Kontak and Battery

[dmr72]

Hi guys

Just wanted to see what advice you guys might offer. I plan on buying Kontakt 3 - haven't used it at all but it seems to do what I need. I was also considering purhasing Battery. I don't plan on doing much more than playing/triggering fairly standard kits and percussion samples from DP. Is is redundant to get Battery if that's all I want to do? Does Kontakt function decently enough for drums? Am I able to load in kits in a similar fashion as with Battery, or will I be spending more time than necessary. Obviously, the cost of Battery is pretty low, so if it is easier to do this work with Battery it won't kill me.

Thanks for your advice.


Derek

[mhschmieder]

Battery and Kontakt are more or less the same product (or, rather, Kontakt is like a superset of Battery), with different interfaces and different content. Kontakt can load the samples from any NI sample-based product, including Akoustik Piano and Battery. Battery was "spun off" from Kontakt early on, in order to provide a more drum-oriented interface for the drum and percussion sample sets.

Battery is set up like an old-skool drum machine, and is really a remarkable interface that really speeds up working with different drum and percussion setups. It is highly tweakable, and in a very intuitive way.

Kontakt doesn't have that type of interface, so you might find it more difficult if using with a pad trigger device, or if you are otherwise trying to keep track of a single patch containing different note assignments for different drums or percussion (vs. one patch per drum or percussion item).

Kontakt comes with a large sound library, including most of the material that ships with Battery (though not in the same form).

Much of this material, as of Kontakt 3 (previous editions didn't have much to offer library-wise), is quite good and amongst the best in the industry. For instance, it includes selections from Chris Hein Horns, Vienna Instruments, Pettinhouse Guitars, and a marvelous World collection that fills in the gaps even vs. MOTU Ethno and Quantum Leap RA.

I personally do not care for the sonic quality of much of the material in Battery, and only use it for special purpose sounds that I still haven't found elsewhere, such as Reverse Cymbal, DJ scratching effects, Oberheim DMX electronic drums, and Brasilian percussion. My main drums and percussion sources are Waldorf Attack ($79 including PPG Wave and D-Pole Filter) -- for synth drums of all types, and BFD2 -- for all acoustic drums and the subset of percussion in their add-on kit.

Battery 3, though, has a very good collection of synth drum kits (though some are rather obtusely named -- including the Oberheim DMX kit, which I didn't "find" until recently, after wondering why it was in Kontakt but not Battery ). The acoustic drums sound to be more like workstation drums (Yamaha SY77 e.g.) than a high-end dedicated drum product such as BFD or Superior or Addictive Drums. But it's certainly a good starter kit as well as filling in a lot of holes once you branch out to higher-end products. And you can't beat the interface, from pad-oriented drumming.

[dmr72]

Thanks for the detailed response, mhschmieder. I'll start with Kontakt and add on if I feel I'm too limited with it.

[mhschmieder]

Be aware that this is typically the month that Native Instruments updates their entire product line. That may change this year -- that is, they may move to a less frequent cycle. But if you're not in a rush, you might want to wait a couple of weeks -- although they usually offer free upgrades for recent purchases.

You just missed a couple of promotionals, I think. But it pays to double-check, as sometimes they get extended.