Kontakt snapshots - Why don't many developers utilize them?

[ananmusatili]

Ok, so I've been messing about with Kontakt for long enough to notice things. And one thing, which annoys me, is that quite many of the developers who create the non-licensed libraries, don't utilize the snapshots at all but just give folders of NKIs.

While you can easily utilize the quick-load folders, it does make managing the libraries more hands-on than would be necessary if the snapshots were utilized.

And here I mean the kind of instruments where the multitude of NKIs utilize the same exact engine with just different settings.

My question here is --> Why don't many of the developers use the snapshots at all? Is it because a lot of users don't have a clue how to install them, or is there some other reason I'm missing?

Now I need to save them from scratch to make the workflow easier for myself to not have play with the quick-load structures so much.

This is pretty cumbersome as each NKI creates their own snapshot folder in the \User Content\Kontakt\ folder from which I then have to copy them to the main instrument folder. At least I've not found an easier way to handle this.

Click to read more...

 

[Mr Arkadin]

If NI had made the installer automatically install Snapshots I'm sure more would use them. As it is I always forget where they're located (I don't think you can use a custom location), so end up having to find the folder under the spanner/wrench icon. Not very user friendly for casual users like myself who never normally enter that "spanner world".

Also I often find that if I do copy the Snapshot folder it often doesn't match the name Kontakt is expecting, so you have to create a folder via the spanner method and then copy them over.

I also don't think you can put the Snapshots in subfolders to try and organise by vendor, for instance, meaning you have hundreds of disorganised Snapshot folders.

All in all, I think it's been poorly implemented and needs an overhaul.

 

[berto]

There is also the fact that many devs dont want to make libraries that take hours to load, so they give you one NKI with , say, 4 sound sources already loaded, and all the same parameters with different values according to the patch. When you load a different NKI, it has different sound sources.

While a developer like Sample Logic or Audiofier give you one NKI and all the samples available to do your own combinations, it takes way longer to load, as all the samples need to be pre-loaded "to some extent," but then you have more flexibility. Those devs obviously will give you snapshots/presets of that one NKI, which is only one folder. SAMPLE LOGIC i think has a preset management within the instrument, so the snapshots/presets are in the instrument. Audiofier gives you external snapshots, but they are installed by PULSE, so no worries there.

 

[tcollins]

We use snapshots in many of our libraries, but in Kontakt 7s new browser they are dead links for non-Player libs, which is confusing to users. Both NKI based presets and snapshots are listed, but the snapshots don’t load even when installed. I’d love to keep including them, but we may have to just switch to using separate NKI instruments unfortunately.

Edit:
Just to be clear, snapshots do still work in K7 when loaded from within the instrument. Just not in the new Browser (not sure how else to refer to it) when you click on the library.

 

[KarlHeinz]

Really kind of strange.

I prefer snapshots too and IF they would work like expected in ANY kontakt version they could have been kind of "standard" and save lots of work with develloping internal preset systems for devellopers too.

But sadly this is not the way it is.....

I mean there are preset problems with other synths too but mostly its tagging and that kind of thing but not THAT strange with lots of different preset SYSTEMS (nki, snapshots, lots of different ways of internal preset handling, all different....).

And even the installation of snapshots CAN be handled userfreindly in general I would think (for example pulse does it automatically with the install process even if it not works in any case....).

Must be it is not intended from NI or....????

 

[ananmusatili]

We use snapshots in many of our libraries, but in Kontakt 7s new browser they are dead links for non-Player libs, which is confusing to users. Both NKI based presets and snapshots are listed, but the snapshots don’t load even when installed. I’d love to keep including them, but we may have to just switch to using separate NKI instruments unfortunately.

Thanks for your insight. That sounds like a weird problem. I wonder how others have circumvented that? I have several non-player libraries for which the snapshots work just fine.

Anyway, I'm also starting to realize that Kontakt doesn't handle them all that well.

Having played around with some instruments that haven't used them, I think I figured out something too. It seems that a snapshot doesn't actually save the whole state of the instrument. Like, if I open an NKI that has hard-coded into a certain modwheel action, and if I save that as a snapshot and move the snapshot to the INIT NKI snapshot folder, everything else works as planned, but the modwheel action is gone.

I know that's not how you're supposed to handle the snapshots, but trying to get them "under one roof" leaves no other options. And I haven't yet figured out which of the background settings in edit mode allows assigning the CCs like that.

 

[berto]

Thanks for your insight. That sounds like a weird problem. I wonder how others have circumvented that? I have several non-player libraries for which the snapshots work just fine.

Anyway, I'm also starting to realize that Kontakt doesn't handle them all that well.

Having played around with some instruments that haven't used them, I think I figured out something too. It seems that a snapshot doesn't actually save the whole state of the instrument. Like, if I open an NKI that has hard-coded into a certain modwheel action, and if I save that as a snapshot and move the snapshot to the INIT NKI snapshot folder, everything else works as planned, but the modwheel action is gone.

I know that's not how you're supposed to handle the snapshots, but trying to get them "under one roof" leaves no other options. And I haven't yet figured out which of the background settings in edit mode allows assigning the CCs like that.

I think that if some controls are not made persistent in the script and then they have values assigned to them on load, then the value is not saved in the nki but it resets to its value when you open the nki. The same if you saved your nki when it displays one specific page, it will open next time on the page set by the developer as default.

 

[berto]

If NI had made the installer automatically install Snapshots I'm sure more would use them. As it is I always forget where they're located (I don't think you can use a custom location), so end up having to find the folder under the spanner/wrench icon. Not very user friendly for casual users like myself who never normally enter that "spanner world".

Also I often find that if I do copy the Snapshot folder it often doesn't match the name Kontakt is expecting, so you have to create a folder via the spanner method and then copy them over.

I also don't think you can put the Snapshots in subfolders to try and organise by vendor, for instance, meaning you have hundreds of disorganised Snapshot folders.

All in all, I think it's been poorly implemented and needs an overhaul.

The snapshots need to be in a folder named after the exact name of the nki they belong too.
That needs to be inside the user content/kontakt/ folder. If you move the snapshots under let’s say kontakt/all-snapshots/rigidaudio/ the path will be broken.

You can though make subfolder within the nki snapshots folder like. User content/Kontakt/riffendium/mypresets/crunchpreset.nksm

 

[EvilDragon]

If NI had made the installer automatically install Snapshots I'm sure more would use them.

That is not really the problem here. The problem is, unless the library is encoded for Player, there is no easy way to bind the snapshots to their source NKI (it is done as absolute path as it stands, which is not portable between machines). So, snapshots are basically workflow intended for Player encoded libraries. Not so much indie/unencoded libraries.

 

[tcollins]

That is not really the problem here. The problem is, unless the library is encoded for Player, there is no easy way to bind the snapshots to their source NKI (it is done as absolute path as it stands, which is not portable between machines). So, snapshots are basically workflow intended for Player encoded libraries. Not so much indie/unencoded libraries.

Thanks for clarifying, ED. Like I’ve said before, the new Browser allows non Player libs to hang out with the cool kids, even with artwork! If I ever gather the courage to send links to the artwork out to our customers.