Kontakt 7 and Kontakt Player … setting audio channels and MIDI a horrible experience.

Rob Ainscough

Some of the complaints I have with NI software:

1. Locating and setting MIDI controllers is more difficult than it needs to be and often hidden away in “Options”. I don’t want to have to configure everything multiple times. There should be a global setting that all NI software uses. When my MIDI setup changes, I want to change it once and only once. The repeated turning ON/OFF and assignment of my M32, Maschine, LS88, KORG … why no ‘saved’ global setting that all NI software can use?
2. Audio Output is confusing. Just finding how I can set “aux” or “st1” to the correct audio channels took some time just to find and then adjust. The create a new session for audio mix and then go into that session and assign audio interface output channels. Again, this should all be defaulted in a global setting that all NI software uses. Sure, my environment may change, but it does NOT change on every project … at the very least there should be some global setting I define and where NI software will default to and if necessary I can adjust to a specific project. To make matters worse, NI software doesn’t use the Window 11 device names, completely ignores them and all I get is Line-Out 9, Line-Out 10. For example I have line Ins defined for each Mic (SM7B, SM81, R0DE NT3, C-2, etc.) and Line outs defined for specific speakers (Genelec, ERIS Pro) for 7.1.2 and line outs to Rupert Neve headphone amp … all of these are correctly labeled in Windows but completely ignored in NI software audio settings.

Don’t get me wrong, love my NI equipment/software when it’s working, but OMG … could they do more to turn users AWAY from NI? They really need to invest in more software engineering resources (in-house not contracted).

Cheers, Rob.