Ask Kontakt 8 creators anything
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Hi @QUAVERTUNE , touching specifically on the chord app topic you can check this part in our "What's new in Kontakt 8" video. It showcases one of our recent additions to Kontakt 8: Tools. We designed those to simplify/speedup the music creation process but especially to offer an easy way to kickstart your ideas and go on from there. Those works with any Kontakt library so as long you can load it, you can use it!
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You know, you don't really need to be thanking a company for doing something that they should have never removed in the first place for a product that you have to pay for. Such weird customer behavior, and I continue to think it's this kind of enabling that allows for NI to get worse over time.
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Have y'all at NI ever tried to just "white board" the NI ecosystem? Now, we have a host (KK) that hosts another host (K8) that hosts sample libraries, wavetable oscillator instruments, hybrid wavetable-sample based instruments, MIDI generators, and Maschine-like loop splicers. Meanwhile, your first host (KK) hosts standalone hybrid instruments, and yet third host (Reaktor) that hosts synth engine-based instruments (FM, granular, sample, wavetable, virtual analog) and effects. This ecosystem is impossible for anyone other than 10-year "veterans" to understand, and Kontakt 8 just makes this even worse.
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Hi @D-One, I'll try on touching on your second point which is very good by the way! A first reason is Kontakt being a core platform for a wide variety of libraries, and integrating these MIDI tools directly there allows users to quickly enhance their sound design process without needing external plugins like Scaler2. We wanted to create a deeply integrated, self-sufficient solution within Kontakt, which also opens the door to future developments, especially in creating synergies between connected instruments and MIDI generation tools. Establishing a protocol for this in the future is definitely something we're considering.
A key value of Tools is the combined presets, which require the user to have both the instrument and the tool. If we relied solely on third-party plugins for this, we'd face distribution challenges, including licensing implications for the preset packages.
There’s also a great opportunity here for the builder community—anyone familiar with building Kontakt libraries can now create new products focused solely on MIDI handling, without the added cost and complexity of sampling.
As for integrating third-party plugins or expanding this to platforms outside of Kontakt, these aren’t mutually exclusive to the Tools and we shall see what the future brings.
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Thanks @Francesco_NI, I see… Makes sense. Basically it gives more control of the MIDI Tool stuff since it's aimed directly at the NI Instruments and their functionality, enabling the opportunity of super fancy patches.
While I am OK with a "host in host" in regards to KK>Kontakt I also share the feeling that theres too much going on, maintaining 100 SW products must a nightmare and can only slow things down. I teach in a music school and having to explain all that to someone is also a nightmare, not just to music making newbies but also to very experienced ones who might not be very tech/computer savvy, say for example people who play instruments for decades but want to get into DAW's and general music production which are a big part of my students.
That's why I said that with this direction it feels like NI is getting ready to make Kontakt complicated/advanced enough to get rid of SW redundancy, which means getting rid of some of the things you called "Hosts" and simplify the ecosystem… which could be a great thing or bad depending on who you ask, I could be reading this totally wrong tho.
Are Chords and Phrases completely detached from each other? Meaning, we either use one or the other (across multiple K8 instances) to spark inspiration?
I hate to bring up comparisons so soon but in Scaler Phrases/Melodies directly take into account the chord progression (same with Reason's theory tools) while in K8 Phrases often do harmonic 'stuff' that doesn't match the Chords in any meaningful way and actually clash with them. I find this odd, maybe because similar tools by other brands have set a baseline expectations for me personally and NI is heading in a different direction.
BTW I dont mean to bash this update, I kind of like it but it raises so many questions/concerns…
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This is a really difficult question. The edit view is extremely complex and multi-layered, and is not used by a majority of Kontakt userbase, so the priority to update it is not exactly high up the ranks.
What is (as it stands) more important is to bring the missing features from Classic View to Default View, at which point the old Classic View can be removed (with probably just the instrument edit view kept until it is finally the time to tackle it). Alternatively, Kontakt Lua API becomes more fully featured so that somebody could create a 3rd party instrument editing GUI, even. Who knows!
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Are there any plans to release a version of Kontakt 7 that might be deemed usable regarding loading times and needless scanning that many users are suffering, and are you actually aware that there are quite a few users abandoning Kontakt or attempting to, because they have found it unusable, especially in a professional context?
Do you have any conceptual framework in mind that might hint at a future where Kontakt is 'properly integrated' with itself so to speak, so that there is design consistency and no need for switching between classic view and default view?
As many others have mentioned, it would be good for people to be forewarned about any possible incompatibilities if one automatically updates using Native Access. Few, especially new users, read or necessarily understand release notes if they are actually available.
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Classic View is going away at some point for sure, once enough of its functionality is ported over to the Default View.
Pretty sure there's going to be one final K7 release, which is likely to include the loading time fix.
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Suspect backend (editor) GUI improvements scaling will not be fixed this year. Some Kontakt veterans probably don't care. But it is in UX issue and a tech debt. Will hopefully probably be fixed in the upcoming years.
Regarding working frontend GUI improvements. There is still no official disclosure from NI exactly what current instruments support frontend GUI scaling - and there is no official roadmap what previously released instrument libraries will get working GUI scaling support updates in the upcoming months. We need both.
Personally it would help my purchasing decision knowing what instruments in the new Komplete bundle have GUI scaling. For instance, the new Alicias Keys instrument library has scaling but Ashlight still do not have GUI scaling.
It is a bit problematic to sell new big Komplete bundles if only a few instruments support GUI scaling for modern displays. Hope there is a focus on fixing this. Komplete is a big bundle with lots of Kontakt instruments.
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I understand that. This suggests that the problem is not just a cosmetic one but also a ux issue, maybe many users find it too complex so perhaps what is needed is a way to make the editing tools people need the most more accessible? Given there is now a more accessible way to make quick sample based instruments too (Leap) maybe the best approach is to take the things most people would use out of the 'edit' panels and make them more accessible for everyone and to use in every instrument. I do know that while not everyone is a builder many more people go into the edit panel to access scripts or add micro tuning to an instrument, those are also things that should really be made more accessible in any instrument without even needing to touch the wrench icon.
So I suggest adding a micro tuning tool and a Lua script loading tool (as in Falcon).
Pleased to hear there is a goal of getting past 'Classic' vs 'Default' view concept at some point, which is an additional source of confusion to me (although I guess justifiable as a means of weaning people into the newer interface concepts)
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Is there a way to transfer my Custom Libraries from Kontakt 7 to Kontakt 8?
I have a lot of them and I don't want to have to set that all up again. I'm about to go see if I can figure out where K7 stores that info and copy it from that folder to the equivalent K8 folder, under the presumption that's how it works, but I thought I should ask about this here too. If it's not something you're already planning, please consider this a feature request.
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EDIT: I think I've figured it out, so I'm gonna post here about it to get confirmation and to help anyone else wanting to do the same.
- In C:\Users<username>\AppData\Local\Native Instruments\ is a Kontakt 7 and a Kontakt 8 folder.
- Copy the "user_config.db3" file from the Kontakt 7 folder to the Kontakt 8 folder. (Copy the QuickLoad folder too if have anything in there)
- Move komplete.db3 from the Kontakt 8 folder to your Desktop for safe keeping, in case this all goes wrong.
- Launch Kontakt 8. It should start repopulating the Library from nothing. This took a very long time for me and seemed like it was done multiple times. (watch the preset number go up in the lower right corner)
I just let it go and after it finished scanning all the official and licensed third party libraries it started scanning my custom libraries. If for some reason it doesn't scan your custom libraries, you can rescan them manually and it'll work. I tried both approaches out of impatience and curiosity, haha.
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Yes, and same with the Quick browser, I really don't see why these things have to be setup again from scratch with a version update
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I have a question… have you considered / would you considered global MIDI CC assignments across Kontakt?
Two cases:
First, the new case is with LEAP. It would be nice to assign 8 controls to the 8 parameters from any controller, especially since it’s consistently 8. I could use my S88 mk2 or my Hydrasynth encoders, for example, across all kits. Today, I have to assign by kit.
Second, I’ve long wanted to assign global parameters across instruments in Kontakt. Now that Kontakt integrates with Kontrol directly, the idea of “the first eight controls” even largely makes sense. Or, if people think it doesn’t, even setting a global filter or reverb send CC that doesn’t need assignment per instrument would be fantastic. This is largely trivial on other plug-ins I use, even those with multiple instruments embedded like the combo of Analog Lab with the V Collection library. Ironically, in the current state, Kontakt is my most difficult to use plugin on its own outside of Komplete Kontrol with my S88mk2. To be honest, I never really cared about this previously because KK was great, but embedding Tools/LEAP/etc. into Kontakt makes me curious and interested in looking at a different workflow (which is great, save this gap!).
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It looks like Leap does have 8x2 pages of macros, although not necessarily the ones I would have gone for (eg no way to change sample start/end positions - but then thinking about it that would add a lot of macros since this is per note)
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Not sure if anyone here as mentioned this yet, and with 19 pages I don't have the time to search for it right now. Apologies for that.
However, I have started Kontakt 8 Player to find we are once again greeted with the New Instruments for you panel that you released an update to hide in v7. Can we please get that again. I don't know anyone who launches Kontakt with the sole intention of buying a library or wondering what else they can give themselves 100hours to explore. It is as though you are trying to force that being normal upon us and we will just get used to it. If you want to lose customers I would carry on cluttering Kontakt as much as you can.
Perhaps I am completely wrong and the devs have great plans for utilising this for efficiency and cohesion, if so it would be a welcome thing to see. However, you have Native Access to sell things and advertise, please stop using NI Apps to sell us things.
I want an App that is fact, efficient and stable, not bloated like Windows 11. And I say this as a macOS Windows user and SysAdmin
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