Best Service Releases OCTA ‘Musical Workhorse’

Best Service has released Chris Hein – OCTA, described as “a musical workhorse that is incredibly adaptable and easy to be inspired by.”

OCTA features 100 solo instruments, 8 core multi-channel instruments, and an 8-channel sequencer. It’s designed to let you compose with a solo instrument or an ensemble of (up to) 8 instruments.

“The sonic magic comes to light when you combine and layer different instruments,” they say, like the wooden attack of a marimba combined with the metallic sustain of a vibraphone.

Features:

  • 100 high-quality solo instruments
  • 8 multi channel instruments
  • 8 channel sequencer

Pricing and Availability:

Chris Hein – OCTA is available now for $299 USD. Registered users of previous Chris Hein Libraries are eligible for a discounted crossgrade offer through the end of January 2023.

9 thoughts on “Best Service Releases OCTA ‘Musical Workhorse’

  1. I picked this up earlier this week. It’s pretty unique for a 20GB Kontakt library. One thing that it really does well is tuned percussive instruments. I hate running multiple instances of Kontakt in the DAW. This allows you to have a setup that is much more than 8-part multitimbral, which is a simplistic way of looking at its eight cores. For one thing, it has a very interesting sequencer that is polyphonic and there is one per core. I really haven’t had time to get too into it yet, but so far I’m impressed with the quality of the sound I’ve been able to get out of it. It even runs well in Studio One Pro on a PC on an old i7 6700K processor and 32GB memory, and it is fine with Live Studio on a MAc Mini M1. This is quite a departure for a Chris Hein Kontakt library.

    I think the manual said Kontakt 6.7.1 and higher. Its an NICNT library.

      1. When an “Instrument” is offered in Kontakt, what that implies is some novel scripting inside Kontakt. Some Kontakt instruments are more “instrumenty” than others, and this one is really pretty good, and does feel like it’s acting like an instrument more than a fancy sample playback device. Because of the user interface, I don’t think this would scale well to an iPod. Also, the price of Kontakt libraries is, for most examples, dependent on the sample content, much more so than how that content is wrapped. No matter what you think of him as a producer, Chris Hein has continually demonstrated his exceptional ability to oversee large scale sampling projects. The $299 cost is probably over 95% driven by the cost to produce the library. Since the actual value of the library is probably in excess of $200, I doubt you would see him give it away for use on iDevices.

        After watching the Kontakt market for more than 10 years, now, it seems that (even with NI’s immense market penetration) Kontakt titles that are based on exceptional sample libraries, operate as “official” Kontakt NICNT libraries, and come from reputable producers, carry price tags well over $200 (which appears to have shrunk from $400 over the last five years or so). Some big-time Kontakt developers like Sample Logic have managed to shave hundreds off the prices of their high-end offerings by supplying their sample libraries without the NI license fee that allows the inclusion of the NICNT official library authorization. Apparently, this has been successful for them since they seem to have adopted this strategy for at least the last four years, or so. I think that they realize that after a user has accumulated enough “authorized” Kontakt libraries such that the library paginates, then having the libraries “click selectable” really offers little advantage. Producing high quality sample libraries is an expensive process and those expenses need to be amortized over the sales life of the product.

  2. Hmmm just read the info on the website. Unify seems to do the same but way more. Maybe I am missing something? Unify lets me use every VST I own and has MIDI Box, unlimited channels, insane CC routing, etc. granted I am currently in the ER with chest pains a bit light headed but can still read lol. Anyways, Happy New Year to everyone! Take care of yourselves. Your health is the most important thing!

    1. You’re missing a lot. This is a 20+GB Kontakt sample library with some very impressive scripting, that runs in Kontakt and requires nothing but an operating system and Kontakt to use to full advantage. It’s a lot different than Unify.

      1. “This is a 20+GB Kontakt sample library“

        Yep. Thanks but I didn’t miss anything. I think it even says on their website something like
        “play a kalimba sound with blah blah…” really? Another K library. Good for you if you need tuned percussion samples, I can make my own. Have no desire to give NI anymore $$$, JMO. Different strokes.

  3. Komplete is too much of a tidal wave for me. I’d feel foolish in using any other product, just trying to get half of the benefit from a NI universe. That’s probably what they hope for. I have never trusted them after the KORE mess and I gave their update/upgrade process the Stinkeye after a couple of purchases that became more trouble than they were worth. I find no fault with anyone who has gotten onboard with them and liked it, though. There’s a lot to be said for fluid scripting that opens the door to added parameter controls on a whim.

    I could almost see grudgingly dropping $300 for Kontakt, just to access the many tempting Kontakt-only libraries, but those rarely come cheap. Its a money pit of a sample player. Not that playing synths is cheap very often, but there’s the mass of Kontakt-only tools and then there’s everything else in the world.

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