Upgrade Kontakt Player, Port Rack Instruments, Presets, and Settings?

jfriend3

Hi,

I never really looked for a solution to this and I'm not sure why, but now it's a real impediment to me b/c I went from an Intel Mac to Apple Silicon. I will detail the issue, hopefully someone can help. I can figure out, but there has to be an 'easy way', right?

Here's the question: how can I upgrade to Kontakt 7, load a file with an old Kontakt 5 rack, and have Kontakt 7 load the same rack with the same presets and adjustments? One would hope there'd be a way for it to read the file and use the same settings. Does this exist?

For example:

1. Load a PTX file that contains Kontakt 5 Player with a full multi-rack. Let's say slot 1 is DrumLab set to 'Raw' and 'Aggressive Break'.
2. Kontakt 5 player is out-of-date (or let's say not installed).
3. Load Kontakt 7 player and 'automagically' pull the settings from the 'inactive' Kontakt 5 Player.

Thanks,

Joe

FWIW, this is detailed and sorta acknowledged but not addressed in this AMA post - https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/45448#Comment_45448 = from Paul B.

"I haven't upgraded to Kontakt 7 yet, but I will. When I do, I expect that to migrate existing Ableton Live sets, I will have to go into each track which contains a Kontakt 6 instance, save as a preset, load Kontakt 7, and load the preset before removing Kontakt 6? Keeping them on Kontakt 6 will only work as long as MacOS support for Kontakt 6 continues, so I'd prefer to migrate early.

Is there an easier way? If not, can a migration option be added to Kontakt 7 to directly transfer loaded instruments and settings from a Kontakt 6 instance found on the same track, or is this too complicated/restricted by the host application?"

Sunborn

To say it simple (though it is a complicate case):

If you have an instrument named "Plugin" and you have version 5, and 3 years later update to version 7, but the name still remains the same, then it is not a problem at all. Things will go smoothly (as long as you also keep the older bank/library because any update has changes and your original preset may be still exist or maybe not).

However (and unfortunately this is the usual case with many VSTs), if your instrument name is "Plugin 5" and you update to "Plugin 7", then every DAW just sees a different name and does not load any instrument (you may see "missing instrument" or "instrument not found", etc.).

The best thing you can do, is to save your instrument, your preset, your channel setting or whatever else needed. For example you have a Kontakt 5 preset named "CoolBass". You need to save it as a user preset, either with the same either with a different name.

So, after a while you want to remove Kontakt 5 and update to Kontakt 7. If you have saved your own presets for all your tracks, Kontakt 7 will recognize them and import them. So, when your DAW say "instrument not found" (for Kontakt 5) you will load Kontakt 7 and replace the older plugin and then you open your old preset in the new plugin version. All other possible channel settings you have (EQ, Insert FX etc) will not be affected.

This is the ideal case, however, things are rarely simple in the digital world and there are a number of things that may go wrong. Also, what i describe is just the simplest form of what you can do. There are many more options, but we are not here to write books... :-)

Note: i had a similar problem last year when i decided to get rid of VST2 where ever it possible and keep only VST3. ...it took me almost 3 months to update all of my 92 tracks/projects...

Sunborn

To say it simple (though it is a complicate case):

If you have an instrument named "Plugin" and you have version 5, and 3 years later update to version 7, but the name still remains the same, then it is not a problem at all. Things will go smoothly (as long as you also keep the older bank/library because any update has changes and your original preset may be still exist or maybe not).

However (and unfortunately this is the usual case with many VSTs), if your instrument name is "Plugin 5" and you update to "Plugin 7", then every DAW just sees a different name and does not load any instrument (you may see "missing instrument" or "instrument not found", etc.).

The best thing you can do, is to save your instrument, your preset, your channel setting or whatever else needed. For example you have a Kontakt 5 preset named "CoolBass". You need to save it as a user preset, either with the same either with a different name.

So, after a while you want to remove Kontakt 5 and update to Kontakt 7. If you have saved your own presets for all your tracks, Kontakt 7 will recognize them and import them. So, when your DAW say "instrument not found" (for Kontakt 5) you will load Kontakt 7 and replace the older plugin and then you open your old preset in the new plugin version. All other possible channel settings you have (EQ, Insert FX etc) will not be affected.

This is the ideal case, however, things are rarely simple in the digital world and there are a number of things that may go wrong. Also, what i describe is just the simplest form of what you can do. There are many more options, but we are not here to write books... :-)

Note: i had a similar problem last year when i decided to get rid of VST2 where ever it possible and keep only VST3. ...it took me almost 3 months to update all of my 92 tracks/projects...