Ableton Forum

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

Hi, the easiest way to accomplish this is either to record the MIDI and then freeze the Kontakt track, or resample and then delete/disable the contact track. Note that running Kontakt in stand-alone mode will still use up CPU. To resample, create a new audio track, set it either to "resampling" (this will record from every active track) or to record in directly from the track with Kontakt on it.

If you'd still prefer to record in from Kontakt as a standalone program, this is still possible, but requires a bit more routing. Are you using Windows or OSX?

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply.

You have give me some options on how to do it so thanks.

I would still know how to to record in from Kontakt as a standalone program though... I am using OSX.

Thanks,
Andy

Download Soundflower - it's a free product from Cycling 74, the makers of Max: http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/

Once you have Soundflower installed and open, you'll want to make sure that Kontakt is sending audio to Soundflower, and that Live is receiving audio from Soundflower. You can now record from Kontakt into Live, while running Kontakt as a standalone application.

Great, thanks David.

So is this not what Ableton's 'External Instrument' is used for then?

andydixon wrote:Great, thanks David.

So is this not what Ableton's 'External Instrument' is used for then?

You'd want to use External Instrument if you wanted to send MIDI to Kontakt. There's another free program, MIDI Patch Bay, that can help you with that: http://notahat.com/midi_patchbay. Note that Ableton cannot guarantee the stability of any of these interfacing programs - these are merely my personal suggestions.

In the mean time, if you're looking to send MIDI from Live, and have the audio end up in Live, then I strongly suggest you run Kontakt as a plug-in. It'll be an easier workflow, and you can freeze the track to free up memory - something you cannot do if Kontakt is running as a standalone.

Got ya!

Excellent, thanks so much for your help.

All the best,
Andy