KVR Audio

michael2 · Post by **michael2** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 4:29 am

just downloaded a couple of pianos from Bigcat instruments and when I go to open the .nki, I get a message that my version of Kontakt is too old. I just bought it a month ago and I know it's more recent than the instruments. Any ideas?

here's where I got the instruments, lots of interesting stuff there:
http://bigcatinstruments.blogspot.com

Turello · Post by **Turello** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 4:34 am

Probably You have an old version of Kontakt but Bigcat make it also in VSTi version here:

http://bigcatinstruments.blogspot.it/20 ... vstis.html

michael2 · Post by **michael2** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 4:36 am

Turello wrote:Probably You have an old version of Kontakt but Bigcat make it also in VSTi version here:

http://bigcatinstruments.blogspot.it/20 ... vstis.html

I have Kontakt 5. thanks for the link, but the ones I want are only Kontakt.

bigcat1969 · Post by **bigcat1969** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 5:01 am

Hey thanks for giving the pianos a try. Sorry they aren't working for you. Which version of Kontakt do you have? Mine says Version 5.31.37 .

michael2 · Post by **michael2** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 5:03 am

bigcat1969 wrote:Hey thanks for giving the pianos a try. Sorry they aren't working for you. Which version of Kontakt do you have? Mine says Version 5.31.37 .

mine is 5.3, i'll see if theres an update. thanks.

bigcat1969 · Post by **bigcat1969** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 5:05 am

Cool, sadly Kontakt is very backwards incompatible.
Let me know if that doesn't fix the problem and we'll see what we can figure out.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 6:12 am

Kontakt IS backwards compatible, it's not FORWARDS compatible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_compatibility

audio/fault · Post by **audio/fault** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 6:20 am

michael2 wrote:
bigcat1969 wrote:Hey thanks for giving the pianos a try. Sorry they aren't working for you. Which version of Kontakt do you have? Mine says Version 5.31.37 .
mine is 5.3, i'll see if theres an update. thanks.

the recent version is 5.4.1. so yes, there is an update.

DarkStar · Post by **DarkStar** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 7:57 am

It's always struck me as odd that the compatibility between the software and the instruments depends on the minor version numbers. Surely the nki file format is not changing with every minor version release of the software?

It would be interesting to see the differences between, say, a Kontakt 5.1 instrument and that same instrument loaded into Kontakt 5.4.1 and saved from there.

if I were a sounds designer I would aim to use the oldest version of Kontakt that I could to create my instruments (i.e depending on the features I would need), ensuring the widest possible user-base.

Zombie Queen · Post by **Zombie Queen** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 9:22 am

DarkStar wrote:Surely the nki file format is not changing with every minor version release of the software?

Sometimes it is, in Kontakt 4 they did some major changes in script handling, in minor version releases, so some instruments simply wouldn't work in older version.

kb123 · Post by **kb123** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 12:00 pm

DarkStar wrote:It's always struck me as odd that the compatibility between the software and the instruments depends on the minor version numbers. Surely the nki file format is not changing with every minor version release of the software?

It would be interesting to see the differences between, say, a Kontakt 5.1 instrument and that same instrument loaded into Kontakt 5.4.1 and saved from there.

if I were a sounds designer I would aim to use the oldest version of Kontakt that I could to create my instruments (i.e depending on the features I would need), ensuring the widest possible user-base.

Its quite possible that any change made between incremental versions affects the structure of the nki. Bug fixes, additional functions such as added effects or whatever, could easily affect compatibility.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 12:05 pm

DarkStar wrote:It's always struck me as odd that the compatibility between the software and the instruments depends on the minor version numbers. Surely the nki file format is not changing with every minor version release of the software?

Since Kontakt 4.2, it IS changing between point releases, since it's a binary format, and not zlib packed XML that was up until 4.2.

bigcat1969 · Post by **bigcat1969** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 5:11 pm

Oops yup not forward compatible, thanks Mr. Dragon. I can indeed load up all the Kontakt 2 instruments I want.
It would be nice for me if there was a way to save to previous formats out of Kontakt 5, like you can save previous versions of the Microsoft Office documents. Then again I'd end up needing to upload several versions of every Kontakt instrument to keep everyone happy... so maybe its just as well this way.

michael2 · Post by **michael2** » Tue Sep 23, 2014 4:44 am

michael2 wrote:
bigcat1969 wrote:Hey thanks for giving the pianos a try. Sorry they aren't working for you. Which version of Kontakt do you have? Mine says Version 5.31.37 .
mine is 5.3, i'll see if theres an update. thanks.

just update Kontakt to 5.4 and the instruments work great. Nice work man, a lot of character to those pianos. Thanks a bunch.

mfb · Post by **mfb** » Tue Sep 23, 2014 1:22 pm

bigcat1969 wrote: It would be nice for me if there was a way to save to previous formats out of Kontakt 5, like you can save previous versions of the Microsoft Office documents. Then again I'd end up needing to upload several versions of every Kontakt instrument to keep everyone happy... so maybe its just as well this way.

Unfortunately, the only thing you can do is develop sounds in some older version of Kontakt. As long as you can create the sound you want in the older Kontakt, you would only need to upload that old-Kontakt version of the NKI, since anyone with a version newer than old-Kontakt could also load it.

why won't this .nki open in Kontakt?