What’s new in Kontakt 8 | Native Instruments

[@justinkfilms]

How about making it full-screen in 2024?

[@musiclover-r9m]

seriously... it's as if they don't listen to their core users at all.

[@phelper4554]

Kontakt 10 maybe 😅

[@fatbelly3385]

​@musiclover-r9m ​ I truly don't understand it. It's been requested for a decade at least.

[@itsnotch64]

literally drag the corner down and across and make it as big as you want. 🤷‍♂

[@justinkfilms]

@@musiclover-r9m Because they don't.

[@bernardojunqueira2392]

Yes! I love these tutorials and explanations with Brian, especially when new products are released. Brian is the best!

[@furiobisotti8150]

I am a long-term NI user. But I am a musician who knows chords and progressions. This trend to make controllers and samplers to help users who don't know harmony makes me very disappointed. I don't need these tools. I need tools to have better sounds and better interaction with them. I don't like this trend to make musical instruments good for people not interested in learning music.

[@DMG1723]

I'm learning and will also use this as a learning tool.

[@BartekEVH]

I think the same as you. But companies only want to make money and make tools for kids who have no talent or even sometimes no musical ear. Defeat. That's why there is a flood of pseudo music in the world and it will only get worse. The 80s with wonderful music from brilliant musicians who didn't need any tricks will not come back. :( Best regards

[@furiobisotti8150]

@@DMG1723 There are schools and books. Much better way

[@furiobisotti8150]

@@BartekEVH I was born in 1964. My heroes were in 70s rock bands. I learnt chords copying them with cassette tapes...

[@BartekEVH]

@@furiobisotti8150 me too!! :) I am 72' :)

[@sorenandrews1078]

The folks complaining in these comments aren't even making music full time or making any money from their music. And you can tell because they're upset about features that literally streamline your music to take less time, so you can do more. Thanks NI for doing a great job and keeping the REAL/SERIOUS Musicians and Producers in mind, and not the people with 100 unfinished projects

[@burakakan8341]

dont buy and wait for the kontakt 9 next month 😂😂

[@justinkfilms]

Just "don't buy"

[@riddarhyttan]

So it's glorified MIDI packs and beatmaker tools. Fine, it's your company. Could you make a separate upgrade with functioning HiDPI scaling, MIDI-learn preset swaps, performance improvements etc.? I'm not even going to ask about MPE.

[@anaphylastiks]

NI really did start as a software company. I do agree though, there's nothing special about what NI offers apart from convenience. A lot of musicians ( including myself ) like not having to spend hours making a kick drum or a synth patch. Let alone loops. NI move too fast with new this and that, while neglecting what the base consumer is asking for. I use kontakt and Maschine as vsts in a host and have given up buying anymore products from NI because there's nothing groundbreaking or necessary. I still use my Mk1 I got when they first came out. 😊

[@stizan9185]

Yep..and about Chord/Tools, there are cheap vst plugins that can do similar things but way better and also on every vst instrument, like Rhythmizer Ultra, Harmony bloom...its so pointless

[@PolygraphMusic]

As i can see all new features are for kid-producers.

[@AndrewMcMillenium]

Yup, no nice stuff for orchestral music.

[@jonathansaunders6697]

the whole industry is copying output,...the whole NI PLAY series is obviously an imitation of their instruments...as well as the new arturia instruments that are essentially macro controllers for pigments presets...leap is arcade...And look how many copies of ARCADE have come out... soundslates capsule, bigfish momentum, LANDR chromatic, noiiz connect, Loopcloud, mntra mndela player; and it's obviously where antares sampler, PA megasampler and waves cr8 want to go... Their instruments keep you in the sweet spot with only a few controls reducing time and ear fatigue to a recognizable sound, but still giving you a feeling like you actually created something...and as for arcade, easy bake oven pop music production using construction kits to make collage art through a gamification experience....construction kits aren't new, they been around since the 90s...they were lazy then and they still are now...but this is what the data probably shows all the new market entrants from pandemic lock-down want...allows for add-on sales from kitpacks, and if they give away the free player framework, I'm sure act as spyware collecting data for sale as another revenue stream...seems to me the whole industry has been copying output for the last few years, because they understand the dominant demographic and are giving them what they want

[@Barncore]

Yep, they're trying to streamline the music creation process to make it easy for anyone

[@TJ-bx5px]

@@Barncore 😂😂

[@justinkfilms]

Most productions transition to their bedrooms, orchestras included. Thanks to netflix, social media, ai, and other bs.

[@steviek6484]

Everything in kontakt is convoluted and unintuitive. That’s what needs work not tools for people who can’t make their own chord progression

[@rmp5s]

These comments...jeez...lol Yea, I know theory, chords, progressions, etc too...but I ALSO like these tools that are not only fun to mess with, they're inspiring. If you wanna draw in midi notes on the piano roll, go for it. Wanna play a controller, awesome. Wanna use one of these tools? Sweet. Lighten up, people. Jeez.

[@petrknedlik]

same

[@choppertownnation]

Yes! Have fun create who cares how you get to the end result 👍

[@marcelochagra3307]

It's basically maschine, with KK, and Kontakt rolled into one. I hope this doesn't eat up my CPU, because lately NI has been going into an abyss of clutter and unnecessary resource consumption (like ram consumption when you add up empty Kontakt instances. 1GB for each).

[@Nick0701]

Dear Native Instruments, could you PLEASE make the next preset/previous preset MIDI-learnable? It's such a basic feature that makes me wonder why it hasn't been added a long time ago?

[@clarenceoveur9497]

They're too focused on bloating the GUI and adding "tools" aimed at hobbyists, all while making RAM and CPU consumption even worse. Looks like I'll be sticking with Kontakt 6 for the unforeseeable future. Kontakt 7 was bad, but Kontakt 8 takes things to a whole new level of incompetence. It honestly feels like a bad joke.

[@neuralglitch9063]

A great tool for Native Instruments to bleed more money out of it's customers in the middle of a depression ! Nice work. Keep it......

[@ghostplayermusic]

Facts. 2-300$ for this upgrade feels a bit predatory, even with all of the "new" content they're adding. Updating Kontakt once a year feels especially bad, I think audio companies including Ableton are starting to realize how greedy they can get with update pricing

[@CoopMusic247]

​@@ghostplayermusic good thing there is no reason to update every year. You are not forced to do so. You can update every ten years or so and be fine. I like to update every 6 years or so.

[@feignit]

Upgrade price is kind of crazy for what it is.

[@CoopMusic247]

My upgrade price is $99 for the version of Kontakt, Phrases/Chords, 12 expansion packs of loops and drums, Leap, new factory presets, plus a $99 voucher toward whatever. When the collectors' version goes on sale in the summer, itll be a $300 upgrade for a bunch of stuff like Valves Pro, the full orchestral suite (which I dont need since I have EastWest, Musio, etc), all the Play stuff and Vocal Colors, and a bunch of others. Seems super fair as I can get this same pricing if I was upgrading from about 10 years ago at Komplete 9. I mean I dont know how much cheaper 10 years of work can be. ​@@feignit

[@MrAlanAlden]

NI. Please. Please leave Kontakt alone. Leave Kontakt as proper SAMPLER for advanced users who use it as a sampler. Please take all this nonsense trash and atrocious counterintuitive UI design and move it to Kontakt Player or Komplete Control or anywhere else, just away from Kontakt. Create some new software and do whatever you want with it if you want to milk "beatmakers" for their money, just leave proper music making tools for actual musicians.

[@fingerzmingus]

Preach!

[@MokkaMusic]

sorry, but why are advanced users and professional musicians unable to use Kontakt 8?

[@MrAlanAlden]

@@MokkaMusic Because this is a path to oversimplification. It is only a matter of time before they start to remove more and more features. In Kontakt 6 they removed feature that allowed to automatically remove assigned zones for missing samples during batch resave. So for example if you have a library that has 4 mic positions and you only ever use one, you can delete all the samples for mics 2-4 to save a lot of disk space, then do batch resave and it will never again "warn" you about missing samples. In Kontakt 7 they straight up removed batch resave functionality from the VST plugin. Anytime you want to do it you'll have to close your DAW and go dig through the file system to find the standalone exe, launch it, batch resave, close it and then you can restart your DAW and use the library. My biggest fear right now is inevitable removal of the traditional library browser in favour of whatever this monstrosity is supposed to be. Tags are pretty useless, you can't edit or add your own. Instrument (nki files) list ignores all the sorting and carefully organised folder structures and just dumps all the files in one huge list. And quite a few libraries have quite a long instrument names (like 8Dio Majestica) that don't fit on the screen and you have no idea what the patch you looking at even is. None of this is ever getting fixed because everything is working as intended.

[@DarkSideofSynth]

@@MokkaMusic It's not being unable, it's all about having a programme bloated with useless stuff, taking up resources. As Alan says, put all those things elsewhere.

[@thespadestable]

@@MokkaMusic - The sampler alone needs a bit more reworking. It's decent, but there is a heck of a lot of room for improvements. And I doubt Kontak 8's sampler has been tightened up.

[@djse]

Does this version will be name "Kontakt 8" or just Kontakt ? Cause each time you update, it mean we have to keep older version of Kontakt cause it doesn't open the new version with old project. It's ok if you keep a version for a long time like you did with v5, but now if I update I'll need to have 3 different versions of Kontakt just for old compatibility, which of course doesn't really work if I also update the soundbanks... Kind of a chance that's I barely use v7 just because of that, so I'll probably pass on this one and go for an equivalent in other brand, even though NI makes great soundbank/instruments, but now that you do what iZotope is doing with their frequent update, it become anoying and hard to work with new update professionally

[@chevywilliams958]

yeah im prob passing too for right now...i got way too many unfinished projects with 7

[@dasprostudio]

After install K8 - rename this vsti file in Your vst's folder to previously name. This must be fix Your broblem)

[@djse]

@@dasprostudio it didn't work from v6 to v7 so I guess it will be the same from 7 to 8. I had hope at some point that they will add a backward compatibility when they stop puting the number in the vst name (with the 6 version). Also, old project from v6 where made with the VST2 version, which wasn't updated (but that's another problem)

[@user99641]

stop writing long texts

[@djse]

@@user99641 read more books so you would not see 2 sentences as a long text 😉 But the same way no one force you to read books, no one force you to read long text in a youtube comment section

[@AiMusicPioneer]

Two weeks ago, I bought my (S61) first instrument in my life... And now I see such new, unlimited functions, which even made my head spin...😁Thanks to the whole team for the wonderful project, I'm happy I found you guys 🙌

[@farel9562]

I literally bought Kontakt 7 Back in July now you on 8!!😳

[@MichaelDowComposer]

I cant wait for more kontakt instruments to be "updated" to the new player and cause them to not work anymore in previous projects

[@NativeInstruments]

Kontakt 8 installs as a separate app, so it won’t affect your old projects. If you're having trouble opening them, could it be that you've moved our products to a new location?

[@MichaelDowComposer]

It's not kontakt that's the problem it's updating libraries to only work with the latest kontakt that is the problem. The amatia violins and cellos, noire piano are two off the top of my head.

[@NativeInstruments]

We usually mention in the release notes if an update requires a new version of Kontakt. If you accidentally updated your libraries, you can downgrade them here: bit.ly/3OGGmZa

[@MichaelDowComposer]

​@@NativeInstruments thank you for that I appreciate it. I still think it's probably best to release separate version or just don't update the player it needs as it really messed with lots of current projects i was working on. Although not your fault if you did mention it and I didn't read, true

[@oiseauvert_]

@@NativeInstruments You don't seem to understand that we don't like the enshittification of Kontakt when it means our libraries need to be updated and will only work with the enshittified Kontakt player. Your product is moving in the wrong direction. It's just that simple.

[@magicmulder]

At first sight, great interface but not a fan of additional tools. It’s feature creep. It’s like with Adobe Bridge - great file manager but they kept introducing features from Lightroom/Photoshop. I don’t need DAW features in Kontakt, I need something like “put this preset in the custom folder /Styles/Pop/90s”.

[@petersvan7880]

Lots of confusing menu buttons. Perhaps time for a back-to-basic Kontakt version without the often unnecessary bells and whistles?

[@billB101]

I still use both 6 and 5, 5 reads my old EXS24 Logic library perfectly.

[@harfenspieler]

I have to agree with many of the comments. I'm really trying to like my Kontakt + S88 Mk3 setup, but it's far from reliable and stability is the one thing that I need for my work. You seem to be targeting aspiring musicians with this update, but all users will be equally frustrated about lack of stability.

[@jmcoffin1]

still no MPE😞. Kontakt is soooo far behind in this area. NI is not only holdIng themselves back in this area, but they’re crippling all the third-party developers of amazing sampled instruments. I, for one, will not be updating kontakt until they add full MPE support.

[@carlosp.1846]

Many DAWs can turn any Synth to MPE nowadays…. You are looking for issues instead of easy solutions.

[@lukurra]

@@carlosp.1846 what

[@meru_lpz]

@@carlosp.1846 that's not right... You maybe able to translate monophonic lines, or load 16 different instances (at x16 CPU cost) have your DAW map that... but you can't make 3 notes on the same synth bend in different directions if it doesn't support MPE. Attently, someone who painstakingly used to rely on clumsy max4live devices and splits with a bunch of instances to polyphonically microtune instruments with no mpe or .scl/.tun support

[@brianmi40]

That makes one, then. MPE is nowhere near mass adoption.

[@jmcoffin1]

Mass adoption is only possible when tools support it. Now that most of the popular DAW’s support MPE, the next level of tools needed are the major products like Kontakt, Omnisphere and Falcon. Falcon has had MPE support for years, Omnisphere has been talking about it for years, and, so far, NI has not to my knowledge, even talked about it.

[@JuanAMatos-zx4ub]

I hope Kontakt is faster this time around. I have my libraries in NVME drives and they're very slow to load (Yes, I've batch re-saved all of them).

[@uwebaganz5144]

Normally the first time open kontakt takes a while after you start your computer but then it opens relatively fast - at least for me

[@djshmul1]

No it's even slower

[@kage-fm]

guys - DAWs have midi tools. we don't need midi tools in a sampler.

[@douglasfugazi]

To be honest, the upgrade price is pretty expensive 😢

[@brianmi40]

So is renting a one bedroom apartment these days. Same price to either buy or upgrade as 14 was which is saying something after the 3 years of inflation we've lived through...

[@steves9505]

Such an expensive update. Moving from Collectors 14 to 15 is $499. Will have to think about this one.

[@douglasfugazi]

Spot on. 😢

[@basscut]

Nice one Brian, many new inspirational tools. It's great that we now can store our own chords as well and create chord set progressions. I missed that feature in Komplete Kontrol and Maschine. The Transformative tools for Phrases are like Live 12 midi tools on steroids.

[@Javier_Salas]

We need a PRO version, without toys inside.

[@LittleRichard1988]

I see some irony in many people getting upset over the chords and phrases tools but they are 100% optional and you can still play Kontakt 8 as normal but many DAWs now have similar features and haven't drum libraries always come with the option of preset grooves? Just because it has those capibilities doesn't mean you have to use them but for someone starting out or someone who doesn't know a whole bunch of chords the Chords tool even shows you how to play them on the keyboard and I think this is better than a midi chord pack because at least with this you have a choice of weather you want to physically play the chord or not whereas with the midi chord packs that does actually take that physical aspect away. If these tools can help newbies compose then it's not all bad. At some point in the future many people still using a previous version of Kontakt may have to at least have the latest Player version to use newer Native Instruments libraries but even newer third party libraries require you to have the latest full version of Kontakt that upgrade is still worth it although for now I'm sticking with Kontakt 6 and Kontakt 7 Player.

[@WkSttn]

Very Good NATIVE INSTRUMENS ! Kontakt IS THE BEST OF THE BEST!

[@theRumbleChannel]

Has Kontakt been updated as well? Just asking because it used to be a sampler :)

[@catvoice5336]

Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back? 😅

[@djcontour]

Having the presets in the browser is worth the upgrade for me. That would make the workflow so much easier for me

[@barankaypakoglu7643]

what about fixing the midi transpose bug rather than all these toys for newbies ?

[@NativeInstruments]

Not sure that's a known issue on our end. Have you been in touch with our support team with steps to reproduce already? We're available here: bit.ly/n1konta

[@ghfjfghjasdfasdf]

Not sure why y’ll made another iteration already when 7 needs to be optimized so much.

[@Barncore]

Because $$$$$ Gotta keep their shareholders happy i guess

[@Clarity-808]

Optimized how? Works great for me.

[@ph9674]

thought exactly the same. Kontakt 7 really feels like unfinished beta which I try to avoid most of to the time

[@jensassmann]

8 does offer better performance

[@ghfjfghjasdfasdf]

I’ll sleep better at night knowing that. ^ Thank you SO much for your incredible addition to the thread!

[@ritzenhauf]

I spent 30 minutes looking for an ADSR the other day

[@naturalbornweakness]

I am someone who regrets spending a lot of money on NI. Most NI plugins aren't that useful. This upgrade doesn't look particularly good. There is no innovation. NI is actually falling behind.

[@shevyjohn9308]

Im afraid you might be correct i barely use their products now ..flex by fl stufio blows this thing soundwise with better sound quality also

[@JohnMarshall-NI]

Is it any better optimised than 6 or 7? Is configuring Kontakt as a multi-output device still an awful experience instead of a simple, straight forward one? Just more bloat instead of genuinely improving the product? Great…

[@ghfjfghjasdfasdf]

This…

[@jacobsmith1877]

Yeah it's still awful. It takes like 20 minutes to set up a drum set for multi out.

[@Dan77077]

😭

[@Nayah9]

Are you ever going to make it easier/quicker for us to route instruments to the DAW's mixer tracks? It's so convoluted doing this right now with the extremely dated settings GUI, I end up using multiple Kontakt instances instead of one just so it's easier to route. It's definitely gonna discourage me from using new features like Leaps which would benefit hugely from fast mixer routing.

[@Temperjames]

What exactly is hard about it??? It's been easy since I started using.... I dunno, maybe Kontakt 3

[@Temperjames]

just to add, there are videos that are literally under 10mins that explain how its done so you can never forget

[@catharsis2073]

It is not intuitive at all. Maybe they should watch new users try to do it and see us get stumped and then interrupted by life. Then return and get stumped there again. Not intuitive. Same with Machine2. I’m sure it user error but still not intuitive.

[@veenhond]

just use 60 kontakt instances, it barely matters for cpu. i gave up on kontakt routing 2 decades ago. no problems.

[@Nayah9]

​@@veenhond Yeah, no problems until you use a multi-instrument library like Leaps or a drum kit or a percussion suite in Kontakt and need to route each drum to a different track. Multiple Kontakt instances won't save you then.

[@ELLIOT8209]

MPE?

[@StephaneGman]

Just bought the Komplete 14, wish you guys had split payments like Ableton XD

[@Gedagnors]

Upgrade price is insane. And "nEw" features - are you kidding me? 300 EUR for THIS? No, thank you.

[@Ertronic]

Amazing, have to wait until summer of sound, but I will be there

[@patekswiss9521]

All that Kontakt 8 means is that any new library that comes out will no longer work with Kontakt 7. That’s the NI way. You will be forced to upgrade, which will likely also force you to upgrade Native Access, which will also likely force you to upgrade your OS, which may require you to buy a new computer. That’s the NI way. Meanwhile, Kontakt 7 broke Kontakt. The browser overhaul is a complete failure. Where you once could simply install a Kontakt instrument, now you must choose a snapshot from an endless list. Worse yet, the columns in the list view don’t expand, and the snapshot names are so long that you cannot tell one from the other. You cannot see the full name of the snapshot, so even if you were willing to scroll through hundreds of them, you can’t read them anyway. No indication this huge failure was fixed in 8. What is going on at NI?

[@medstone3409]

Oh no... Komplete Kontrol UI in Kontakt. So much clutter, so sluggish. Unbelievable that they push this design further.

[@tothefinlandstation]

Loading the graphics is very slow in Kontakt 7. The sound will be playable when switching instruments pretty fast, but the graphics will take quite a bit to load. I really don't care about any of these new features.

[@UKERU00]

Would be kinda interesting if there were some memory management options, like if it was able to cache a whole preset category

[@johnvan7568]

How about keeping a stable updated KONTAKT without Number behind it and Renaming the Kontakt 8,9,X as a new product line

[@EchoSoundWorks]

This guy looks like the handsome squidward variant of Zuckerberg

[@ryte6933]

Spot on😂😂😂

[@deeppc]

haha

[@briankullas6463]

At least I'm the handsome version :)

[@krthr]

For the Product Team: a story! As a user of Kontakt, I would like a user interface that allows me to read the entire name of a preset so I can actually tell what the preset is. e.g. many Spitfire sample libraries have long preset names, and Kontakt 7 and 8 won't allow the user to expand the width of the columns that show presets wide enough.

[@tinkletink1403]

any chance of making the menus readable on large screens?

[@briankullas6463]

If you go the view option, you can select different zoom amounts to scale up or down the window size.

[@aaronmyrie]

This legitimately makes me want to buy Komplete 15 Collectors. But I can't afford it! Hopefully when I grab a Maschine Plus I'll hopefully be able to get it with that as a loan. I'd be converted for life!

[@Byron101_]

I want to buy ONLY Kontakt plus all sample libraries! I don't need the NI synthesizers and effects. Please make an offer, NI! ❤

[@dancolombo]

Hi, how about being able to call different presets via midi program change for live sessions ?

[@PlayfulGenie]

This is all great for playing around, but I'm wondering how this will work in professional environments. Let's say you create and publish a song using one of the random chord progression, but you have no idea if someone before you used that preset. You are then infringing copyright of that person's song...

[@gloxmusic74]

So Kontakt 8 basically comes with Scaler and Arcade....nice 👍

[@jmmusic013]

Ha! That's a stretch. Scaler is a music theory DAW within itself and Arcade has much more recorded phrases. This just steals some of Scaler and Arcade's basic concepts. Great to have chords in built into the Kontakt platform but much better to stick with Kontakt 7 and buy Scaler and Arcade.

[@gloxmusic74]

@@jmmusic013 i have tried the new kontakt 8, and gotta say I prefer Scaler and Arcade, so I will still be using them...the Phrase thing is pretty decent tho !!

[@Unison_Detune]

I paid to upgrade to 7 on the 24th of July 2024. Can't say I'm impressed to have to fork out £89 to get the latest version after two months.

[@sylvainconsult969]

Kontakt 8 : some weird mix of Scaler 1 / arcade-output / VPS avenger 1.5 and Kontakt 7.... Your direction isn't clear, it seem to me that it will confuse many of us. I don't say your work is bad, many new option sound "funny", but the " all in one composer concept " make me feel unconfortable, if you do all, can you do it well ? Idk...😅

[@Kupta]

Will it at least have the blurry UI problem since the very first version of Kontakt 7 fixed now?

[@vewilli]

Incredible plugin, but far beyond my abilities. Well, I purchased it already, but I probably won’t (be able to) use all the new features. So I‘m going to use it like the older Kontakt versions: find a sound in the tons of libraries, play and record it in the DAW. 😜

[@PandaBear-c6u]

in the next update would we be able to get native integration with NI's keyboard controllers without having to use Komplete Kontrol?

[@certifiedbeatz]

Kontakt 7 worked with kontrol mk3.. if older keyboards I'm not sure

[@PandaBear-c6u]

@@certifiedbeatz I have an A61 MK2, doesn't map the controls out of the box unfortunately

[@NativeInstruments]

Our new Kontrol S-Series MK3 offers exactly that! Check out the Kontakt integration in action here: bit.ly/3zl0ifL

[@PandaBear-c6u]

@@NativeInstruments why can't you put that feature on your older devices with a firmware or software update? I can't afford to shell out for a new keyboard just to have it work with the software I bought it to use with

[@Dan77077]

@@NativeInstruments why can't you put that feature on your older devices with a firmware or software update?

[@AgeCreationTutorials]

Oof ... I was actually looking forward to the new tools but not a single one of the demonstrated examples felt inspiring to me ... the chords, the patterns - it all felt as if a 10 year old is doodling on a piano. I know software from 30 years ago that came up with more creative and musical harmonies/progressions than that :/

[@DrGlu]

Keep it up team 🎉🎉🎉 i’ve surprised about those hater comments, but still think this is a good update for me ❤

[@XXXXxlc1185]

Any accessibility features in version 8? In future updates? For visually impaired users! Right now I haven't seen any

[@NativeInstruments]

Hi! Unfortunately Kontakt doesn’t have accessibility features at this time, but our hardware controllers like the Kontrol A-Series and S-Series MK2 do offer accessibility support: bit.ly/4dNdGrL

[@netterstyl]

HARD pass.

[@Dan77077]

How about making custom midi outs easier for multi-timbral instruments a seamless process. How about intuitive, simple preset saving (custom folders of edited plug-ins)? How about focusing on making it a better SAMPLER instead of solely focusing on the it as a library player (and somehow they still made using libraries more convoluted). These are the kinds of things I'd want to see in Kontakt if I were to ever consider upgrading from the far superior Kontakt 5/6.

[@felixhirtecomposer]

Notice how almost all new features are for just pressing one key. I guess everyone physically able to press a button is considered a "musician" nowadays. No one needs to learn an instrument anymore and doesn't need to know a thing about music theory. It might be great from Native Instruments' point of view because almost everyone could be a potential customer, but if you're just pressing a button to trigger their presets, it's not you making music, it's Native Instruments. It's sad to see what "music" has already become, but this development is only gonna make music even more generic and bland.

[@basedecho2731]

😢

[@BobbyViciousMuzik]

This is very True. I would say this is good for those who aren’t musicians. Just be creative tho. I would not just take natives loops and add on top. Chop things up, resequence them and also take some lessons on the side. It’s a lot of great producers like timbaland or Jermaine Dupri that can’t play music. It’s about taking things tools and making them work for you. I feel you tho loop dropping isn’t the way.

[@felixhirtecomposer]

@@BobbyViciousMuzik It is certainly great to get started but the more tools out there to make music with so little effort, it's not going to encourage people to learn more about the craft. It's just loops and presets with maybe a few knobs that tweak the sound. And the tools that let you play in a specific key by just pressing white keys, etc. is stopping people from exploring the amazing worlds that lie beyond the diatonic realm. Haven't we heard enough of a maximum of 6 or 7 chords in one key?

[@BobbyViciousMuzik]

@@felixhirtecomposer hahaha that’s true bro. Hey I’m with you. I have no rebuttals. Makes sense and I find humor in it as well. You’re 1000 % correct

[@btrswtluvltr]

You know this is a sampler/rompler, right? Like, it's whole point is that it takes the place of people learning instruments, right? You sound like the people in the 80s/90s complaining about samplers, or the 70s that tried to ban synthesizers from being used by union musicians.

[@yavamaystudio8045]

super

[@HyunSaiHan]

Kontakt is dying. Tonedeaf update. I'm never going to purchase K8. Been with Kontakt since K6 and even have Komplete s88, but the absolutely only reason why I even bothered with K7 was third party library compatibility.

[@JamieK_89]

The only reason I have Kontakt is for 3rd party libraries, but I hate using Kontakt. Especially because I have to have multiple versions of it installed due to each version not having backwards compatibility. I really hope all 3rd party devs make their own sample players and we can ditch Kontakt until they get their act together

[@shevyjohn9308]

Im good with 7 this is not big update

[@steph_nyc]

Kontakt is doing fine don't worry. A lot of people enjoy the updates and the sounds.

[@NativeInstruments]

Auto-migration is available if you're using these DAWs: bit.ly/3B5A410

[@HyunSaiHan]

@@NativeInstruments this is such a poorly done auto reply. Your response isn't even remotely relevant to the original comment. Shame

[@evanseesred]

I’ve been using Kontakt for ages and, TBH, I still find so many of the basic features confusing. So many menus and very little exciting surprises and serendipity (unlike something like Omnisphere❤) But alas - this doesn’t seem to be it. For now, I’d love a way to go back to the default Rack View instead of the rather unhelpful sound browser every time I open Kontakt. A kid can dream 😂

[@Tayzwayzmusic]

Add more patch sounds to playbox the best plugin yall have released since to date

[@preppybeats]

I love using tools like ripchord and any midi tool. But if we could drag midi into the chord tool, and use our own presets? 🤯. Im excited at what im seeing here

[@r2.lighting]

Brian, can you explain in a bit more detail how you've created the melodic part including the loops starting at 5:34?

[@nickdeezproductionz]

This looks great and will be very useful but as a veteran NI user I noticed what they are doing is combining elements of the NI Maschine & Komplete Control in the new Kontakt, I'm not saying this a bad thing but I wonder if this will replace both the Maschine & Komplete Control in few years ???????

[@cesarbarbosa4109]

Looks amazing, if i had the money i would upgrade. Hopefully a komplete sale happens in the future.

[@МишаЯловенко-и3к]

You can buy 360 subscription :)

[@marsthesecondgenesis1291]

Excellent upgrade.

[@MrBillSD]

I only use Kontakt for third party libraries. None of the new features look interesting to me. I will upgrade when I have to keep my access to third party products operating.

[@ivikansostudio]

Great stuff and thank you for the massive effort behind this kontakt realize and the way you comunicate with this official videos. one small simple request: in chord mode please: and Undo button can be useful to compare the random dice chords generate. also the list of chords very not easy to scroll down - add some keyboard arrow to browse one by one. and could be super appreciate if is possible to SWAP the chords by dragging them around and reposition on the keyboard rather to re record the notes from scratch. is possible to drag the chord for sequence or copy paste it to make adjustments ? @nativeinstruments

[@NativeInstruments]

Thanks for sharing your feedback with us!

[@Swyyrl]

I see a lot of features that I would find useful. Pretty exciting! Now, is it me, or is leap a straight rip from Arcade?

[@DaveTherrien]

I regret buying into the NI system with my S61 MK2 years ago. I currently own Komplete 14 Standard, and don't see much of a need to upgrade to 15. My favorite MIDI controller is my Push2.

[@SceneOfAction]

Where did files GO? I just want to browse my wav files like in kontakt 5 and drag it into instrument window which creates a sampler. WHERE IS THAT?

[@briankullas6463]

If you click on View and select Classic view (or press F10), the Files browser is on the left side

[@AttamanKing]

After reading alot of complaints about the new features I Think that it's simple, if did not liked just don't use Kontakt 8, there's others versions. It's more useful make suggestions for the next updates instead of complaining!!!

[@egmusic5042]

Ability to customize my own chords with ease, using chord tool, Excellent!!!!!

[@ritzenhauf]

I just want to open Kontakt to my directory structure by default. I dislike the picture grid etc

[@NativeInstruments]

Hey, you can always change view mode from Default to Classic and set it as default.

[@ritzenhauf]

I'll try again!

[@briankullas6463]

@@ritzenhauf when you have it as a plugin and into classic view, you can select view and save as default too

[@BuenoLaidley]

I can't wait to try out the new tools in this version

[@xiaomimiboxs7947]

For many years, I’ve been using Native Instruments products in my work, particularly the Kontakt sampler. In the new version, I didn’t find anything useful for myself. The sampler has turned into a ROMpler, a library player, and working with samples inside the Kontakt editor has remained at the level of the first versions. It’s still inconvenient to slice and edit samples and loops. The stagnation in this area is obvious. Please create a new innovative product, for example, it would be great if you could combine Battery and the old abandoned Impakt project, so that it would be possible to chop loops and spread them across pads, in addition to handling regular one-shots. You’d be surprised at how happy and grateful people would be. As it stands, the only reason to upgrade is for new libraries since they won’t run on older versions of Kontakt. That’s how things are.

[@bobsmytheable]

“ a leading sampling platform” Sampling being the essential word, not sample playback. Been with NI a long time and had my email promoting 8 today. Looked through a few reviews and immediately decided I don’t want it. What I do want is a application that functions like Sample robot, recording at different velocities, auto names the recorded samples, auto tunes the samples, auto tops and tails the samples and then places them in an instrument….automatically. After all this time and versions that’s what a leading sampler tool does.

[@tomgee3361]

WOW!!! This is massive! Great update!!!!

[@SoundPeaks]

Can you guys make so I was able to drag n drop samples from the Cubase arrangement window into Kontakt?

[@SEIDRONES]

How does this new release factor in to the control mk3 keyboard which I am considering buying, currently it comes bundled with kontact 7 and select?

[@NativeInstruments]

Every purchase of the Kontrol S-Series MK3 now includes Kontakt 8 libraries. With the direct Kontakt integration, you'll have these libraries right at your fingertips. 😇

[@hip_hopwar8844]

2 tools is really disappointing, I was hoping to be surprised with several new tools

[@guyvermearns]

Is it 4k resolution compatible yet or do you still need a telescope to see what you're doing?

[@NativeInstruments]

The Kontakt browser already offers HiDPI support, as well as some of our new libraries. More are on the way!

[@rodrrico]

@@NativeInstruments Yeah right. On the way as in only in kontakt 9 for $500 more in 2025.

[@LoudnessWarsSurvivor]

Microscope, not telescope.

[@clarenceoveur9497]

This is a late April Fools' joke, right?

[@Kupta]

I am sure Kontakt 9 will be releasing on April 2025

[@Ron234-qs7zm]

I'm a sample based beat maker. This is right up my alley. I can't wait to get my hands on Kontakt 8.

[@Gillette1310]

2016: Learn chords and then produce music 2024: Produce music and then learn chord names.

[@Thefallenpianist2.0]

Bruh they removed the traditional grey buttons and options on the top of the Interface.

[@DanielFrankDK]

5:13: This is what dreams sound like.

[@PatrickOMara]

I am liking these updates tbh. Preview on click is great.

[@eliaszerano3510]

fancy new macro pages yay

[@uwebaganz5144]

Looks amazing to me, can't wait to get my hands on ❤

[@ernestm8884]

that LEAP works just like Splice instrument.

[@Vivaildi]

My 2 years old kid can now compose BANGERS tapping 3 buttons ! But he prefers Suno 🤫