Kontakt Record/Playback Issues DP 10.13

[Armageddon]

I figured I'd post this after trying unsuccessfully to get Kontakt 6.4.1 to work in DP. I don't recall this being an issue in earlier versions of DP, but it may very well have been.

I have been trying to record a rhythm guitar track with Shreddage 3 Legacy in DP 10.13 (and earlier versions of v10). With the sequence stopped, I can play a record-armed instrument track of Kontakt v6.3.2 and all sounds fine. However, when playing along with my looped "click" drumbeat or recording a track, parts of the sound suddenly disappear. It's not exactly as if the notes are truncated, it's as if parts of the notes don't get loaded. So far, this occurs whether the track is pre-gen or real time (Kontakt window open). I have also recorded MIDI tracks and played them back with the same issue on recorded playback. I have also tried upping the buffers inside DP, upping the buffers inside Kontakt, turning off AU multi-processor support inside Kontakt and turning off Automatic Plugin Delay Compensation in DP. Again, this only happens when I hit "Play" or "Record", or if I have recorded a MIDI track and play it back -- if everything is stopped and I just play the instrument live on my keyboard, it's fine. Other VIs seem to behave normally in both live play and record, so it might be something contiguous to only Kontakt.

I've had this same behavior in DSP-Quattro v5.2.1, except, in that case, it happens upon loading Kontakt and playing it live. In standalone mode and in Hosting AU, it sounds normal.

Also, it appears that this exact behavior happens in Logic 10.5.1, so it may be a Kontakt issue and not a DP issue. I was also able to play the standalone Kontakt in DP via ipMIDI and it plays and records MIDI fine that way. I'm not sure I want to use it as a workaround, especially if I wanted to use multiple Kontakt instruments in the same project. I'm not sure if pre-gen is causing this issue, especially since, as I said, I can open the Kontakt plugin window in DP, which is supposed to change it from pre-gen to real time and it still behaves the same way.

I was hoping that someone here might have an answer ...

[MIDI Life Crisis]

What other VIs and plugs are loaded? Are you distributing them across cores? Are you tracking with a low buffer and playing back with a high buffer?

[Armageddon]

Sorry about that! In the test project I have loaded, there is one instance of EZDrummer and one instance of Kontakt. EZDrummer is playing a looped 4/4 MIDI drumbeat, although I also switched that off and found no difference in Kontakt's behavior. The project file was originally set to 88.2 kHz and 24-bit, but I have also set it down to 44.1 kHz/16-bit with no difference.

As far as multi-processor, I've tried it with the Kontakt plug's AU Multiprocessor Support preference both on and off and for four cores when on with no difference. I don't think EZDrummer has multi-processor support, so I'll assume it goes to whatever DP's default is. I've also tried setting DP's buffer size all the way down to 32 and all the way up to 2048 (as high as it will go with my rig; I usually default to 1024 and have never experienced any problems) with no difference.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Could the hard drive/SSD be slowing things down?

[mikehalloran]

Mid- 2012 MacBook Pro Quad-core i7 2.7 GHz/16 GB RAM/2 TB SSD (primary)/1 TB 7200 rpm HDD (secondary)

My MBP is identical except that my external drives are SSDs. Your internal is SATA III.

You don't say how your external is connected but if an older USB housing or dock, it might be 1.1 or 2 —that's slooooow. It needs to be USB 3 or Thunderbolt (with SATA III drives, there's no speed difference). An SSD will be faster than HDD but SATA III is still your bottleneck. You can get a USB 3 dock under $30 and 1TB SSD under $115.

Could the hard drive/SSD be slowing things down?

You can have the VIs on the external but projects should be on the System drive. It won't be as fast as a later MBP with AHCI or NVMe 3 x4 blade but still fast enough for Kontakt.

A single Instance of a player uses one core. By having each instrument in a separate instance, the OS will balance the load among the cores. Turning on multi-core support for Kontakt might not help much but each instrument should still be in its own instance.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

You can have the VIs on the external but projects should be on the System drive.

That seems backwards to me. It would seem you'd want the VIs on the system drive and the projects on the external. This is especially true if you have a lot of projects and keep your archived projects on the external drive. That'll avoid bloating the system drive as the VI library is not updated or added to quite as often as the project drive. And frankly, if you're working in a film production environment, a single project could be many times the size of your system drive.

Anyway, I have my system and VIs on one drive and everything else on externals. Works just fine. And yes, USB3 or TB, for sure, and make sure all your drives are healthy with lots of room to do their thing.

[mikehalloran]

You can have the VIs on the external but projects should be on the System drive.

That seems backwards to me. It would seem you'd want the VIs on the system drive and the projects on the external. This is especially true if you have a lot of projects and keep your archived projects on the external drive. That'll avoid bloating the system drive as the VI library is not updated or added to quite as often as the project drive. And frankly, if you're working in a film production environment, a single project could be many times the size of your system drive. …

Yea, I get that a lot but it doesn't make me wrong.

I can demonstrate in real time why DP projects should be on the System Drive especially since my externals are SATA III SSDs. TB3 NVMe 3 x4 externals make it less of an issue now that 4TB is here and 8TB is on the horizon.

If I was wrong, there's be no reason why the latest iMacs, MPs and MBPs can be had with 8TB onboard. The MP 7.1 can be expanded and while extra storage isn't quite as fast as Apple's onboard, few outside the film/animation industry would notice.

I wish the iMP would catch up but having 4TB onboard is the exact reason, I sold my 14 Core. That I got an 18 Core from the Refurb Store for the price I got for the 14 Core — didn't plan on that but I'm enjoying faster performance in some apps including DP (didn't see that coming).

System vs external is far less obvious on my ancient MBP where both are SATA III. On my iMP where my system drive is 5–6x faster than a MP 6.1, it's pretty easy.

If you've replaced that AHCI blade with an NVMe 3 x4 (highly recommended) your System is running around 2.5x faster than it came from Apple. You won't get the bus speeds of a 2017 iMac but you should see a noticeable improvement.

[Armageddon]

I had considered that, actually. My secondary drive (where my DP projects are stored) is a 7200 rpm HDD, and as pre-gen is temporarily written to the project folder (I assume?), the combo of a slower SATA connection and the HDD might be causing some sort of slow read problem. I may try moving the project to the main drive and see if that works. My only concern with that is, if that's the case, it could cause excessive wear on an SSD.

Also, I've never really noticed a problem with my configuration in the past regarding DP, but those were older versions of both Kontakt and DP and "pre-gen all the time" wasn't really a thing until recently. I also forgot to mention that my Kontakt libraries are all stored on my main SSD.

It still doesn't explain the exact behavior happening in Logic, as I just noticed Logic's default folder is in the "Music" folder on my SSD. I haven't saved a project file for Logic on my HDD or SSD, so I'm assuming the test project I created was streaming pre-gen off of my main drive by default. And in DSP-Quattro 5.2.1, Kontakt behaves similarly just by virtue of being loaded as a virtual instrument (as far as I know, DSP-Quattro 5 doesn't utilize pre-gen at all) ... but I'll assume that's a whole different issue.

[Armageddon]

Just tried launching my test project from the main SSD -- no difference in behavior.

[corbo-billy]

Have you test the Kontakt 6.4.2. version ?

[Armageddon]

I did, actually -- I figure updating all the way would help. No change.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Wrong thread... lol

[HCMarkus]

I'm running Kontakt version 6.3.2 just fine under DP10.11 and now, DP10.13. System specs in signature. Kontakt itself is on boot drive; data on separate internal SATA SSD.

Guess I'll put off updating that VI until someone gives the all clear!

PS: Auto Correct is such a bummer when typing NI VI names, ain't it?

[Armageddon]

I'm running Kontakt version 6.3.2 just fine under DP10.11 and now, DP10.13. System specs in signature. Kontakt itself is on boot drive; data on separate internal SATA SSD.

Guess I'll put off updating that VI until someone gives the all clear!

PS: Auto Correct is such a bummer when typing NI VI names, ain't it?

If it helps, I saw no difference in behavior between v6.3.2 and v6.4.2 (or v6.4.1) or even earlier versions of Kontakt v6, so if it's working for you now, updating it on your machine probably won't change things. Again, the closest thing I can find to a workaround is to launch Kontakt standalone and use ipMIDI and Blackhole to basically compose and record with it like an external synth.

[HCMarkus]

If it helps, I saw no difference in behavior between v6.3.2 and v6.4.2 (or v6.4.1) or even earlier versions of Kontakt v6, so if it's working for you now, updating it on your machine probably won't change things. Again, the closest thing I can find to a workaround is to launch Kontakt standalone and use ipMIDI and Blackhole to basically compose and record with it like an external synth.

Thanks for that. Sorry my info didn't help out; I hope you are able to get it sorted so you can run natively in DP.