# Venting about the name "Kontakt".



## Gerry (Jan 1, 2021)

Sorry in advance, but I just need to let off a little steam tonight. And maybe one of you will be able to point me to a perfectly good solution that I didn't know about, or maybe I'll just learn to live with it. But I discovered something stupid and annoying, and I want to vent.

I have Kontakt 5 which I usually run in DP 9. I've recently purchased a few libraries that require Kontakt 6 which I don't yet have. But hey, smart me, I realized that I can download the newer version of the free Kontakt Player and use that for those libraries. Problem solved, right?

So I open up DP and start a fresh new project. I open up a few instrument instances of Kontakt and run with it... only to discover that it's not Kontakt 5 that opened, but my new install of Kontakt Player 6, instead. Which means, of course, that some of my VIs won't load into it. I don't know how Kontakt Player opened instead of Kontakt, but I investigate a little bit...

... and discover that (in DP, at least) when I add a new instrument track, my Kontakt 5 is still there, but now Kontakt Player is a new available option *under the name* *"Kontakt"*. So yeah, it turns out that I just chose the wrong instrument when I added those tracks. But — and here's my vent — why the heck didn't NI name that player application so that it appears as "Kontakt Player"? I mean, I know the deal now, so hopefully I'll remember to choose "Kontakt 5" from now on when I need it instead of "Kontakt". But really, it's stupendously easy to not distinguish between the two, especially since there are *6* versions of each clotting up my Add Instrument Track menu (for mono, stereo, etc.). They could've helped me avoid the whole issue by just naming it what everybody in the world calls the damn thing: Kontakt Player.

And yes, I'm aware that I could also solve my dilemma by upgrading to Kontakt 6 and getting rid of the Player entirely. And that'll happen eventually. But that aside, I just feel that this was a bonehead move on NI's part, and I wanted to share my frustration. Thank you for letting me vent. We now return you to your regularly scheduled forum browsing.


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## ProfoundSilence (Jan 1, 2021)

On the contrary it actually makes it easier when they update since it's just going to have the same DLL name


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## X-Bassist (Jan 2, 2021)

They should have called it Kontakt and Kontakt Pro long ago, would have avoided all the confusion about the difference between player and “full”.

Videos are dedicated to explaining it, where if full were called pro it would be obvious to those new to sampling.

Also there is a haLf price sale on K6 upgrade once a year (I think summer?) best time to make the leap if your not upgrading komplete. For $49 it’s a good deal.


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## Gerry (Jan 2, 2021)

ProfoundSilence said:


> On the contrary it actually makes it easier when they update since it's just going to have the same DLL name


Thanks for replying. Not to pick an argument with you, but maybe you can at least help explain...

Firstly, I don't know what DLL stands for. (Dynamically-Loaded Library, perhaps? Still isn't a familiar term to me.)

That said, I just don't understand your explanation here. How it it any easier for "Kontakt" to update than for "Kontakt Player" to update? Wouldn't either one continue to have the same "DLL" name no matter what it's called?


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## ProfoundSilence (Jan 2, 2021)

DLL is a file extension used by windows, stands for dynamic link library but it has nothing to do with sample libraries, that's simply how vst/vsti are loaded. 

Because of the change from nomenclature from Kontakt 4.dll and Kontakt 5.dll to just Kontakt.dll whenever Kontakt is upgraded to 7 it'll use the same filename, and not require re-setting up your Kontakt instances in a project to the new version, it will simply load them on the new version. 

The best way to describe this would be that instead of needing to re-load your instruments in Kontakt 6 to use the new features, you wouldnt have to do anything because your DAW won't see a version anymore.


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## José Herring (Jan 2, 2021)

ProfoundSilence said:


> DLL is a file extension used by windows, stands for dynamic link library but it has nothing to do with sample libraries, that's simply how vst/vsti are loaded.
> 
> Because of the change from nomenclature from Kontakt 4.dll and Kontakt 5.dll to just Kontakt.dll whenever Kontakt is upgraded to 7 it'll use the same filename, and not require re-setting up your Kontakt instances in a project to the new version, it will simply load them on the new version.
> 
> The best way to describe this would be that instead of needing to re-load your instruments in Kontakt 6 to use the new features, you wouldnt have to do anything because your DAW won't see a version anymore.


Thank God. When I upgraded to K4 then K5 I was still loading K 3 instances in my template for years to come before I got around to replacing them. Lord only knows how long it will take me to get to replacing 5 now that I've to Kontakt (6). But, sooner or later I'm going to have to face manually upgrading all those K5 instances.


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## Gerry (Jan 2, 2021)

ProfoundSilence said:


> DLL is a file extension used by windows, stands for dynamic link library but it has nothing to do with sample libraries, that's simply how vst/vsti are loaded.
> 
> Because of the change from nomenclature from Kontakt 4.dll and Kontakt 5.dll to just Kontakt.dll whenever Kontakt is upgraded to 7 it'll use the same filename, and not require re-setting up your Kontakt instances in a project to the new version, it will simply load them on the new version.
> 
> The best way to describe this would be that instead of needing to re-load your instruments in Kontakt 6 to use the new features, you wouldnt have to do anything because your DAW won't see a version anymore.


Thank you, Profound. I can totally understand keeping the application name simple and w/o the version number. Makes total sense the way you describe it above. And I guess you're saying that they made that change when V.6 of Kontakt came out. And that's totally cool.

But my problem is that they named the "Kontakt Player" as "Kontakt", as well. Do you now see my problem with their naming protocol?

It's kind of funny, actually, in that it *almost* helps me distinguish the two right now: Kontakt 5 vs. Kontakt. But if I understand it correctly, let's say that I *do* upgrade to Kontakt 6. Great. But then when libraries start coming out for V.7, I might again want to wait to upgrade, and to use the free Kontakt Player 7 to play those libraries until *I* choose to upgrade. But then I won't even be able to tell the two apart in my DAW: Kontakt vs. Kontakt. Get it?

On a side note, you say DLL is a file extension for Windows. I'm on OS X on a Mac. Same as my .app extension, then?


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## ProfoundSilence (Jan 2, 2021)

I'm not sure, the version only has one option really, so it'll be interesting to see how it treats 7 vs 6. 

Might mean not updating Kontakt, maybe it'll be intelligent enough to know which libraries it should use full vs player options

As far as naming it player vs full, yeah it's stupid and really confusing to new people... I used to see soooooo many posts on GGD facebook group when it first came out because it was released for Kontakt full originally LOL


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## Lindon (Jan 2, 2021)

so the simplest solution for you is to rename your DLL (either one)

- find the DLL for the Kontakt Player and rename it Kontakt_Player.dll - you will need to get your DAW to rescan its plugins - but it will find a plugin called Kontakt_Player - which you then Know is the Kontakt player.

You can keep as many versions of kontakt as you like on your system - you just need to rename them before you install a new version. It's how us developers get to test a product across multiple versions on the same machine:

For instance I have DLLs(plugins) for 
Kontakt 5.7, Kontakt 5.8.1, Kontakt 6.0, Kontakt 6.4 etc. etc...


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## EvilDragon (Jan 2, 2021)

It's simple - Kontakt Player and Kontakt are exactly the same program. They don't _need_ separate plugin files. They are exactly the same thing, with a licensing difference and certain demo restrictions.

On removing the version number, the implications here are many, and one could be that Kontakt will just continue having rolling updates without concern for major version numbers. Kind of like Satya Nadella saying "Windows 10 is the last version of Windows", meaning there won't ever be Windows 11, so we might not ever see Kontakt 7 going by that train of thought. Obviously, this is just a conjencture.


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## AudioLoco (Jan 2, 2021)

When I upgraded Kontakt from 5 to 6, I kontakted the support and embarrassed myself asking : 
"I can't see Kontakt 6, nothing works!!". Ended up it was just appearing as "Kontakt", which was actually very konvenient...


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## Gerry (Jan 2, 2021)

Lindon said:


> so the simplest solution for you is to rename your DLL (either one)
> 
> - find the DLL for the Kontakt Player and rename it Kontakt_Player.dll - you will need to get your DAW to rescan its plugins - but it will find a plugin called Kontakt_Player - which you then Know is the Kontakt player.
> 
> ...


Thanks, Lindon. That makes sense. And y'know, I actually thought of that at first. So before I even started this thread, I went to my applications and renamed it to Kontakt Player.app. And that didn't work on its own. But from your recommendation I've now gone and "reexamined" all the plugins, closed and opened DP again, but still no dice. Is it possible that I should be changing the name of not merely the application, but something else in, say, Library>Application Support>Native Instruments>Kontakt? Or somewhere else in the bowels of my Mac?


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## EvilDragon (Jan 2, 2021)

Some hosts don't really care about renaming actual plugin files, but go by plugin ID and plugin name stored in the DLL itself (which is, in fact, the proper way to go if you're a host loading VST/AU plugins).


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