’s Arcade might have a sense of the familiar with Leap’s Play page. This provides 16 keys/slots for triggering sample loops/one‑shots mapped to a block of white keys. Across the associated black keys are a series of performance effects — stutters, speed changes, pitch‑shift and so on — that let you process the triggered sample playback in real time. You can also switch the engine to Single mode, which maps a selected sample across the keyboard range so it can be played as a melodic instrument. It’s worth noting that, as with Chords and Phrases, Leap is included in both Kontakt and Kontakt Player.

Leap adds a very creative loop and one‑shot performance instrument and, as well as its own Expansion format, you can import your own samples via drag‑and‑drop to build your own Leap presets.

The Edit page lets you change how a specific sample is used on triggering (loop, one‑shot, etc.) and provides settings to adjust the sample length, pitch, tempo, filtering and basic amplitude envelope controls. The Send FX section offers delay and reverb options, while the Perform FX page lets you customise which of the performance effects are associated with each black key and tweak how they behave. The UI also includes eight macro knobs for real‑time control of further effects options.

Leap also has its own Expansions format and 12 of these are included with the full version of Kontakt (just one with the Player version). I’m sure NI will not be slow to make additional Leap Expansions available via their online shop. However, rather wonderfully, via the Loops and One‑shots pages of Kontakt’s new Browser, you can now drag and drop content from any installed Expansion packs (those aimed at Maschine) directly into Leap. Equally, you can drag and drop other sample content from your OS browser onto a Leap key slot. All of Leap’s tools are then available to edit or adjust these samples, letting you repurpose that content to create your own Leap presets.

If loops and one‑shots are a regular part of your music production workflow, Leap brings that directly into Kontakt in a way that’s both fun and flexible. For those prepared to dig in, there is some very impressive functionality here.

As suggested by Leap’s Edit page, the instrument features plenty of options for those looking to get creative with their loop and one‑shot samples.

Multi Out, Combo In

While not a revolution, it’s worth noting that Kontakt’s multi format is referred to as the Combined format. Yes, it’s much the same thing, allowing you to load a preset that contains a combination of instruments, but Combined presets now also accommodate Tools and many of the new Combined presets supplied with Kontakt 8 are based around an instance of Chords or Phrases and one of the sounds from the Factory Library as demonstrations of this new functionality. You can, of course, create your own Combined presets and, as far as I can tell, under the hood, it’s still the NKM file format that’s being used so existing multi presets load as before.

Deep Dive Development

While the vast majority of SOS readers will fall into the Kontakt user community, NI obviously have to encourage their developer community too. As such, Kontakt 8 brings a new development toolkit — Complete Instrument Building Toolkit 1.0 — allowing them to fully exploit all the new elements of Kontakt 8 for improved/expanded scripting and enhanced UI building.

In addition, developers have access to the new elements of the wavetable synth engine included within Conflux, an SDK for Tools and an SDK for Leap expansions. The development community will undoubtedly be keen to offer us users some tempting products that exploit all these new options. Watch this space.

As a software sampler, it is the industry standard and v8 just refines and expands upon the software’s already established capabilities.

Make Contact With Kontakt 8?

As a new purchase, Kontakt is obviously a significant investment for many but this platform — and the huge range of libraries it supports — has provided the sonic power behind countless song and film score hits. As a software sampler, it is the industry standard and v8 just refines and expands upon the software’s already established capabilities.

Personally, I’m excited to see how developers might exploit the new elements within Kontakt’s engine. However, while the UI and under‑the‑hood enhancements are undoubtedly welcome, for individual users, the decision to upgrade may rest upon whether the highlight additions — Conflux, Chords, Phrases or Leap — enhance their personal workflow or creativity. That might not be the case for everyone, but it’s easy to see how all of these new features might appeal to specific sub‑sets of Kontakt users, and the upgrade pricing is relatively modest.

NI’s software sampler is the very definition of an ‘industry standard’. The latest release does nothing to undermine that position and, if Kontakt is already part of your daily workflow, Kontakt 8 has the potential to enhance that workflow with a collection of new and inspiring creative options.