Plugin or standalone?

[sergedaigno]

Hello, I wonder if a Kontakt plugin could be loaded once having, let's say, 3 different instruments loaded into it, each one routed to a different midi channel.

Then, into Cakewalk, 3 different tracks routed to Kontakt would be assigned to the 3 midi channels mapped into Kontakt midi channels.

Or it is more advised to open Kontakt as standalone and avoid lots of plugins that could (maybe) eat memory and be harder to manage when using many orchestral instruments?

Thanks for any hint.

 

   

[razor7music]

Hello--

You can load multiple instruments into one instance of kontakt, or you can have a dedicated instance of kontakt for each instrument. The separate instances would use a slightly greater amount of your DAW's resources--as I posted a similar question years ago and that's what I was told.

Personally, I have found it to be easier to work with separate instances of kontakt for each instruments--otherwise it gets confusing.

I don't think you mean 'stand-alone' as that definition means running kontakt outside of Cakewalk--on its own. But I understood what you meant.

[sergedaigno]

'stand-alone' as running kontakt outside of Cakewalk, yes that is what I meant. An Orchestral composition requires many instruments and sections and load one Kontakt plugin per track maybe tricky to manage, especially with RAM limits and 16 midi channels. 

So, you can create multiple Cakewalk midi tracks (each having a specific midi input) targetting only one kontakt plugin having multiple instruments, each one dedicated to a specific midi output?

 

 

[Slugbaby]

You can load up one instance of Kontakt and feed it 16 MIDI channels, to as many synths as you can fit in the one Kontakt.

Then you can add a 2nd instance of Kontakt into the project, and direct 16 more MIDI channels to THAT.

 

I've never tried using more than one Stand-alone Kontakt, but I don't see the user-case for that...

Edited June 18, 2019 by Slugbaby

[razor7music]

1 hour ago, sergedaigno said:

'stand-alone' as running kontakt outside of Cakewalk, yes that is what I meant. An Orchestral composition requires many instruments and sections and load one Kontakt plugin per track maybe tricky to manage, especially with RAM limits and 16 midi channels. 

So, you can create multiple Cakewalk midi tracks (each having a specific midi input) targetting only one kontakt plugin having multiple instruments, each one dedicated to a specific midi output?

 

 

Yes.

[sergedaigno]

Thanks both for your help. Maybe there is some tutorial that will instruct me about this matter.

[Tez]

FYI... My current project has 4 instances of Kontakt, 1 with 10 instruments loaded, 1 with 3 and 2 each with one, separate outputs & midi channels. The single instrument instances were breakouts from the multis, as there seemed to be performances quirks for those instruments, for unknown reasons, but I suspect it might have been due to a combination older libraries (Kontakt 2) with current ones, so there may have been some compatibility issue, or a scripting issue who knows, as also a chunk of midi CCs are used for all of them...

[abacab]

23 hours ago, sergedaigno said:

'stand-alone' as running kontakt outside of Cakewalk, yes that is what I meant. An Orchestral composition requires many instruments and sections and load one Kontakt plugin per track maybe tricky to manage, especially with RAM limits and 16 midi channels.

You could run Kontakt as a "stand-alone" application outside of the DAW, but that would be the hardest to manage, since you would need to run virtual MIDI loopback cables between the DAW and the stand-alone Kontakt application to send the MIDI data with. Then you would have other issues also if you were using ASIO audio drivers, since only one application at a time can use them.

The other suggestions here to work inside the DAW either by using a Kontakt plug-in instance per instrument, or  by using multiple instruments and MIDI channels per Kontakt plugin instance would be the best advice.

[sergedaigno]

@Tez Up to now that seems to work fine with Kontakt player.

@abacab Absolutely right, that's what I encountered and thought as a flaw instead of a crude technical reality,  thanks for the insight

[Thatsastrat]

Why not freeze tracks to free up memory if daw gets glitch. Audio takes very little resources and if need be you can always unfreeze a track to edit the midi or automation then freeze back after your done. This is how I have to do it.