Using Kontakt with DP : Standalone vs Pluggin

zaque · Post by **zaque** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:39 am

I'm in the processing of learning DP. After working more-or-less happily in another DAW for some years, some short comings with said DAWs film scoring features has led me to investigate DP in greater detail. I'm in the process of setting up my scoring templates, experimenting with DP features, and just generally playing around in hopes that it'll all start to make sense.

I am currently using Kontakt 3 as my main sampler for my orchestral libraries. Up until now I have been using it as a pluggin which is convenient for the most part but has some limitations (only 16 channels per pluggin being the main one). I'm really considering running Kontakt in Standalone mode and then using IAC and Soundflower to get audio back into DP.

The biggest advantages I can see is having 64 channels of MIDI in a single instance of Kontakt and the ability for Kontakt to address up to 4gig of ram alone (I am on a G5).

The biggest disadvantages I can see are that my DP projects will not be entirely self contained and I'll have to have another program running and jumping back and forth. Not to mention, I could end up running other utilities in standalone so then I'd have not only Kontakt but perhaps VSE or something else running.

Do others do this and how do you manage all of your patches and projects? I am considering saving a Kontakt Multi per project and just storing it in the DP project folder - that way at least the Multi is easy to find.

I might also mention that I expect to be setting up additional machines later this year and so at that point I'll probably just have Kontakt running on remote machines which will make this even more complex so I'm trying to think forward to that day, as well.

Advice and thoughts appreciated.

richardein · Post by **richardein** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 1:50 pm

I've used Kontakt all three ways, within DP, outside DP with Jack and Soundflower, and on networked machines. They all have advantages and disadvantages.

The worst part about within DP is that if you adjust the hardware (say, change buffer size), the sounds reload, a total waste of my precious life. DP 6 apparently fixes this.

The worst part outside DP is troubleshooting the audio connection, esp. latency issues. Once you get it working, tho, it's not too bad. Yes, save a multi in the DP folder. That's really not too onerous. Oh, and don't expect actually to use all 4 gigs. In reality, you may get 2. Why, I don't know.

The worst part of networking is that while it works, it's something of a kludge. Compensating for latency can take a while to adjust. You'll need to set up a kvm or use vnc to monitor the other machines - both have limitations. It's also needlessly expensive: all you want to do is xfer digital audio from your slave machines to the main machine for mixing but you end up paying for numerous digital/analog interfaces - one on each machine which do a lot more (like D/A conversion and audio input) than you want to do. Then there is word clock, about which don't get me started; suffice it to say that doing it properly is expensive, head-explodingly complicated and prone to trouble. There's nothing quite like the sound of improperly clocked audio. It's, shall we say, character-building.

All three ways work, but none are as simple as they seem to set up or maintain. Probably inside DP is the easiest.

thealps · Post by **thealps** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 3:04 pm

how do you actually route it to use it in standalone on the same machine? I have only used kontakt so far as a VI and I would really prefer to set up some standard orchestral multis to really give my ewqlso a chance against my vsl on a couple of giga machines. I am used to midioverlan for connecting to standalone giga on other machines but whatabout standalone kontakt on the same machine? I am sure its totally simple but that I am just as simple and have missed the obvious

Thanks

zaque · Post by **zaque** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:05 pm

the easiest is with Soundflower...but that only gives you 16 channels of audio (as far as I know). So, you're still limited to 16...

thealps · Post by **thealps** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:38 am

really?? You need a 3rd party app just to use standalone kontakt with DP? that seems kind of silly, there should be some kind of virtual channels available somehow... =(

michkhol · Post by **michkhol** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:41 am

It is called ReWire, DP supports it, NI apparently does not care.

thealps · Post by **thealps** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:44 pm

OK well i got something going on using IAC ports and Soundflower. I am now having issues running into memory limitation in standalone mode of kontakt. I have 9 gigs of ram on mac pro and it is giving error messages around 1 gig of loaded samples. see image in this link:

http://www.alpiar.com/img/errs/kontakt_lowmem.gif

spirit · Post by **spirit** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 4:33 pm

Kontakt in Standalone mode can also be routed out hardware audion interfaces- either to an external analogue or digital mixer, or out the interfaces and back in to aux inputs from hardware in DP.

jresende · Post by **jresende** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 2:27 am

I use Kontakt 2 with DP and everything is working fine.
I think, for me, Kontakt 2 run better in DP than in any other DAW.
I will upgrade to Kontakt 3 soon .
When I have all sounds loaded in Kontakt , I Save The Settings .
Reopen the DP project file, DP will load all sounds as it was saved.
You can SAVE THE MULTI too in the same DP Project Folder.
Mac G5 dual 2.0 , 4 giga Ram,OS 10.4.11