Leaving KONTAKT behind, experiences?

[jancivil]

apparently I had not even opened an instrument in K7 in December. At VIC forum I saw there was an update, NA release notes have Dec. 2 for 7.10.7. So I decided to load something with a very busy GUI, as much as anything I've seen, and it loaded almost instananeously. Remains to be seen if they also improved efficiency of resources but this was a massive improvement, as pertains to my experience anyway. So since I kvetched about it I should be scrupulous and report that much at least.

[mabian]

Yep, the last and latest Kontakt 7 appears deeply improved now, much faster at loading now.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

A few days ago I loaded a project I've been working in the past months. It has two kontakt instances. They were not able to load properly the sounds, because twenty-five and hybrid keys were updated and now they are no longer "kompatble" with kontakt 6. This is the hell native instruments is now...

Unless I've misunderstood the issue you're having, try these:

https://community.native-instruments.co ... 1710751455

I knew about this page, thanks; they set it up to try repairing the damage after the fact

But late is better than never, right?

[mabian]

A few days ago I loaded a project I've been working in the past months. It has two kontakt instances. They were not able to load properly the sounds, because twenty-five and hybrid keys were updated and now they are no longer "kompatble" with kontakt 6. This is the hell native instruments is now...

Unless I've misunderstood the issue you're having, try these:

https://community.native-instruments.co ... 1710751455

I knew about this page, thanks; they set it up to try repairing the damage after the fact

But late is better than never, right?

They haven't completely fixed the mess they created themseleves.
They have put a patch, a bit too late but at least they did.
It's good they have done something, but they have failed big time with this stuff, updating existing library instruments "in place" with backward incompatible versions instead of just issuing new versions for the instruments that introduced constraints on the minimum Kontakt version supported; they did it the right way when updating Hybrid Keys, Ethereal Earth and Analog Dreams to 2.0, even though it was not exactly the same thing.

- Mario

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

A few days ago I loaded a project I've been working in the past months. It has two kontakt instances. They were not able to load properly the sounds, because twenty-five and hybrid keys were updated and now they are no longer "kompatble" with kontakt 6. This is the hell native instruments is now...

Unless I've misunderstood the issue you're having, try these:

https://community.native-instruments.co ... 1710751455

I knew about this page, thanks; they set it up to try repairing the damage after the fact

But late is better than never, right?

They haven't completely fixed the mess they created themseleves.
They have put a patch, a bit too late but at least they did.
It's good they have done something, but they have failed big time with this stuff, updating existing library instruments "in place" with backward incompatible versions instead of just issuing new versions for the instruments that introduced constraints on the minimum Kontakt version supported; they did it the right way when updating Hybrid Keys, Ethereal Earth and Analog Dreams to 2.0, even though it was not exactly the same thing.

- Mario

NI is quite the mess, and has been for a long time. They get away with it on the whole by offering insane value and some good customer policies. It's up to each person to decide how much of that potential value they can benefit from, and to weigh that up against their personal list of grievances.In my case, the benefit of sticking with NI far outweighs my irritations, so these days I'm far less inclined to get annoyed by any of it.

Of course, I'm but a procrastinating hobbyist. Were I a professional musician who relied on this stuff on a daily basis, I could imagine the situation being very different

[jancivil]

kontakt [] not able to load [] twenty-five and hybrid keys [because] no longer "kompatble" with kontakt 6. This is the hell native instruments is now.

I did that with Ethereal Earth, which I have actually used once or twice. I may want to use it in future. At the same time I also did Electric Mint, which I've not used before.
So I found that page with earlier versions, fortunately... or so was my attitude at the time. Now at Kontakt 7.10.7 things load as quickly if not more quickly than K6. Before this I avoided 7 like the plague.

But this is just how Kontakt works, if it were otherwise new features would be more difficult to implement. (I wonder if an Absynth 5-saved patch works in Absynth 2.)
I knew better but I mindlessly clicked update one day. This is not a hell created by NI, this is, whether it's you or me, user error, a boneheaded move.

Here's mine, per Ethereal Earth.

Screenshot 2025-01-11 at 6.20.47 PM.png

[jancivil]

7.10.7 loads snappily but is as buggy as anything I've ever seen. If this is the final version, I may as well forget all about it.
Libraries taking up 95% of the GUI is idiotic to begin with. Some decisions were clearly made by someone bored to death making busy work. NI is just about dead to me. I didn't expect to become a hater but this shit ain't it.

[enroe]

7.10.7 loads snappily but is as buggy as anything I've ever seen. If this is the final version, I may as well forget all about it.
Libraries taking up 95% of the GUI is idiotic to begin with. Some decisions were clearly made by someone bored to death making busy work. NI is just about dead to me. I didn't expect to become a hater but this shit ain't it.

Well, calm down! As a die-hard NI fan, you should know that software development is always fraught with bugs - and it can take a while until they are fixed. It's obviously stupid that in the case of "Kontakt" it affects all libraries... but: patience!

[mabian]

7.10.7 loads snappily but is as buggy as anything I've ever seen. If this is the final version, I may as well forget all about it.
Libraries taking up 95% of the GUI is idiotic to begin with. Some decisions were clearly made by someone bored to death making busy work. NI is just about dead to me. I didn't expect to become a hater but this shit ain't it.

Would you list at least a couple of bugs?

Thanks,
Mario

[dune_rave]

i have left behind all NI synths, but I still use Kontakt 6 Full version.
Maybe I sell this, but dunno if Kontakt player can open all my 3rd party libs.
I remember I've bought Realitunes The Ladies KPlayer version separately...
But what if the kplayer version of the 3rd party library does not exist at all ?
Then you can't open the library with Kontakt Player!!!

[jancivil]

The first bug is known. And it's been known for a while. In VE Pro there is no changing the output from how it loads.
7.1 surround. The way this is handled, well its default is, or has been up to K7, a normal stereo out called "St.1" out 1-2.
So I go to Create separate master output channel and it doesn't. it stays at "Create new".
See attached screenshot with that, and see the fact no separate channel is created (that's my default, it should show the name of the patch somewhere, nothing happens.).
...

Screenshot 2025-01-12 at 5.19.30 PM.png

2) see my preference in Options:

Screenshot 2025-01-12 at 5.23.44 PM.png

Notice that box is not ticked. However every time I double-click, or load from files, it does replace what's in there.

There is a supposed fix for the first issue, but while it may fix what the standalone does (which isn't the actual issue here) it does nothing for how I would tend to use it. I assumed that the Kontakt 7 plugin per se was broken in the same way but I was wrong. In Cubase 13 anyway, it loads with the normal output. So while most of my use cases are stereo out 1-2, and '7.1 surround' (with no particular surround instance hosting it) appears to do nowt but stereo out, then so far I don't care. But having more than one output in VE Pro is quite impossible. This alone is not going to kill my usage of the thing but it's a sign that something at NI ain't right. They aren't testing it in VE Pro at all? I guess the one-fingered target market and "Leap" users don't use VE Pro, yo.

But the second issue means only one .nki is possible in an instance of Kontakt here. Unless it's a prefabricated multi, obv.

At best I am definitely not going to be saving anything in Kontakt 7 and will avoid it unless something comes up where I can't, and I don't foresee that use case.
Then, Kontakt 8 forces Native Access to use a single email for authorization, so several things I own a license for are not seen in it or in Native Access anymore.

All of this together is going to force me to stick to Kontakt 6 until I die probably.

[jancivil]

Said fix for issue #1 is delete a folder called "default" which has the output cfg files, so running the standalone rebuilds those. If I recall correctly the standalone was also opening with the output "7.1 surround" and delete/rebuild fixed it. That is a known issue in any case, and you can find it at their forum.
I don't use the standalone for anything except the usual NI run the standalone first trip.

[jancivil]

dunno if Kontakt player can open all my 3rd party libs

It can only deal in "Powered by Kontakt" regardless, and the vendor is probably going to feature that bit.

[jancivil]

7.10.7 loads snappily but is as buggy as anything I've ever seen. If this is the final version, I may as well forget all about it.
Libraries taking up 95% of the GUI is idiotic to begin with. Some decisions were clearly made by someone bored to death making busy work. NI is just about dead to me. I didn't expect to become a hater but this shit ain't it.

Well, calm down! As a die-hard NI fan, you should know that software development is always fraught with bugs - and it can take a while until they are fixed.

I guess you missed the whole "10.7" appended to "Kontakt 7". or that's a really opaque bit of facetiousness.

I believe I saw E.D. say it's the final version.
And I'm reasonably sure removing Options from the gear icon which had been there for... the last 21 yrs and hiding it in "Files" was not some decision made with the interest of the user in mind BUT WAS BUSY WORK. I'm perfectly calm. I guess you're completely unacquainted with me.

[Noisenomad]

I think TX16Wx is a great alternative to Kontakt, unfortunately there is not much stuff for now.