I'm just wondering, since there seem to be loads of free Kontakt sets out there if any of you have ever examined the idea of converting those to the sfz format?

There's Extreme Sample Converter http://www.extranslator.com/
you may need to run on WinOnX.

When you convert one format to another you may lose some or many attributes and nuances of that patch. Thus although you can convert the final sound may or may not be the same as the original.

FWIW-you can use those free Kontakt sounds with the free Kontakt player. Personally that is the way I would proceed.

Probably not. Only NI licensed libraries get to use the free Kontakt player except for the free libraries that NI includes.

All those free sounds are designed for use in the paid version of Kontakt.

NI does not want people to convert their libraries and make it very difficult to do so.

Why would you even want to do that? I guess you want the free Kontakt sets and the ability to play them huh?

Why not just get the FREE KONTAKT player? On the NI site.... there are a few free players for their stuff. Not as full featured but totally free and "full working versions" none the less.

HERE>>>> https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/free/

Yeah... just get the players and use them because if you try converting the samples... it might not work.

If they are in wav it would be easy with http://polyphone-soundfonts.com/en/download
you just add the wav's with the note in the filename.

but if those wavs are copyright protected then you would be breaking the law.

The best suggestion has already been given and this is get the free Kontakt Player. That way you would be on the right side of the law.

If they are free they are free.

We went through all this with Frank (Seeker), he was put off creating UserTracks forever after someone said "you would be breaking the law", I got in touch with the company and found out from them that it wasn't the case.

why reinvent the wheel?

Get the free Kontakt player and be done with it.

I know, I was trying to avoid having to grasp their convoluted interface, I s'pose, particularly since we got that blissfully simple sfz interface already.
I'll give that link a shot, Pipeline, although that too seems like more new things to grasp, so I dunno

Anyway, thanks to all who chimed in, I just might end up just sticking with the decent stuff I already got for sforzando, so write this one out to general curiosity more than dire need (which it certainly wasn't).

"J-311 free Kontakt drum library requires a full version of Native Instruments Kontakt. In the free Kontakt Player version, it will be functional only 15 minutes with each opening. If you don’t own Kontakt, no problem, you can use the included one-shot drum samples (311 WAV files) in any drum sampler of your choice."

"Details
The Pack Contains 1 Grand Piano instrument for NI Kontakt (5+ Full).

93Mb Download Size
210Mb Total Size (unrared)
Free"

ESC has many import formats but is only for Win unless you use something like WineBottler ?

For those who want to convert other formats to SFZ.

From the Soundiron Venus Women's Choir:

"While you can reprogram the samples or presets to other
formats, we always recommend using Kontakt for best
results, since it widely considered the industry standard
and easily the most powerful sample programming and
playback platform on the market. However, if you wish to
convert or reprogram the wav files and instrument
presets into any other sampler or softsynth format,
including free and open-source standards like SFZ, then
there are a variety of great tools that you can use to
customize this library, such as Extreme Sample Converter
and Chickensys Translator. Just be aware that not all
settings and properties will translate accurately, reliably or
even at all from one instrument or audio format to the
next, due to vast differences in standards, behaviors,
structures and capabilities that each platform relies on."

Here's a Mac WineBottle Extreme Sample Converter.
It's a Standalone ESC.app
It may take a while before the gui comes up.
if it works you know the full will.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tpehkhdevgkybgt/ESC_Mac.rar?dl=0
Click No Thanks Continue at the bottom.

I've converted a number of Kontakt samples into sfz instruments. My motivation was to be able to use them with my USB EWI, which uses an underpowered netbook as the sound source.

In some cases, I've been able to use Kontakt to export the samples as .wav files, which is convenient. Getting the samples by playing them through Kontakt means you're getting a second generation sample, at best.

When there's just a single sample per note, I set up a <group> trigger=first for one set of samples, and <group> trigger=legato using the same samples, but with legato parameters for the second group.

I've not had to deal with loop points. Those values are visible in Kontakt, but often samples are long enough (several seconds) that it not been a problem for me.

When the sample set contains true legato samples, it's a lot more work. That's mostly because transitions are shared between notes. For example, the transition from A4 to D4 might be shared by the notes F#4, G4, G#4, A4 and A#4. There are a lot of sampled legato transitions, so my solution was to write a Java program to figure out the the best mappings and generate the .sfz file.

If I'm feeling particular clever, I'll also create round robins from the nearest notes.

Dave, if I can ask why not use Kontakt with your wind controller?

I use my EWI USB all the time in Kontakt.

My netbook has 1 gig of memory and a slow processor. Using the Plogue sforzando player, it can handle 1 note of polyphony.

I don't even want to imagine running Kontakt on that machine.

I see. Thanx for letting me know.