Kontakt For Beginners: Setup and Getting Started!

[@flyme-z7b]

I wish I had found your video first! This is the most concise explanation and demonstration of how to properly setup Kontakt. I love having a 16 instrument Kontakt/Logic template to start with and then build from there if need be. Another wonderful video! Thank you, Chris.

[@ChristopherSiu]

Always my pleasure!

[@Helenah51]

Oh My God, this was incredibly helpful. Why on earth does Kontakt not put out videos this clear!?! Excellent job.

[@ChristopherSiu]

Haha thank you so much!

[@joellongiemusic]

Thank you! I could never figure out how to do this until your video.

[@drborisyum9977]

Extremely helpful video, landed on this because no one explained the final and most important step I was missing -> "Getting each instance outputting to its own track"! Thank you so so much for resolving this 👍

[@ChristopherSiu]

Glad it helped!

[@flyme-z7b]

Of course one of the benefits of this is that we can save the whole thing as a 'Template' in Logic so that anytime we have the urge everything is already laid out and ready to go for a fresh session.

[@renakmans3521]

Thanks so much, it’s exactly what I needed and couldn’t find until now!

[@ChristopherSiu]

Awesome to hear!

[@radical_wholeness]

I can’t explain how helpful this was, thank you so much. Excellent video, great info.

[@ChristopherSiu]

You're very welcome!

[@tobbelander2037]

Like your presentation, calm and easy to learn from you. Thanks, Tobbe from Sweden

[@ChristopherSiu]

Many thanks!

[@mayanksngs]

Hey Christopher.. Very helpful video. I only recently found your channel, and have been on a binge watch of a lot of your tutorials and videos. Subscribed as a gesture of my thanks to you. I have two questions about the subject of this video, if you don't mind answering. 1- In terms of speed and efficiency, which one do you think is the better option between - having multiple instruments loaded onto one instance of Kontakt player, versus having a Kontakt player instance on each individual track? 2- In your example, it doesn't show the record enable button (R) on each of the auxiliary tracks. Do the tracks still record individual regions when recording the assigned VST to the selected auxiliary track? Thanks so much once again.

[@ChristopherSiu]

Thanks so much for the kind words! Good questions: 1. I've recently adopted the latter approach (individual Kontakt instances on each track), and while I don't see a huge difference in workflow and processing power, it's easier for mixing. 2. Yes, they should still record by default. Hope that helps, and best of luck!

[@mayanksngs]

​@@ChristopherSiu Yes, I too was curious and hesitant about the mixing process for earlier option. It makes total sense now. Thank you very much, man. Best of luck to you too.

[@DevanshRastogi]

This is one of the best guides out there

[@ChristopherSiu]

Glad it was helpful!

[@TheDondori]

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[@HaylieSings]

So helpful!! Any advice on how to do this in Kontakt Player? I have yet to discover where the Output panel is located in player. (Maybe there isn’t one?)

[@yohan1539]

Cool video! I just got started with Kontakt and this was helpful. Love the rest of your stuff too.

[@ChristopherSiu]

So glad to hear that!

[@TheDondori]

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[@SecondTierSound]

Thank you Christopher. This is really helpful, especially the Batch functions. One thing though that is Cubase specific (but probably still a valid point for all DAWs), is that cubase has "instrument" tracks that are superior in many aspects to "midi"-tracks (you can still use them too). But using instrument tracks makes it pointless to use several channels in Kontakt itself. You can still have several instruments in a Kontakt instance, but you can only hear one channel from Kontakt at a time, when using Instrument channels. So, instead you have one instance of Kontakt per channel. BUT here is the thing that is useful for all DAWs, it is actually faster to setup, you have less faders to deal with, AND there are truly no noteworthy performance gains on using less instances of Kontakt, even when using many Kontakt instances in a large orchestra. It used to be an issue back in the day with old computers and low RAM. But nowadays later versions of Kontakt are very well optimized. Cheers!

[@ChristopherSiu]

This is great to know. Thanks for sharing!

[@TheDondori]

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[@oliverrees9397]

Recently found you and your channel and really enjoy the way you present everything. Thank you keep up the great work.

[@ChristopherSiu]

Thank you for watching!

[@MichaelMcCabeGuitarist]

Truly Awesome! I know how to do this now! Thank you!

[@JasonBrock]

I just got Kontakt and this guide was super helpful. Thank you for making it :)

[@ChristopherSiu]

My pleasure!

[@nicofraisse]

4:15 is that music from Earthbound (Ness) you're playing?

[@rickrockzyootoob]

THANK YOU, CHRISTOPHER!!!! Just saw this in bed now, will see how it works tomorrow. Hopefully it won’t be too different in Pro Tools. Really appreciate you doing this. 👍

[@ChristopherSiu]

My pleasure!

[@rickrockzyootoob]

Just wanted to share: I tried doing this on Pro Tools 12.6.1 using Kontakt Player 6 (I'll never subscribe to Pro Tools), and then decided to try to record stereo audio tracks of all my Kontakt instruments that I had set up. However, I kept running into issues while routing stereo channels 5/6 -- the audio would not pass through. After struggling with it for almost an hour, I decided to try using Kontakt 5 that I also had on my system. THAT worked! The MIDI worked fine, it was just the audio routing that had issues in Kontakt Player 6. Native Instruments does not state software version compatibility on their site, so if you have trouble with Chris's tutorial in Pro Tools, try Kontakt Player 5 instead. I'll try this in Cakewalk by Bandlab and will report back if any problems in that. Thanks for the tips, Chris!

[@ChristopherSiu]

You got it! Thanks for sharing.

[@rickrockzyootoob]

@@ChristopherSiu I think this issue is what led me to ask to ask for your help in the first place. I thought I was doing something wrong, but it turned out to be this bug that I discovered! 😛 Before I shut down last night, I noticed there was a new update for Kontakt 6 Player. I might try to see if it fixed this problem.

[@Bulls79]

Where is the voice output coming from? The piano speakers or the laptop external speakers?

[@DanishTubeRocks]

Hey there, Chris. Reaching out as I have got sound going in from Kontakt, but haven't been able to record it. The signal is not being put down when I record. Can you help?

[@BenoitVanhoffelen]

When I clic on Kontakt to open it, it opens in a very little windows, how can i fix this ??

[@BenjaminTemplar]

Can you use these instruments within RipX DAW Pro? Are they VTS3?

[@dogman842]

Great video. Super helpful!

[@andrewfeazelle]

So where should you install Kontakt? On the disc that has your OS and DAW, or on the disc that has your sample libraries? I've been using old school stuff for the last 20 years, and recently I've built a new PC and put DP11 on it. Gonna buy a Spitfire Symphony Complete library to replace my old VSL stuff.

[@OKPRODS]

Can I set up multiple MIDI input channels and route to each rack vst?

[@pauldecastro4815]

can you do the same type of tutorial for the orchestral instruments Sine Player?

[@piotrb7934]

Is it possible to switch instruments using the computer keyboard in a own created instrument bank? - I don't want to use the mouse cursor because I play the digital saxophone and it is not practical.

[@DJMoonlightKonamare]

Around the 2:00 mark, you just mentioned a feature I didn't know Logic Pro had! I got Logic back in late December 2021 and I was kind of unaware of some of these features.

[@alleyway3215]

I have acquired additional libraries but the instrument files are not showing in the designated folders within the browser window in Kontakt (6). How do I scan for added libraries?

[@魚さん魔導蛸]

Thank you so much ❤ very helpful!

[@ChristopherSiu]

You're so welcome!

[@paulthiebaut]

Hey Chris, there's something I still don't understand with loading multiple Kontakt instances in a single track like you're doing here... Does it actually save RAM compare to just loading say CSS longs in one track and CSS Pizz in an other track if I purge all the other articulations within each track ? I believe the result is equivalent am I wrong ?

[@azariahco]

You are not wrong. That is exactly what I do. I use one instance of kontakt per instrument and it is a lot easy for me to handle and I have also used a single instance with multiple instruments and the RAM difference and CPU performance is almost the same in both situations. Of course you have to purge what you are not using.

[@dreamfire_music]

So the next step is how do you automate the auxiliary channels? My MIDI controller works great for the main Kontakt channel but not for the auxiliary channels. 👨🏻‍💻

[@Scoey666]

How come all the keys don't play? Just the colored ones. Is there any way to make it so every key plays?

[@anthonyman8008]

Blows my mind that these players have no demo or tutorial!

[@chasvox2]

Very good. Concise. Q. I wonder if the same approach applies to Kontakt Komplete?

[@TheDondori]

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[@vaultvizion]

I am having an issue all of a sudden opening up kontakt in my daw. Every time I open it back up, it shows all my instruments using kontakt none of them will play without me unloading and loading back in the instrument which means it doesn’t save any of the changes I made on the instrument. Any reason it won’t load up ready to play? It even shows it’s playing on the meter but the sound isn’t playing until I load and unload it. A big hassle to do every time I open up my project to have to reload every single instrument.

[@MamaSymphonia]

Great guide. I've been thinking of doing something similar for FL Studio, since the routing and channel setup is a little different

[@ChristopherSiu]

Thank you! And yes go for it!

[@momosd6017]

Use bbc articulate man

[@TheDondori]

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[@azariahco]

@@momosd6017 I think You mean BRSO Articulate. :)

[@jungmou56]

Hi Christopher,thanks for your share!I want to ask a outside question.Actually what’s the main difference between Kontakt and Komplete? I am a total beginner with Native instruments.I only have enough money to buy one.which you prefer ? Thanks mate !

[@ChristopherSiu]

Hi Lucas! Komplete is the complete package of libraries that NI offers (typically a few thousand dollars). Kontakt is the sample player that hosts those libraries, and is much cheaper ($300-400). Hope that helps!

[@jungmou56]

@@ChristopherSiu Thanks mate! I love your advice!

[@ken7neth]

Great video and well explained thank you 👍🏼

[@ChristopherSiu]

Very welcome!

[@benoitheroux3535]

Very helpful and very clear thanks for sharing !

[@mountchoco8174]

I don’t have any libraries? What are those and where can I find them? Panicking for the Ryan Leach competition 😅

[@ChristopherSiu]

Haha download my sample library buyer’s guide in any of my reviews! That should get you started :)

[@Omega-Phil]

Thank you for this, it's a great help. I have the free Kontakt Player, is it worth getting the paid version? Thanks

[@ChristopherSiu]

You can definitely get by using the free player! But for more niche libraries or simply to purchase libraries that don't use the free player, I think it's worth the investment.

[@Omega-Phil]

@@ChristopherSiu thank you.

[@robinscott2877]

I cannot access the pop up menu that you get when you select 'Batch functions > Clear output section and create one individual channel for each loaded instrument'. It just doesn't appear at all so I can't solve the problem of the instruments not showing in theirs individual channels in logic. I have uninstalled and reinstalled and this has not solved it. PLEASE HELP- I am losing my mind :-/

[@MultimediaExpressCourses]

You know, I have 3-4 version of Kontakt (And in the list there are three more with different bits and outs). Because of compatibility of some plugins with different versions. Recently I scanned the list of plug-ins in my music soft, then when I open my projects, instead of one of the kontakt it loads another one and the libraries I added there, of course, can`t remember and doesn’t load. Can you explain what's what? Otherwise, I will only dream about what future version of Kontakt library will become a little more intelligent with its lists, library manager and registry. There`s AI outside.

[@bjazz68]

Excellent, thank you.

[@ChristopherSiu]

My pleasure!

[@djempathie.9889]

Hi mate my kontact use to be like yours until I clicked on something and now it's just loads up like a small keyboard on screen please help?

[@TheDondori]

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[@rayphenicie7344]

Couldn't follow along too well in Cubase 12. Cubase's mixer will not automatically add tracks. Have to draw them first in the main project window. I use Vienna Ensemble for organizing anything other than 1 or 2 tracks. Vienna Ensemble will automatically draw in tracks from the tracks drawn up in the mixer window but then I have to tell it to load in Kontakt into all of those tracks. Lots of different wrinkles. Generally, I build templates from Cubase to VE and then decide which instruments to choose to load into VE. Looking for someone to explain how I can load different choral articulations (vowels) into one big Kontakt instrument which would then be assignable, chooseable from Cubase. I'll keep looking.

[@Metalpazallteway]

How can you play the next set of instruments in a Kontakt instance while they're being channeled differently. For example, once you set up 1-16, how do you setup in Kontakt 17-32 and so forth while making sure everything is set accordingly?

[@ChristopherSiu]

You just set up another kontakt instance and do the same thing! :)

[@Metalpazallteway]

@@ChristopherSiu But wouldn't the channels come into collision? In other words channel 2 will be affected by channel 2 in the other instance or no? How can one independently call instance 2, channel 17 instead of ch 1 again? in order to avoid that issue

[@TonyDeConcini]

Chris when you set this up for 16 tracks but your planned orchestral piece might exceed the 16 tracks once you get into it - how do you handle that? Do you just add then one track at a time as needed or what is the process there?

[@ChristopherSiu]

Great question Bill! I repeat the exact same process - create a new instrument track, load kontakt into it, create 15 more aux tracks, and so on.

[@TonyDeConcini]

@@ChristopherSiu So then it's just another instance of Kontakt whether or not you use all 16 tracks? Just delete unused track when you're at the end?

[@ChristopherSiu]

Exactly!

[@pedambr199]

i usually end up creating a seperate kontakt instance for every single midi track its weird when i go to the track, open the instrument and then have to manually scroll down to the patch thats mapped to the midi track

[@eakwarren]

Only problem with the Aux track approach is Logic doesn't make the MidiFX available, so no use of Scaler 2 for example.

[@TheDondori]

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[@johnjoedaly]

I've started just using a new instance of kontakt for every instrument rather than opening lots of different midi channels directed to one instance of kontakt with lots of libraries open. It doesn't really seem to make that much difference to my system performance by having more instances of Kontakt open. Not enough to bother most modern computers I would imagine. What's your thoughts on this? In fairness, you are probably running much bigger sessions/template than me, and I'm not working professionally, just being creative with no deadlines etc. I actually don't use a template because I like the freedom of a blank slate for each song/composition. Thanks for all the great content, keep up the good work 👍

[@ChristopherSiu]

Hey John! I haven’t actually tried your method that much, but if you don’t have performance issues, then more power to you! This is just what has worked for me.

[@TheDondori]

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[@headbangerministries]

Christopher, this was a fantastic video. I purchased Kontakt 6 a month ago and got very upset trying to figure out how to download the 25+gigs of files, it said my Laptop had not enough space. Believe me I tried to view their videos and nothing works! Do you have a video on this? I have Logic Pro X and just today I was about to give it another try and found your channel but I have a 2nd question. I did the 16 Channel set up but how do you play all 16 tracks, can you do that? I'm layering a tons of sounds and really would like to play them all at once to see how they sound. Thanks.

[@ChristopherSiu]

Hey there, I'm sorry to hear that! Unfortunately I don't have that library specifically, so I'm unsure about that.

[@phillipallen1264]

Chris, Thanks so much for this! Have JUST purchased Kontakt 6, not even downloaded it yet into Cubase 10.5 Pro. Am such a newbie, may private message you at some point, it that's ok?

[@ChristopherSiu]

Sure thing Phillip!

[@TheDondori]

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[@MrDamburger]

bro im going crazy! logic crashes every time i click on kontakt 7 no matter if its 16x or 8x etc, i can't work out why it's doing this and i feel like i just wasted alot of money on a program i cant record on

[@Faithaven]

I just got the piano colors and it’s good but dang all it does is make logic randomly pop. No cpu overage and set at 512. First time I ever used it but not good

[@TheDondori]

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[@KOAN5544]

3:40 He accidentally played the beginning of the Left 4 Dead 2 hunter spawn song lol

[@JasonKutchma]

you great :)

[@ChristopherSiu]

No youuu

[@dafingaz]

🙌🏾

[@TheDondori]

mira estas libreria nki kontakt gratis kzbin.info/door/eKtGBcpGP2mj92ahwJ1X_Q

[@swampdweller5]

I clearly can't follow directions. lol But this is still a great video!

[@raenoldparkin]

This is not for beginners. You had me lost from the start. I open up the Yangqin instrument and there is some credit listing if the people who contributed and it just sits in front of the interface. No sound from the keyboard when I play the onscreen keys. This program is fucked

[@MichaelJohnson-composer]

I can't get this to work with 8DIO Intimate Studio Strings library. I load 4 instances of the same library in KONTAKT and it doesn't work. Anyone have any ideas?