MIDI QUERY... PLEASE HELP

[andydixon]

I am using Kontakt with LA Scoring Strings on a production I am doing. I am triggering the samples using a midi keyboard.

I don't want to use Kontakt as a plugin on a track as I don't want to use lots of CPU power.

If possible, I want to use the keys to trigger the samples in Kontakt's standalone player and then to somehow record the output of Kontakt as audio in Ableton.

Is this possible? (so that I don't have Kontakt running within Ableton and thus using precious CPU power?)

I can get the keyboard triggering the samples fine in the standalone player but I can not get it to record in Ableton for love-nor-money! (I have just spent the past 3.5 hours trying!)

How I have it set up is:

- Kontakt as standalone player
- midi keyboard to trigger
- midi cable from keys out to Motu interface in (this works fine)
- I am adding Ableton's 'External Instrument' into a midi track
- External instrument 'Midi To' selected as virtual input in Kontakt 4
- 'Input Type' on Ableton track selected as 'Kontakt 4 Virtual Output' (although even having it selected as 'All Ins' doesn't make a difference)

Now it is reading the midi signal and I can record midi data through this track but it isn't registering as audio (from Kontakt) and, although I can record midi data on the track and it plays it back through Kontakt, it's not coming through the songs Master Output and so useless for the recording…

Does that make sense??

In a nutshell, if anyone knows how to use a midi keyboard to trigger the samples in Kontakt's standalone player and then to somehow record the output of Kontakt as audio in Ableton then I would be massively grateful.

Andy

[ark]

Why do you think that running Kontakt separately will reduce the amount of CPU power it uses? It still has to play all the samples.

If you really are having CPU capacity problems, I can think of two strategies:

1) Freeze all the tracks except for the one you're playing from the keyboard, or

2) Run Kontakt in a different device (either a separate computer or something like a Muse Receptor) and treat it as an external instrument.

Before doing either of these, however, I would first try to determine for sure where the CPU problem is. My experience is that samplers such as Kontakt usually use very little CPU, so your problem may well lie elsewhere.

[leedsquietman]

Use lite versions of the samples (i.e. 16 bit ones with fewer articulations) while building the score and then change them to the full monty hi-res ones as a final step, when you can put latency up higher while mixing etc is another strategy.

[andydixon]

Run Kontakt in a different device (either a separate computer or something like a Muse Receptor) and treat it as an external instrument.

Hi,
Thanks for replies.

That is what I am trying to do... I am trying to run Kontakt as an external instrument.

I am running Kontakt as a stand alone player and want to route it into Ableton as an external instrument so that I can record the output of Kontakt as audio and I don't need Kontakt running as a plugin.

I have tried doing this using External Instrument plugin dropped in a midi track (I've listed my set up in my original post but don't think it is right as I'm not receiving audio).

I'm pretty sure you can set it up so that a midi signal triggers Kontakt as a standalone player and then you can route Kontakt's output as audio into Ableton?...

Andy

[ark]

I am running Kontakt as a stand alone player and want to route it into Ableton as an external instrument so that I can record the output of Kontakt as audio and I don't need Kontakt running as a plugin.

That will work fine if you run it on a different computer. If you're trying to run it on the same computer as Live, I do not understand why you're bothering.

[MarcAaron]

I don't want to use Kontakt as a plugin on a track as I don't want to use lots of CPU power.

I might not completely understand the desired setup you're describing, but I would (respectfully) argue that you're going about this the wrong way. Actually, it would be better said as the "hard way".

You could bounce the MIDI track with Kontakt down to an external .WAV file, then bring that back into your set, but easier still: why not just use the plugin in Live and simply freeze the track? I've got some monster sets with as many as a dozen MIDI tracks with separate instances of Cakewalk Rapture and/or Z3ta plugins on each. Along with all the effects (reverb, compression, etc.) those sets put a huge burden on the CPU until I freeze the cpu hungry tracks. Problem solved, performance very good, time to head off to the pub for a cold one to celebrate!

[broc]

I'm pretty sure you can set it up so that a midi signal triggers Kontakt as a standalone player and then you can route Kontakt's output as audio into Ableton?...

There are several ways to do this.

1. If your audio interface supports multiple I/O channels you can loopback the audio with external cables.

2. You can use audio routing software like Jack or Soundflower (Mac only).

3. Load Kontakt as plugin into another host that can run as ReWire slave (eg. Plogue Bidule).

The configurations are useful when working with big orchestral sample libraries, in particular to overcome the RAM limitation of applications and to avoid reloading the samples when switching between different songs. Also, it may improve the distribution of CPU load on multiprocessor systems.

[andydixon]

Hello all,

Firstly, thank you to everyone who has come back to me to help me our, really appreciated.

You have given me some really good options on how to do what I want so big cheers to you.

All the best,
Andy