Under the hood, within the “Source Module” at the very beginning of the signal chain, there are six “playback modes” that process audio differently, the first being a traditional “Sampler” mode that plays back audio from memory, though “DFD” (direct from disk) mode is a far more practical way of streaming audio from disk in real-time without the computational expenditure of loading all sample data into RAM. In this review, we’ll be going deeper into the sample engine to really explore the sonic possibilities that will open up to you with a marginal amount of research and a much-advised spirit of adventure. It fulfills that purpose in more ways than I care to mention, but there’s more to Kontakt than you might think. I used to view Kontakt as nothing more than a great big environment for multi-sampled instruments.

Product page: Native Instruments Kontakt ($399) That being said, you might be wondering why (years after its initial release) a Kontakt review needs to exist, aside from the fact that Bedroom Producers Blog hasn’t reviewed it yet, even though we publish news of free and also commercial Kontakt libraries on a semi-regular basis (Don’t believe us? Well, here’s your proof!). During that time, it has been showered with high praise and deservedly so. For well over a decade, producers, sound designers, and professional mix engineers have made expert use of it.