Kontakt 7 vs 8

bufordosullivan · 2025-04-11T13:44:47+00:00

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I don't care about AI songwriter apps - AI should be finessing the sound, not the notes because the notes are the human's business - ANYWAY, so to compare 7 and 8, is there anything in the performance, sound library, or sound sculpting abilities that should convince me to do the upgrade? Or, is K7 just as good?

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Skijumptoes

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/44340/kontakt-7-vs-8

If you've got existing NI libraries, some already "Require" version 8 if you allow them to update. Analog Dreams is an example - requires at least v8.2.0. (Despite the product page still saying the requirements are Version 7.6 or higher).

That's what pushed me into upgrading, but i'm on the K8 player currently, until I decide to update my Komplete bundle and get K8 full.

Not overly appreciative of this tactic of NI's personally, but it is what it is.

Matthew_NI

I don't care about AI songwriter apps

This isn't what Kontakt is - is there perhaps some confusion about the feature set that I could help clarify?

to compare 7 and 8

There are a few ways to answer this.

If you're generally a builder type (meaning, you enjoy the sampler features, and build your own patches and instruments in Kontakt, then the following highlights added to Kontakt 8 may be of interest:

Komplete UI version 1.0 (a new scripting language/environment for building user interfaces, which offers new features that KSP simply cannot, running in the audio thread. It's also easier to use.
Wavetable Synthesis, as well as a new instrument "Conflux" that showcases this capability
New American and Japanese inspired synth filters

If you're generally a player type (meaning, you load the content created by others), then the following highlights may be of interest:

Tools: new ways to manipulate MIDI on the way into Kontakt, for creative inspiration
Leap: a simple loop based idea generator
Conflux, and the wavetable sounds
A lot of performance enhancements and stability improvements

If you're interested to do more research into 7 vs 8, check out this video and decide for yourself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTbFEv_PCwI

You may also check out the Kontakt 8 change log here:

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/39/official-update-status-kontakt-current-version-8-3-0

DunedinDragon

There's really no AI in Kontakt 8, just some expanded tools and ways of doing things. All the other stuff in Kontakt 7 is still there, just mostly additional capabilities that simplify creating new/different types of tracks. There are only a few that I've begun using a little bit as I come across things that might benefit in terms of creating content for a track. They won't create the content, but they'll expand your efficiency and capabilities more than anything.

Matthew_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/221095#Comment_221095

Yes, but that does not require a purchase. Kontakt 8 Player can be used and is free.

Skijumptoes

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/221888#Comment_221888

Of course, but from a customer perspective a reason why someone would want to move to Kontakt 8 would be so that their libraries are compatible after an update as Analog Dreams had, or any future library could have without warning too.

The alternative is to juggle between K7 and K8 Player depending on which products they want to use.

Studio Vheissu

One issue I seem to have with Kontakt 8 is the apparent inability to assign mono outputs when loaded into Cubase 14.20. Everything that is recognized in Cubase is stereo, including all the "unassigned" outputs (after #10) that we have to locate in order to properly create a mono out). Even though in Kontakt 8, the outputs were in the output section of KT8 in mono. I don't know whether this was by design for some reason or is a bug that I am happy to report. Anyway, Kontakt, with no number and which is still updated (I never heard a reason why there are so many kurrent Kontakts), does not seem to have this problem. Otherwise, great stuff, all of it!

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