Bonzos Ghost

I've used Kontakt for years and it's used in every project to some degree. It's a very complex beast if you get under the hood and create your own multi-sampled instruments. It's also very straightforward if you don't get under the hood. Having said that, I don't believe it's ever crashed on me - (at least that I can recall right now....probably has, but it's rare.) Once a library is loaded it behaves just fine, but as already mentioned you need to be aware of what version you have and what version the library you're using requires. There will always be people that have nothing but problems with certain software and others that have few or none. Look no further than this forum for people having all kinds of issues with Sonar / Cakewalk, etc. while others have never had the issues they're experiencing. I've been using Cakewalk since ... forever. Yes, it's gonna crap the bed once in a while, but EVERY daw will do that for one reason or another once in a while. For me, it works fine 99% of the time. Same applies to Kontakt, but you do need to learn a little about how it handles sample libraries, etc. so you don't create any hiccups.

That's about the only way I've come up with as well. Load up several kits as a starting point. That would require a lot of tracks, but my pc can handle it. It's unfortunate it can't be done simply. The template loads everything correctly right now into an existing project except the drum vst itself. All the multi-out tracks, fx plugins, aux busses - just no vst plugin. Would be a great feature to have as setting up drums each time is a lot of work. The other way around it is to just load the drum vsts as standard stereo out instruments, and print the kit pieces separately. That's what I've been doing lately. I'll end up with multiple snares, kicks, cymbals I can pick and choose between and/or blend together. That's works fine, but an instrument template (that works correctly) would be ideal and a HUGE time saver.

Question regarding track templates.... If I make a multi-out drum setup (EZD, SSD, BFD, etc.) including various plugins, I know I can save that as a template and load it as a new project, which is no different than just saving it as a .cwp if I'm starting a new project. What I'm trying to do is save that multi-out setup as a template and load it into an existing project, so I can swap different Drum VST's in/out with all the tracks, fx, etc. intact. If I create and then insert a saved track template into an existing project, it will load all the tracks, aux busses, fx, etc. just fine, BUT it won't load the drum VST plugin. I would have to insert the drum VST and then setup all the audio inputs again track by track. Royal pain when there's a lot of tracks involved. Don't know whether this is possible using multiple output channels, but if it is, I could use some words of wisdom as I can't get it to work as intended.