With version 4, KONTAKT enhances its position as the professional’s sampler of choice. Building on the outstanding features of the previous versions, including the unrivaled audio engine and state-of-the-art semi-modular architecture, KONTAKT 4 delivers new sonic horizons for your music. An expanded sound collection connects you to an immense number of instruments, and the new Authentic Expression Technology (AET)® is at the cutting-edge of dynamic and true instrument simulation.

Extended information

The KONTAKT 4 update provides several major improvements and brand-new features that enhance the performance and ease-of-use for both new users and those already familiar with KONTAKT.

- New Authentic Expression Technology (AET)®
The new Authentic Expression Technology sees KONTAKT 4 radically redefining the authentic reproduction of acoustic instruments with all their dynamics and articulations, while adding completely new options for creative sound design. In addition to the traditional way of sampling different volume levels of an instrument statically, AET is able to capture specific spectral characteristics of samples and gradually apply them to another samples in real-time, allowing you to seamlessly “morph” between different instruments' characteristics. This breakthrough allows for a new level in expression and realism when playing a sampled instrument.

AET is especially powerful applied to solo instruments with sustained sounds - such as strings, brass, woodwinds, and choir: You can hold down a key and then seamlessly fade with the Mod Wheel between different articulations (e.g. trumpet playing with and without mute) or volume/dynamic levels with different harmonics.
It's often possible to merge the acoustic characteristics of different instrument such as the piano and celesta in real time, opening new horizons for creative sampling and new kinds of hybrid instruments.

- Expanded sound library: + 10 GB
In addition to the six collections available in the previous version, KONTAKT 4 now includes a comprehensive Choir Collection, recorded exclusively for Native Instruments, providing a complete set of soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices in different setups.

Several instruments of the Choir Collection makes use of the new Authentic Expression Technology giving you a new level of control: the choir voices can seamlessly morph the vowels ("A-E-I-O-U") while holding a key/note, which is nearly impossible with other samplers.

In addition, the Orchestral Collection has been updated with a new Solo Strings section, taken form the legendary Vienna Symphonic Library, and a concert hall organ, while the Vintage collection gets the famed Mellotron keyboard. Plus, all the e-pianos from ELEKTRIK PIANO are included. All in all, an extra 10 Gigabytes of new material enrich the KONTAKT library.

- Expanded Convolution Effect Library
KONTAKT 4 comes with more than 300 new and professionally recorded impulse responses from a wide rang of rooms, concert halls, churches, speakers etc, to add super-realistic reverbs to your instruments or the sonic characteristics of high-quality hardware equipment (amps, speakers, hardware reverbs etc.).

The new impluse response samples are provided by Echochamber, Studiodevices and Acousticas.

- Improved Performance Views per instrument
PERFORMANCE VIEWS provide custom control panels, that make Instrument-specific settings available without having to switch to Edit mode. In KONTAKT 4, a much larger control panel is available so each instrument has more important parameters accessible, as well as giving each instrument a distinctive feel through the easy-on-the-eye graphics.

- Advanced Script Processor
The enhanced KONTAKT Script Processor gives many more options for designing custom Performance Views and for controlling other KONTAKT areas such as the master section (when writing 'multi scripts').

- New attribute-based browser and pre-tagged library
It's never been easier to find the right sound or instrument. With the attribute-based browser you can search via keywords or browse by instrument type (bass, piano, strings).

The complete KONTAKT 4 library has been pre-tagged for your convenience. You can also create custom attributes to tag your instruments according to your own criteria.

Attribute-based browsing works for Instruments, Multis, Banks, Groups, Presets, and Samples.

- Lossless Sample Compression
New Lossless Sample Compression format 'NCW' with real-time encoding – reducing the size of samples by up to 50%. Instruments with high disk streaming load, such as Grand Pianos, benefit from the fact that less data has to be read from hard disk. Note that the complete KONTAKT library is delivered in uncompressed WAV format - the Lossless Sample Compression is just an option for your choice when you save instruments.

Technical specifications

* 7 world-class instrument collections – 43 GB of sounds
* Full-Featured Control Panel for each instrument
* Groundbreaking new Authentic Expression Technology® for leading-edge true instrument simulation
* New attribute-based browser and pre-tagged library
* Universal import of virtually any sample format
* 19 high-end effects
* True 64-Bit compatibility on PC and revolutionary Memory Server for Mac
* Library browser with new box view
* Enhanced convolution effect with more impulse responses
* Wave Editor for intuitive looping, slicing and editing with freely drawable envelopes and MIDI drag and drop