Freebies, freebies, freebies. Before you start buying the most expensive sample libraries check out my list of free sample libraries first. I hope you find the instrument you need here.

• Kontakt Factory Selection Library Serial Number
• Kontakt Factory Selection Library Serial Lookup

I subdivided the list into categories of instruments: Guitar, bass, orchestral instruments, keys and piano, drum and percussion, synths, other instruments (think of world instruments, tiny instruments, weird instruments and everything else), sample player and instrument collections (on some websites there are just too many sample instruments to categorize them).

Also consider:

• “®” stands for registration required

Note: If you wish to set up a KONTAKT Library provided by Native Instruments instead, read this article. KONTAKT allows you to add third-party Powered By KONTAKT Libraries to the Browser.These libraries can also be used with the free KONTAKT Player.Please check the third-party manufacturer's product page to find out if your Library is Powered By KONTAKT. The new version offers profoundly enhanced sound shaping through a host of new high-quality filters and. Use the link given below and proceed to the developer's website in order to download Native Instruments Kontakt Factory Selection free. We wish to warn you that since Native Instruments Kontakt Factory Selection files are downloaded from an external source, FDM Lib bears no responsibility for the safety of such downloads.

• “@” stands for email address required

• “κ” stands for instrument compatible with Kontakt
  

Feel free to add missing instruments or report broken links in the comment section below!!

Guitar MIDI Controller

Play these samples libraries with the guitar midi controller Jamstik from Zivix. You don’t need to be limited to a midi keyboard. If you come from a guitar background playing sample libraries with a guitar can be a viable alternative and lots of fun.

Wind MIDI Controller

How about adding the natural velocity of a wind instrument to your MIDI lines? The Akai Professional EWI easily connects through USB to your setup and it even has multiple fingering modes: sax, traditional EWI, flute, oboe, and EVI brass.

MIDI Drum Kit

Even if you are not a drummer by heart playing your drum lines with a touch sensitive MIDI drum kit like the Pyle Pro PTED01 can add a natural feel that programmed lines are lacking. Badum-tsss

I hope you could find something valuable on this list. If there are any broken links or you free sample libraries that are not listed please let me know in the comments below!

In one of my previous posts I made the assumption that users of Komplete Elements 7 would most likely be at a disadvantage because version 8 of the free players has been released. This assumption was based on a previous experience where I manually (re)installed the free Komplete 7 players after which the Komplete Elements selection disappeared and needed to be re-activated.

Combined with a statement from Native Instruments (“NI”) that they don’t provide support for the free players I assumed the worst.

SO I asked NI support how to best proceed with Komplete Elements 7 installed, and they answered. I mentioned in my previous post that it wouldn’t surprise me if the upgrade would be troublesome. So in all fairness I can now state that the upgrade is in fact quite easy, in this post I will explain how to do this. In fact; you may even wish to benefit from NI’s current ‘Summer Sale’ 50% discount…

First a quick recap; I think most people will know Komplete but for those who don’t: Komplete is a software package from Native Instruments and provides by far the most complete selection of instruments and effects. The Komplete package provides 3 different bundles; first is the whole package consisting of either Komplete or Komplete Ultimate, an introduction package called Komplete Elements and finally a selection of freely available Komplete players. These players provide the three sound engines from Komplete (Kontakt, Reaktor and Guitar Rig) and they come with a small selection of instruments and effects as well. The players are best used in combination with some separately available sound packs or effects.

What is Komplete Elements exactly?

Komplete Elements is basically a library of sounds and effects which you can use with the freely available players. In my opinion version 7 was the better version since the library was quite extensive back then, but in general Elements gives you (a little) more contents than the free players.

A good example to this is the Guitar Rig library. 3d hausplaner 9 download kostenlos musik. If you install the free Guitar Rig player you get the Guitar Rig factory selection, basically a small sub-set of the complete package.

As you can see above the Komplete Elements version raises the bar a bit by providing the so called Essential Selection. This opens up more effects which can be used within the program. Note however that this example shows you the Komplete Elements 7 setup. As far as I know Komplete Elements 8 also introduces an Elements selection (but this is an assumption on my part).

The other players do this different by the way; both Kontakt and Reaktor provide the default library selection and expand on that by also providing an Elements selection.

Performing the upgrade

The first thing you should really consider doing is making a backup in case something goes wrong. On Windows (7) this basically means copying the program folder as well as your Komplete library to a different location. Just in case I also made a manual restoration point so that the Windows registry could also be easily restored (otherwise I would have made a manual backup using the registry editor and also manually copied the “common data” (C:Program FilesCommon DataNative Instruments) to a safe location).

The easiest way to make a restore point in Windows 7 is to go to the control panel and select the option “System and Security“. From here select the “System” sub-option. This will bring you into a screen showing you some basic information about your PC. From here you can select the option “System security” in the menu on the left. Now a dialog opens in which you can both create a restoration point as well as revert your system to a previously made point.

Get the players and install them

You can download the Komplete players from this location. Just fill out your contact information (e-mail address) and then NI will send you a download link by e-mail together with a serial number which unlocks the players. This procedure is part of their protection scheme. Note however that the download will only be available for a limited time so make sure you backup the installer so that you can always re-install if you need to.

The Players installer consists of either an executable or an ISO image. The latter can be very easy if you don’t have much free disk space; in that case you can simply burn the image to a CD and install the players from there.

Save time with the Reaktor player

When in doubt you can simply select all the three players and install those, but you maybe aware that Reaktor hasn’t released a new version so far. Guitar Rig and Kontakt moved from 4 to 5 but Reaktor is still on 5 as well. So if you kept up with the updates using the NI Service Center then you could consider skipping the Reaktor player installation to speed up the installation process.

The installation process may take a while based on your selection and hardware. The main installer (as seen above) will start a separate installation process for each selected player. In the screenshot above you can see its getting ready to install Guitar Rig 5.

Be aware that the new players will not recognize a previous installation. So if you simply click on “next” without doing anything the players will be installed to their default location, on Windows this is in “C:Program FilesNative Instruments”.

Things to be aware of

After you installed all the players you will notice that both Kontakt and Reaktor will easily recognize and import the Elements library. This means that its quite safe to uninstall the previous version of Kontakt after you’re done because all your installed libraries will remain available.

Here you can see the library collection which is available in my Kontakt 5 player. As you may notice the library section is quite a bit smaller than it was in version 4 which leaves you with more space for the sample section.

But as you can see the Elements selection is still available.

And as mentioned above the same applies to the Reaktor 5 player, but that should be obvious considering that you could have kept the Reaktor player up to date using the Service Center as well (which is really a smart thing to do; some updates can be quite beneficial).

Product update

Also keep in mind that some products have been updated to work even better with the new players. So if you have The Finger or The Mouth installed, or as seen here the Balinese Gamelan, then its best to start the Service Center after the installation has been completed, activate your players, quit, and then start it again to update your optionally installed products.

Kore player

If you’re upgrading from Komplete Elements 7 keep in mind that the Kore player has been discontinued. Fortunately that doesn’t mean that you can no longer use it, but you may need to tweak things a bit if you decide to remove the Kontakt player 4.

For example; I now have 3 Kontakt library locations: “Kontakt Factory Selection Library”, “Kontakt Factory Selection” and finally “Kontakt Elements Selection Library”. The first location is the one Kontakt 5 uses so the second can easily be removed. Since Kore uses whatever is setup with Kontakt it will go over the right location. However; I have ran into some problems where Kore couldn’t find the right sample(s) because it was still looking into Kontakt 4 locations.

Guitar Rig

Also keep in mind that Guitar Rig does things a little bit different as well…

As I mentioned above Guitar Rig is the only player which provides a different library if you have Elements installed where all the other players add a new library (factory selection vs. Elements selection).

So don’t be alarmed if you start Guitar Rig 5 and all of a sudden see this selection appear:

As you can see you no longer have the ‘Essential selection’ available but instead it reverted back to the factory selection.

While this may trouble you at first you really don’t need to worry because the Guitar Rig 5 player has been installed besides version 4. So you can easily start version 4 and then you have access to the Essential selection again.

The only possible annoyance could be the inclusion of the demonstration versions of Reflector and the other sound effect libraries.

These demo versions have also been installed in the Guitar Rig 4 player and although I think you can easily remove them I haven’t bothered to look into this, instead I discovered something far more interesting…

NI takes Komplete Elements 7 users way more serious than I thought.

Guitar Rig 5 Pro upgrade

Guitar Rig is provided in 3 different versions. The free player, the Pro version and the Kontrol version which also gets you the MIDI pedal controller.

As could be expected from a software company; people who have a previous version of a product don’t need to purchase the full version again but instead can upgrade at a reduced price. Obviously this does not apply to the free players.

However, with Guitar Rig things work a bit different. Komplete Elements 7 basically installed Guitar Rig 4 Essential. And if you look at the Guitar Rig 5 Pro product page you’ll notice that users of “Guitar Rig 4 Essentials” as well as “Komplete 7 Elements” are entitled to an upgrade!

And it’s Native Instruments Summer Sale!

SO if you upgrade now (before the 31st of July 2012) you’re entitled to an extra 50% discount on top of the already reduced upgrade price. So get Guitar Rig 5 Pro for € 44,50 instead of € 89,-.

Why upgrade?

Well, the most obvious reason is that it makes things easier on you since you no longer need to maintain 2 different versions. But upgrading also provides some very extensive sound effects which are not available in the Essentials version. Don’t let the name fool you; although Guitar Rig is aimed at guitar and bass sounds its also perfectly usable to spice up other sound material as well.

12 amplifiers, 27 cabinets and 54 effects.

Native Instruments is all about sound, I learned that quickly enough after I picked up the free players, only to upgrade to Komplete Elements 7 soon after. Guitar Rig is all about sound effects and processing. 3 compressors, 9 filters (from Formant to Peak, Auto and Wahwah), 4 equalizers including a fully custom EQ and a lot more.

In conclusion

If you’re looking for some gear expansion now could be a good time to look around. And although it maybe a little unfair comparison this is yet another example why I live by the motto “diversity is the name of the game”.

Because basically it boils down to being able to pick up a huge amount of outstanding sound effects at a price where Reason 6 users can hardly get 1 effect as a locked in Rack Extension…

Kontakt Factory Selection Library Serial Number

FET Compressor; € 99,-; Analog filter or Reverb? € 39,-. And that includes a 20% discount (available until August 14 2012). SO after that discount period you need to cough up € 124,- or € 48,75 respectively for one single effect fully tied into 1 DAW.

UPDATE: Someone at the Propellerhead forums told me that I was overlooking something here wrt. the introduction discount: this does not apply to all extensions available, which is what I thought so far. So please ignore my comments on how the prices will go up even further.

Don’t get me wrong here: I’m not insinuating that one product is better than the other. I’m merely trying to illustrate that having some variation in your gear can often provide many advantages.

Kontakt Factory Selection Library Serial Lookup

In my case being able to pick up a lot of high quality sound effects at a very reasonable price (a little pun intended 😉 ).