Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Using Aliases for Kontakt Library Organization

M

markrosoft

New Member
With a few days between jobs I've been trying to organize my sample libraries. As I've started to do this I've realized one major issue is that I have to organize them on the drive based on the creator of the library. In other words, at the root of my sample drives are a bunch of folders with VI creator names (Audio Bro, CineSamples, Spitfire, and so on). That's always been the way things are so I've never questioned it. But today I realized it's not a great system when you're looking for an instrument to load. When I'm looking for a piano, I should look in a keyboard folder instead of digging through Company A's folder on Drive 1, decide it's not the right one, and then look for another piano in Company B's folder on Drive 2.

SO... what if I made folders for the type of instruments on each drive and dropped aliases of the NKI's in there. I've done a couple tests and it seems to work: If I put the alias of the NKI of the Spitfire felt piano in a piano folder, it seems to load the real instrument (which is actually in a Spitfire folder with all the media) just fine.

So before doing this big alias-based organization project, I'm just wondering if anyone else does this or has tried this and has any insight. Is there a better way to organize your libraries?
Click to read more...
 
I'd have a look at Kontakt's Quick Load. It pretty much does exactly what you're describing, creating aliases for your patches as you drag them in, allowing you to organize them in folders. HOWEVER, one issue with creating aliases is this - say for example, you have a folder containing guitar patches from a bunch of different libraries, you load one up and want to try a different one... well, clicking the next / previous buttons in Kontakt will go to the next / previous in the source folder, NOT the curated selection. Of course, drag and drop works fine. This has always bothered me about quickload. Anyway, not to get lost in the weeds... Check out Quick Load. :geek:
 
Ditto on using Quick Load.

I hide the Browser section and tend to use Quick Load exclusively for browsing samples & loading anything not already available in my project templates.
 
Yes, this is definitely the solution I was looking for and I feel like dummy for not knowing about it previously! Thanks so much - definitely seems like the best way to load patches!
 
markrosoft said:
Yes, this is definitely the solution I was looking for and I feel like dummy for not knowing about it previously! Thanks so much - definitely seems like the best way to load patches!
Click to expand...

I didn't know about it for years either! Couple of tips - quickload pane can be opened and closed by right clicking inside the patch pane. You can also access the menu/patches directly (without opening the QL pane) by clicking the small down arrow to the left of "new instrument" or whatever patch is already loaded. Good luck with your organization!
 
Ruchir said:
Have a look at mklink /d if your on windows.
Click to expand...

This is a very good idea. I spent hours creating hardlinks across storage devices so that I could keep all my Kontakt instruments in one place and have the actual data reside elsewhere.
 
AllanH said:
This is a very good idea. I spent hours creating hardlinks across storage devices so that I could keep all my Kontakt instruments in one place and have the actual data reside elsewhere.
Click to expand...

I'm confused... when creating hardlinks, it seems to break sample paths (i'm guessing the patches are looking for relative Samples subfolder) and Kontakt puts up the missing samples dialog. At least that's what I'm seeing on OSX. How did you get around that?
 
unclecheeks said:
I'm confused... when creating hardlinks, it seems to break sample paths (i'm guessing the patches are looking for relative Samples subfolder) and Kontakt puts up the missing samples dialog. At least that's what I'm seeing on OSX. How did you get around that?
Click to expand...

My mistake - my recollection was incorrect.

I use /D to create directory links. I place all key libraries on an SSD (e.g. E: and for those libraries where I do not have room on the SSD, I instead create a link to another location. This lets me keep all my libraries in one place and keep projects unaffected by the actual library location. Here's an example of of creating a directory link from the SSD E: to a folder on the C: drive.

mklink /D "E:\Kontakt\CSS" "C:\AllanVST\Symlink\Kontakt\CSS"

A benefit of this layout is that when I back up E:\kontakt it automatically includes the symlink'ed folders.

Sorry for the confusion.
 
Last edited:
I hear you pain, I originally started by using a folder structure like you. Mine was done by instruments types rather than company - eg. folders for things like Brass, Chromatic, Guitars, Percussion, Pianos, Strings, Synths, Vocals, Woodwinds etc. All I can say is don't do it! :) It worked okay until I hit something broader such as an ethnic/orchestral/sound-design library (eg. Soundiron/Sounddust stuff) which blended across these. Before you know it - you're in a mess.

Being able to put patches/libraries under multiple "folders" is key to sorting this, but I still haven't got it right. Quickload is great for storing my favourite patches (although I also have templates for this), I wish you could browse the folder structure (ie. go backwards/forwards) rather than having to do everything on a "single patch" basis (as it soon clogs up!).
 
markrosoft said:
Yes, this is definitely the solution I was looking for and I feel like dummy for not knowing about it previously! Thanks so much - definitely seems like the best way to load patches!
Click to expand...

There is a downside to quickload. IF you spend a lot of time organizing it (as I did) THEN decide you need to move samples around (reorganize the drive or change to SSD’s or decide to get larger drives for your samples or...)

THEN all your organization work in quickload disappears, never to return. Yes, that’s right. Move the samples at all and poof, it all goes and quickload comes up empty, and you have to start over. There is no way to get it back once gone. I wish someone had warned me, so I’m warning you.

So if you can do it all quickly, great. If not, like me, then quickload can become an “advancement” you want to avoid. But otherwise it’s a great idea. ;)
 
I do exactly like @AllanH. I use symlinks with keeping everything virtually on one large HDD while libraries which are either very large or my workhorse ones are in reality in SSD. Everything is organized into the same place, can easily be backupped and transferred to my another computer which follows the same logic. I just reorganized everything at my work, and made the cloning from my own studio computer with one click due to symlinks working seamlessly.

Just one word of warning: Native Access isn't fooled by those. So if you want the symlinks to work, you need to FIRST to install the libraries to the "virtual" place (the .nicnt-file is enough, no need to copy the whole library content) and THEN do the symlinking after installing them with Native Access.

PS: For organizing, I use folder structure of "my samples reside in this folder" -> "manufacturer" -> "library name".
 
Satorious said:
I hear you pain, I originally started by using a folder structure like you. Mine was done by instruments types rather than company - eg. folders for things like Brass, Chromatic, Guitars, Percussion, Pianos, Strings, Synths, Vocals, Woodwinds etc. All I can say is don't do it! :) It worked okay until I hit something broader such as an ethnic/orchestral/sound-design library (eg. Soundiron/Sounddust stuff) which blended across these. Before you know it - you're in a mess.

Being able to put patches/libraries under multiple "folders" is key to sorting this, but I still haven't got it right. Quickload is great for storing my favourite patches (although I also have templates for this), I wish you could browse the folder structure (ie. go backwards/forwards) rather than having to do everything on a "single patch" basis (as it soon clogs up!).
Click to expand...

If I recall correctly, quickload allows you to add the same patch into multiple categories.
 
unclecheeks said:
Pretty sure you can drag in multiple patch files, or even whole folders, from explorer/finder. Not sure if that also works from kontakt browser, I tend to just use finder.
Click to expand...

Ah, thanks - I've just been using the Kontakt browser. I'll give this a try! Also is there any way to customize the order of patches in a folder so I can put my favourites at the top? It looks like it sorts A-Z only?

It would be lovely to see Kontakt adapt a customisable tag based approach, but I already have enough distractions.
 
JT3_Jon said:
I heard quickload causes every kontakt instance to use more RAM. Is this no longer the case? As someone who maxes out RAM I’ve avoided it for this reason.

Looks like it still does: https://vi-control.net/community/threads/quickload-housecleaning.78527/
Click to expand...

Yes, I believe Evil Dragon mentioned if your quickload organization is extensive (or you just have a lot of libraries in it) it adds a small amount to the ram of each instance, which can add up in bigger projects (or bigger templetes). Another quickload downside.

If you don’t have a lot of instruments or more than enough ram, it may not be a big issue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom