Is there a flowchart anywhere for Kontakt?

Mark Wesse
Mark Wesse Member Posts: 68 Member
edited April 16 in Kontakt

Whenever I have had to navigate a synth engine, with hardware, there was generally always a flowchart in the manual. You could know within minutes how to get around.

When you program in decent apps eg Ableton, there is a great LOM, once again you can get around the system very quickly

Is there any flow chart for Kontakt…I have used it for years but getting into a lot more homebaked stuff and the routing etc would be so much simpler if it simply had this

I have read through the Kontakt 8 manual (Im using 5) but could not see hide nor hair. Just open up any decent hardware manual and youll get the idea…Korg wavestation was particularly good.

This is why Absynth was so good for people who actually made their own sounds…the engine was self documenting

image.png

Thanks

Answers

  • MrThursday
    MrThursday Member Posts: 13 Member

    There's this diagram showing the signal flow through the instrument.

    How the different source modules create sound is dealt with separately in the manual

    https://www.native-instruments.com/ni-tech-manuals/kontakt-manual/en/using-filters-and-effects-in-classic-view.html

  • Mark Wesse
    Mark Wesse Member Posts: 68 Member

    Many thanks @MrThursday

    That is very helpful for fx but it doesnt really detail how the channel/output routing?

    I must be missing something…:-)

  • PoorFellow
    PoorFellow Moderator Posts: 6,684 mod
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/222140#Comment_222140

    but it doesnt really detail how the channel/output routing?

    How to Create Multiple Outputs in Kontakt and Route Them to a DAW ?

  • Mark Wesse
    Mark Wesse Member Posts: 68 Member
    edited April 16

    I followed that, watched youtubes and was able to actually create the solution but thats not what Im asking

     detail how the channel/output routing?

    I am meaning from the source

    How does the source get to the output from a sound design point of view?

    Where is the connection point to that source, must it be from a group? can a single source be routed through the flow or I am gathering the group is actually a layer? (in normal sample speak) or is it a lateral object like tagging?

    Why are there sends from the insert fx when its an insert and by definition the mix ratio would be inline?

    How do the busses fit with the source flow? Normally on a mixer etc they are the grouping paradigm?

    eg A bit abstract but…

    I have a single zone (sample) that is part of 3 velocity layers, this 1 velocity layer needs to go to its own reverb as a throw effect on the highest velocity (125-127)

    The next lower velocity (110-124) needs to have a send fx (eg chorus) applied as there will be other relevant samples in the instrument that will have various levels of chorus

    Finally the last and lowest layer needs to go to a different output but only white notes will go to output 2

    An overview flow chart as posted for the D50 (and below) would solve all of this in minutes without dragging through all the verbose detail and stylised/ambiguous nomenclature…this is how you can understand PLC and other engines very quickly and is a much more powerful way to learn.

    Something like this…even simple sound design implicitly involves abstract audio machination and especially in the case of kontakt as it creates complex instruments to augment expression. I would have thought this would be mandatory for committee based software dev which Kontakt seems to have

    image.png
  • PoorFellow
    PoorFellow Moderator Posts: 6,684 mod
    edited April 16

    @Matthew_NI , do you have any links to any kind of information source with information about above question that we have overlooked ? Or do you have any short concise statement on the subject that you could enlighten us with ?

    @Mark Wesse , Matthew_NI might not be around before after Easter and then it's not guaranteed that he will have the time to answer since he is one of those in charge of Kontakt development.

  • Matthew_NI
    Matthew_NI Product Team Posts: 1,799 mod
    edited April 17
    Screenshot 2025-04-17 at 9.46.21 AM.png

    Are you referring to this? This is from the Kontakt manual.

    How does the source get to the output from a sound design point of view?

    I'd point to the above (on a basic level).

    Where is the connection point to that source, must it be from a group? can a single source be routed through the flow or I am gathering the group is actually a layer? (in normal sample speak) or is it a lateral object like tagging?

    Perhaps this helps?

    Screenshot 2025-04-17 at 10.01.02 AM.png

    eg A bit abstract but…

    I have a single zone (sample) that is part of 3 velocity layers, this 1 velocity layer needs to go to its own reverb as a throw effect on the highest velocity (125-127)

    The next lower velocity (110-124) needs to have a send fx (eg chorus) applied as there will be other relevant samples in the instrument that will have various levels of chorus

    Finally the last and lowest layer needs to go to a different output but only white notes will go to output 2

    Velocity based Send FX can be accomplished in Kontakt, yes.

    This would be done with KSP. Outlined in more detail here. There a number of tutorials, I happen to like this one. It is K6 but still applies to K8.

  • Mark Wesse
    Mark Wesse Member Posts: 68 Member
    edited April 18
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/222393#Comment_222393

    Thanks,..have gone over that.

    For reference, the flowchart is quite abstract, no endpoints or linkages etc

    as opposed to the flowchart…dont even know what its from but I would be pretty comfortable to do FOH after 5 mins in front of the console with the flowchart…

    This is why Kore failed…although one of the greatest masterpieces of music/sound design software ever and still unmatched. If it had a decent flowchart and tutorial to go with it would have taken off :-)

    Add to that the inclusion of KSP which I used for positional pads of HPD to Sonic Couture Hand pan…its really useful but it would definitely help as the flow chart adds to the need for a schema, endpoints etc and an interactive with the KSP library would be amazing

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