Converting Mellotron Archives

[Karel Vervest]

Hi, I’m new to this group and maybe my question should be posed elsewhere ..
First, happy New Year to you all!

Well, I (still) own the ‘1994 Mellotron Archives CD-ROM’ with a selection of Mellotron and Chamberlin sounds. After I had bought it a long, long time ago,, I imported the samples in Kontakt 3 and used them in Cubase 4.
By now you will have found out that I’ve been ‘away’ for a long time! Sadly I discovered that Kontakt 6 (player) and Cubase 8, which I use now, can’t import the files.
I know there are some good, not too expensive, VST plug-ins that come quite near the original sounds, but I still love the pure, dry samples on the CD-ROM very much (Moody Blues’ Mike Pinder signature)
Two questions, and I hope I’m in the right place in the forum:
* Is there still a way to convert these old files to present day technology?
* If not, what would be the next best alternative?

Hope somebody can help me!

Karel Vervest
Netherlands

[Gamma-UT]

If your machine can still run Kontakt 3 (maybe standalone if Cubase won't run it), use that to import the files and save them to Kontakt's own format. You'll then be able to open them in K6.

Converters like Chicken Systems Translator would do the job, but if you've got K3 knocking around you might as well use that.

[Karel Vervest]

Thanks for your reply!
I still have the old converted / imported Tron files on an external harddisk. Together with the samples that came with Kontakt 3. Crazy thing is that Kontakt 6 still plays its own sounds, but doesn’t even ‘see’ the imported Mellotron samples.
I thought that by importing them they had been converted to Kontakt format, but that’s obviously not the case.
The original Tron samples were AKAI format.

[pljones]

You may be able to get Kontakt 3 up and running, or try Kontakt 5 Player (it's on the Native Instruments site somewhere, I'm pretty sure; maybe K3, too) - Kontakt 6 dropped a lot of "legacy" format support.

[Karel Vervest]

Thanks!
I’ll try my luck with 3 or 5player

[Gamma-UT]

Thanks for your reply!
I still have the old converted / imported Tron files on an external harddisk. Together with the samples that came with Kontakt 3. Crazy thing is that Kontakt 6 still plays its own sounds, but doesn’t even ‘see’ the imported Mellotron samples.
I thought that by importing them they had been converted to Kontakt format, but that’s obviously not the case.
The original Tron samples were AKAI format.

The programs need to be saved as .nki to be recognised as native to Kontakt. I don't have any Akai format samples left on the hard drive to test it, but I think Kontakt before v6 treated them much the same as Soundfonts - they look a bit different in the file browser but the program will cheerfully read them in as if they are native (converting them on the fly but not writing an .nki to disk unless you save it).

[Karel Vervest]

Well, I think I’ve come much closer to the solution.
I’m beyond the point that I was a month ago when I gave up after hours.
A few facts:

There are NKI files and Kontakt 6 (contrary to what I said before, apologies) does ‘see’ them.
When I click the NKI, Kontakt wants to load it, but stops right away indicating the exact path where the individual samples should be, but are not. This was, I think, the situation on my old laptop.
I indicated the new path, I even imitated the old path ... but that doesn’t result in a loaded sample, but ...
when I tell Kontakt to browse the entire computer, IT FINDS THE SAMPLES!!! and I can play them!!!
The only problem now is that it takes a few minutes to locate and load them. How can I teach Kontakt where the sound files are located?

Thanks again!

[Karel Vervest]

By the way, I tried finding Kontakt 5 at Native, but it’s no longer there.

[Gamma-UT]

Well, I think I’ve come much closer to the solution.
I’m beyond the point that I was a month ago when I gave up after hours.
A few facts:

There are NKI files and Kontakt 6 (contrary to what I said before, apologies) does ‘see’ them.
When I click the NKI, Kontakt wants to load it, but stops right away indicating the exact path where the individual samples should be, but are not. This was, I think, the situation on my old laptop.
I indicated the new path, I even imitated the old path ... but that doesn’t result in a loaded sample, but ...
when I tell Kontakt to browse the entire computer, IT FINDS THE SAMPLES!!! and I can play them!!!
The only problem now is that it takes a few minutes to locate and load them. How can I teach Kontakt where the sound files are located?

Thanks again!

You can either use batch resave - though there is a danger it will pick up the incorrect samples if you get it to search the entire filesystem when it pulls up the missing samples window. (Point batch resave at the folder that contains the .nki files for those Mellotron programs).

The other way is to simply save each patch once it's been loaded and it's located the samples - that will store the locations inside the .nki.

In either case, it will be quicker if you find the folder that contains the Mellotron samples in the computer's filesystem and point Kontakt to it when it brings up the missing-samples window (press the Browse for Folder button under Resolve Manually).

[pljones]

You'll need your Native Instruments log in:
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/s ... &t=updates
KONTAKT 5 PLAYER 5.4.1 Win

[Karel Vervest]

Thank you guys. It works!!!
Crazy thing is that I’d been there in Kontakt for hours, but chose the wrong folder, instead of the root ... e.g. I chose ‘Tron 16VLNS’ where I should have picked ‘AKAI CD rom’.

Hope one day I can be of help to you!
@pljones: indeed, I should have logged in there! But, with the problem solved ..