Creating sound previews for Komplete Kontrol

tokenboomer
tokenboomer Member Posts: 24 Member

Hi,

I've had complete control for several years now. In the process I have saved a lot of user patches. But, none of these have sound previews. Given the number of companies producing NKS compatible instruments these days, one has to assume there is software available to create these previews. Is it possible for a regular user to get ahold of this software?

Thanks

«1

Comments

  • JesterMgee
    JesterMgee Member Posts: 2,535 Expert

    No software, just time and patience.

    Short answer is, use Maschine to generate a small clip (create a simple midi clip playing C3 for 1 bar) and load that up then learn how to create a script using whatever tools you are familiar with to automate the loading of a preset and the File>Export of the audio. This creates a "messy" named file with the name of the loaded preset and using again scripting you can clean this up. Not elegant nor simple to wrap your head around but can be made to work, how well depends on how you make things work.

  • nightjar
    nightjar Member Posts: 1,274 Guru

    Wouldn't it be nice if KK just generated this as an option when you saved a preset? And KK machine learning analyzed this rendering in the background and created a "sonic signature", aka tagging on steroids?

  • tokenboomer
    tokenboomer Member Posts: 24 Member

    Yes, as far as I can tell, Preset Magician is PC only. I'm on a Mac.

  • el-bo
    el-bo Member Posts: 35 Member

    Does seem to be Windows only. But that page suggests it's also open-source, so perhaps there's an opportunity for someone to be persuaded (Perhaps even crowd-funded) to bring it to MacOS.

    Having to load up a new instrument for every change in preset completely undermines the usefulness of Komplete Kontrol for me. Such a shame, but I think I'm going to have to exclude everything from it's directory that isn't from NI :(

  • el-bo
    el-bo Member Posts: 35 Member

    There is talk of an OSX version, here:

    presetmagician.gitbook.io/help/faq/general

    but the trail seems to have gone cold.

  • Abyssus
    Abyssus Member Posts: 6 Member

    Has anyone tried to use Preset Magician on Massive ? I can't seem to get it to work with any of the NI stuff... It just gives me a single preset when I try to import which is the default one

  • Arnaud88
    Arnaud88 Member Posts: 5 Member

    I go through Cubase for sound previews. You have to export them one by one in OGG format which can become tedious for a complete but manageable VSTi for user presets.

  • FosterMoose
    FosterMoose Member Posts: 12 Member
    edited January 2023

    I'm on a Mac. I've recently cleaned up all of my Kontakt libraries (I have over 500) and made previews for everything that didn't have them previously. The process was pretty streamlined, but a little tedious for libraries that had tons of presets. Anyway, here's the workflow: Using ProTools as my main DAW (you could use any DAW that will instantiate Kontakt) I made a small template with however many instances of Kontakt I needed to load the entire library at once and a couple audio tracks to record its output. For libraries with lots of presets or snapshots you might only need a couple instances. One library at a time, I would open any instruments, presets or snapshots I needed to create a preview for and recorded a small sample into ProTools. This can be time-consuming if you're going through a heavily scripted library with presets like something from Sample Logic). What ended up being fastest was to let ProTools run in record the whole time until I finished going through the whole library. Then I took that one long WAV file, ran Strip Silence to create a separate clip for each sound that was the same length and had fades to match all the others. Then the tedious part. You have to go back and name every single clip. BUT, you only have to enter the sound's name. No other extensions, library or dev names, naming conventions, etc., are necessary. That comes later. When you're done, select all the clips and export them as WAVs to a single folder. I then used NCH Software's Switch app (it's an extremely useful conversion app) to batch convert all the WAVs to .oggs. Once that was done I used a small app called Renamer to batch-add all the extraneous info I needed to match naming conventions in the larger sample library. This only takes a couple minutes. Once that's done, drag those files to your .previews folder, rescan in Komplete Kontrol and you're done! Smaller libraries only take 5-10 minutes to get through the whole process.

    I hope that helps!

  • FosterMoose
    FosterMoose Member Posts: 12 Member

    I'm on a Mac. I recently cleaned up my Kontakt libraries (Over 500 of them) and made previews for everything that didn't already have them. The process was pretty streamlined. The bulk of tasks can be done in batches. Here's the workflow: Using ProTools as my main DAW (you can use any DAW that can instantiate and record Kontakt). I made a small template that contained enough instances of Kontakt to load any particular library all at once. For super huge libraries with lots of small instruments I used one instance and loaded instruments one at a time. I left ProTools in record the whole time while I played small samples of everything I needed to capture. This can get time-consuming for libraries that have lots of heavily-scripted presets with long load times (like something from Sample Logic), but you only have to do it once! When finished, I selected that one long WAV file and ran Strip Silence to create a clip for each sound that was the same length and had fade handles to match all the others. Then the tedious part. You have to name every one of those clips to match the library. BUT, you only have to type in the sound name. Any other needed info comes later. Then I selected all of those named clips and exported them to a single folder as WAVs. Then I used NCH Software's Switch app (it's a really useful conversion tool) to batch-convert all of the WAVs to .oggs. I put those .oggs into another small app called Renamer and batch-added any naming conventions (like the .nki or .nksn) all at once. After that, I grabbed all those named files, dragged them to the pertinent .previews folder, re-scanned in Komplete Kontrol and DONE! A small library only takes 5-10 minutes once you have the process down. This process works for any other VI, like a synth, the same way.

    I hope that helps!

  • Kymeia
    Kymeia Member Posts: 3,605 Expert
    edited February 2023

    Link doesn't work for me and I looked on the Github but can't locate an actual download for the latest installer?

  • bunker8
    bunker8 Member Posts: 1 Member

    My name is Sigmund Droid. Chief Creative Officer at Bunker8. I am glad to see that people have been able to take advantage of the fact that we are hosting the Preset Magician App Felicia Hummel created.

    It doesn’t work with all plugins, but there is quite a few that it does work with.

    we don’t have a Mac compatible/comparable version, so hopefully, you will have access to a PC which you can use.

    We have also found a number of other useful tools in the creation of NKS presets that we will also share in this forum.

    please feel free to drop by our site and have a look at some of the amazing tools, libraries and articles.

    We are a premier Sounds.COM partner, Native instruments own online subscription based sound site.

    hope you drop by

    our email is:

    bunker8@gmail.com

  • harlynvega
    harlynvega Member Posts: 1 Newcomer

    This is awesome. Where do you find/access the .previews folder?

  • FosterMoose
    FosterMoose Member Posts: 12 Member

    Sorry for the very late reply. The .previews folder is in each instrument/snapshot folder, but it is hidden. That's why there's a "." before the name. To unhide files and folders, simply use the shortcut command-shift-period. All hidden folders will be revealed and you can edit from there. To re-hide the files/folders, repeat the same shortcut. MacOS sees any file or folder with a dot "." before its name as hidden, so if you want to hide other items just add the dot. If you want to permanently unhide something specific while leaving everything else hidden just delete the dot. That's it!

Back To Top