So Henson, you've had your pals troll my site just because I don't like your stuff. Exit 101 and others. Do you have any musical qualifications? Any at all? Can you read music, even? I'd like to know, because I get the feeling you don't have any advanced qualifications in piano, which would be weird, eh? You appear to be more interested in sounds rather than music.
Sorry to hear you're being trolled, it is an egregious form of internet behaviour which I do not support in any way. As I have said many times on this channel and others, I don't have any music qualifications, can't really read music. I do have a rich and varied CV however which you can check here: www.imdb.com/name/nm0378194/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 please excuse the photo.
Mel, you seem to be confusing music with dots on paper used to represent music and branding Christian a failure for not being able to read those dots. Did it ever occur to you that maybe Christian just hasn’t bothered to learn to read music because he doesn’t see the benefit in doing so to what he does? The concept of someone who can’t read music or doesn’t have an advanced qualification in piano having a successful career in music may seem ‘weird’ to you but there are countless examples of those who have done it.
I don't understand... are you joking? I'm sure you know, lots of the best musicians in the world cant read music, but boy can they play it.... I myself can read music very well, but in the years I've played I understood, that playing by ear is the best way one can actually learn. Otherwise I would say that we are all interested the most in rhythm rather, since every note ever played is actually a really fast pulse.....0_o. Still don't get it though... Is the guy joking or is e a joke....?
Jeez, your sad, elitist attempt to pick at the guy's lack of arbitrary classical music knowledge has fallen so flatly upon deaf ears in 2019 that I hope you cringe for years to come thinking about it. I bet it really riles you up knowing that so many of these "uninitiated" individuals will leave a greater and more admirable mark on history than your sad, gatekeeping persona ever will.
Can't overstate how generous this is: the co-founder of a leading company in sample libraries, having two of his tech guys walk the community through how to accomplish some of the key technical requirements that underpin the success of this own company. Of course, just knowing how to create a Kontakt instrument will not get you the whole way, but this, in combination with some of the other knowledge giveaways Christian has made, will certainly put you on the road to producing your own sample libraries, and that is a truly remarkable selfless act from a sample library company co-founder. Bravo Christian. You are one of a kind.
Not to spam comments, but as a complete novice to sampling and creating software instruments, i've been able to create the Spring Piano in as much time as the video tutorial - maybe 15-20 more. This just shows how great the tutorial is! Thanks again
This is by far THE best instructional video on sampling in Kontakt I have seen. And I have seen a lot. Great work, thanks so much! P.S Proud of you Christian!
Since you've seen a lot, maybe I can ask you this. Is there an alternate way of not having a jarring dead silent release apart from having release samples? Because if the sample itself is a song or a recorded piece of music, rather than a note, then a release sample doesn't make sense. However if it were possible to simply fade out from wherever the sample ended, this would be great. Do you know if this is possible?
By the way, the Undo/Redo buttons are in the Edit toolbar at the top (but are greyed-out unless you enable Undo in Options > Handling). Also, in the Mapping Editor, you can auto-map samples to their root key with a single command ("Set to Single Key"), rather than the two-step process shown in the video. And finally, although I know Christian prefers to pitch samples down (rather than up), in this situation I think that Kontakt's default behaviour is best. (In other words, spreading each zone both up *and* down, which is what Jonjo and Leo demonstrate). When modelling a real instrument, like a piano, that will minimize formant shifting, and maximize realism. That was a great Kontakt tutorial - thanks guys. Fingers crossed for more such gold dust in future!
Stone Cold Fusion I’d love to see how you get the undo / redo function to work (and yes we were aware of enabling / disabling in options) because our entire company, including geniuses like Blake Robinson and Andy Blaney have never extracted any meaningful functionality from this option?
@@TheCrowHillCo Yeah, Kontakt's Undo feature has at least a couple of foibles (that I know of). Firstly, undo may not work in the same session where you just enabled the Undo option. So I always restart Kontakt after changing that setting. Also, every time you use undo or redo, you'll get unceremoniously dumped out of edit mode. (Presumably it's something to do with Kontakt refreshing or rebuilding the UI). So you have to follow it up by pressing the Edit button again. It's disconcerting until you get used to it, but apart from that, the undo queue seems to work Ok for me. And if the undo feature is giving you grief, instead of using the undo/redo buttons, you can open the undo *list* (with a button in the toolbar), so that you can see a text description of the action you're about to undo (e.g. "Zone(s) modified", "Group(s) added", etc.) before you pull the trigger. The most recent action is at the bottom of the list. Hope this helps.
@@adventuresincreativesoftwa6283 Hey! Leo here. Thought I'd explain why we don't use the undo function (and also why we consider there to not be an undo function in Kontakt). Basically the long and short of it is that it's buggy - sometimes it might not undo the last thing you did but something before that, and there's no real obvious way of seeing what it's done. We think it's much safer to save your patch at each stage (the development room sounds like lots of people bashing the save button every 5 minutes) and go back from there rather than trusting the undo function! Each to their own though ;)
@@hereiskinder Thank for the info, Leo - that makes sense. And thanks again for a great video. Really clear, and well-prepared. Judging from the feedback, others feel the same. I hope we see more of you, on either this channel, Spitfire's, or both.
@@TheCrowHillCo Have you guys tried contacting Native Instruments about this? Given your company's use extensive use of the program I think they'd listen and try to fix it.
Honestly I have been using Kontakt as a sample player only so far, but after watching your video I feel motivated to create my first Kontakt instrument. Thank you very much indeed for this channel. Sooo informative!
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the approach Jonjo and Leo took in creating that Kontakt instrument. I definitely learned a few techniques that will speed up my own instrument building workflow in the future. Thanks everyone, for creating such a helpful video!
I have finally added to the Kontakt player VST in my DAW. I downloaded a few pianos from Pianobook. Thank you so very much and to the submitters for doing this. I am trying to learn piano (I am a guitar player) and this helps a lot. Also... since the wave files were included I added those to my samples collection to use in iZotope's IRIS-2 which a sample based synthesizer. It is mindbending what is going on in the sampling world these days.
Thank you for de-mystifying aspects of the Kontakt backend UI by guiding us through this process - she can be a daunting-looking beasty with so many options available…
Bruh I saw some other videos of yours before, and I thought you were just some random guy with a good, golden retriever vibe, not that you were co founder of Spitfire lol. Very nice videos, and happy to learn something new with your channel.
Proper masterclass in Kontakt! Thanks Christian, Jonjo and Leo! Good thing my bowed pots are not going to require that much fiddling around. Well, I hope so, at least...
GREAT VIDEO CHAPS!!. Composers working with their own sounds is really where it's going for me and this is great reference on how it's done if you're a Kontakt user!.
Saved to my Kontakt folder! Thanks to the guys for a fantastic step by step and I'm looking forward for the next tut. Can't believe we haven't heard from Evil Dragon.
@Christian Henson Music this is deeply appreciated. I can understand why it would have been easier for you to stay in Logic but you selflessly included us. God bless you!
Thanks for posting this. I think Kontakt is very hard VST to get started with going beyond presets. I can see why Christian prefers to use EXS24. I often find myself wishing that Steinberg's Halion had become the industry standard instead of Kontakt. In Halion 6 you can record from a mic straight into it and it'll automap the samples as you play notes of the instrument. Obviously you still have to make adjustments afterwards if you want a professional result, but for experiments like Chrisitan does, it's a real joy to use.
A great video and some very useful tips. Here are a few ideas that spring to mind. Batch import - If when you drag in your samples onto the mapping editor you drag the samples downward towards the bottom of the editor, you can make them one semitone wide, eliminating the need to use the “make low/high key” (if you keep dragging down they will split into velocity layers, drag up and they will spread across more notes). Then go to “edit\auto map setup” and set the note name field to “Set to single key” then hit apply. Now press the auto spread button as per the video. The best part about this is that the auto map setup doesn’t need to be changed again, so any more samples you bring in can be set to the correct location just by pressing the auto button. As for stretching samples downwards only, I don’t think there is a way to do that using the auto spread button. If someone knows a way, please lets us know. The second thing in the video I want to offer an alternative approach to is the velocity mapping between dynamic layers. The approach in the video was very clever. An alternative is to normalise all your samples, ie the p, f etc. samples are all normalised to the same volume. You can then use the default velocity curve which in theory should give you a more even velocity response from the lowest velocity to the highest including any crossover points. It also means that if you don’t like where the dynamic crossovers are you can easily adjust them without having to make any changes to velocity curves.
Ben Tinker thanks for these tips Ben. We’re very anti normalisation here Ben, the reason being that you will get very noticeable shifts in noise floor. Every instrument and every room has natural peaks and troughs as you work through its pitch range. An open string on a cello say compared to something playing higher up the neck will resonate differently, so even if the players bow pressure remains uniform there will be kinks and bumps. If you iron these out with normalisation you reduce the natural dynamic range of a performance whilst having jumps in background noise. You’ll also find this with rooms where certain frequencies will resonate more sonorously with a room depending on nodes and standing waves, this will again alter the perceived volume of a signal even if being played in a totally uniform manner. I hope my tip or “un tip” back to you is helpful.
@@TheCrowHillCo Thanks. If I’m honest I’ve never been convinced that either normalising or not normalising is the way to go. Adding to that, I haven’t sampled enough acoustic instruments to form a strong opinion so I will defer to your experience and expertise. For the sake of learning, I’d like to keep this going. I’ve seen this normalising conversation argument come up a few times, but I haven’t seen much middle ground, people seem to be for or against it (I’m neither). Maybe some others can share their experience. So here’s some thoughts I have on normalising. Yes, the noise floor could be an issue but let’s assume for the moment it’s not or we can fix that with noise reduction. If samples are normalized any dynamics such as changes in bow pressure etc should remain intact because all we are doing is turning all the samples up to a certain level, everything remains relative unlike if we compressed the sample. If you use a velocity curve in Kontakt you are in effect normalising samples. For example, if we had three p samples and we played them all at a velocity of 50, then we played them all at a velocity of 35, Kontakt’s velocity curve turns them down (or up) to match the volume relative to the played velocity. Any noise, dynamics, etc., is also turned up or down as part of the sample. If we have those same three sample un-normalised, if the second one was 5% louder than the other two, then it will remain 5% louder than the other two when played at any velocity. If the samples were normalised they should all be the same volume so the 5% difference is gone. In a way we’re tuning everything up to the same level first so Kontakt can turn them back down again, in theory giving you a much more accurate velocity response. Also keep in mind that when Kontakt turns them back down again, depending on how you set your velocity layers, the samples should be close to what they were originally, just more uniform in volume from sample to sample. The only true, ideal world solution would be to have no velocity curve at all and samples at every possible velocity (or close to it). NI Grandeur does this, there’s no velocity curve but about 20 different velocity layers.
I wish you'd released this video a year ago - would've made my Master's final major project so much quicker and much better! Thanks, as ever, for all you're sharing Christian.
There is undo in kontakt, but dsiabled by default. I work with at least 8 layers of samples to get something out of it and the mapping is a lot more complicated.
Thank you very much, Christian :-) I can read music, can play most tunes primavista on piano and other instruments and i am very happy about people like you and special your friends to share their qualification being very different from my qualifications. This is what´s making living together great. Thank you very much for this video and all the best for you and your family, speial this both dogs :-) ....now i am able to build my own contact instruments after whatching half an hour your vidio, to sample my Old Bechstein from 1875 and more. This is a very great gift :-) Thank you so much..... Luke Woodapple
Hi Christian, I absolutely love all of your videos. Now, please correct me if I'm wrong, but is there not a part 2 to this just yet? Or were the topics mentioned for part 2 covered over the span of a few videos? If you have a second to answer, I'd love to know. I'm slowly dipping my toes into sampling, thanks to your videos which have given me much inspiration. Hope you're having a great December, - H
Great detail on making a Kontakt instrument by guys who obviously have experience. I haven't made a real Kontakt instrument yet, but I was wondering, couldn't I just normalize all the samples and then have a straight velocity/volume curve in Kontakt? You wouldn't need to do that interesting bump in volume at 64, but you would still want to do the filter stuff. That volume curve doesn't really make sense to me because the top half of the velocity range is almost flat.
Please remind me why there is the long gap at the start of the samples that remove in the mapping editor? Fantastic tutorial, showed me many things I had not discovered yet after years of owning KONTAKT!
This is so you don't create hard edits in the edit phase. This means the instrument is infinitely tweakable, whilst it may seem like a big gap it is simply a unit of time that is easy to snap to within whatever editor you work in.... in this case an xth note at ybpm. What you will find when you edit hard to the beginning of the note over hundreds of samples is your judgement will become impaired the net result will be zones you're not happy with in Kontakt which you will then have to go and re-edit as opposed to simply adjusting the start time for individual samples in Kontakt.
Great video! Quick question! This is in regards to Kontakt instruments. I would like to know the steps necessary to remove the default panning effect generated by key positioning. For example, with Straylight, I have the preset called "As Wide As" loaded. When I press a key on the right side of my midi keyboard, it sounds louder on my right headphone; the same goes for the left side. The problem arises if the project I am working on consists primarily of lower pitches (causing the left headphone or speaker to be louder) or consists primarily of higher pitches (causing the right headphone or speaker to be louder). This causes the track to sound disproportionate when I want it to sound evenly distributed between both headphones or speakers. I want a centered sound instead of a sound dictated by key positioning. I've researched tutorials and gone through the Kontakt manual, but I can't seem to figure it out. How can I resolve this? I would appreciate any advice. Thank you.
Ben Robinson thanks, at 47 it takes a long time but reluctant vegetarianism, intermittent fasting, living near a very scaleable volcano and two puppies gets you there one pound at a time. I suspect if I gave up the hooch the effects would be that much more effective!
Awesome! I think you said at the beginning of the year that you were going to learn Kontakt and I've been waiting patiently as you continued to do EXS. The contributions from the people who have converted to Kontakt have been much appreciated, but it will be great if you start doing the originals in Kontakt? However, my guess is that your heart will remain with EXS for some time.... :)
Stephen Ellis I think I’ve been bitten by the Kontakt bug, it’s funny I could never get my head round it but since learning modular it makes much more sense.
Hi Christian, awesome video! If I may I have a technical question for you (or Jonjo and Leo). Thanks to these instructions, I’ve ended up sampling my first instrument (sort of a synth-piano) in Kontakt. Everything’s fine except this. Since the “soul” of this instrument is given by tweaking two plugins installed in my daw (Logic), I wonder: is there a way to tell Kontakt to control these plugins?? Could I ever end up with my own custom Kontakt GUI with let’s say 2 knobs triggering these effects (which are from Logic not from Kontakt itself)? As I know Kontakt can’t host external plugins so.. game over? Any suggestion appreciated :) - Thx for your vlog, Christian, amazing and dope!
Would love if you could do a review segment or just comment on the LMK4+ you use. I have been considering for some time but have not found any good reviews or feedback.
Actually, Kontakt DOES have undo, but it has to be enabled. Google "Undo in Kontakt". Also, what about the option to blend different volume samples using the velocity overlap, where the upper and lower samples overlap in the mapping editor, and get blended via the batch tool "Auto Apply x-fade (velocity)"?
By crossfading two samples you'll get phasing. So instead of 3 strings per note you'll get 6 strings at crossfade point. These guys do what oldschool rompler synths with limited memory did - brilliant programming that is.
@@Phi-delity It gets super complex very quickly. It is percieved as noise as opposed to smooth transition. Just try for yourself. It might be ok if its solo instrument in a piece, where tiny details are heard, but in a mix - no thank you
I am genuinely curious: what is so great about Kontakt? Bugs and idiosyncrasies, unresponsive customer support from NI (and from my limited experience, unfriendly (hostile?) user interface) make it seem to be not worth the struggle of learning it. I appreciated this video because it prompted me to try again. The 'new' Spring Piano sounds amazing! As a mixer, I've been messing around with it quite a lot in my own DAW -- bravo to the dude who eq'd out that crazy resonance at 3k. Question: is the new piano a combination of all three mics? Thanks! : )
Just Lisa Kontakt is the most feature rich sampler there is, it’s appeal is also its universal use... its a beast with all sorts of features duct taped on and bugs with dodgy band aids. But if you need an answer to a Kontakt query someone will be able to answer it for you.
@@TheCrowHillCo Thanks, Christian. That helps clarify the situation certainly. I'm afraid of a situation where all the pianos are suddenly Kontakt instruments. Studio One is my DAW and the two companies' products do not play well together at all. I've had a lot of fun creating my own instruments with the Pianobook samples using Studio One tools, but it's a lot of work.
Love the video but I have a question. Is the reason they have only recorded a handful of notes for the sake of saving time? Would it be better to record every note of the piano or is there really no point at all?
Hey, Leo here! Not at all, just make sure to add a third line into your velocity mod table (we do this from 7:50 onwards) - it'll look a bit like a sideways lightening strike
Hello Christian, I don't know how to post a comment on pianobook yet:) I would only want to inform you that on the pianobook site the link of "Tura Music box" is not sforzando but kontakt.
Thanks! : ) ...pretty much followed everything except one thing, @ 2:36 : A#5 and G0 Set Low/High key... - why is A#5 set as *Low* Key, and G0 *High* Key ? Maybe the video was cut and an explanation is missing ?
Hello, Leo here! I replied to this further up, but I'll copy the response here too. Kontakt works out where to place the note based on how we've named our sample. So for example we have a sample called 'SpringPiano_C2.wav' when we set the low key we set that sample to be at C2 at it's lowest, then when we set the high key it also sets C2 at it's highest.. meaning that it only encompasses one semitone. It's basically a way to batch set all of your samples to their root key quickly, the alternative being dragging them all into place one by one - boring!
Hi Christian: I’m a very “avid” user of Logic just like you. I just delivered my first big trailer album done in Logic, and was wondering if you got any tip and tricks for printing stems? Compact stems are easy, just bounce the soloed folder/group. But for “detailed” stems, it takes ages printing every single track by itself, and if you export regions/selected tracks, it doesn’t print effects on the audio... It took me about two days, and in Cubase it would take me 3-4 working hours max.. Got any tips?
I'd love to do a video on this, why don't you do a screencast maybe with some iPhone footage or something, showing me the way you did it and I'll see if I can improve.... send to the email address on the about page in pianobook.co.uk ?
So Henson, you've had your pals troll my site just because I don't like your stuff. Exit 101 and others. Do you have any musical qualifications? Any at all? Can you read music, even? I'd like to know, because I get the feeling you don't have any advanced qualifications in piano, which would be weird, eh? You appear to be more interested in sounds rather than music.
Sorry to hear you're being trolled, it is an egregious form of internet behaviour which I do not support in any way. As I have said many times on this channel and others, I don't have any music qualifications, can't really read music. I do have a rich and varied CV however which you can check here: www.imdb.com/name/nm0378194/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 please excuse the photo.
Mel, you seem to be confusing music with dots on paper used to represent music and branding Christian a failure for not being able to read those dots. Did it ever occur to you that maybe Christian just hasn’t bothered to learn to read music because he doesn’t see the benefit in doing so to what he does? The concept of someone who can’t read music or doesn’t have an advanced qualification in piano having a successful career in music may seem ‘weird’ to you but there are countless examples of those who have done it.
I can't read music either which is why I find CH so inspirational.
I don't understand... are you joking? I'm sure you know, lots of the best musicians in the world cant read music, but boy can they play it.... I myself can read music very well, but in the years I've played I understood, that playing by ear is the best way one can actually learn. Otherwise I would say that we are all interested the most in rhythm rather, since every note ever played is actually a really fast pulse.....0_o. Still don't get it though... Is the guy joking or is e a joke....?
Jeez, your sad, elitist attempt to pick at the guy's lack of arbitrary classical music knowledge has fallen so flatly upon deaf ears in 2019 that I hope you cringe for years to come thinking about it. I bet it really riles you up knowing that so many of these "uninitiated" individuals will leave a greater and more admirable mark on history than your sad, gatekeeping persona ever will.
Can't overstate how generous this is: the co-founder of a leading company in sample libraries, having two of his tech guys walk the community through how to accomplish some of the key technical requirements that underpin the success of this own company. Of course, just knowing how to create a Kontakt instrument will not get you the whole way, but this, in combination with some of the other knowledge giveaways Christian has made, will certainly put you on the road to producing your own sample libraries, and that is a truly remarkable selfless act from a sample library company co-founder. Bravo Christian. You are one of a kind.
I'm both happy and appreciative of the video and sad because I realize how little I know of everything when I watch these videos
Dont be sad! Because NOW you know 😊
Not to spam comments, but as a complete novice to sampling and creating software instruments, i've been able to create the Spring Piano in as much time as the video tutorial - maybe 15-20 more. This just shows how great the tutorial is! Thanks again
This is by far THE best instructional video on sampling in Kontakt I have seen. And I have seen a lot. Great work, thanks so much!
P.S Proud of you Christian!
+1
Since you've seen a lot, maybe I can ask you this. Is there an alternate way of not having a jarring dead silent release apart from having release samples? Because if the sample itself is a song or a recorded piece of music, rather than a note, then a release sample doesn't make sense. However if it were possible to simply fade out from wherever the sample ended, this would be great. Do you know if this is possible?
@@RamonCalvoMusic Not sure if I understand the question correctly, but you can easily add a fade on the release in the ASDR editor in Kontakt
you’re great man! most exiting channel i’ve come across in a long time
By the way, the Undo/Redo buttons are in the Edit toolbar at the top (but are greyed-out unless you enable Undo in Options > Handling).
Also, in the Mapping Editor, you can auto-map samples to their root key with a single command ("Set to Single Key"), rather than the two-step process shown in the video.
And finally, although I know Christian prefers to pitch samples down (rather than up), in this situation I think that Kontakt's default behaviour is best. (In other words, spreading each zone both up *and* down, which is what Jonjo and Leo demonstrate). When modelling a real instrument, like a piano, that will minimize formant shifting, and maximize realism.
That was a great Kontakt tutorial - thanks guys. Fingers crossed for more such gold dust in future!
Stone Cold Fusion I’d love to see how you get the undo / redo function to work (and yes we were aware of enabling / disabling in options) because our entire company, including geniuses like Blake Robinson and Andy Blaney have never extracted any meaningful functionality from this option?
@@TheCrowHillCo Yeah, Kontakt's Undo feature has at least a couple of foibles (that I know of).
Firstly, undo may not work in the same session where you just enabled the Undo option. So I always restart Kontakt after changing that setting.
Also, every time you use undo or redo, you'll get unceremoniously dumped out of edit mode. (Presumably it's something to do with Kontakt refreshing or rebuilding the UI). So you have to follow it up by pressing the Edit button again. It's disconcerting until you get used to it, but apart from that, the undo queue seems to work Ok for me.
And if the undo feature is giving you grief, instead of using the undo/redo buttons, you can open the undo *list* (with a button in the toolbar), so that you can see a text description of the action you're about to undo (e.g. "Zone(s) modified", "Group(s) added", etc.) before you pull the trigger. The most recent action is at the bottom of the list.
Hope this helps.
@@adventuresincreativesoftwa6283 Hey! Leo here. Thought I'd explain why we don't use the undo function (and also why we consider there to not be an undo function in Kontakt). Basically the long and short of it is that it's buggy - sometimes it might not undo the last thing you did but something before that, and there's no real obvious way of seeing what it's done. We think it's much safer to save your patch at each stage (the development room sounds like lots of people bashing the save button every 5 minutes) and go back from there rather than trusting the undo function! Each to their own though ;)
@@hereiskinder Thank for the info, Leo - that makes sense. And thanks again for a great video. Really clear, and well-prepared. Judging from the feedback, others feel the same. I hope we see more of you, on either this channel, Spitfire's, or both.
@@TheCrowHillCo Have you guys tried contacting Native Instruments about this? Given your company's use extensive use of the program I think they'd listen and try to fix it.
No Undo in Kontact? Settings (Cog Wheel) > Handling > Enable Undo
4 years later along I come and find a comment just as useful as the video. You have my thanks 😊
Pleasure :-)
A very welcome tutorial, clear and concise. Brilliant ...Perhaps a follow up tutorial on how to code a pretty interface?!
Thank you so much! Great video. More Kontakt programming please.
Honestly I have been using Kontakt as a sample player only so far, but after watching your video I feel motivated to create my first Kontakt instrument. Thank you very much indeed for this channel. Sooo informative!
Big thanks to the three of you for this. My Sunday has just got a lot more interesting 🤙
I'll second that. Huge thanks to Jonjo and Leo!
Thank you for this! More Kontakt programming please!
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the approach Jonjo and Leo took in creating that Kontakt instrument. I definitely learned a few techniques that will speed up my own instrument building workflow in the future. Thanks everyone, for creating such a helpful video!
Watching experts finesse a transition point is especially helpful, thanks for the insights.
I have finally added to the Kontakt player VST in my DAW. I downloaded a few pianos from Pianobook. Thank you so very much and to the submitters for doing this. I am trying to learn piano (I am a guitar player) and this helps a lot. Also... since the wave files were included I added those to my samples collection to use in iZotope's IRIS-2 which a sample based synthesizer. It is mindbending what is going on in the sampling world these days.
Thank you for de-mystifying aspects of the Kontakt backend UI by guiding us through this process - she can be a daunting-looking beasty with so many options available…
Thank you Christian, Jonjo & Leo! I’d love to see more Kontakt deep dives!
Bruh I saw some other videos of yours before, and I thought you were just some random guy with a good, golden retriever vibe, not that you were co founder of Spitfire lol. Very nice videos, and happy to learn something new with your channel.
This lesson is pure gold.
I will probably never create a Kontakt instrument but I find this so interesting, and I'm so grateful for it.
What an incredible video! Given me a lot of ideas to approach a current sample library I'm making! Many Thanks!
Proper masterclass in Kontakt! Thanks Christian, Jonjo and Leo! Good thing my bowed pots are not going to require that much fiddling around. Well, I hope so, at least...
GREAT VIDEO CHAPS!!. Composers working with their own sounds is really where it's going for me and this is great reference on how it's done if you're a Kontakt user!.
What a brilliant double act, informative, educational and entertaining.
Saved to my Kontakt folder! Thanks to the guys for a fantastic step by step and I'm looking forward for the next tut. Can't believe we haven't heard from Evil Dragon.
this is sick - well done lads - very clear and you both naturally gave great insight into the 'why' of each technique
I like this duo
Holy fucking bloody hell, best educational video of 2019, thank you!
Amazing! Big help and big thanks
Christ, I've been waiting for a Kontakt tutorial of this nature to show up for AGES. Jah bless you Spitfire squad.
Love it! I am going to sample my Mother's Old Sohmer Upright Grand Piano Anniversary Edition!
best channel so far
Most impressive and most informative Kontakt Video ever ;)
@Christian Henson Music this is deeply appreciated. I can understand why it would have been easier for you to stay in Logic but you selflessly included us. God bless you!
Thanks for posting this. I think Kontakt is very hard VST to get started with going beyond presets. I can see why Christian prefers to use EXS24. I often find myself wishing that Steinberg's Halion had become the industry standard instead of Kontakt. In Halion 6 you can record from a mic straight into it and it'll automap the samples as you play notes of the instrument. Obviously you still have to make adjustments afterwards if you want a professional result, but for experiments like Chrisitan does, it's a real joy to use.
Loved the video! Can someone explain why they didn't record every notes (C1, C#1, D1, D#1... C2, C#2 etc) ?
A great video and some very useful tips. Here are a few ideas that spring to mind.
Batch import - If when you drag in your samples onto the mapping editor you drag the samples downward towards the bottom of the editor, you can make them one semitone wide, eliminating the need to use the “make low/high key” (if you keep dragging down they will split into velocity layers, drag up and they will spread across more notes).
Then go to “edit\auto map setup” and set the note name field to “Set to single key” then hit apply.
Now press the auto spread button as per the video.
The best part about this is that the auto map setup doesn’t need to be changed again, so any more samples you bring in can be set to the correct location just by pressing the auto button.
As for stretching samples downwards only, I don’t think there is a way to do that using the auto spread button. If someone knows a way, please lets us know.
The second thing in the video I want to offer an alternative approach to is the velocity mapping between dynamic layers. The approach in the video was very clever. An alternative is to normalise all your samples, ie the p, f etc. samples are all normalised to the same volume. You can then use the default velocity curve which in theory should give you a more even velocity response from the lowest velocity to the highest including any crossover points. It also means that if you don’t like where the dynamic crossovers are you can easily adjust them without having to make any changes to velocity curves.
Ben Tinker thanks for these tips Ben. We’re very anti normalisation here Ben, the reason being that you will get very noticeable shifts in noise floor. Every instrument and every room has natural peaks and troughs as you work through its pitch range. An open string on a cello say compared to something playing higher up the neck will resonate differently, so even if the players bow pressure remains uniform there will be kinks and bumps. If you iron these out with normalisation you reduce the natural dynamic range of a performance whilst having jumps in background noise. You’ll also find this with rooms where certain frequencies will resonate more sonorously with a room depending on nodes and standing waves, this will again alter the perceived volume of a signal even if being played in a totally uniform manner. I hope my tip or “un tip” back to you is helpful.
@@TheCrowHillCo Thanks. If I’m honest I’ve never been convinced that either normalising or not normalising is the way to go. Adding to that, I haven’t sampled enough acoustic instruments to form a strong opinion so I will defer to your experience and expertise.
For the sake of learning, I’d like to keep this going. I’ve seen this normalising conversation argument come up a few times, but I haven’t seen much middle ground, people seem to be for or against it (I’m neither). Maybe some others can share their experience.
So here’s some thoughts I have on normalising.
Yes, the noise floor could be an issue but let’s assume for the moment it’s not or we can fix that with noise reduction.
If samples are normalized any dynamics such as changes in bow pressure etc should remain intact because all we are doing is turning all the samples up to a certain level, everything remains relative unlike if we compressed the sample.
If you use a velocity curve in Kontakt you are in effect normalising samples. For example, if we had three p samples and we played them all at a velocity of 50, then we played them all at a velocity of 35, Kontakt’s velocity curve turns them down (or up) to match the volume relative to the played velocity. Any noise, dynamics, etc., is also turned up or down as part of the sample.
If we have those same three sample un-normalised, if the second one was 5% louder than the other two, then it will remain 5% louder than the other two when played at any velocity.
If the samples were normalised they should all be the same volume so the 5% difference is gone. In a way we’re tuning everything up to the same level first so Kontakt can turn them back down again, in theory giving you a much more accurate velocity response. Also keep in mind that when Kontakt turns them back down again, depending on how you set your velocity layers, the samples should be close to what they were originally, just more uniform in volume from sample to sample.
The only true, ideal world solution would be to have no velocity curve at all and samples at every possible velocity (or close to it). NI Grandeur does this, there’s no velocity curve but about 20 different velocity layers.
Thank you, that was amazing!! Please do a part 2! And maybe with round robins too?
Charles Humenry I’ve asked them already!!! So chuffed everyone is enjoying the amazing people I get to work alongside.
Thank you for sharing them with this community haha they seem really fun and so freaking talented
you are such a funny guy Christian. doing a contest with piano instruments and telling people how to do a kontakt instrument AFTER that contest ;)
Hi Christian Henson! Learned a lot here... Looking forward to explore building instrument in Kontakt and submit some of my samples. Thanks!
This really made me want to sample something! Thank you for the inspiration!
Brilliant video, thank you & the team for this tutorial!
Excellent tips. Loads to digest
Thank you & the Spitfire guys! Superb!
I wish you'd released this video a year ago - would've made my Master's final major project so much quicker and much better! Thanks, as ever, for all you're sharing Christian.
This is a fantastic demonstration! Thanks so much!
There is undo in kontakt, but dsiabled by default. I work with at least 8 layers of samples to get something out of it and the mapping is a lot more complicated.
Thank you very much, Christian :-) I can read music, can play most tunes primavista on piano and other instruments and i am very happy about people like you and special your friends to share their qualification being very different from my qualifications. This is what´s making living together great. Thank you very much for this video and all the best for you and your family, speial this both dogs :-)
....now i am able to build my own contact instruments after whatching half an hour your vidio, to sample my Old Bechstein from 1875 and more. This is a very great gift :-) Thank you so much.....
Luke Woodapple
Hi Christian, I absolutely love all of your videos. Now, please correct me if I'm wrong, but is there not a part 2 to this just yet? Or were the topics mentioned for part 2 covered over the span of a few videos? If you have a second to answer, I'd love to know. I'm slowly dipping my toes into sampling, thanks to your videos which have given me much inspiration. Hope you're having a great December, - H
Everything was totally new to me, thank you, guys!
Great detail on making a Kontakt instrument by guys who obviously have experience. I haven't made a real Kontakt instrument yet, but I was wondering, couldn't I just normalize all the samples and then have a straight velocity/volume curve in Kontakt? You wouldn't need to do that interesting bump in volume at 64, but you would still want to do the filter stuff.
That volume curve doesn't really make sense to me because the top half of the velocity range is almost flat.
Brilliant
Great guys, I love these instruction videos!
Thanks so much for this! Can't wait to sample some old pianos here in Hong Kong.
This is invaluable Christian. Thank you!
Please remind me why there is the long gap at the start of the samples that remove in the mapping editor?
Fantastic tutorial, showed me many things I had not discovered yet after years of owning KONTAKT!
This is so you don't create hard edits in the edit phase. This means the instrument is infinitely tweakable, whilst it may seem like a big gap it is simply a unit of time that is easy to snap to within whatever editor you work in.... in this case an xth note at ybpm. What you will find when you edit hard to the beginning of the note over hundreds of samples is your judgement will become impaired the net result will be zones you're not happy with in Kontakt which you will then have to go and re-edit as opposed to simply adjusting the start time for individual samples in Kontakt.
This was awesome and incredibly helpful, thank you so much!
Absolutely saving this for future reference!
YES!!!! Finally !!! 😃😃😃 Edit: and thank you so much!!! Editedit: I will sample my granddad's old Danish butterfly piano !
yessss!!! just started the vid. thanks so much for this!!!!!
Lots of hard work.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!
Learned something new. Would like to see some basics to key-switch programming. :)
Great video! Quick question! This is in regards to Kontakt instruments. I would like to know the steps necessary to remove the default panning effect generated by key positioning. For example, with Straylight, I have the preset called "As Wide As" loaded. When I press a key on the right side of my midi keyboard, it sounds louder on my right headphone; the same goes for the left side. The problem arises if the project I am working on consists primarily of lower pitches (causing the left headphone or speaker to be louder) or consists primarily of higher pitches (causing the right headphone or speaker to be louder). This causes the track to sound disproportionate when I want it to sound evenly distributed between both headphones or speakers. I want a centered sound instead of a sound dictated by key positioning. I've researched tutorials and gone through the Kontakt manual, but I can't seem to figure it out. How can I resolve this? I would appreciate any advice. Thank you.
Brill! More like this please.
I know it's nothing to do with the content of this video but you are looking fitter in every video, Christian
Ben Robinson thanks, at 47 it takes a long time but reluctant vegetarianism, intermittent fasting, living near a very scaleable volcano and two puppies gets you there one pound at a time. I suspect if I gave up the hooch the effects would be that much more effective!
@@TheCrowHillCo you cant give up the hooch it is one of the things that makes life more enjoyable in moderation of course
Incredibly useful, thanks!
Brilliant video, thanks
Thanks so much for the tutorial can you also make videos for approaching strings and guitar/harp libraries? Thanks as always
Thank you so much! Extremely helpful.
Oo man, that is absolutely brilliant tutorial. Had guys treated us with part 2 for sustain?
Thank you so much guys !
Great tutorial!!
Awesome! I think you said at the beginning of the year that you were going to learn Kontakt and I've been waiting patiently as you continued to do EXS. The contributions from the people who have converted to Kontakt have been much appreciated, but it will be great if you start doing the originals in Kontakt? However, my guess is that your heart will remain with EXS for some time.... :)
Stephen Ellis I think I’ve been bitten by the Kontakt bug, it’s funny I could never get my head round it but since learning modular it makes much more sense.
@@TheCrowHillCo good to hear!!!
@@TheCrowHillCo music to my ears sir!
Superb!
Super helpful! Thanks :)
Hi Christian, awesome video! If I may I have a technical question for you (or Jonjo and Leo). Thanks to these instructions, I’ve ended up sampling my first instrument (sort of a synth-piano) in Kontakt. Everything’s fine except this. Since the “soul” of this instrument is given by tweaking two plugins installed in my daw (Logic), I wonder: is there a way to tell Kontakt to control these plugins?? Could I ever end up with my own custom Kontakt GUI with let’s say 2 knobs triggering these effects (which are from Logic not from Kontakt itself)? As I know Kontakt can’t host external plugins so.. game over? Any suggestion appreciated :) - Thx for your vlog, Christian, amazing and dope!
Would love if you could do a review segment or just comment on the LMK4+ you use. I have been considering for some time but have not found any good reviews or feedback.
Actually, Kontakt DOES have undo, but it has to be enabled. Google "Undo in Kontakt".
Also, what about the option to blend different volume samples using the velocity overlap, where the upper and lower samples overlap in the mapping editor, and get blended via the batch tool "Auto Apply x-fade (velocity)"?
By crossfading two samples you'll get phasing. So instead of 3 strings per note you'll get 6 strings at crossfade point. These guys do what oldschool rompler synths with limited memory did - brilliant programming that is.
Clay LaHatte Thanks for sharing this information!
Thank you for the information!
@mic indir Mmmh. Phasing would be avoided by aligning sample start and end, and (not for the piano samples) loop region, wouldn’t it?
@@Phi-delity It gets super complex very quickly. It is percieved as noise as opposed to smooth transition. Just try for yourself. It might be ok if its solo instrument in a piece, where tiny details are heard, but in a mix - no thank you
I am genuinely curious: what is so great about Kontakt? Bugs and idiosyncrasies, unresponsive customer support from NI (and from my limited experience, unfriendly (hostile?) user interface) make it seem to be not worth the struggle of learning it.
I appreciated this video because it prompted me to try again. The 'new' Spring Piano sounds amazing! As a mixer, I've been messing around with it quite a lot in my own DAW -- bravo to the dude who eq'd out that crazy resonance at 3k. Question: is the new piano a combination of all three mics?
Thanks! : )
Just Lisa Kontakt is the most feature rich sampler there is, it’s appeal is also its universal use... its a beast with all sorts of features duct taped on and bugs with dodgy band aids. But if you need an answer to a Kontakt query someone will be able to answer it for you.
@@TheCrowHillCo Thanks, Christian. That helps clarify the situation certainly. I'm afraid of a situation where all the pianos are suddenly Kontakt instruments. Studio One is my DAW and the two companies' products do not play well together at all.
I've had a lot of fun creating my own instruments with the Pianobook samples using Studio One tools, but it's a lot of work.
Love the video but I have a question. Is the reason they have only recorded a handful of notes for the sake of saving time? Would it be better to record every note of the piano or is there really no point at all?
15:06 mmmh! And that's why I stick with HALion... Undo history? Check.
Thank you so much for the content.
I was wondering can you trigger multiple groups at once inside of kontakt? If so can you please explain how?
Thanks Christian for the video. Wouldn't be to set the velocity curve with normalized samples?
Great!!!
I was waiting for kontakt tutorial so long! Is the work with more than 2 velocities much different?
Hey, Leo here! Not at all, just make sure to add a third line into your velocity mod table (we do this from 7:50 onwards) - it'll look a bit like a sideways lightening strike
@@hereiskinder thank you. It was the best video on kontakt I've seen so far. I'd love to see more from you guys! Keep going
Anyone else think some tuned and soloed release triggers would make a cool sample library?
22:28
That's the video introduction music..
Hmm, I just throw things into exs24 what’s all this fancy stuff?
jonjo
Hi Christian, awesome video. But the link to the SoundCloud in the description doesn't work for me
I can’t seem to find the velocity editor in the new Logic x sampler. Is there one? Where can I find it? Thx...
how do you implement resonance in the other strings when you have the pedal down?
Hello Christian, I don't know how to post a comment on pianobook yet:)
I would only want to inform you that on the pianobook site the link of "Tura Music box" is not sforzando but kontakt.
Question. Why leave time before the sample when you create the wav’s? Is there an advantage to having blank space at the start of the sample?
Thxxx
Thanks! : ) ...pretty much followed everything except one thing, @ 2:36 : A#5 and G0 Set Low/High key... - why is A#5 set as *Low* Key, and G0 *High* Key ? Maybe the video was cut and an explanation is missing ?
Hello, Leo here! I replied to this further up, but I'll copy the response here too. Kontakt works out where to place the note based on how we've named our sample. So for example we have a sample called 'SpringPiano_C2.wav' when we set the low key we set that sample to be at C2 at it's lowest, then when we set the high key it also sets C2 at it's highest.. meaning that it only encompasses one semitone. It's basically a way to batch set all of your samples to their root key quickly, the alternative being dragging them all into place one by one - boring!
@@hereiskinder great, thanks for doing this video Leo - very helpful
was part 2 ever made?
Hi Christian: I’m a very “avid” user of Logic just like you. I just delivered my first big trailer album done in Logic, and was wondering if you got any tip and tricks for printing stems?
Compact stems are easy, just bounce the soloed folder/group. But for “detailed” stems, it takes ages printing every single track by itself, and if you export regions/selected tracks, it doesn’t print effects on the audio... It took me about two days, and in Cubase it would take me 3-4 working hours max..
Got any tips?
I'd love to do a video on this, why don't you do a screencast maybe with some iPhone footage or something, showing me the way you did it and I'll see if I can improve.... send to the email address on the about page in pianobook.co.uk ?