i'm not knocking their plugins..... battery is amazing for drum samples/programming imo. kontakt is cool for chopping, never got into that one but i've used it and i liked it. but all from what i heard personally, the NI sound librarys are pretty crappy as well as the stock drums that come with battery and stuff like that. i hear a lot of people bigging them up... am i missing something here? i have friends that use NI sounds and i can hear that they used NI sounds specifically and i don't like it..
absynth seemed to be one of the only ones that had my interests but that's a synth and i was speaking more about the sound libraries.
maschine doesn't look bad as a sampler, not really my thing either though. beyond that i have very limited experience with NI. massive was cool too i guess, but again, synth...

i could be wrong here, but please point me to where the good stuff is.

I agree. Not fond of the NI sound.
I recently bought Samples from Mars drumsamples.
When I compared some of them to the Battery equivalents the difference was even bigger than I expected. I also prefer Zenhiser samples.
I have Retro Machines MK2. I prefer the sound of the Arturia versions (But NI software works better that Arturia's). Plus I can't sell it cause more folks are selling it.
NI can sound dry like sandpaper imo.
Sometimes that is what you need, then it's great. But I don't like too much NI in one production.
So I can't help you out about the good libraries.

I agree, drums series, despite all the abbey road hype is the only "solid without questions" NI sample library. They're not hard-hitting metal type, but definitely here. Every other has some awful sheen about it. Pianos and anything Scarbee (electric pianos in particular) are denoised to the point of losing any punch.

Regarding NI replacements, Sampletekk electro pianos impressed me much more. Raw as hell, chromatic, no denoising, no processing, just samples in oldschool sense.

NI synths are ranging from good (FM8) to useless (Razor). Absynth is somewhere in between. Three oscillators is too limiting.

Depends on the style of music you are producing. For rap, its hard to like their stock sound libraries, but there are some really really good 3rd party libraries out. Native instruments for has sounds for everything which is why I think people buy them, but they are somewhat generic and can sound cheesy if not used right. If you buy more specific sound librarires for your genre it will sound a lot better with less work. Try some 3rd party kontakt and massive libraries.

The Battery sample library is great! I never use the preset kits, but the actual sample library has some great things in there! One thing to remember is that the library covers a huge range of musical styles (eg the kick library has analogue stuff, live stuff, EDM stuff, crazy experimental stuff, etc.) but they're all grouped quite well into different styles so once you become familiar with groups of samples that fit your style it will become a lot easier.

I'm not that familiar with the Kontakt stuff, because I don't use it a lot so can't really comment on that.

If you can't find useful sounds within NI's libraries its probably a you problem.

Someone I do work for occasionally has Machine and some Kontakt libraries. I am unfamiliar with these instruments and all the guy really wants is for me to add some chords or bass lines here and there. So I work from his presets and frankly most of them are unusable. I'm certain if he knew what he was doing he could coax better sounds out of his rig but the basic factory sounds are pretty bad from my limited experience with them.

A lot of NI products are other vendors repackaged and offered cheaper. Orchestral sound libraries are old VSL stuff, Vintage Compressors are all Softube (biggest bang for buck I've ever seen btw), etc. Don't let the NI logo fool you...a lot of good stuff in there. Although they are old those VSL samples are still amazing because they are one of the few that are close-miced and not drenched in reverb and ambient mics. Action Strings are solid. Session Horns are a steal. 8dio is where the quality orchestra stuff is but it's like $400 for one instrument so good luck with that. I'm not really into synthesizers so I won't comment. Nothing out there comes anywhere close to emulating a guitar so just buy a real one...recording DI is ridiculously easy. Getting a guitar VST to sound real is probably more difficult and less fun than playing a real one anyway. You don't have to be good at it...RZA sucked at piano. For real drums I wouldn't look at NI. For hip hop drums I've never heard a sample kit with crazy drums ever. I've heard the same basic sounds re-used since the dawn of time only processed differently. There is no secret stash for any of this stuff really. It's all mixing chops and samples of real instruments sound especially terrible unmixed. Just think how terrible your vocals sound before you do anything to them....that's everything else also. Spectrasonics Trilian might be the only thing I know of that is the unanimous king of its particular instrument.

I'm aware of this. NI is more like banner than just a company.
Have nothing against dry close miked piano, but in comparison to other dry stuff this pianos sounds processed. Maybe they're already denoised by VSL (digital denoising was a rave back then) or they decided to pimp up good old samples a little. Or maybe Scarbee made me suspicious and my ears are misleading me. I would bet that Scarbee electro pianos hit the denoiser.

There are number of decent usable samples (for good price), but this not what OP asked. The topic was about ideal "instant gratification" type sample libraries. For me, this is something fully sampled, with no processing (or minimal analog processing) and free of effects and scripts that cannot be disabled.

Their pianos are average at best, though they are getting "better."

I don't think their intention is to deliver perfection on individual Kontakt products/libraries, I think they want to deliver versatility in all-in-one package with at least some good quality samples, like the band, world, and string instruments as examples.

Isn't that a complete oxymoron? Most people want "instant gratification" - which is heavily processed and can be dropped into that genre of project with little/no work (hence "instant"). Or there is the desire for completely clean samples that are more flexible for people that want to work with their sounds but are distinctly not "instant gratification".

trilian really is awesome

And those Stradivarius violins totally blow chunks...if you're doing Rap or Hip-Hop.

Could be that NI is not well-suited for the type of music you're producing...it may be great for someone doing something in another genre.

As our British friends say, "Horses for courses"...

I thought i was the only person who felt like this.

I have komplete 8 and was excited to get it to see what the hype was all about.

kontakt feels and works like a very clunky and dated sampler. I have tons of piano libraries, and as a piano player highly disappointed. Only piano i use is Alicia's Keys as its beautiful but thats pretty much it.

The synths are very 'b rated'. I can't stand the sound of any of them except absynth, however, its gui kills me.

Guitar rig is neat. I have no need for it but it has pretty cool stuff.

Battery 4 is my go to drum VI, awesome instrument very well thought out all around.

Other than that nothing is really special about it. I keep wanting to like it so I can upgrade it to get more stuff, but it seems all their synths follow the reaktor engine or whatever.

In fact, raw samples usually sounds better than processed solo, but can sound awful in the mix. On the contrary, processed can sound like a sandpaper (to borrow the expression) solo, but great in the mix.

Because processing is intentional sonic destruction. Throw away some parts in order to make it fit better.

For this reason raw is "instant gratification". Just press the keys and feel the power. And then twist them for mix as you like.

From NI libraries, only Abbey Road drums series I mentioned fits my description. Exactly, sounds great solo and weak (without processing) in the mix.

Just for the reference point, which non-NI synths do you consider good? Please, no analogue-modelled stuff.
Agree about Absynth GUI, yet artificial oscillators limitation is the worst.

imo, not really.... i don't think about sounds for my music, especially considering that hiphop is made out of other types of music a lot of times in regards to sampling. i'm always looking at sounds for what they are and how i may or may not be able to use/flip them. regardless if a sound is usable for me or not i will still recognize something as good or respectable if that's the case. whether it's a raw or ready to go sound...and everything i heard from NI excluding the programs i've mention didn't sound good to me.

I got NI Komplete 10, and it's no slouch. I had to wrap my head around kontact, and absynyth, fm8 and such, but like anything else, you get what you put in. Once you learn it, you can get creative with a lot of things In komplete. To each it's own I guess.

No kidding. NI Komplete is probably one of the biggest bargains. Any alternative to build that library would be ruinously expensive.

I hear the Kontakt and East West orchestra stuff all the time. Drake's "Over" was made with soundfonts FFS...far more primitive than Kontakt. The sounds are fine, it just comes down to production and mixing skills.

If you don't like the sound of it then don't use it. Problem solved.

No No No. It's far more productive to complain and not just get on with making music.. This is the Hip-Hop forum after all.

so you think it's not productive to talk about things you're wondering about? nobodys complaining. we're taking notes and learning off each other here. that's not productive?

If this thread isn't complaining then what is it about? What notes are you taking? Sounds like a bunch of whining to me. NI offers a ton of different tools. If you don't like them, don't use them. I've found plenty of useful stuff from them. Based on your other threads you're probably not paying for any of your software/samples/plugins anyway so you really have nothing positive to bring to this forum.

This is really one counter productive pointless thread...but I'll say this... what you pay for Komplete is pretty much chump change in the audio world when considering what you get in return... sure something is going to give at such a price-point (usually), but in most cases its the users ability to create or make the most of what they have...which is funny considering the bundle you get.... Overrated? not even close, those sounds like the synths etc are ridiculously cheap when purchased as part of the bundle...

100% agreed.

Dude, if you can't make good music with the NI libraries, then you just can't make good music.

I don't want to be judge of whether they are better or worse than other libraries out there (for drums, pianos or strings for example), but they are definitely good enough to make a ****in number one chart breaker hit record in ANY genre.

Any good engineer would be able to recreate any of your favorite songs with nothing but NI libraries and synths and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Hell, you could make a hit with nothing but Logic stock libraries if you wanted to.

The quality of the NI libraries is definitely not the problem in any music project. They are superb for the most part.

I don't even want to say that the NI libraries and synths are great for the price, because such a statement wouldn't do the products justice. They are just great, period. And as a bundle they are even unbelievably cheap on top of that.

I produce hip hop and electronic music by the way.

if i was complaining i'd be mad. im not mad. i was making an observation about how i felt, that's it, and maybe i am off with that. however, there was pretty much a mixed response in here.
what exactly do you mean based on my other threads i'm probably not paying for my software or plugins? what kinda assumption is that?
and even if i didn't pay for my stuff why would that mean i have nothing positive to bring to this forum? where is the logic in that?
i also never said that i don't like NI. i started the thread by saying that i think battery is amazing as a sampler for your own drums. that kontakt is cool. i was speaking on sound libraries only....

I use Komplete 9 everyday, but i also don't just do rap music. I am contemplating upgrading to 10 ultimate. It is super easy to go to the NI web page and see what everything does before you buy it.

I especially liked this part

If we should not discus what sound we like or dislike this forum would be very small.
There's a lot of talk about sound on GS and for a reason.

why? are you tryna use a tiny part of my whole post that was written to prove a point to take out of context?
fact is, why does this even matter for this convo?
why would you even care?
would you care if worked on a stolen mpc?
thank you. i thought that's what this forum was for as well...