What's new

Why do people sometimes use Kontakt as a multi-output?

So you can have one instance of Kontakt with multiple patches, each routed to individual channels in your DAW. Atleast, that's the primary use case.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ray
This question was discussed in a thread a couple of weeks ago: https://vi-control.net/community/threads/impact-of-several-instances-of-kontakt-on-ram.94128/

It allegedly saves RAM. It turns out that that is way overblown, and if you're using Logic it's a PITA. That said, it appears that if you are using a Linnstrument MIDI controller, which is not a common controller, it's probably necessary. See the Linnstrument site on using a Linnstrument with Kontakt if you are interested.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Ray
I have outs 1/2 dry, outs 3/4 early reflections, outs 5/6 hall(tail) and 7/8 spaceverb (blackhole at the moment but will try the free valhalla one at some point)

The reverbs are all in my daw - the routing is all done via kontakt auxes, routed to discrete outs.

The master out is turned right down, and aux 1 = dry, 2 = early etc....

The levels of dry/early/late/spaceverb (aux outs) are all on faders on a controlfreak. Same for all channels.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ray
Because if you use drums, you want the kick, snare, hh, ride, toms, etc, routed to their own track so you can treat them properly.

Which you can do by opening an instance of Kontakt for each drum. That's the approach that Oliver Weder took when he showed how he made the trailer for Spitfire's Frank Ricotti Percussion library. He opens a separate instance of Kontakt for each instrument:





This is partly a question of personal preference, and @chrisr gives an interesting example of how he uses the functionality. However, the usual argument - that it conserves RAM - is basically rubbish unless you're under-powered in the first place. It also complicates things in Logic, including with automation, although it's possible to create templates to make it work.
 
Last edited:
Cinesamples gives you surround mics on their orchestral instruments, so you can setup for surround. Quad output can work for 5.1, and 6 channel output can work for a 7.1 mix. They even give you a sub channel on Percussion, which on many things adds a good beefy low.

Having a good mix on these things involves getting the seperate mics routed to the DAW, then figuring out what mix will sound best outside kontakt (I like Spanner for this stuff). As long as your in a DAW that can do surround, setup takes a little time but it's not difficult.

I assumed it would take more Ram to do separate outputs (or maybe it's just that I have every mic turned on and up) but if it's the same either way, then I'm glad.

The first time I set this up in surround room I was surprised at the difference. Really brings the instruments in the room, but also gives you a better sense of the Sony scoring stage, which sounds great when it's all around you. I'll have to try this with my spitfire libraries next (SSS,SCS) :)
 
Last edited:
I assumed it would take more Ram to do separate outputs (or maybe it's just that I have every mic turned on and up) but if it's the same either way, then I'm glad.

If you look at the thread linked in post #4, two people say that an instance of Kontakt uses about 65MB of RAM. If you need to run multiple instruments in a single instance of Kontakt to save that, you do indeed have a problem :)
 
I'm a REAPER user and I always use Kontakt with multiple outputs routing saved as a track template. I primarily do so for mixing purposes, as I typically use IZotope Neutron as a channel strip for every track. I also believe that this is a more resource-friendly way of using Kontakt rather than having separate instances. It also simplifies sending to reverbs and effects.
 
I'm a REAPER user and I always use Kontakt with multiple outputs routing saved as a track template. I primarily do so for mixing purposes, as I typically use IZotope Neutron as a channel strip for every track. I also believe that this is a more resource-friendly way of using Kontakt rather than having separate instances. It also simplifies sending to reverbs and effects.

Thanks 4 typing what I was so lazy to.
 
I'm a REAPER user and I always use Kontakt with multiple outputs routing saved as a track template. ... I also believe that this is a more resource-friendly way of using Kontakt rather than having separate instances.

It is more resource friendly, but whether that matters depends on how much RAM you have. Each instance of Kontakt is about 65MB, which means that 15.4 instances/copies of Kontakt use one gigabyte.
 
Last edited:
I have outs 1/2 dry, outs 3/4 early reflections, outs 5/6 hall(tail) and 7/8 spaceverb (blackhole at the moment but will try the free valhalla one at some point)

The reverbs are all in my daw - the routing is all done via kontakt auxes, routed to discrete outs.

The master out is turned right down, and aux 1 = dry, 2 = early etc....

The levels of dry/early/late/spaceverb (aux outs) are all on faders on a controlfreak. Same for all channels.

interesting setup, so you are sending the reverb track to the 7/8 of the track with a kontakt?
 
interesting setup, so you are sending the reverb track to the 7/8 of the track with a kontakt?

Apologies Artemi, I'm not sure I understand your question.... but, working in stereo, I'm doing this:

Hosting Kontakt in VEP, with each 4 stereo returns per instance. I have 11 instances so 44 stereo audio tracks between VEP7 and my DAW.

Each set of stereo returns is : 1 (Dry) 2 (hall) 3 (room) 4 (bhole) (yes I called it bhole because it gave me a giggle... I should have called Hall "Tail" and Room "ER" really as well...

like this:
VEP_Mixer.jpg

Then in my kontakt instruments I generally delete any built in reverb FX, and have my main output muted. I then use 4 x auxes to send to the outputs 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8 - so that I can balance to taste. Like this:

Kontakt.jpg

If I want to eq or otherwise add fx to a particular instrument / slot in kontakt, then I'll often jump in to the instrument and do it there. If/when there are instruments that need a lot of processing - like drum kits / electric guitars etc... then I'll host them directly in my DAW as instruments. The setup described above is really for the orchestral instruments.

The aim is to have as few reverb fx as possible. At the moment I have just 3 in my default setup. When I'm bouncing stems I render offline using MEAP - so the reverbs are printed to the stems individually at that point. That make sense?
 
Apologies Artemi, I'm not sure I understand your question.... but, working in stereo, I'm doing this:

Hosting Kontakt in VEP, with each 4 stereo returns per instance. I have 11 instances so 44 stereo audio tracks between VEP7 and my DAW.

I thought your setup could clarify some things on the kontakt auxes for me, but it seems that the VEP is not something I understand.

But anyways, thanks for the long explanation! =)
 
Well you could take vep out of the equation, @Artemi . If you were hosting kontakt in your daw then simply enable 8 outputs (4 stereo outs) and assign the 4 auxes to these outs, and you're good to go. Do with the audio what you will.

Fire away with any questions if there's something you'd like to clarify about the auxes?
 
Sure - in my daw i have 3 fx send channels. You'll notice the aux outs are all at unity/0db. When these channels arrive at cubase there is no direct out (the fader is fully down) but the signal is routed via a pre-fader aux send (at unity) to the relevant reverb (tail/er/spacefx) - so in effect the aux outs of any/all kontakt channels just become reverb sends in the way that an aux usually is.

The signal from kontakt aux 1, on the other hand, arrives at cubase and just feeds the stereo out, again at unity gain.

So - the aux outs from kontakt relate directly to dry/tail/er/space.

It's the same for all my vep instances and the kontakt instances therein, and my vep instances are grouped by orchestral section and then synths/keys/ethnic/specialty etc...

There are non-kontakt intruments in my template too of course - in those cases the same cc's that control the kontakt auxes just control the vep aux sends. Don't think any of those instuments are multi-timbral though. I just do the kontakt thing because i want to fill kontakt with 16 instruments mostly - except for some kontakts that have multis (some p.sam and lass etc)
 
Man, that's really interesting! I wish there was a diagram or a YouTube video that explains the complete routing path. I'm probably too dumb to understand it without it, but I'm very intrigued by the idea of using routing auxes as sends... Thanks!
 
Top Bottom