Reply To: Major Update for LinkedMusicians “Best Free Kontakt Instruments” List

[peter]

I’ve been spending time working on providing embedded audio for the sample libraries on the list wherever possible, so that you can easily listen to a demo of a library before deciding whether or not you want to download it. Personally, I find the convenience of lists with that ability saves me a lot of time, so I it’s really important to me that the lists include that. I should have this completed by the end of this week. Then I’ll work on trying to better organize the list.

I invite everyone to provide their thoughts and suggestions on how we can make the list more useful for them and welcome any suggestions for libraries that you find worthy of inclusion. There are many libraries where I was iffy if I should include them or not, and when I felt that way, I simply didn’t include them. Any library that made the list is a library I think is well worth using. Of course, I’m rating this relative to other free libraries. not paid libraries. In many cases the free libraries on the list sound as good as paid libraries but lack the detail and sophisticated of a paid library, especially when it comes to libraries where there is complex scripting like guitar and orchestral libraries. The piano library category is a category where there are several libraries that are very comparable and even superior to some commercial offerings.  Specifically, the piano libraries from 8Dio, SonicCouture, and “The Experience” series by Dore Mark are very high quality, detailed sample libraries on par with many piano libraries. I also find that Fractured Sounds Electric Keys is at a level where it easily compares to some of the paid commercial electric piano libraries on the market. No, it’s not as detailed as “The Famous E” and doesn’t have a fraction of the presets, but I prefer Electric Keys to a number of Rhodes libraries for Kontakt I’ve paid for (mostly libraries that cost under $50 US) and I find the tone of the Fracture Sounds library is superior to most of those libraries.

I’m going to create a thread sometime this week — possibly even today — that corresponds to the list so that we can discuss it, people can share their own lists and suggestions for what they think should be included, libraries they think shouldn’t be on the list, how they’ve used the included libraries, etc.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

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