vp-9000 vs. kontakt

hi folks,

did anyone round here try out both vp-9000 and ni-kontakt? curious which one has the better or more interesting timestretch/pitchshift/formant-realtime algo's. and yes, i'm mostly interested in the abuse of them...

thanks

definitely kontakt!

zZounds sells its vp-9000's at 70% off (and that's still $900); wanna know why? see their: user reviews


really man, kontakt rockssssss, if abusing samples is what you're into, this is your kind of sampler, try the demo and proof me wrong


EDIT: the only real contender is..... Reaktor. I have both Reakotr and Kontakt now; the good thing about Kontakt is that it looks like a sampler with keyzones etc. (hardware sampler users will recognize the interface), and the structure (which is complex but very intelligible if you set your mind to it) allows you to start loading samples immediately and abuse them ; on the other hand, I still prefer the Reaktor idea of 'total control', e.g. over ALL useful stretch and formant shift variables; but setting up a complete instrument in Reaktor is much more hard work. So if you're into building sample zones or instruments like in a 'real' sampler and still want access to stretching and formant features, Kontakt is the way to go; if you want to know how a grainsize of minus 10 sec sounds like , and are willing to trade in some ease of use, Reaktor might be more suited.

Cheers.

yes, that's what i want from kontakt: being able to do usual samples on the one hand and crazy stuff on the other. 4 live use i'd have to get a nice i/o for my notebook - so kontakt with that would be a bit more expensive than vp-9000 (sadly i was just outbid on a rme digiface - that one had solved my probs...). on a pIII 650 kontakt should have a better performance anyway - plus the extravagance by reaktor. but i still wonder which are the better algos. did you try the vp-9000 with extreme settings?

I've played with a vp9000 once, but didn't really check the extreme settings no. It's definitely not meant for that, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't produce granular artefacts when pushed .

To be honest I prefer the way the resynthesis modules sound in Reaktor over Kontakt, but that might be very personal, it's easier to make Reaktor sound really weird... but then Kontakt has hi quality settings for stretching, which you should switch OFF to make it sound bad And it has the best sounding filters NI ever made! Have you tried the demo yet?

Oh yeah keep in mind that Kontakt is rather cpu-hungry in stretch/formant mode, don't expect to get 16 polyphonic instruments with each different stretch settings... to give you an idea about performance : Performance (NI Kontakt Forum)

Given all that, I would never ever recommend anyone a hardware sampler anymore; I've long been tempted by the idea myself, now I'm glad I didn't spend any money on it. Even if you have to dig up some extra cash for an I/O interface for now, you will be able to use that for much more than Kontakt.

Greets, Jan