Total beginner, totally confused

[Jon Ryder]

Hi folks

I’ve just found Pianobook and it looks incredible, but I don’t know how to use it.

I use Reaper and have a basic understanding of how to install plugins, but do I need to buy Kontakt in order to use the resources on here?

For example, I downloaded the Quarantine Piano and a free Kontakt 6 Player, but perhaps that’s not how you do it?

Any help greatly appreciated!

J

[Marco Iannello]

For those instruments that only come as a Kontakt instrument, yes, you do need Kontakt, and you need the full version of that. Those instruments do not work on the Player version of Kontakt, as Native Instruments require a fee to be able to make an instrument function in the Player version, and that fee is veeeery high.
More and more instruments are being converted to Decent Sampler, which is a totally free sampler software, so you could use that, instead

[guildorf]

Hi, it is often reported as you say, ‘those instruments do not work’, but in actual use,
they will work in NI’s Kontakt demo mode.

From Native Instruments K6 Player FAQ,

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-6-player/faq/

“Instruments that are not made for KONTAKT 6 PLAYER require the full version of KONTAKT 6 to run, but can be used for 15 minutes at a time in demo mode and without the ability to save your work.”

The statement (and others in past years) is a bit grammatically inconsistant, leading to lots of confusion. Their demo mode also leads to lots of purchases. Also, it’s 30 minutes on their other products. Player content itself has no time limits, but the timer is invoked from player versions when any commercial assets are loaded. All in all, I think it’s the best demo arrangement out there. And it’s enabled me purchase several items with confidence after a thorough testing. (There are various version inconsistancies when dealing with older libraries and various Kontakt versions, but I recently purchase a lib that was ten years old, and it seems to work fine)
Cheers

[Jon Ryder]

Thanks both, this is really helpful?

I will look at Decent Sampler.

Also, can you recommend a good tutorial for loading samples into the free Kontakt player? I’ve not found anything helpful yet.

Thanks again

Jon

[bo din]

guildorf is spot on. The Player is essentially a demo version of full Kontakt, it’s very purpose is to allow people to try it out (for 15 minutes at a time) so that they can decide if it is worth the investment in the full version.

And while Marco Iannello is right that “more and more instruments are being converted” for use in Decent Sampler, that is only true with regard to the content available on Pianobook. Mind you, I’d have been grateful for such content when I started out.

[guildorf]

I like this video to visualize loading various libraries:

How to Use Kontakt’s Libraries Tab to Access ANY Library

[Neal Fox]

I’ve got the latest Decent Sampler and a couple of libraries for it.
I can’t get it to load anything.

I click on LOAD and it doesn’t see the already unzipped file but will unzip the zip file.
It then shows the window with the samples and I select one to load.

Then nothing shows up in the sampler.

What am I missin?

Thanks.

[Jon Ryder]

Thanks all for the help, and I think I get Decent Sampler now. Neal, I think once you click load, navigate to where your unzipped files are, then inside those, you should see files called ‘dspreset’. Clicking on one of those should then add the instrument to the sampler. You only need to do that the first time you use it. Next time you open it, click browse, then ‘my libraries’ and all previously loaded samples should be available.

[Neal Fox]

Ah! Got it.
Thanks.

[Author]

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