Kontakt 8 VST Factory Presets

jweite

I just upgraded from Kontakt 5 to Kontakt 8, and am noticing new (to me) VST factory presets of the form "Kontakt MIDI channel 0 program 0" - "Kontakt MIDI channel 3 program 127". I there any documentation about the intent behind these? They seem like a possible alternative to using Banks (which I've always found klunky) during live performance.

Is there any documentation on how these are meant to be used?

Jeremy_NI

@jweite Those are just placeholders in order to enable VST3 to receive program change messages. 

PoorFellow

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/37549/kontakt-8-vst-factory-presets

VST factory presets of the form "Kontakt MIDI channel 0 program 0" - "Kontakt MIDI channel 3 program 127". I there any documentation about the intent behind these?

They seem like a possible alternative to using Banks (which I've always found klunky) during live performance.

Immediately I were not able to spot any such factory presets myself in my Kontakt 8 , perhaps this is related to some presets inherited from having V.5 installed earlier ?

I am not sure at all how relevant that you are going to find any of this , but not having very much to go on then this is what I came up with as maybe having at least some relevance (?) (though as written then not sure about the eventual relevance for you)

Reference : Kontakt 8 manual

Page 82 top : Building blocks : An Instrument Bank
An Instrument Bank is the only optional element of Kontakt’s core hierarchy; in other words,
you don’t have to use this feature if you don’t want to. Instrument Banks allow you to combine
up to 128 Instruments into a container that responds to a single MIDI input channel; you can
then switch the active Instrument by sending MIDI program change messages on this channel.

Page 120 : Middle (Objects) Pane
Double-click an Instrument file (.nki) or drag it from the Side pane onto a free space in the Rack
to add it to your current Multi. Kontakt will assign a MIDI channel according to the MIDI channel
assignment for loaded patches setting in the Options dialog. This also works with multiple
Instruments.
• Drag an Instrument onto an existing Instrument Header in your Rack to make it replace the
respective Instrument. Kontakt will keep the MIDI channel setting of the previous Instrument.
• Double-click a Sample (i.e. an audio file) or drag it onto a free space in the Rack to create a new
Instrument (based on your default Instrument) that contains a Zone with this Sample spread
across the whole keyboard range. If you do this with multiple Samples, Kontakt will still only
create one instrument, but with a corresponding number of adjacent Zones. Note that this does
not work with 8-bit Samples, as Groups created in this way will be set to DFD mode by default,
which does not support 8-bit data.

Page 293 : Options : Handling
MIDI channel assignment for loaded patches: Opens a drop-down menu that allows you to
switch between two different modes that determine the way in which Kontakt will assign MIDI
channels to newly added Instruments:
• Assign 1st Free assigns the first available MIDI channel.
• Assign to Omni is the default and will always assign loaded Instruments to Omni, thus
making them respond to all input ports.
• Keep Channels from K1.x Patches is an additional toggle option that allows you to specify
whether Kontakt should use the MIDI channel embedded in Kontakt 1 patches. Later
versions do not save MIDI assignments in Instrument files, only in Multi files.

jweite

Thanks for your reply. I'm using Reaper, and it offered these VST presets as "Factory Programs" in the Reaper FX Presets drop-down the first time I loaded Kontakt 8. The Kontakt VST must be providing these.

I'm pretty familiar with Kontakt banks, instruments and multis. I use banks in my rack to support midi program changing to different Kontakt instruments/presets during live performance. It works fine at performance time, but is klunky to maintain as shows evolve, and is not well documented beyond its basic functionality.

For instance, if I edit an instrument in a bank, the edits (AFAICT) get saved within the bank (nkb). (The original nki certainly wasn't changed). Later on, when I want to re-arrange things into a new bank for a different show, I can't easily copy an edited instrument from an existing bank to a new bank. I guess I could save the edited instrument itself as an NKI, but I can't easily tell which ones in the bank I actually edited. The UX on the classic Kontakt is really weak. But that's old news.

TBH, I'd rather have some more open mechanism than instrument banks to associate MIDI program changes with a set of Kontakt instruments/presets for a show. I had half-hoped that these "new" VST presets implied that a VST-based mechanism could be used for this instead.

Jeremy_NI

Hey there, can you maybe use screenshots to illustrate what you mean? I'm having trouble to figure it out.

PoorFellow

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/185548#Comment_185548

TBH, I'd rather have some more open mechanism than instrument banks to associate MIDI program changes with a set of Kontakt instruments/presets for a show. I had half-hoped that these "new" VST presets implied that a VST-based mechanism could be used for this instead.

Thank you for the added information. I do not presently use Reaper which might explain why I had not noticed what you describe.

It is entirely possible that some of what you have experienced have some use or future use if having a S-Series MK3 keyboard ?. I wouldn't know since both I have not ever had any of these keyboards setup but also my use of DAWs and keyboards sounds as not yet as advanced as yours (I am rather much a beginner / Noob with respect to using DAWs though I do poke around a little in a DAW from time to time)

jweite

Hi @Jeremy_NI, here's a screenshot of Kontakt 8 in Reaper, with the Reaper VST Preset drop-down expanded, showing the "Factory Programs" I mentioned.

Also, you included a link to NI support. Did you want me to do something specific there? I see articles and a link to this forum and a chat assistant (that never quite loads).

Jeremy_NI

@jweite Those are just placeholders in order to enable VST3 to receive program change messages. 

jweite

Got it. Tx.