[Cubase] Opening Kontakt 5 TrackPresets with Kontakt 6

[Emmanuel Rousseau]

Hi everyone,

I have plenty of Cubase trackpresets using the Kontakt 5 8outs version, and I would like to "convert" them to Kontakt 6 trackpresets.

So far, my only success has been opening a trackpreset with the Notepad, searching for "kontakt 5 8outs" and replacing it with "kontakt" (the Kontakt 6 new dll is named kontact.dll). When opening the MediaBay in Cubase, that preset is now seen as a Kontakt 6 Trackpreset in the list, but still loads Kontakt 5 8outs when imported into the project.

I know I could just rename the "old" dll, so that "Kontakt 5 8outs" loads Kontakt 6, but would like to avoid that.

Would anyone have a clue how to do this, please ?

PS : @EvilDragon , in the name of the Cubase community, I think it is more than time for you to drop Reaper and help us.

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[EvilDragon]

There's no way I'm leaving Reaper, sorry

Suggestion: what happens when you move the K5 DLLs out of the VST folder completely? Would it ask you to look for the plugin, or just outright not load the track preset? If the former, just point to K6 DLL then, and rinse/repeat with all your track presets. If latter, you're kinda screwed :/

 

[Emmanuel Rousseau]

There's no way I'm leaving Reaper, sorry

Suggestion: what happens when you move the K5 DLLs out of the VST folder completely? Would it ask you to look for the plugin, or just outright not load the track preset? If the former, just point to K6 DLL then, and rinse/repeat with all your track presets. If latter, you're kinda screwed :/

Thanks man, seems like I'm screwed, ahah !

 

[willbedford]

I'm curious why you would need to do this. Your existing libraries won't run any differently in Kontakt 6 than they do in Kontakt 5. Kontakt 6 doesn't overwrite Kontakt 5 so you can carry on using 5.

 

[Emmanuel Rousseau]

@willbedford : I was in the process of rebuilding a big part of my orchestral template, so I thought it would be a good time to switch everything to Kontakt 6. But you're absolutely right, I'll keep all my existing libraries with K5

 

[zvenx]

I am curious how Reaper does this.
Cubase is looking for the plugin ID.....I remember NI and Logic did something to allow this automatic conversion, but no in Cubendo you have to do it manually and resave your track preset...ED this was one of the positives I mentioned elsewhere for Kontakt 6 no longer having the 6 in its name... hopefully form now on they will use the same plugin ID for all future Kontakts and the rest of the world will be fine.
rsp

 

[zvenx]

There's no way I'm leaving Reaper, sorry

Suggestion: what happens when you move the K5 DLLs out of the VST folder completely? Would it ask you to look for the plugin, or just outright not load the track preset? If the former, just point to K6 DLL then, and rinse/repeat with all your track presets. If latter, you're kinda screwed :/

It gives a popup saying it can't find the plugin and gives you the option to write that info to an external text file.
rsp

 

[zvenx]

I'm curious why you would need to do this. Your existing libraries won't run any differently in Kontakt 6 than they do in Kontakt 5. Kontakt 6 doesn't overwrite Kontakt 5 so you can carry on using 5.

The issue becomes that over time you have to keep all versions of Kontakt on your system. Yes HD space is cheap but it becomes a problem when your OS breaks an older version of Kontakt and you can't open older projects seamlessly.
rsp

 

[EvilDragon]

I am curious how Reaper does this.

Reaper just stores the DLL name and then a binary form of plugin chunk. Doesn't look for plugin ID at all, you can simply rename the DLL in the track template and it will load that DLL and attempt to use the stored plugin chunk (which in case of Kontakt works well because it's backwards compatible).

Easy peasy, simple and beautiful.

but it becomes a problem when your OS breaks an older version of Kontakt

Ah, the beauties of being in Apple's walled garden. Just FYI, Kontakt 1 still works in Windows 10.

 

[zvenx]

The installers don't
so what happens when you get a new computer?
rsp

 

[EvilDragon]

I remember running the installers in compatibility mode for XP worked just fine, for all the old NI stuff, including Vokator, Spektral Delay, Kore, etc. So no problems there on a new computer.

But even in case of installers not working, I know where all the files need to go, and necessary registry hives can be easily exported then reimported on a new computer, then reauthorization et voila.

 

[benatural]

What about renaming the new .dll to the old name? That is, if Cubasr is just looking for a path and filename?

 

[zvenx]

I remember running the installers in compatibility mode for XP worked just fine, for all the old NI stuff, including Vokator, Spektral Delay, Kore, etc. So no problems there on a new computer.

.............

I guess I need to check that again. I remember doing it or trying to do it for exactly Vokator and Spektral Delay and in the end just giving up.
rsp

 

[zvenx]

What about renaming the new .dll to the old name? That is, if Cubasr is just looking for a path and filename?

No that is what reaper does. Cubendo doesn't, it looks for the plugin id not the name. As I imagine vst was designed to do ......
rsp

 

[zvenx]

So ED, if I don't have Omnisphere for instance and someone sends me a reaper project that uses omnisphere, and I decided to rename Battery4 plugin Omnisphere, will Reaper honestly try to open the renamed Battery4 in that project ever instance of Omnisphere?
rsp

 

[EvilDragon]

Yes but it will fail because the plugin chunk is incompatible between those two plugins (of course it would be incompatible).

I remember doing it or trying to do it for exactly Vokator and Spektral Delay and in the end just giving up.

Yeah both of those still work on W10, installers worked just fine for me in one of compatibility modes.