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 Kontakt 5 player is out-of-date (or let's say not installed).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...

gainstructure

I guess I don't understand how we got here. From what I've experienced and read, once the new versions of existing instruments get updated to take advantage of new NKS features in V7, those instruments cannot be loaded in V6.

I'd ask if this is correct, but I've already experienced this myself and the only warning is in the release notes in Native Access.

What I'd love to see is a some way to port over a V6 instantiation without having to go back and save a preset, which for those of us who still open really old sessions, is an impossible task given the steps that would take. I could outline those steps, but picture keeping a bootable drive around so that you can go back to open that session, save the preset and then go back - even on my M1 Max, with a large scoring session, this is easily 10 mins to save perhaps the one preset you need. This doesn't account for the lost momentum and mindset in that moment where things suddenly do wrong or you need a preset from an earlier session where you wrote a bit of a cue you want to use in another spot.

If I can't keep V6 and V7 installed together and available in Pro Tools, NI, you just have to figure something out. This makes upgrading to V7 impossible for me right now. I can't do it and this might mark the beginning of the end for Kontakt for me with thousands and thousands of dollars spent on upgrades from you directly, let alone 3rd party instruments where I don't want to calculate that math...it's insane how much I've spent.

Please, find a way to make this work or explain a workflow to me that is far easier than what I described above. I run Pro Tools (yes, I compose in PT for better or for worse) and I usually the latest version or close to it. I'm on 2023.9 at the moment.

jfriend3

Hello - updating this ticket, because it is still a problem - maybe I can ask for another workaround: is there a script or something that will read my old Kontakt 5 rack settings (Kontakt 5 cannot be installed on Mac Apple Silicon) and give me a text output of what the settings are? For example, read old PTF file and have it output to text what the saved Kontakt 5 rack setting were, for example, Slot 1, DrumLab, set to...? I am trying to load old files and the Kontakt 5 instrument is empty and when I add the Kontakt 7 to it, it does not load what was previously in Multi; so I have a ton of WIPs that I have no idea what instruments where there and I am not able to recreate them. Yes, I could solve this by adding some serious notetaking to my workflow, but I have not done that prior and I want to load the old settings and have no idea what they were. Thanks, Joe

ozark2001

With Kontakt 7 not being name compatible with Kontakt 6 aka "Kontakt", how about a mechanism in K7 that reads and extracts the currently loaded preset in any older currently loaded Kontakt version if dropped onto it or in its place on the same track in order to replace 7<K with K7?