# Locked "wrench/spanner" in Spitfire Legato



## robgb (May 24, 2020)

I have Spitfire Studio Strings Core and all the legato instruments are locked so that it's impossible to get behind the wrench/spanner. Unfortunately, for some of the instruments, the portamento is a bit too loud for my taste and I'd like to go in and adjust the levels of those samples. Is there any way to get past this lock? I think I know the answer that this would violate Spitfire's desire to keep my nose out of their business, but I do find it frustrating that I can't adjust these to my liking. What's the point of having the full version of Kontakt if you can't utilize it. Any ideas?


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## Lionel Schmitt (May 24, 2020)

I guess in some "releases" of Kontakt where this stuff gets opened. Maybe not from NI.  So I heard haha. 

It's incredibly common by the way, and rather annoying. Understandable to prevent reverse engineering by other developers, but as said - in some "releases" it's open, so if a dishonest developer wants in, they get in. The only people left behind are composers like you, me and others who just wanna make some quick changes.


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## robgb (May 24, 2020)

DarkestShadow said:


> I guess in some "releases" of Kontakt where this stuff gets opened. Maybe not from NI.  So I heard haha.


Someone else mentioned this but said that Kontakt crashes when the wrench is clicked. I can't remember who, but I think it was someone on this forum.


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## purple (May 24, 2020)

Reverse engineer what? Spitfire legato isn't even that good!


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## robgb (May 24, 2020)

purple said:


> Reverse engineer what? Spitfire legato isn't even that good!


Actually it's quite beautiful on the studio strings. 

Looks like my only alternative is to save it to a new instrument with samples, then do a batch volume reduction on the portamento samples. Probably no more time-consuming that doing it through Kontakt.


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## jbuhler (May 24, 2020)

robgb said:


> Actually it's quite beautiful on the studio strings.


I also find the SF legato works really well in most contexts. Generally it doesn't stand up and take bows but it's more than serviceable for most of my needs.


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## purple (May 24, 2020)

robgb said:


> Actually it's quite beautiful on the studio strings.
> 
> Looks like my only alternative is to save it to a new instrument with samples, then do a batch volume reduction on the portamento samples. Probably no more time-consuming that doing it through Kontakt.


You could try contacting spitfire support. Maybe there's a sliver of a chance it's just a bug.


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## Lionel Schmitt (May 24, 2020)

robgb said:


> Someone else mentioned this but said that Kontakt crashes when the wrench is clicked. I can't remember who, but I think it was someone on this forum.


Right, damn. Someone told me something like this. Of course it didn't happen to me.  In this case it was Spitfire Symphonic Strings though. Looks like they REALLY don't want people to look there when they took the time to figure out how to make the thing crash! Seems to be no problem with any other libraries.


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## robgb (May 24, 2020)

DarkestShadow said:


> Right, damn. Someone told me something like this. Of course it didn't happen to me.  In this case it was Spitfire Symphonic Strings though. Looks like they REALLY don't want people to look there when they took the time to figure out how to make the thing crash! Seems to be no problem with any other libraries.


Well, someone else told me that she got in a few times but it's random and hard to duplicate, so she gave up.


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## EvilDragon (May 25, 2020)

purple said:


> Maybe there's a sliver of a chance it's just a bug.



Nope, it's very much intentional. Spitfire's legato is not meant to be edited by the user, that's why they lock it. And in such a way that it takes down the dodgy version of Kontakt. Quite ingenious, really.


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## Lionel Schmitt (May 25, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> Nope, it's very much intentional. Spitfire's legato is not meant to be edited by the user, that's why they lock it. And in such a way that it takes down the dodgy version of Kontakt. Quite ingenious, really.


One could argue they should have focused more on the quality of the legato rather than making dubious KT versions crash!


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## robgb (May 25, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> Nope, it's very much intentional. Spitfire's legato is not meant to be edited by the user, that's why they lock it. And in such a way that it takes down the dodgy version of Kontakt. Quite ingenious, really.


Perhaps they could have found a way to ingeniously lock the script instead of the entire instrument. I like to tweak instruments and can do it to most patches. Their legato isn't special enough to warrant a total lockdown.


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## EvilDragon (May 25, 2020)

Their legato is not at all about the script, hence why the instrument is locked.



robgb said:


> Their legato isn't special enough to warrant a total lockdown.



I disagree there.



DarkestShadow said:


> One could argue they should have focused more on the quality of the legato rather than making dubious KT versions crash!



Well they do, it takes Andy B a lot of time to hand-tweak things.


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## robgb (May 25, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> I disagree there.


Fair enough. But one of the advantages of owning full Kontakt is the ability to get behind the wrench and make tweaks to a library to fit your personal tastes. Had I known I wouldn't be able to do this with this library, I may have reconsidered buying it. Seems a little deceptive to me.


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## raidmarji (May 28, 2020)

robgb said:


> I have Spitfire Studio Strings Core and all the legato instruments are locked so that it's impossible to get behind the wrench/spanner. Unfortunately, for some of the instruments, the portamento is a bit too loud for my taste and I'd like to go in and adjust the levels of those samples. Is there any way to get past this lock? I think I know the answer that this would violate Spitfire's desire to keep my nose out of their business, but I do find it frustrating that I can't adjust these to my liking. What's the point of having the full version of Kontakt if you can't utilize it. Any ideas?


I think they used Sandbox protection which was developed by Blake Robinson


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