Robert Bone

UPDATE - RESOLVED. Kontakt 6 Player and Kontakt 7 Player, as well as Reaktor Player, are all happily installed now. Turns out they don't present for installation if the user account has a valid Kontakt and/or Reaktor license. Once we switched to my friend's account, with no such licenses, all of the players presented for installation. Bob Bone

Thanks for the replies. I hope to hear back from Native Instruments tech support and get some resolution.

Howdy - I am not understanding about your Native Access is opening off screen. In any case, if you can help me figure out how I can get the Kontakt 7 Player downloaded and installed, that would be VERY helpful. Bob Bone

UPDATE - RESOLVED. Kontakt 6 Player and Kontakt 7 Player, as well as Reaktor Player, are all happily installed now. Turns out they don't present for installation if the user account has a valid Kontakt and/or Reaktor license. Once we switched to my friend's account, with no such licenses, all of the players presented for installation. Bob Bone Original issue: Howdy - I have a friend with a laptop and am having an issue trying to get him hooked up with free Komplete Start software and sounds from Native Instruments. I can not for the life of me locate the installer or install process for the Kontakt 7 Player. I have had the Komplete packages since Komplete 2, MANY years back, and NI has changed things around quite a bit with regard to the Kontakt Player and free libraries and such, but this has me stumped. I simply can not figure out how to get the Kontakt 7 Player installed on his laptop. I looked it up online, I have Native Access 3.1... installed on his laptop, and I went through the process of 'Getting' the Komplete Start 'Added' to the account, and it says that Komplete Start is now available through Native Access, and that everything under the 'Home' tab in Native Access should get installed. We did that, but NO sign of the Kontakt 7 Player, whatsoever. It did install the Guitar Rig 7 Player, but no Kontakt 7 Player. Can anybody shed any light on what needs to be done to get this Kontakt 7 Player installed? THANKS!!!!! Bob Bone

In 2018, I bought an Intel-based Windows 10 Dell Alienware laptop with a Thunderbolt 3 port, and just last year built a desktop running Windows 11 that has two Thunderbolt 4 (a more advanced spec than USB 4). I have 2 Thunderbolt 3 audio interfaces. They are rock-solid for studio use. However, I do not rely on using them for playing out live. They work fine, but the USB-C sized ports Thunderbolt 3 and 4 use are a bit wobbly and it's easy to knock the cable out of either computer, which means at least a relaunch of the VST hosting software, or possibly a full computer reboot. But in the studio, the Thunderbolt 3 and 4 devices work great. Bob Bone

I do not know if this is recent behavior or not, but this morning I noticed that 10 newly-inserted audio tracks in a project are having their Output set to the project's Guitar Lead bus, rather than to the expected setting to the Master bus. (This project has multiple buses - keyboards, strings, guitars, drums, etc.) I grabbed a screen shot to show one of the tracks this happened to, the Keyboard Stem, and I have the first few buses shown as well. I thought perhaps it picked the Guitar Lead bus because it was the 1st bus I had added to the project, but it turns out that the Guitar Lead bus is the 2nd bus I had added to the project, so I have no guess as to what might trigger the unexpected Output setting. (The 1st bus I had inserted into the project was the Guitar bus, not the Guitar Lead bus.) I easily corrected the Output settings, for the 10 tracks I had inserted. I am just pointing out the behavior, so folks can correct the settings, if needed on their projects. Bob Bone

UPDATE on my Arturia Modular V2 VST2 plugin crashing Cakewalk. It turned out to be related to licensing, and is resolved. I had created a Cakewalk project several years back, on a different PC, that had Arturia V Collection 3 installed, which included the Modular V2 VST2 plugin. Since everything was properly licensed and activated, Modular V2 worked just fine on that PC. That PC later died - the motherboard went belly up. When I ported everything over to my laptop, that included a bunch of VSTi plugins, which included Modular V2. What I didn't realize at the time (3:30 AM), was that I had to activate Arturia V Collection 3 on the laptop, to have that Modular V license properly ready for use. It was only because I had opened up the old Cakewalk project from the now dead PC, that Modular V2 was loaded, and because it was not activated on the laptop, when I attempted to open the Modular V2 UI in the Cakewalk project, it purposefully killed itself with an Access Violation, which then crashed Cakewalk. I have subsequently Activated Arturia V Collection 3 on the laptop, and reinstalled Modular V V2 from the V Collection 3, and it now happily works, in stand-alone mode and as a VSTi plugin in Cakewalk projects. A SUGGESTION: The above experience DID cause me to realize something that could be useful to anybody. One of the things I tried to do was to open up the Modular V V2 plugin to see what preset I had loaded into it when it was working. There is currently no way to determine that, if the plugin can not be opened for whatever reason. SOOOOOO - moving forward - I will dilegently maintain a list in a text or Word document, of each preset loaded into each plugin, for each project, so that if at some point a plugin breaks and no longer can be opened, at least I will know what preset had been loaded when that plugin was working, which may help me aproximate the sound using a newer version of the same plugin, or give me some clue if I have to recreate that sound from some other preset or from scratch. Bob Bone

I am experiencing Cakewalk crashes any time I open the Arturia Modular V2 synth UI. It appears to be an access violation, and occurs when inserting into both existing projects where it used to work, and it crashes if inserted and its UI is opened in a new project. Modular V2 is a VST2 plugin. Its V3 version is a VST3 and opens. I have an existing project with the V2 VST2 version, that I need to see what preset is loaded, so I can swap in the V3 version which works. A frustrated sad Bob Bone.

Sorry for not responding earlier. I have been in a lot of pain from weather changing back and forth, which makes multiple herniated discs angry at me. I have gotten the computer back up. The power supply was the culprit. I also used SFC (system File Checker) and DISM to repair some Windows file corruption. In more than 200 computer builds I have never had a power supply do this, let alone a brand new one. Weirdness never sleeps, I guess. Thanks to all who jumped in to help. Bob Bone

OK - I recently built a new monster desktop PC, and after nearly three very busy weeks I got all my software installed (over 1,200 plugins) plus 6TB of sample libraries downloaded and installed as well as another 4TB of user files and such. Two days ago, my brand spanking new power supply instantly shut off, which instantly shut off the computer, RIGHT in the middle of my updating the NVIDIA video drivers. Ever since that happened, I get ZERO video signal and therefore can not see anything on the screen. Despite my 38 years of mainframe programming, I am not sure of how to fix the issue. I have downloaded the Microsoft MediaCreation Tool for Windows 11, on my laptop, and can create a bootable USB drive with Windows using the tool, but I am not sure whether or not booting up the desktop using the bootable USB drive will give me the option of essentially a reinstall of Windows 11 where it will not only preserve my user account and files, but will also preserve all of the installed software. I really do not want to have to reinstall some 1,200 plugins and all of my sample libraries and such. Any guidance? I SURELY would appreciate someone laying out the steps to do this correctly. Bob Bone UPDATE RESOLVED. It was a defective brand new power supply.

Hey guys - I am trying to help a friend of mine navigate the DistroKid process. He has an account, and is ready to upload his music. When we go to the Upload Music page, there are a number of Services listed, all of which are pre-checked (Spotify, Amazon, Pandora, etc...). My hunch is that for Distrokid to send all of these Services his uploaded songs and ISRC codes, that my friend would need to have previously set up accounts for each of the services he wants DistroKid to send his music to. We tried looking through the DistroKid FAQ's and came up empty on this. Can someone please explain this a little, so we do the Upload Music process properly? For example, my friend has a Spotify free account, to listen to music. Does he need to do anything different on Spotify for DistroKid to properly send his personal music to Spotify? Same question for the other Services - does my friend need to set up a business/vendor type of account for Amazon, of any of the other Services? THANKS!

Sorry - long day with large headache. Brain fart at my end. Thanks. Bob Bone

For whatever the worth, the Sonar Lifetime Updates fiasco was done by Gibson, making a money grab, and was not initiated by the actual Sonar development staff. I will never for the rest of my life pay a single penny to Gibson, because of what they did with that money grab and then shutting down Sonar altogether. I am SOOOOO happy that Cakewalk by Bandlab emerged through it all, with development and support with the same staff from Cakewalk being hired by Meng who owns Bandlab. There is not a day that goes by where I don't silently thank Meng and Noel and the other folks who have continued to bust hump to keep Cakewalk by Bandlab alive, with Meng footing the bill to hire the Sonar development staff out of his own pocket. That was simply amazing. Bob Bone

Howdy. Has anyone run into this and solved it? I have Sonar Platinum installed to grant me access in CbB to the various plugins that came with Sonar Platinum, and I also purchased several effects for use in Sonar. I have the LP EQ and LP MB installed, through Command Center, but when I insert either/both of them into an FX Bin and open them, they both say they are running in Demo Mode. Any thoughts? Fixes? Thanks, Bob Bone

I mostly posted the thread because of the 6 free plugins they are offering folks who create a free acount. Bob Bone