Ableton Forum

How does one route instruments from kontact 3 to idividual midi tracks in ableton 8.0.
Im sure this is easily done but I just cant work it out.

I think if you just drag it from the list of VSTs from the broswer on the left directly into a midi track you should be good to go as it essentially "puts" that VST into that track. Then as long as you record enable that track and have your midi set up right, you'll hear it when you play your key board.

If you want multiple tracks to play the same VST instrument, create one track with the Kontact in it, then create additional midi tracks and set their destination to that track. Make sure that all the tracks are record enabled (i think... not sitting at my audio station to verify my instinct).

I have to disagree with Manjun's idea -- I use Kontakt 3 regularly with multi outputs, via the "external instrument" in ableton. drop an external instrument on any midi track you want, then select as its input the channel that has kontakt in it. then you'll get a dropdown list (again in the ext. instrument box) for selecting what you are sending midi to, and where the audio is coming from. both should correspond with a given instrument inside kontakt. for example, your second instrument in kontakt should be set to play on midi channel 2, with audio on channel 3+4 stereo; so choose these in the ext. instrument, and you'll have that instrument ready to go for that channel. then just repeat down the line for however many instruments you have in kontakt. be sure to confirm inside kontakt that each instrument is routed to the right place; by default the midi channel is always set to 1, rather than moving forward one each time.

it's a lot like setting up Reason instruments live, except in this case kontakt is a multi-out VST rather than a seperate running program.

-M

I defer to mholloway.

I have problems with the routing. I have a multi instrument in kontakt. it has 4 instruments. the channels are set to 1, 2, 4 and 5. I have kontakt in a seperate midi track. i have created 4 additional midi tracks for the 4 instruments. I get the instrument who is on midi ch. 1 to play, but none of the others. Ive routed all the four midi tracks to kontakt in the midi to box. in the box below ive sent the first to 1 kontakt, the second to 2 kontakt, the third to 4 kontakt and the fourth to 5 kontakt. is there something ive missed in the process?

make sure that the kontakt is set to all inputs all channels

tried changing the midi channel assignment for loaded patches from 1st free to omni, but with no luck. I can see that kontakt is recieving midi information because when im hitting keys for those instruments on ch. 2, 4 and 5 the level meter inside kontakt is moving. But no sound is heard other than on the instrument for ch. 1. More help would be greatly appreciated

check the audio routing inside kontakt, make everything go out the same channel as 1

Thanx, got it working now

But that gives me another problem. When working with multis i cant set individual levels for each channel, since i only send midi messages. Im currently working with a drums in kontakt and i really need to set different levels on the drums! This is turning out to be a nightmare! Ive tried to put an utility on each channel, but that convert the track to an audio track and then i cant send the midi information, so im back to square one. Any suggestions?

Edit: Got it working. But man, this is kinda silly. I now have alot of what i feel are unessecary channels in the track. Had to create equally many audio tracks and take audio from kontakt to the respective channels. Then set up new channels in the kontakt mixer and route the instruments to these new channels. Jeez... Anyway, hope Ableton will take care of this. Hear its the same thing with omnisphere and other multi timbral instruments.

velocity usually equals volume, maybe use velocity plugins to mix

That could sort out the level thing, but wouldnt help with panning