Navigating Kontact snapshots from a S49 MKIII?

dnblankedelman · 2025-01-07T22:52:13+00:00

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This is perhaps an embarrassing question, but I have not yet found an answer for it. I'm a new owner of an S49 MKIII attempting to use the Kontact integration with the keyboard. One thing I have not been able to do is navigate between snapshots within a single Kontact library from the keyboard.

For example, let's assume I wanted to do the equivalent of pressing these UI elements in Kontact:

I would have thought (and I see some indication) that I should be able to go from snapshot to snapshot (next/previous or forward/back) using the 4D encoder but pressing it in any direction seems to be read as if it was just another key being pressed. Instead of moving to another snapshot, a note is played. The previous/next buttons on the keyboard navigate between presets out of the collective library which means that instead of just going to the next snapshot in an instrument, it happily jumps to a different instrument sometimes.

What am I missing here? Thanks!

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Kymeia

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/41083/navigating-kontact-snapshots-from-a-s49-mkiii

Snapshots are accessed via the keyboard in browser mode by selecting the libary then browsing the preset selection on the right (which shows both .nki instruments and .nksn snapshots depending on the library). I don't have that particular library but here's an example using Ashlight - these are snapshots

dnblankedelman

Thanks for your reply. To make sure I understand, does that mean you have to come out off the instrument/snapshot that is loaded to go to the next snapshot?

dnblankedelman

(by come out, I mean leave the instrument context to go to the library context, and by doing so, you probably aren't necessarily moving through the snapshots in the order shown in the Kontact interface as I included in the snapshot above)

Kymeia

Not entirely sure what you mean but if you are accesing them from the keyboard they are organised just as they are when accesing them from Kontakt itself - if they have banks they can also be filtered by bank eg with Ashlight the banks you see here can be browsed in the keyboard display using the knob under 'Bank'

dnblankedelman

I apologize if I am not being clear. Just a moment ago I:

loaded Kontact and chose an instrument from the GUI (Classic view, picked one of the instruments)
Now I want to cycle through the snapshots associated with this instrument. I press "browser" but the keyboard doesn't seem to recognize there is an instrument in play and I am forced to go find that instrument a second time, this time using the knobs to go to the correct brand and then the correct library in that brand (and as an aside, the list of instruments for a brand are in a different order than I might have placed them in Kontact).

Once I do that, I can indeed walk through the snapshots (at least in this instrument).

I guess what perhaps might be throwing me off is that it seems like the the browser and plugin modes/screens aren't connected to each other in the way I might hope. I was expecting if I load a library in the Kontact GUI, and I see that library in the plug-in screen, I would then be able to flip to the browser to browse snapshots for only that plugin without completing a second search for the library in the browser window.

Kymeia

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/202885#Comment_202885

Ah I see, yes 'classic mode' would be the old mouse driven way of doing this, I see if I load an instrument that way it does load its controls in the MkIII screen but I still have to browse to the instrument to navigate snapshots. Not sure why but I guess NI want people to be using the 2 newer browsers or see classic mode as only really relevent if you are building instruments and multis. For me this is true, I am more used to adding instruments and plugins now through the keyboard directly when I am playing, so only really go into classic mode if I am editing an instrument, but then am not bothered about the keyboard anyway.

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