Im thinking about picking up Kontakt 5 in the current deal. If I buy K5 - and make patches using the legacy filters and basic scripting - will they be compatible on K3 and K4? Are there guidelines from NI on this?

What do we think - £150 for K5 - good deal?

There's no backwards compatibility in Kontakt. If you make a patch with K5 you cannot open it in K4.

No, higher version patches are never compatible with lower versions.

Developers who plan on selling libraries, its best to build your patches in the lowest common denominator version possible to avoid double work.

oh great...so I guess Ill have to buy a previous version then upgrade...

so I guess 3 is prob the most aged that people might be using...?

That's FORWARDS compatibility. Backwards compatibility is indeed present in Kontakt. Backwards compatibility means that you can load files from all previous versions in the current version of the program. Forwards compatibility is when you can load files from FUTURE versions in an older version of the program.



So, to repeat for OP: yes, you can load your K2, K3 and K4 libraries in K5 without any issues whatsoever. However, features that are Kontakt 5 specific pertain only to Kontakt 5, so the new filters will only be available in Kontakt 5, and you won't be able to open Kontakt 5 NKIs in any previous version. HOWEVER, your older libraries, if you edit their NKIs so they contain the new filters, will still be ok to run in Kontakt 5 (naturally).

Which is what you should really use - always the latest version.

Yeah but he's asking about forwards capacity, he just misnamed it backwards

yes Im interested in forwards compatibility - which apparently does not exist with Kontakt...so if I want to make some presets for people...would I have to buy K3 and K4 separately? I doubt I could upgrade from K3 to K4 anymore? what a hassle...

Only if you're a good little soldier marching in lockstep with NI's plan for world domination, and you're willing to cut your potential market in half for the privilege. K3.5 or K4 are better platforms - assuming you don't actually require the newer features from later versions, which most libraries don't.

Im not too worried about new K5 features...however - what concerns me is that in order to make K3 and k4 patches - you would need to purchase both seperately? You could not upgrade from 3 to 4 right?

I think if you are planning on purchasing 5,
and you ask them nicely, explain your concerns etc. they should be able to hand you the older versions.

I don't know if this actually works, but you could try searching for Kontakt 3 & 4 demos from other (legal) sources on the internet, and activate these with your K5 serial. Since all Kontakt versions can run side by side on the same machine.

The Kontakt world has moved on, and, generally speaking, the most current version is usually the most stable (and feature rich)

Kontakt 3 is really old hat now, there was a major step change going to Kontakt 4 if that affects your thinking

All that said, you can probably pick up legit copies of K3 and K4 on ebay, just make sure you see evidence from the seller that NI registered serial numbers are associated with the products and that the seller has performed their transfer to you (takes about 24 hours)

The current situation is that approximately 80% of people uses Kontakt 4. Kontakt 3/3.5 is forgotten already at about 1-2% of users. The rest are using K5.


As I'm doing Kontakt scritping for living, I have Kontakt 4 and Kontakt 5 both installed, but absolutely NOBODY is asking me to develop for K3 anymore. Draw your own conclusions from that.


So, op - FORGET about Kontakt 3. Almost nobody is using it nowadays. If you want, get K4, and then get K5.

What about stability and resources consuming? Is K5 better than K4?

I develop Kontakt libraries for a living too. I may not have as many clients as you but I still receive emails asking for K3 versions of my previous K4 libraries as well as people asking for specific K3 instruments.

I don't know percentages but I think that if a library doesn't need fancy graphics or advanced scripting and there is still someone using K3, I would go for it. I may be wrong so I will open a pool thread here to check and maybe I'll send a pool to my costumers too.

great that would be interesting...