Optimizing Komplete Kontrol for Faster Loading Times in Logic Pro X

DannyHP

Hello there,

I recently bought Komplete Ultimate and the S88 keyboard on Black Friday for around $1800. Because of the amazing connectivity between Kontakt, Komplete, and the S88 keyboard, I have been using Komplete Kontrol to load my samples. I mainly create orchestral pop music, but I’ve noticed that my projects are taking forever to load. I suspect the sample libraries are the cause.

I just upgraded to a new computer, completely maxed out—an M3 Pro Max with 128GB of RAM and the most cores possible. I’m running all my libraries off an SSD drive, plugged directly in via USB. Despite this, my Logic Pro X projects still take an insane amount of time to load—sometimes 5 to 10 minutes just to get past the initial loading screen before I even see the main window.

I know Kontakt has a batch save function—does Komplete Kontrol have something similar? Should I even be using Komplete Kontrol in my projects, or would it be better to use the Kontakt Player directly? I love Komplete Kontrol because of its seamless integration with my S88 keyboard. I have a separate instance of Komplete Kontrol for each orchestral articulation, and I rely on it for visual feedback—like the screen updates and key lights changing when switching channels.

Any advice on how to optimize my setup for faster project loading times would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Skijumptoes

If you're on a fast SSD then you can reduce the 'preload buffer' size in Kontakt, and I think it will be reflected in Komplete Kontrol as it loads Kontakt as an instance.

Basically, this figure sets the amount of each sample that needs to be loaded into memory, and the rest is streamed from disk. So even though it looks like small values it soon adds up across libraries which have hundreds if not thousands of samples to load.

You can drop it right down to the lowest value (Which i think is 6kb from memory?), but obviously find a setting that works best for you. Try 10kb to start with perhaps?

Also multiprocessing options in Kontakt can affect load times.

Kymeia

I know Kontakt has a batch save function—does Komplete Kontrol have something similar?

When you are loading Kontakt libraries inside Komplete Kontrol, it is still Kontakt being used so the batch resave only needs to be a Kontakt function. These days for the libraries you get through Native Access it is not needed any more anyway though.

DannyHP

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/212030#Comment_212030

Thanks for this, I didn't really understand Komplete Kontrol was a host for Kontakt as it were. In my case, is loading up an instance of KK on every channel strip overkill?

Trying to nail down what is killing my workflow. I'm not sure 5-10 minutes of load time is normal, especially for a Mac I just paid $6k for and a project with around 100 tracks (with ~20 of which are KK).

Jeremy_NI

@DannyHP If you open Kontakt or Komplete Kontrol in standalone, is the app particularly slow to load? What about when you load a librtary?

Do Kontakt, Komplete Kontrol, Logic all have full disk access? How to Enable Full Disk Access on macOS

Are your libraries installed on an external hard drive? What is the format of that drive?

DannyHP

No, Komplete Kontrol loads almost instantly in stand alone.The libraries take 1-2 seconds to load. The only one that didn't have full access was Logic, Both Komplete Kontrol and the NTK Daemon had full access.

I don't have Kontakt stand alone on my machine, I seem to only have the plugins. Is this necessary?

The libraries are on an External Samsung t7 4tb hard drive formatted to APFS

Jeremy_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/212313#Comment_212313

Well, Kontakt is loaded inside Komplete Kontrol so it's proably installed on your system somewhere. I would recommend installing it again, give it full disk access and try it out in standalone and in Logic, the MK3 keyboard can connect to both Kontakt 7/8 and the Komplete Kontrol plug-in/app.