# Kontakt 5 Alternative



## nuyo (Jun 3, 2021)

I need an easy alternative to Kontakt 5. 
It only needs to do sustains with maybe 2 dynamic layers and shorts with 6 to 8 Round Robins. The sampler should not affect the sound quality.
Another very important feature would be a purge unused samples function so only the samples that are actually played get loaded. And it should be very CPU friendly so I can load multiple instances.

There is no need for any Audio Effect features within the plugin.


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## doctoremmet (Jun 3, 2021)

UVI Falcon. HISE. Plogue sfz.


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## d.healey (Jun 3, 2021)

HISE isn't a sampler, it's a tool for making plugins, don't use that for this purpose. I'd recommend SFZ, it's pretty easy to get started and doesn't require buying anything.


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## nuyo (Jun 3, 2021)

d.healey said:


> HISE isn't a sampler, it's a tool for making plugins, don't use that for this purpose. I'd recommend SFZ, it's pretty easy to get started and doesn't require buying anything.


I haven't downloaded it yet but I can't find informations about round robins on the website.


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## d.healey (Jun 3, 2021)

There are lots of SFZ players. An SFZ is just a text file + samples, you can read the spec here - https://sfzformat.com/


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## nuyo (Jun 3, 2021)

d.healey said:


> There are lots of SFZ players. An SFZ is just a text file + samples, you can read the spec here - https://sfzformat.com/


I would prefer to just drag and drop my Samples. But I will look into sfz.


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## rrichard63 (Jun 3, 2021)

d.healey said:


> I'd recommend SFZ, it's pretty easy to get started and doesn't require buying anything.


As far as I can tell, Sforzando (the most frequently used SFZ player) does not have a purge function. Instead, it streams from disk and lets you manage the memory usage of each instance. That should make a purge function unnecessary.

The main problem with the SFZ format has always been the absence of an easy-to-use instrument editor. This results mainly from inconsistencies among various player implementations. Recently, however, I found Polyphone, a free instrument editor for both SFZ and SF2 formats:






Home - Polyphone Soundfont Editor


Polyphone is a free and open-source software for editing sf2, sf3, sfArk and sfz soundfonts. A clean interface and convenient tools have been implemented to efficiently deal with small or big instruments. Polyphone is available in different languages for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and comes with a...




www.polyphone-soundfonts.com


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## Markrs (Jun 3, 2021)

Decent Sampler 









Decent Sampler Plugin [FREE] - decent|SAMPLES


A FREE sampling plugin that allows you to play samples in the Decent Sampler format. Available in VST, VST3, AU, AAX, and Standalone for Mac, Windows, Linux, and iOS.




www.decentsamples.com


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## rdd27 (Jun 3, 2021)

nuyo said:


> I need an easy alternative to Kontakt 5.
> It only needs to do sustains with maybe 2 dynamic layers and shorts with 6 to 8 Round Robins. The sampler should not affect the sound quality.
> Another very important feature would be a purge unused samples function so only the samples that are actually played get loaded. And it should be very CPU friendly so I can load multiple instances.
> 
> There is no need for any Audio Effect features within the plugin.


While it won't be ready in time for your current project, I’m in the process of developing a sampler that does a lot of what you ask (without scripting).

The development is ongoing and it will be a while until it's released. You can sign up to the mailing list to stay up to date with the development and be notified once it’s available. I will also be inviting people to beta test in the future and asking what key features people are looking for in a new sampling engine. 

Best of luck on your project!


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## rrichard63 (Jun 3, 2021)

Another option is CWITech's TX16Wx






TX16Wx Software Sampler – sampler plug-in for creative musicians







www.tx16wx.com





EDIT: See correction at #12 below.

The free version should meet your immediate needs, with a paid version available if you need it later. While this has a visual mapping (and sample editing) interface with drag-and-drop, it is more technical than the other options, both for the developer and the end user. As far as I can tell, the only memory management is a global choice between loading everything into RAM and streaming everything from disk. The developer has an excellent support forum on KVR and is very responsive.


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## nuyo (Jun 3, 2021)

rdd27 said:


> While it won't be ready in time for your current project, I’m in the process of developing a sampler that does a lot of what you ask (without scripting).
> 
> The development is ongoing and it will be a while until it's released. You can sign up to the mailing list to stay up to date with the development and be notified once it’s available. I will also be inviting people to beta test in the future and asking what key features people are looking for in a new sampling engine.
> 
> Best of luck on your project!


I'm watching...


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## rrichard63 (Jun 3, 2021)

rrichard63 said:


> The free version should meet your immediate needs, with a paid version available if you need it later.


Correction: the free version does not support round robins, so @nuyo would need the paid version (39 euros) for their project. Sorry for the confusion.


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## rrichard63 (Apr 6, 2022)

I'm resurrecting this thread to ask @nuyo what sampler he finally decided on.


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## nuyo (Apr 7, 2022)

rrichard63 said:


> I'm resurrecting this thread to ask @nuyo what sampler he finally decided on.


Kontakt 6 😂
Kontakt is still very slow when you are building basic sample libraries and the interface is way to small (we live in 2022). It also has huge Ram problems inside FL Studio (could also be a mistake from Image Line)
But I haven't found an alternative. The other Samplers are even more unusable than Kontakt. So I decided on the Sampler that gives me the smallest amount of problems.


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