Explain like I'm five how to get the sound of the instrument to play when i push the key

please, dear community, explain to me like i'm an ADHD five year old,

You are kind of both asking the impossible but also skipping quite a lot here.

One of the most basic problems often is the drivers settings and how to get sound. Therefore I personally prefer the Steinberg built-in ASIO Driver for non demanding use but also I usually suggests some tweak to Windows sound settings. But at least then you need to get a handle on the setting up of Midi and Audio in the standalone version of Kontakt / Komplete Kontrol :

Setting Up the Stand-alone Kontakt Application

Setting Up the Stand-alone Komplete Kontrol Application

Else then what is your exact OS version ? and what is your keyboard make and version ? and what is your Kontakt version ?

what is the EASIEST and MOST BASIC way for me to play a few notes of my chosen instrument i bought on here without the need for big, intimidating DAWs that take a lifetime to learn to use.

Not all DAWs are equally poor when it come to being approachable.

The learning curve when you want to learn to use a DAW is steep but Mixcraft got videos with introduction to most things which makes it rather easy to jump into, you can check it out here :

Mixcraft 10 University 101 , Mixcraft 10 University 202 , Mixcraft 10 Videos

Mixcraft have a free trial and where the intro entry offer at the moment is as low as $25 : Mixcraft 10.6 Home Studio

.

Is that right?

No.

I need to either purchase an expensive MIDI keyboard that comes with a MIDI input i can set up in Kontakt,

No there is in-expensive keyboards too 😉

Thank you for the reply. So basically what i'm hearing here is that there is no way for one to load up Kontakt, hit a key on my typing keyboard and hear the instrument i want to hear.

I can help you get setup with using your typing keyboard , and my apologies for skipping that part and not be clear about that.

For using your 'typing keyboard' then provided that you are using Windows then please check my FreePiano with loopMidi below here :

1 : Download and unzip FreePiano

2 : Download and install loopMidi

3 : Restart computer

4 : Start loopMidi if not started and make sure that you have a Midi port added

5 : Start FreePiano

6 : In FreePiano choose loopMidi port as instrument , and if you want then turn on background input for the PC keyboard to work also when FreePiano is not in foreground (FreePiano : click small spanner top right then tab Options).

7 : Start Kontakt

8 : In Kontakt Midi options turn on loopMidi port

9 : Enjoy

or get some sort of a DAW and sift through manuals, forums, and tutorial videos until i find the part that tells me how i can load my Kontakt as a plug in that lets me hit a key and hear the instrument i want.

As I explained in the above then not all DAW are equally difficult. But if you do not want to try to use a DAW or trial of same and do not like the DAW advice then nobody is forcing you to anything.

i really appreciate the detail of your reply, thanks! I'm starting to agree with your suggestion for a DAW because of the versatility, and one day down the line i will invest the time to properly learn one

Thank you for the kind words of appreciation. I myself am a DAW novice and to me there is so much to learn and understand about DAWs that I don't think that I will ever get any proper understanding of DAWs in the sense that expert users here consider 'proper'. However my own own point is , apart from the same as yours with respect to versatility, that you can learn the most basic of use relatively easy if you choose the right DAW. Personally then for me the Ableton Live is relatively easy when it comes to basic use at least once you get the basics that I described here. As is Mixcraft relatively easy to use for the most basic at least.

Basic use of Mixcraft with Massive I have described below here but should do just fine for Kontakt also :

Some simple instructions here: After having setup Mixcraft or Mixcraft Trial then open it, then if you close the welcome interface then it ought to generate a standard project where (see screenshot) you click the little keyboard , then select the VSTi and then Massive VST3 :

Then if you want to use the Musical Typing Keyboard built-in into Mixcraft then you move the plugin window so much that you can click the "Musical Typing" in the lower part of Mixcraft plugin Window (or use keyboard shortcut [CTRL]+[ALT]+K) :

That should give you a setup like this where you can setup the Massive plugin (to use the MTK you might have to switch window focus by clicking on it) :

And when that is done then simply close the Massive plugin and the Mixcraft Plugin selector but leave the MTK open if you are using that. Then you ought to be ready for playing , to record then simply click the record button.

After recording then export by clicking File : Mix down to : (select format)

Otherwise then it is always a good idea to save projects progressively so that you can revert to a previous save if you want to. Like My Recording 01 A : MR01-A / B / C / D / E / ………

I did a test with FreePiano + loopMidi+Mixcraft and I think that that works better than using the Mixcraft MTK. But apart from that then the instructions above still ought to be good.

Also to re-open Massive then click the little arrow and then the blue Massive text that shows :

Also , then for some reason then the Sustain in FreePiano can set itself to 127 , so if that happens then either right click the sustain field or set it to zero or whatever