Kontakt VST Backwards Compatibility

Glostafarian · 2023-10-20T13:25:43+00:00

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Hi everyone,

I was going to pull the trigger on Kontakt 7 until I realized it is VST3 only, which makes it incompatible with my DAW, which is Cakewalk Sonar 4 Producer Edition. I have read that there is a Kontakt 6 version that uses VST2, but I am unable to find it anywhere. NI still has the K6 player but it is also incompatible for the same reason. Do you know if NI still offers an earlier version of Kontakt that would work with my software? I'm trying to avoid upgrading my DAW because I know it so well and would prefer to stick with it if possible. I also have the Bandlab version of Cakewalk but it makes me sad to use it instead of my old faithful. Thanks for any input.

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DunedinDragon

I was in the same situation as you with my Sonar Producer Edition a few years back and it took a while for me to move on, but I'm glad I did. The industry has moved forward so much that it doesn't make sense to stagnate on an older DAW. So I bit the bullet and changed to a newer DAW (Ableton) with full support.

But don't compare the struggles you may have gone through with learning Sonar with what you'll go through today. First, you're already familiar with all the concepts so it's just a matter of figuring out how to do those same things with a different interface. Most importantly, however, if you move into one of the more popular DAWs there are literally TONS of videos out on the internet and you can get a tutorial walkthrough of whatever feature you want to access by simply googling it. The best part is there are plenty of forums on the more modern DAWs where you can easily get your questions answered. So I think the time invested will be well worth it. It was for me.

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Paule

https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000618297-Compatibility-of-Native-Instruments-Products-on-Windows

The link to windows compatibilities

DunedinDragon

SPax

Kontakt 6 will work with Cakewalk SONAR but you won't be able to play the Cremona instruments. Kontakt 7 works with the latest version of Cakewalk by Bandlab and will play the Cremona instruments. And, you can keep your old (paid for perpetual) version of SONAR along with the Bandlab version. When evaluating DAWs about 8 years ago, I thought that Cakewalk SONAR was one of the most intuitive DAWs out there. About 90% of menu items were where I expected them to be. Also, it was pretty much glitchless for the project sizes that I was working with and the price was affordable. The thing that hurt SONAR was that there wasn't a MAC version of it. So, the latest and greatest DAWs may have their strong points but SONAR (Cakewalk by Bandlab) is still a very viable DAW.

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