Turn on/off instruments in Kontakt by midi messages

ceznow

Hi!

10 years ago I had a great discussion on the old version of this forum. I wanted to continue the thread, but unfortunately it is dead... so I am starting a new one :)

What I needed back then was to be able to turn the instruments in Kontakt on and off by sending a midi message from my controller. Turned out it is not possible but it is possible to mute specific instruments and I got this great, little script:

on note
    if (%CC[100] > 63)
        ignore_event($EVENT_ID)
    end if
end on

Although it works great it has some flaws. First of all - because all of my Kontakt instruments need to be on the same midi channel (I play them using a midi guitar controller and it has to be set on to specific midi channel) it uses a lot of CPU. It is because the instruments are all played at the same time, even when they are muted (they should be turned off not to use the CPU). What is more, the script sometimes fail to work and instruments stops receiving midi messages. No idea why.

For 10 years there has been numerous new versions of Kontakt, so maybe there is some new way to actually turn the instruments off my sending a midi message? That would solve my problems :) Thanks!

Uwe303

Hello,

maybe this approach is better fo you:

https://youtu.be/xXCAHKu3ZIQ?si=qRYOS_G2LbW-jEov

ceznow

Nope. This is PC messages so I would be able to use one instrument at a time. I need to be able to mix the instruments.

Uwe303

Then maybe a program like gig performer would be something for you. But can you please describe a bit more what controller you use and how many instruments you have loaded, let's say you have 8 loaded and you want to be able to activate/disable them them freely. Or is it more like a you use the same combinations you want to use.

stephen24

Just use a cc in Group Start Options (with Edit All Groups) which I have been doing without problems since Kontakt 1.5 when there were no scripts or PC messages. Assign a different cc to each instrument if necessary, or switch them on in sections. I doubt if groups disabled in this way use much CPU.

If you're not happy with this, you could give each instrument its own channel, and write a KSP multiscript which sends input to any or all instruments according to cc settings. This would work even with locked instruments.