These versions exist for the purpose of gaining customers for the full versions that keep them in business. Companies can't pay their bills with free products and demo versions. Kontakt is not "a free product with a few lines of code added or subtracted" any more than you can say that of ANY product that offers a free demo version. You may also find this of some interest:
they are environments which (among other things) can play VSTs. All I want to do is play libraries.Ĭamelot Pro and Gig Performer have no sounds of their own. I just bought Pianoteq, and it has its own player, so it's not beholden to NI's rather nifty power grab to force people to buy the $400 Kontakt (and it's unneeded and unwanted Kontakt "Factory Library").ĭoes there exist any real Kontakt alternative? Free or at least reasonably priced? A Google search yields lots of so-called ones, but they all seem to be geared towards sound design etc. In researching the "free" Kontakt "Player," it appears a bit of a misnomer - it ONLY plays CERTAIN non-NI (Native Instruments) libraries - ONLY ones that have paid a fee to NI.Īll other libraries run ONLY on the $400 version, which, from what I can tell, is EXACTLY the same thing - except that it contains the necessary programming to permit libraries that did NOT pay NI its bounty to run on it. Said EP-88 is currently on sale through July 30, 2021, and I'm going to buy it, probably today. Specifically, Scarbee Rhodes (EP-88), which comes with and runs on the "free" Kontakt PLAYER (not the full boat $400 "real" Kontakt).