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Berklee College of Music

Sound Design with Kontakt

Berklee College of Music via Kadenze

Overview

This four-session course explores a practical approach to composing and producing music with Native Instruments Kontakt. We will cover the most important technical and aesthetic aspects of creating music with the industry-standard Kontakt sampler. Weekly assignments will give you practical experience in putting these technical skills in a musical context. Topics include Kontakt library, signal flow, layering, working with drums, building custom sampled instruments, file management, modulation, audio FX, automation, and DAW integration. At the end of this course, you will have created four original compositions with Kontakt, in addition to numerous custom sampled instruments.

Syllabus

  • Using the Kontakt interface and factory library
    • Compose original music using Kontakt library patches within a Digital Audio Workstation.
  • Creating custom single-sample instruments
    • Compose original music with numerous instruments built from a single sample.
  • Creating custom multi-sampled instruments
    • Compose original music with custom multi-sampled instruments.
  • Using advanced modulation and scripting
    • Create a piece of music using advanced sampling techniques and build a custom performance view for an original Kontakt instrument.

Taught by

Loudon Stearns

Reviews

5.0 rating, based on 7 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Sound Design with Kontakt

  • Profile image for Stenseven
    Stenseven
    Excellent course covering an enormous amount of material for the Native Instruments Kontakt sampling software, the flexible state-of-the-art virtual instrument standard.

    I use Kontakt-based instruments regularly, and have read the manual cover to cover, but this course is very well organized to cover the related aspects of the Kontakt software impressively. The instructor, Loudon Stearns, has a lot of experience creating online courses and this is one of his best.

    A definite must for anyone already using Kontakt, and a good introduction for those who are curious. Everything is covered, from the difficult to understand Kontakt mixing board assignments, to the super-powerful KSP scripting language.
  • Anonymous
    I'm new to Kontakt, and found the course was very well-organized and clear. It covered a lot of material for a 4 week course, and the assignments were on-point and fun. The instructor, Louden Stearns, conveys his enthusiasm for the material very well.
  • Profile image for James P Carroll
    James P Carroll
    The course was GREAT! I learned a lot more about Kontakt in these 4 sessions, then anything I could find on Youtube. Glad NI is offering this opportunity directly from the source and can't wait too learn even more. Thank you Native Instruments and Kadenze.
  • Anonymous
    I thoroughly enjoyed the class and want even more advanced techniques for the next one...praying there is another one! I am looking forward to creating my own instruments in Kontakt!
  • Anonymous
    great simple and short introduction to sampling and using kontakt - great option to see uncharted things in kontakt that the average user usually never dive enough into.. great course.
  • Anonymous
    Excellent course. Thorough and clear. I used this as an intro to the topic and it helped greatly with more advanced study with the author at Berklee Online.
  • Anonymous
    A fantastic overview of the sampler itself with some great insight into adapting sounds to make them your own and applying that to a track.

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