Native Instruments Kontakt 3.0 Library Manual

Kontakt 3 Library Manual

Table of Content

Overview.................................................................................................................................. 3

General Structure of the Library .............................................................................................. 3

Drum and Percussion Kit Layout ............................................................................................. 6

Options Page ........................................................................................................................ 6

MIDI CC Assignments ............................................................................................................ 7

Info Tags.............................................................................................................................. 9

Saving CPU Resources........................................................................................................... 9

The Instrument Collections ......................................................................................................10

Band ................................................................................................................................. 10

Orchestral .......................................................................................................................... 11

Synth................................................................................................................................. 12

Urban Beats ....................................................................................................................... 13

Vintage .............................................................................................................................. 16

World................................................................................................................................. 17

Credits .................................................................................................................................. 22

Sample Provider.................................................................................................................. 23

License Agreements................................................................................................................ 24

Native Instruments License Agreement .................................................................................. 24

VSL Terms of License .......................................................................................................... 24

Appendix............................................................................................................................... 26

VSL Kontakt Orchestra......................................................................................................... 26

Kontakt 3 Library Manual

Overview

General Structure of the Library

The Kontakt 3 Library is divided into six instrument collections:

• Band

• Orchestral

• Synth

• Urban Beats

• Vintage

• World

Each of the collections can be installed separately. So if you're not interested in the orchestral stuff (i.e. the Orchestral collection) you can simply ignore this collection during installation; or just install the Band collection on your laptop since this collection contains the instruments you need the most, and then install the complete library on your studio desktop machine.

The concept of the instrument collection is not just to have a better overview over all these instruments. Each collection has its own "personality", its own flavor, so let's have a quick tour through all the collections:

Band

This collection features acoustic and electro-acoustic instruments to be used in genres like Rock, Jazz, Funk, Pop, R'n'B, Hip Hop etc. The instruments in this collections are saxes, trumpets, electric guitars and basses, acoustic drum kits, a real Hammond organ with many drawbar presets, electric pianos etc.

Kontakt 3 Library Manual

Orchestral

The Orchestral collection contains the VSL collection from Kontakt 2 plus more. The VSL instruments have been reworked with the following features:

• Extensive Reverb settings

• A new simple Legato Mode

• Simple Harmonize and Constrain to Scale features

Synth

This collection includes contemporary synth pads, basses, leads, drum kits etc. Each synth type has its own dedicated performance view, so the pad synth has other controls available than the lead synth.

Urban Beats

The Urban Beats collection contains fifty drum loop performances in the hip-hop genre. The loops were exclusively produced for Kontakt 3, they do not appear on any other sampling cd!

Kontakt 3 Library Manual

Vintage

The Vintage Collection contains all kinds of old vintage synth and keyboard gear, like old drum machines, organs and string synths from the 70s, digital machines from the 80s and much more.

The instruments and this collection are "pure", authentic and easy to use. In contrast to the synth collection, where we made use of pre-produced samples, the samples in this collection are "raw", thus giving you the possibility to hear the instruments "how they really sound".

World

The World Collection features instruments from all over the world from different musical cultures like all kinds of flutes, reed instruments, bagpipes, percussion and much more.

You can access the instruments of the factory library easily from the browser:

Kontakt 3 Library Manual

Drum and Percussion Kit Layout

All drum and percussion instrument in Kontakt 3 have a similar layout. The basic principle is the following:

• Single drum instruments are mapped from C1 to B2 (the lower half of the keyboard)

• Drum loops and grooves are mapped from C3 onwards

Let's see this in action, here's the Suburban Kit from the Synth Collection:

On the "Instrument page" you'll find controls which relate to the single drum instruments (aka one shots) which are mapped from C1 to B2, meaning you can select the snare drum, change its reverb/delay setting, select the hi-hat and change its decay setting etc.

From C3 to B4, you can trigger loops which in this case are generated by the drum computer:

Options Page

Each instrument of the Kontakt 3 library has one performance view page which is common to all instruments: the options page:

Kontakt 3 Library Manual

Here you can quickly transpose the instrument, set a key range, alter the velocity curve and velocity to amp modulation, tune the instrument and change the pitch bend range.

To change the key range of the instrument, simply click on the L your keyboard; the key range will be set to these tow notes. Click the L playing any notes and the key range will be reset.

The tune and pitchbend range controls also respond to standard MIDI RPN messages.

Note: the Urban Beat Collection instruments do not have an options page.

ear n button, and play two notes on

ea r n button twice without

MIDI CC Assignments

All instruments of the Kontakt 3 Library have a standardized MIDI CC automation layout.

First of all, al instruments respond to MIDI CC 7 (Volume) and CC 10 (Pan). The range of the volume automation is set to -oo to -6dB. All instruments have their volume set to -6dB (i.e. MIDI CC 7 set to

127) to prevent sudden volume changes when a value of 127 is received as Midi volume.

You can change this behavior on the controller tab of the i options):

nstr u m en t opti o ns (i.e. not the global

Kontakt 3 Library Manual

Here's the list of MIDI CC's, which have been assigned in every Kontakt 3 Library instrument:

CC Description Remarks

1 Modwheel usually a instrument-specific performance control

5 Portamento Time controlled by the Unisono/Portamento Script

7 Volume see above

10 Pan see above

11 Expression programmed as a modulation source in the amp module

64 Sustain controlled by the Unisono/Portamento Script

65 Sustain Pedal controlled by the Unisono/Portamento Script

66 Sostenuto Pedal controlled by the Unisono/Portamento Script

68 Legato On/Off controlled by the Unisono/Portamento Script

In addition to this standard controllers, some MIDI CC's have been assigned if the controls are available of the performance view of the instrument:

Parameter CC Remarks

Primary Sound Control 74 i.e. Filter Cutoff, EQ Settings

Secondary Sound Control 71 i.e. Filter Re sonance

Attack 73

Decay 75

Release 72

Primary Effect Control 91 i.e. Reverb amount

Secondary Effect Control 91 i.e. Chorus/Distortion amount

If you want to get rid of any of those assignments, simply select the assignment in the midi automation tab and select remove:

In addition to MIDI CC assignments, all instruments respond to aftertouch as well as standard RPN messages for Pitch Bend Range, Coarse and Fine Tuning (see the chapter above).

All controls of the performance view are also equipped with automation id's.

Kontakt 3 Library Manual

Info Tags

To facilitate the handling of the instruments and their controls, each control (knob, button, menu etc.) has a help text which can be viewed when activating the info view and hovering with the mouse over the control:

Saving CPU Resources

Many instruments make use of the convolution reverb in Kontakt. If you load many instruments into one multi, it is recommended to bypass the convolution of the individual instruments and use the aux channel instead.

Bypassing the convolution effect of an instrument is simple, usually you'll have a menu with different IR samples available on the main performance page, simply select the <bypass> entry:

Kontakt 3 Library Manual

The Instrument Collections

In this chapter you will find all relevant information about the six instrument collections and the included instruments. We'll not discuss every single instrument in great detail, and neither we'll list all 1000 of them, but the information should be enough to get you started (remember, you can always check the Info Tags of the controls).

Band

As stated in the overview section, this collection covers all acoustic and electro-acoustic instruments for genres like rock, funk, jazz, hip-hop etc.

A quick overview over this collection:

Name Short Description

Horns various solo & section horns

Acoustic Pianos 1 grand + 1 upright piano )+ variations)

Electric Pianos Clavinet, A200 and MK 2

Organ Various drawbar settings from an authentic Hammond C3

Guitar Various electric guitars + nylon guitar

Bass 3 different electric basses + 1 upright bass

Drum Kits 11 drum kits, from pure acoustic to electro-acoustic

Horns

There are solo horns – alto/tenor/baritone sax, trumpet, trumpet with mute & trombone – and sections – sax/trumpet/trombone – available. The section instruments have four different articulations, which you can easily choose by turning the knob and/or assigning key switches:

Organ

The organ used for these samples is an old, authentic Hammond C3 of 1957:

Kontakt 3 Library Manual

Many controls which you'll find on a real organ are available: Percussion, Vibrato/Chorus, Distortion and a Rotator. You can find the original drawbar settings for each preset in the instrument options of every preset.

Orchestral

The orchestral collection features the VSL Kontakt Orchestra as well as a fine selection of orchestral percussion and two grand pianos:

Name Short Description

VSL Strings see appendix

VSL Woodwinds see appendix

VSL Brass see appendix

VSL Percussion see appendix

Orchestral Percussion various percussion instrument, all with articulation control

Keyboard Instruments 2 grand pianos, harpsichord + church organ

The orchestral percussion instruments feature adjustable articulations per note:

Kontakt 3 Library Manual

Synth

The purpose of the Synth collection is to supply you with contemporary and easy to use synth sounds. All instrument groups have specific controls on their performance views, so that editing a sound can easily be done.

Name Short Description

Pad (Layered) Pads consisting of two layers

Pad (Single) Simple Pads with one laye r

Choir Synth Choir patches

Bass Analog/Digital bass sounds

Lead Analog/Digital Lead sounds

Mallet Short, percussive sounds

Arpeggiator Synth sounds featuring the arpeggiator

Sequencer Synth sounds featuring the poly step module

Synth Drums a collection of synth kits, all featuring the drum computer

The samples for this collection come from various sources, from hardware analog/digital machines to acoustic instruments and software synthesizers. All samples however have been processed and mastered for a more "production-ready" sound (in contrast to the Vintage collection, where all samples are recorded "pure").

Take a look at A

rpe g g iat o r section:

Apart from the "Instruments" Page, you'll find an arpeggiator, and the notes produced by the arpeggiator are processed by a Harmonizer. Both modules have easy to use Preset knobs, so you can change arpeggios and harmonizations on the fly.

+ 27 hidden pages

Native Instruments Kontakt 3.0 Library Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Table of Content

Overview

The Instrument Collections

Band

Orchestral

Synth