emusonacid!

Picked up Kompakt today for $100. Dirt cheap, an earlier version that was upgradable for free,got it at GC. While the sounds are what you put into it and its only the first night so I'm using their library and it is very good, all I can say is, sure glad I didn't sell my E4XT Ultra. From the first moment till even now, I am thrilled when I crank up the Emu. Not so with Kompakt . Not sorry I got it, just my observation.
niles

For some reason, hardware has a 'substance' feel about it.

Agreed, it has a "substance" sound as well. I did mess with Kompakt quite a bit today and am a bit more impressed. I did a 7 part multi in kompakt with a 3 or 4 part on Emu in multi mode, oh yea, and 1 straight acoustic guitar straight into daw w/ a little compression. On auditioning all this for a while, the whole sound is very good and it all compliments each other very well, but the Emu definitly has this HUGE presence, substance. Just a friggin formidable sound.
niles

hmmm....i've been considering Kontakt 2 and ridding meself of my E4XT Ultra.

but i can't even demo Kontakt so far...and reading this little bit is making me realize i'll probably regret selling my E4.

i dunno...any Kontakt users on, uh, an Emu forum?

dugawug, I had the same thoughts but although I like Kompakt, I think I'll keep the E4XT. A couple of days ago I bought translator- special edition NI. Well long story short, the translations into NI were not to good. Even tweeking them would not fix em. Not all but a good amount anyways. So I purchased cdxtract. Much better, so I've been comparing things for the last couple of days. I've got the Kontakt demo, and I set that plus Kompakt and the Emu up in Cubase for side by side compaisums. As far as the Emu being fatter sounding, I'm not buying it. It depends on the sample of course and with some translations that came off well and with a bit of tweeking, I really couldn't tell the difference either in Kompakt or Kontakt or the Emu. The major drawback is in the translations of sophisticated presets, samples, sounds. I'm no sample expert but these were terrible. I dont think salvagable at all. Maybe theres some special setting in translator I'm not getting and there are not many user settings in cdxtract so I may be off a bit there but I dont think so. I do like cdxtract. In the end, If you dig the Emu which is hard not to, then stick with it. Get Kompakt. I got an old version at GC for $100 and upgraded for free. Hard to beat that. From what I've read most like the library much more than Kontakts. Kontakt has alot more to offer in manipulation. If you can get a cheap version of Kompakt, theres a cheaper upgrade path to Kontakt. I'm sure alot of people hear will do their own sampling as far as the library thing goes. Thats where i'm at so far with all this if it makes any sense. Don't wanna see you regret selling.
niles

hmmm...well, maybe i'm crazy, but my Kontakt Demo suddenly started working just after i decided to tear back into my E4 and started to realize i would be insane to sell it.

then i got into Kontakt some, then read the NI forum where people are complaining (like any software) about bugs, and i thought...yep, gonna hold on to this thing some more...

Well, glad ya got Kontakt goin. Theres not many good things sound wise in the demo. It would be good to get some of your own stuff into it if youve got cdxtract. Check you private messeges.
niles