Has anyone tried Kontakt 3?

[mazz]

I just PM'd Anne regarding this but now I see this thread so I'll add this link to it:http://www.truespec.com/index.phpThere's lots of material there and they also have an audio package which includes all the examples referred to in the book (Prof. Orch. 1, based on Rimsky-Korsakov's classic text). Yes, knowledge of harmony and the ability to read music is a big plus when studying orchestration but not a deal breaker. Good ears (in continual development) are probably the most important thing one can bring to the table. You have to be able to tell the difference between an Oboe and a Clarinet, for instance.The Guide to MIDI Orchestration is good. Lots of good general stuff. It goes in to specific libraries and so pretty much obsoletes itself in that regard since things are constantly changing but the basics are there.The book that Chuck had with him at the Rally is pretty new, I hadn't heard of it before he showed it to me, but I did order it from Amazon, it hasn't arrived yet so I can't give a review but at a glance it looks like it's good: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0240520211Then there's the classics:http://www.amazon.com/Study-Orchestratio....59 22077&sr=8-1http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Orchest....95 ... r=8-3These are not oriented towards MIDI orchestration but have great, in depth info on each instrument, how it's constructed, played, musical examples, etc. As with composing, recording, mixing, etc., orchestration is as deep a subject as you can go. It's tremendous fun because it includes music, harmony, physics all wrapped up in to one subject. Good stuff!!!MazzPS: I've found that with Native Instruments stuff (Kontakt 3), it can come out with a few bugs and incompatibilites so I usually wait for things to shake out before upgrading. Kontakt 2 is now very good and seems very stable (download all the updates so you have the latest version). Get it while you can. It is more flexible and memory efficent than the Kompakt player and is Mac/Intel compatible.