Native Instruments' Kontakt is the industry-standard software sampler - the platform most commercial sample libraries run on. Beyond playing libraries, it is a deep tool for building your own instruments from your own recordings. This chapter covers the core of building a multisampled instrument.
Kontakt Player, the free version, plays many commercial libraries but cannot edit or create instruments. Building your own needs the full version.
Key concepts
- Sample - an audio file.
- Zone - a sample mapped to a range of keys and velocities.
- Group - a set of zones that share settings - envelopes, filters, modulation. Groups let you control many samples at once.
- Instrument - the complete playable patch: all groups and zones together.
- Multi - several instruments loaded together, each on its own MIDI channel.
The Mapping Editor
The Mapping Editor shows a grid: keys along the bottom, velocity up the side. Each zone is a rectangle on the grid.
- Drag samples in - drop audio files onto the keyboard to create zones. Kontakt can auto-map a set of samples across the keyboard.
- Root key - the note at which the sample plays at its original pitch. Set this correctly for every pitched sample, or it will be out of tune.
- Key range - the range of keys each zone covers. A sample transposed far from its root starts to sound unnatural, so multisampled instruments use a sample every few semitones.
- Crossfades - overlap neighbouring zones and crossfade between them for smooth transitions.
Velocity layers
Real instruments change tone, not just level, when played harder. A soft piano note is darker than a loud one. Velocity layers map different recordings to different velocity ranges - a soft recording for velocities 1-60, a medium one for 61-100, a hard one for 101-127. Crossfading between layers avoids obvious jumps.
Round robins
Repeating the same sample on fast, repeated notes - a drum roll, a strummed guitar, a repeated string note - sounds mechanical: the "machine gun" effect. Round robins cycle through several recordings of the same note, so each hit is slightly different. In Kontakt, put each variation in its own group and set the groups to cycle round robin.
Loops
Short samples of sustaining instruments run out. Set loop points in the Wave Editor so the sustain portion repeats while the note is held. Find a section with a stable level and pitch, place loop points at zero crossings, and use a crossfade to smooth the join.
Envelopes, filters and modulation
Each group can have its own:
- Amp envelope - ADSR for loudness.
- Filter - with its own envelope and modulation.
- Modulation - LFOs and envelopes routed to pitch, volume, filter, pan and more, from the modulation section.
Use velocity to modulate filter cutoff as well as volume, so harder playing sounds brighter - one of the simplest ways to make an instrument feel expressive.
Effects and performance
Kontakt includes insert and send effects - EQ, compression, saturation, reverb, delay - at group and instrument level. Front-panel controls and scripting can make your instrument playable without opening the editor, but a well-mapped instrument with good velocity response is the most important part.
Save properly
Save your instrument with its samples collected into one folder (use the "patch + samples" option), so it will load on another computer and nothing goes missing.
Do this now
- Record or source a single pitched sound - a note on a guitar, a sung "ah", a synth note - at three different pitches, an octave apart.
- Map them into Kontakt with the correct root keys and key ranges, and crossfade neighbouring zones.
- Record the same note at two dynamics and map them as velocity layers.
- Set a loop on a sustaining sample, and route velocity to filter cutoff. Save as patch + samples.