# How many instruments is best for multitimbral Kontakt in VEP?



## Kent (Dec 16, 2019)

I know every system and template is different, but in general (assuming Mac, one instance, a typical Spitfire-style patch type, and sufficient RAM), is it better to:

A. Load a Kontakt per single patch, so there would be 16 Kontakts for 16 MIDI channels

B. Load 4 Kontakts with 4 patches each

C. Load one Kontakt with 16 patches

Or, more broadly, is there a benefit to spreading the “patch burden” across multiple Kontakts or is it generally more efficient to put as much as possible into one?

Searching for this information is very difficult as all the keywords tend to point to other similar questions, but I can’t really find a good resource or two for this. Perhaps @EvilDragon knows? @Dietz?


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## Dietz (Dec 17, 2019)

Hi Kent,

Thanks for addressing me personally, but I'm no Kontakt-expert by any means, sorry to say so. 8-/ As far as the VE Pro-side is concerned I can anly suggest to cross-post this question in VSL's own forum, or to get in contact with [email protected] .

Personally (coming from an old-school MIDI-and-keyboards background) I would most likely vote for C, just for the perceived economics of this approach. 

All the best,


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## Kent (Dec 17, 2019)

Dietz said:


> Hi Kent,
> 
> Thanks for addressing me personally, but I'm no Kontakt-expert by any means, sorry to say so. 8-/ As far as the VE Pro-side is concerned I can anly suggest to cross-post this question in VSL's own forum, or to get in contact with [email protected] .
> 
> ...


Thanks for the reply. Will do!


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## alfredsolax (Dec 18, 2019)

In my experience, C option works best (as little as possible of Kontakt instances and try to maximise the patches inside each Kontakt instance).
Also, if you are on Cubase, keep the number of VEP instances as low as possible (remember to disable ASIO guard for the VEP plugins). If you are on Logic, having more VEP instances gives better performances.
An important thing, both for VEP and Kontakt instances: try to spread the load in a "musical way". For example, keep the strings on an independent VEP instance. You could instead keep the brass + WW on the same VEP instance BUT in different Kontakt instances. Check the % CPU level on VEP of each instance and balance the template from there.

I hope this will help!


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## turnerofwheels (Dec 19, 2019)

I've been using option C along with as alfredsolax mentioned keeping instrument groups in separate VEP instances. It works great for me, also makes rendering stems a lot easier. I couldn't run large templates without it.


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## Thysmusic.com (Jan 25, 2020)

Option a is better for cpu performance in a daw that handles multi core operation well. 

Option c is minimally better if you're tight on ram.


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