instal the new version for iphoneNative Instruments Kontakt 7.5.0

The program is provided in stand-alone, DXi, VST, RTAS, and Audio Units flavours, and installation proved straightforward. Mac users can apparently get away with 800MHz G4 processors, although my test was carried out on a PC, so I can't comment further! NI recommend a minimum spec of 512MB of RAM on both platforms, and that Pentium PCs should have processors no slower than 1GHz (Athlon XP-based machines have a suggested minimum speed of 1.4GHz, though).

Kontakt 2 is a cross-platform application, although it only runs under Windows XP and Mac OS X from revision 10.2.6 and up.

Version 2 has had a major cosmetic overhaul, with loads of new features and a much improved interface. Samples can be streamed directly from disk and processed by a large variety of effects: time-stretching, filtering, modulation, looping and beat-slicing are just a small selection of the armoury of tools on offer. To recap briefly, Kontakt is a sophisticated software sampler, offering sample creation from compatible file formats, sample manipulation and performance capabilities similar to programs such as Tascam's Gigastudio, Steinberg's Halion and Emagic/Apple's EXS24.

Version 1.0.2 of NI's Kontakt was reviewed back in SOS August 2002, and has since become a major player amongst software samplers. Native Instruments' Kontakt has become one of the most popular software samplers since its release in 2002, and the new version, with its many excellent new features, should keep it near the top of the heap.

Instal the new version for iphoneNative Instruments Kontakt 7.5.0