# Optimizing Quickload DB load time?



## unclecheeks (Oct 26, 2020)

What's everyone's experience with Quickload load times? When I open an instance of Kontakt, the "loading..." beachball is there for 1+mins. This is with about 30,000 aliases in the QL db. Even if I try a smaller subset, say my Spitfire libraries which are about 2,000 aliases, it still takes about 10s. Hardly quick.

The thing is, I can access a lot of the content while loading is in progress - at least as long as it's only 1-2 folders deep, deeper than that it takes much longer... but this is only through the QL pane, not from the instrument arrow menu - that remains on "loading" until the scan completes fully. Other complication is that anytime the Kontakt plug-in window is closed and reopened, the quickload loading process restarts. 

Does this sound normal? Anyone have any tips on how to optimize? My goal is to have all my libraries just 2 clicks away - open kontakt, double-cllick to create a blank instrument, click arrow to select a patch. Would work like a charm, were it not for these super slow QL loads!

I'm on a 6-core mac mini with fast ssd, so I wouldn't think hardware would be a bottleneck.


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## jcrosby (Oct 26, 2020)

Same here. It's always been this way... And yes, I've always seen the same behavior, in that the second you close Kontakt's UI the process starts all over again when you open another instance. No matter what DAW your in it's an unavoidable headache, and in some DAWs you can't get around it by leaving an instance open and onscreen (Live, Logic as well if you use the_ link _feature). Even then keeping in instance onscreen isn't a feasible workaround... As far as workarounds there aren't any aside from keeping as little in QL as possible, which defeats the point of QL, and makes owning QL libraries a PITA.

I actually reached out to NI about this and they got back requesting video, had me run an NI support app, etc. The support process went back and forth for a few weeks with a bunch of questions specifically about the issue about it relaunching QL everytime you close the UI.

It seems like they're at least looking at my ticket with some level of interest, but I still HIGHLY encourage people to contact support about this. The more people that request they look into this the more likely we are to see something be done about improving this.


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## unclecheeks (Oct 26, 2020)

jcrosby said:


> Same here. It's always been this way... And yes, I've always seen the same behavior, in that the second you close Kontakt's UI the process starts all over again when you open another instance. No matter what DAW your in it's an unavoidable headache, and in some DAWs you can't get around it by leaving an instance open and onscreen (Live, Logic as well if you use the_ link _feature). Even then keeping in instance onscreen isn't a feasible workaround... As far as workarounds there aren't any aside from keeping as little in QL as possible, which defeats the point of QL, and makes owning QL libraries a PITA.
> 
> I actually reached out to NI about this and they got back requesting video, had me run an NI support app, etc. The support process went back and forth for a few weeks with a bunch of questions specifically about the issue about it relaunching QL everytime you close the UI.
> 
> It seems like they're at least looking at my ticket with some level of interest, but I still HIGHLY encourage people to contact support about this. The more people that request they look into this the more likely we are to see something be done about improving this.



Doh... that's what I figured might be the case but was holding out hope! I will also submit a ticket to NI. It's unfortunate that QL is so crippled by this, it really makes it unusable unless you only have a small handful of libraries... 

In general, I find having to navigate between the Browser tab, Quickload, Files tab to be a big impediment to creative juices when working with Kontakt. 

I'm trying a different workaround now, hijacking an unused Player library (kontakt factory selections) to see if it helps with organization. Idea is to wipe the internal patches, and essentially recreate my QL organization there. Problem is it doesn't pick up aliases, so I can't just copy the QL folder to it... patches would manually have to be copied inside... then batch resaved / samples located. 

On quick test duping a few NI and third-party libraries to it, it seems to work, but unsure if performance would start crawling once I get all ~30,000 patches inside. Plus keeping duplicate patches is of course not ideal, and batch resaving all of these libs will take a long time...

... If only Quickload worked... quickly.


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## Paul Christof (Oct 26, 2020)

Yeah it’s a real shame that it’s such an unoptimized feature, simply because it trumps the library tab, in my opinion, in every single way. I haven’t used the library tab in over a year now and i can definitely attest to QL maximizing my efficiency and productivity. I too leave open a kontakt instance, move it to my second monitor, hide under my mixer window in cubase, hide it from the project arrangement and make sure “always on top” is ticked off in the plugins drop-down settings. It‘s the best workaround so far, since it’s practically invisible and you never see it. There’s been a couple of threads discussing this issue, some people have issued support tickets in the past too, i just hope enough attention gets drawn to this, to warrant an update. Just a simple cache file on your drive would solve this issue, instead of it automatically scouring through you QL folder and rebuilding the database every single time (a manual rebuild button is the obvious solution).


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## EvilDragon (Oct 27, 2020)

The main problem is that QL is not cached in any way.


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## zvenx (Oct 27, 2020)

I am still amazed that yours take 10seconds and you find it slow.
I have kontakt on both a mac and a pc, and they both take well over a minute to be 'active'. On the PC it takes several minutes actually and I have complained about it for quite awhile. Ten seconds would be fantastic for me 
rsp


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## EvilDragon (Oct 27, 2020)

Really depends how much you have in your QL.


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## unclecheeks (Oct 27, 2020)

zvenx said:


> I am still amazed that yours take 10seconds and you find it slow.
> I have kontakt on both a mac and a pc, and they both take well over a minute to be 'active'. On the PC it takes several minutes actually and I have complained about it for quite awhile. Ten seconds would be fantastic for me
> rsp



Oh no, my full QL takes about 1.5mins - and that’s also if I close and reopen the plugin window, not just on initial load. The 10s was just a small subset to confirm that more items in QL result in longer load times. Even if it were 10s for the whole thing, that would still not be ideal - I could find what I’m looking for quicker than that using files/libraries tabs.


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## planist (Oct 27, 2020)

I find it annoying that as well, and I think it's been a request in the NI beta forum for quite a whole now. So let's see.

for me a workaround is to not use QL anymore and instead having a well organized folder structure which i access via file browser plus the main 10 folders that can be accessed via Ctrl+F1, F2,...-shortcuts


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## easyrider (Oct 27, 2020)

I’ve just emailed NI about this...


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## labornvain (Oct 28, 2020)

The weakest link, in my opinion, In Kontact is the means by which you have to navigate through your presets/instruments. 

You have 3 choices. You can use the quick load which is highly defective and archaic.

You can use the library pain which, while attractive, is completely impractical to navigate through and organize if you have over 50 libraries. Have you ever tried to drag a library from the bottom of the library pane to the top? The elevator scene in The Blues Brothers comes to mind.

Or you can use the folder view and organize your libraries into a folder hierarchy.

Of course, this also sucks in that there's no way to hide all the peripheral files and folders that exist within a library. Actually reaching the instrument file can take as many as 10 clicks. And anytime you wanna move something or do some reorganization maintenance, it inevitably breaks the links in projects that you have on-going.

The whole thing is circa 1995. You don't even have mouse wheel acceleration for scrolling.

So I've had to just start using track presents in cubat's, which is problematic in its own right.


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## jcrosby (Oct 28, 2020)

I just got a follow up from NI about this. They basically just asked more questions, nothing definitive like they're looking into it. I linked this thread though and mentioned their rep who pops in every now and again, (Matt IIRC). Maybe with a little luck they'll steer him toward this thread.


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## jcrosby (Oct 28, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> Really depends how much you have in your QL.


Hey ED I've looked into this issue for a few years now and noticed that Windows users seem to find a solution... (At least in older posts I've found..) I've had this issue with QL for as long as I can remember though... Does it seem like this issue affects mac users more often than windows?


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## unclecheeks (Oct 28, 2020)

jcrosby said:


> I just got a follow up from NI about this. They basically just asked more questions, nothing definitive like they're looking into it. I linked this thread though and mentioned their rep who pops in every now and again, (Matt IIRC). Maybe with a little luck they'll steer him toward this thread.



I've also filed a support ticket on this issue. Hopefully we make enough noise to hit critical mass!


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## brett (Oct 28, 2020)

My solution is to keep all the shortcuts in the quickload folder but then disable quick load within Kontakt (also saving resources) and use a simple search program equivalent to Everything.exe on PC, and restrict search to the QL folder. Works here 😎


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## easyrider (Oct 29, 2020)

NI want to remote to my pc...


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## Dirk Ehlert (Oct 29, 2020)

The only workaround for this behavior that works is to keep one instance open all the time... Works of course best in multi monitor setups where you can drag one instance to the bottom of a second monitor for instance. With one dummy instance always open there is no need to re-cache the QL DB and it works instantly


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## unclecheeks (Oct 29, 2020)

I've been going through and dropping my entire .nki library, including all NI stuff / third-party player & non-player libs, into a Player library that I don't use. It's a pretty tedious process but I like the result. Will eventually hide all libraries but this one. Here's the process in summary:


use Carbon Copy Cloner to selectively batch-copy all nkis (and nkms) from the 3 drives were I have libraries, to the Factory Selections library
run batch resave on the libraries inside (i chose to do this one-by-one, to avoid any incorrect references)
organize folder contents as I please
One nice thing is that even if you change the organization inside at a later date, Kontakt doesn't complain about paths and loads the patches correctly. So you could move stuff around freely inside, and not worry about it.

Another interesting thing is that even with copies of all the nkis, the folder is still LESS than the QuickLoad alias version (looks like each alias on mac is ~500kb, which is often much larger than the actual nki).

One not so nice thing, of course, is having duplicate patches which makes things like updates a bit of a pain in the ass, and I assume there might also be issues sharing projects. But both of these are non-issues for me, compared to the benefit of being able to finally consolidate my library into something resembling QuickLoad, but without the "loading" annoyance.


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## jcrosby (Oct 30, 2020)

unclecheeks said:


> I've been going through and dropping my entire .nki library, including all NI stuff / third-party player & non-player libs, into a Player library that I don't use. It's a pretty tedious process but I like the result. Will eventually hide all libraries but this one. Here's the process in summary:
> 
> 
> use Carbon Copy Cloner to selectively batch-copy all nkis (and nkms) from the 3 drives were I have libraries, to the Factory Selections library
> ...


Only issue with this is you may eventually find some patches don't locate samples. (Been there and done this already  )


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## unclecheeks (Oct 30, 2020)

jcrosby said:


> Only issue with this is you may eventually find some patches don't locate samples. (Been there and done this already  )



I’m doing batch resave on each library once I’ve copied the nkis, seems to be finding samples ok so far!


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## jcrosby (Oct 30, 2020)

unclecheeks said:


> I’m doing batch resave on each library once I’ve copied the nkis, seems to be finding samples ok so far!


I've also tried this with varying degrees of success. IIRC every once in a while I'd find a library where a resource file couldn't be located.... If it's working for you that's great news though!

Either way NI really need to do something about this at some point. The amount of time it takes to batch resave a bunch of libraries is ultimately a time sucker... QL would be great if they just fixed this one major quirk...

The funny thing is I have well over 100 libraries. The database is more or less instantaneous, no reason why QL shouldn't behave the same way, (if it were given some actual attention...)


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## zolhof (Nov 12, 2020)

Are you guys running an antivirus by any chance? Since we are talking about thousands upon thousands of small files that are loaded in every time you open Kontakt, you must add an exclusion to your Quickload path, the same way you do for your sample disks/folders.

My Quickload DB has over 16.000 files, here's a before-after comparison:





As you can see, it's instantly accessible. I wouldn't get any work done otherwise hehe My computer needs to be online and I use Windows Defender, however, this should work with other antivirus as well. Add the following folder to your exclusions list:



> C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Native Instruments



I also have exclusions for sample disks (no indexing) and other audio related folders, i.e.:



Spoiler



C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\PACE
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\UVI
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3
C:\Program Files (x86)\eLicenser
C:\Program Files (x86)\iLok License Manager
C:\Program Files (x86)\MOTU
C:\Program Files (x86)\NotePerformer
C:\Program Files (x86)\Spitfire Audio
C:\Program Files\Avid
C:\Program Files\Blackmagic Design
C:\Program Files\Celemony
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST2
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3
C:\Program Files\eLicenser
C:\Program Files\Native Instruments
C:\Program Files\Plugin Alliance
C:\Program Files\SINE Player
C:\Program Files\Steinberg
C:\Program Files\UVI Workstation x64
C:\Program Files\Vienna Ensemble Pro
C:\ProgramData\eLicenser
C:\ProgramData\Spectrasonics
C:\ProgramData\Steinberg
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Orchestral Tools
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Spectrasonics
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\com.spitfireaudio
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Spitfire Audio
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents\VST3 Presets



Hope that helps!


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## EvilDragon (Nov 12, 2020)

Interesting find! So antivirus programs striking us again! :D


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## StefanoM (Nov 12, 2020)

zolhof said:


> Are you guys running an antivirus by any chance? Since we are talking about thousands upon thousands of small files that are loaded in every time you open Kontakt, you must add an exclusion to your Quickload path, the same way you do for your sample disks/folders.
> 
> My Quickload DB has over 16.000 files, here's a before-after comparison:
> 
> ...






Yeah, I did the same. 

Absolutely works.


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## wst3 (Nov 12, 2020)

DANG!!!

I've got dozens of exclusions already, I will add QuickLoad!


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## zolhof (Nov 12, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> Interesting find! So antivirus programs striking us again! :D


Yeah, poor ole Kontakt getting the blame hehe

I've tested on different computers at the studio and the ones running an antivirus show this behavior. As soon as I exclude the path, presto, problem solved. Please let your friends at NI know about this so they can advise other people. Quickload is too awesome and deserves more love


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## unclecheeks (Nov 12, 2020)

zolhof said:


> Yeah, poor ole Kontakt getting the blame hehe
> 
> I've tested on different computers at the studio and the ones running an antivirus show this behavior. As soon as I exclude the path, presto, problem solved. Please let your friends at NI know about this so they can advise other people. Quickload is too awesome and deserves more love



Good that Windows users have found some relief, but I’m on MacOS with no antivirus and my scan times are ~1.5mins. So no love from me quite yet..


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## zolhof (Nov 12, 2020)

unclecheeks said:


> Good that Windows users have found some relief, but I’m on MacOS with no antivirus and my scan times are ~1.5mins. So no love from me quite yet..


When you say it takes 1.5 minutes to load, do you mean it's stuck in the big loading animation like my first video? Is your DAW online at all?

Here are a few more things I've done:


All my audio programs are blocked in the firewall (both ways)
I have disabled "Usage Data" in Kontakt options
My QL folder is in an SSD
Everything is running as administrator

It's also worth checking Activity Monitor to see if there's any abnormal usage when you open Kontakt. Something has to be checking/scanning each file? A specific process? Network activity? Now I'm just spitballing here, unfortunately I don't have a Mac to be more helpful. Don't give up though, I'd contact NI support and troubleshoot it to exhaustion with them.


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## jcrosby (Nov 12, 2020)

unclecheeks said:


> Good that Windows users have found some relief, but I’m on MacOS with no antivirus and my scan times are ~1.5mins. So no love from me quite yet..


Same here... No solution on macos... I don't use AV so there is definitely something different happening on mac.


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## lucky909091 (Wednesday at 10:26 AM)

Kontakt 7 has the same issue.
I am waiting 4 minutes for the database to show up.


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