Kontakt 7 Libraries quality drop

coroneddu

hey all,

I upgraded to K7 but I have to say I'm pretty disappointed by the Orchestral Tools overhaul of the orchestral library

I just tried the harp and celesta and there's a very noticeable hiss on each sample that stacks up pretty quickly which makes these libraries unusable

I've also found some pretty bad sampling on some flutes in Acoustic.

I'm a lil' shocked to be honest. Been an NI user since a decade and I've never experienced a drop in quality of this magnitude. Especially with a flagship product like Kontakt.

But I'd love to know your thoughts since I'm pretty bamboozled that all reviews never mention any of this

garfinkle

Agreed.

Sample libraries this wet are next to useless for most complex situations.

coroneddu

absolutely, just finished another exploration and, just to name one, the Xylophone is absurdly wet with no reverb on... not to mention the high noise floor on other instruments and lack of HP filtering on others.

Quite surprised by the lack of care from the Orchestral Tool side. It's a little weird to think that's the same people behind Arkhis which sounds absolutely stellar.

But quite surprised also by the fact that someone gave the QA ok to these libraries.

garfinkle

The actual OT libraries are very, very good. These cutdown versions appear to be taken from mainly the hall mics, which can be balanced with tree and close mics in the original OT libraries. Not enough for my liking (I still prefer the original LASS for dry close mic), but far more usable than these.

Personally, I think that Orchestral Tools are doing themselves a huge disservice by releasing these diminished versions of their otherwise excellent libraries.

aidenstunes

I actually randomly came across this old thread, and I must note that I have been in touch with the team not once, complaining about the ridiculous quality. Apparently, they just ignore and keep selling this library for 200$ or so. I wonder what's the problem with swapping some of these samples with better ones - Orchestral Tools have got a great, wide arsenal. And please include close mics this time, not tree mics only, not everyone needs reverb in their mix.

genericerik88

I use the old Kontakt Factory library for things like triangle, celesta, timpani, and other decorative instrumentation. I was excited to get the updated library, and then immediately dissappointed at the severe drop in quality. Everything is wet and noisy. It's almost comical how bad the new samples sound compared to the old versions. I wonder how something this poor gets greenlit by QA. I assume there was very little AB comparison with what they were actually replacing.

DunedinDragon

I agree. There are some instruments that are usable in simple situations, but I rarely turn to it for anything needing more realism and dynamics. But then, I can't say I was expecting that much as I tend to use much more deeply sampled orchestral libraries most of the time. It's just nice to have an orchestra that loads quickly and that's when I use OT.

Kubrak

I guess it is targeted to users that need some classical instruments and just start. Not for serious users.