Native Instruments - Komplete Bundle Notes

Contents

Resources

Overview

This includes following components ...

Engines

  • Kontakt 5 - Sampler. Program your own virtual instruments.
  • Reaktor 6 (+ Blocks) - Design your own instruments, samplers, effects. (See later for more description)
  • Komplete Kontrol Software - Best Instruments and sounds browser (and Komplete Keyboard driver).

Synthesizers

  • Absynth 5 - Semi-modular; Sound Mutator; 1800+ atmospheric presets.
  • FM8 - FM based. 960+ presets. Loads Patches from FM hardware.
  • FORM - Creative Synth. 440 Presets. Just give 30 secs of your sample. Fun. Unique.
  • REAKTOR Prism - Vibrant Modal synth & FX. 370 instruments+ included.
  • REAKTOR Spark - Next generation synth. Reaktor based. 200+ sounds included. 1400+ variations.
  • RETRO Machines MK2 - Collection of 16 analog synth. Vintage synth collection.
  • ROUNDS - Sequence 16 synth sounds with key switch support. Analog & Synth.
  • KONTOUR - Phase modulation synth.
  • MASSIVE - Wavetable synth. Analog arch. Flexible. 1300+ presets. Powerful Bass/Lead.
  • MONARK - Minimoog like soft synth for powerful mono bass/lead.

Note: Only Razor and Skanner XT not included.

Creative Samplers

  • Polyplex - 8 part drum sampler. Randomize. Creative layering. Near-infinite tweakability.
  • Battery 4 - Creative drum sampler – Worldwide studio choice for creative beat production.

Sampled Instruments

  • Una Corda - Accoustic upright Piano. Soft and intimate. 10 GB Largest sample.
  • The Grandeur - Sampled from a legendary classical concert grand. 5 GB.
  • The Maverick - Sampled from a vintage 1905 grand piano. 5 GB.
  • The GentleMan - Sampled from a vintage upright built in 1908. 3.5 GB.
  • The Giant - Klavins Piano Model 370i; Cinematic. Biggest Upright. 4 GB.
  • Alicia's keys not included. (bit too soft)

Drums and Percussion

  • DrumLab - Drum Toolkit with layering. 58 instruments. 80 layered sounds. 2.5 GB. Hybrid acoustic/electronic drums plus groove lib and studio effects.
  • Abbey Road 60s Drummer - Vintage Drumkit with mix control. MIDI Grooves. 6 GB.
  • Studio Drummer - Premium kits from Pearl, Yamaha and Sonor; Huge Groove Library. 7 GB.

Note: Maschine drum selection not included.

World Instruments

  • Discovery Series: India - Instruments: 9 Percussion; 6 Melodic. 1 Ensemble. 2.8 GB.
  • Discovery Series: West Africa - Instruments: 26 Percussion; 8 tonal; 74 programmed ensemble. 3 GB. The instrument Kora is fascinating. Also good is balafon which is like Xylophone. Also Fula Flute.

Note: Cuba, Balinese not included.

Organs and Electric Pianos

  • Vintage Organs - Rich 5 vintage organs. 100+ Presets. Each ~400MB.
    Hammond, Vox Continental, FARFISA, etc.

  • Scarbee A200 - Edgy Electric Piano. 16 velocities. not inspiring.

  • Scarbee Mark I - Classic Electric Piano. 12 Velocities. Not inspiring.

  • Scarbee Clavinet/Pianet - Funky Electrophonic. Interesting. Sharp sound.

Guitar

  • Strummed Accoustic Guitar - For various rhythms. 8.5GB !!! Just OK.

Note: There are lot of guitars in factory lib as well.

Electric Bass

Scarbee MM BASS

Reaktor - A modular software music studio

It is a modular software music studio.

It is software equivalent of hardware synth and more.

  • Design and build your own instruments, samplers, effects and sound design tools.
  • It is supplied with 70+ ready-to-use instruments and effects, from emulations of classic synthesizers to futuristic sound design tools.
  • In addition, more than 3000 free instruments can be downloaded from the User Library.
  • All of its instruments can be freely examined, customized or taken apart; Reaktor is a tool that effectively encourages reverse engineering.
  • Reaktor Player is a free limited version of the software that allows musicians to play NI-released Reaktor instruments, but not edit or reverse-engineer them.

Software Synthesizers

Massive

Wavetable based software synthesizer.

Absynth

It is semi-modular software synth.

FM8

Frequency modulation based software synth.

MONARK

Sotware synth runs inside Reaktor / Reaktor Player. Monophonic analog synth.

  • Purely mono
  • Strives to reproduce old analog classic but powerful bass and lead sounds.

It is inspired by successful Minimoog - analog synthesizer well used in live performances for simple and intuitive design. (costs over $3000)

Reaktor Prism

Vibrant Modal synth & FX. 370 ready-to-play instruments. Modular. Designed by Reaktor Father Stephan Schmitt.

Todo: Clean up

What is included in Komplete standard:

  • NI Reaktor (Synth) is a whole universe unto itself.

These are important plugins to have:

  • The Giant, Damage and Action Strings

Kantakt 101, 201, 301 - Explore Ask.Videos

Notes from Kantakt 301 ...

  • Just dragging .wav (or .nkw) file from browser to instrument area creates a new instrument. It maps the same sample to all keys.
  • Edit mapping window ... when you drag clip, move upper to increase width.
  • The mapping can over lap with samples. Each sample's panning control can be different. By overlapping sample with one key, you are mixing the samples and assign one key.
  • In the instrument panel, the first line pull down is the patch name.
  • If the instrument is ensemble or you map one key to multiple samples, the "voices" count displayed tells you how many voices are playing currently.
  • Purge means purge from memory and use the disk contents fresh.
  • Tune knob is actually "Transpose" knob. The slider below is Pan slider.
  • Kontakt multi is same as channel rack in FL Studio. Simply settings for some N instruments. When you load the "multi" .nkm file, you can decide to load as new ("yes" response) or just merge with existing instruments already loaded ("no" response). You can save the "multi" template as default template if you like.
  • "Quick" button is same as "Favourites" for multi and instruments. (Not there by default). Right-click is a short cut to toggle Quick-Load.
  • The "output" button gives you "mixer". (F2 - Does Not appear by default)
  • There is default "Master output Channel" st1. (Probably detected throug ASIO interface). By default there is only one Master output -- but you can create multiple master output channels (and optionally map all of them to same speakers 1|2).
  • By default this scheme works like simple "adding" mixer at Master output. But you can add effects on this master output channel.
  • You can't have output of aux send to another aux send.
  • You can create a separate mixer channel per instrument if you want to. Then have them output to physical output channels like 1|2. The net effect is 'additive' of all outputs for that physical output channel.
  • If you apply reverb effect on aux channel, you can keep dry-0 and wet-100, then 100% of output is the 'reverb effect', so it does not double the final volume on the physical output 1|2.
  • When it is VST plugin, the output is still called 1|2 (for 2-out) but the DAW captures it and uses it for further pipeline.
  • Always Enable Undo in File => Options => Handling.
  • You can do export group and import group to create your own instrument with collection of groups.
  • Monitor in browser is very useful to monitor which group notes are actively being played or what parameters (like Volume, etc) are being changed.

Tip: Insert Effect Vs Send Effect

  • Insert Effects (e.g. EQ, Limiter, Compressor, etc) are processed in Serial pipeline ... Send Effects (e.g. Reverb, Chorus) are all processed in parallel and all outputs are added to give one output.

Tip: Sharing single instance of kontakt in FL Studio

This involves creating additional MIDI out channels in channel rack. Configure the single instance to produce output to different channel outputs. Also go to FL Studio Kontakt plugin config screen, route output to new send mixer channel which will in turn send the output to different mixer channels separately based on the MIDI outs that it uses internally.

This is bit confusing, better to avoid. Just go with single instance per channel. Remember to turn on multi-threading.

Tip: Multi-Rack of Kontakt

A multi instrument is a set of few instruments made to behave like single instrument. (both uses .nki files)

Multi-Rack is a set of multi instruments. (.nkm files)

Each multi-rack in kontakt can have 16 instruments and supports 64 outputs (or 32 stereo outputs).

A channel can consume 1 (Mono) or 2 (stereo) or 6 (5.1) outputs.

Aux Send and efforts work on channel level (easier this way vs individual output levels).

Do not confuse audio output channel with MIDI output channel.

FL Studio plugin wrapper options window map plugin output channels to mixer output channels.

Loading multiple instruments to rack is also called 'Layering'.

Every instrument has options tab where you can configure Key-Range and Velocity range as restrictions to kick in. This technique is called 'Splitting'.

Tip: Make a keyboard key (e.g. C0 ) as key switch

To do that, for example, in Trombone Band, there is a switch for "Learn KS", switch this one and press keyboard key, the switch automatically goes to "OFF" position, the keyboard key becomes hotkey for the entire settings snapshot.

Tip: Express articulation using keyswitches in MIDI Track

You can reserve some range, e.g. C0-F0 or C -1 to F -1 for key switches. Play the MIDI keys. Then later edit MIDI track to insert key switches. If you use the same Kontakt instrument with the same stored Multi instrument, then proper articulations wil be triggered on Key switching notes in the lowest octave.

Tip: Create your own arpegiator given the instrument

Go to Instrument Editor (Wrench icon) => Script Editor => Find empty slot, choose preset, Arpegiator. Basically in the event processing pipeline using script editor, you can choose Arpegiator, this will transform the entire instrument (all keys) to play arpegiator rhythms.

Tip: Create a sampled instrument using just few keys samples

See https://ask.video/course/kontakt-201-advanced-kontakt/18-18-building-your-first-sampled-instrument Just sample every 4th note, say some 6 notes, then allow it to interpolate to all other keys. You can even just drop the any sample into C3 and allow it to spread the entire keyboard using automatic pictch stretch mechanism of Kontakt editor.

Kontakt 201

Grouping in Kontakt Instrument

If the instrument consists of patches from different instruments (or having multiple articulations), each such collection of samples can be grouped together separately. For example:

  • Piano and viola in same sampled instrument (viola in lower octave and piano in higher octave)
  • String and Guitar where String kicks in only at higher velocities.
  • Piano and Vibrato-effect Piano (at higher velocities) (i.e. express articulations).

We call this as layered instrument where each layer is represented by a Group (of samples).

Group contains Zones. A zone is represented by a sample (or interpolated sample).

Instrument contains Groups.

Groups can overlap. Then multiple sounds will be active for one key.

Advanced Kontakt 301

  • Load/Import option has flag to split keyswitched instrument to multiple instruments. e.g. Stackato Piano and Vibrato Piano. In general keep them as same instrument.
  • Large multi instrument (many instruments) uses high cpu. Keep all the disk instrument data in separate hard disks.
  • It is better to use one instance of kontakt for different instruments in your DAW.

Kontakt Script Editor

Go to instrument edit mode and Script Editor. Choose to set some preset in any "empty tab" and tweak that preset. Click on Edit script on same tab, and insert a new line "make_perfview" as first statement after "oninit" line. Now you will get a new tab in the instrument view corresponding to the new tab added. The tab will be named as the preset name by default.

Internals of Multi-Out VST Plugins

  • Load a multi-out plug-in e.g. Kontakt-5 16out into a MIDI track.
  • Create an audio track.
  • In the upper "Audio From" chooser (Input Type) select the track containing the multi-out plug-in.
  • In the lower "Audio From" chooser (Input Channel) select the sub-out of the plug-in.
  • Repeat these steps for any additional output you want to use.

Usually after changing the number of outputs in the VST/Kontakt, Save that as default config in VST, then you will have to reload VST instance so that host DAW recognizes all the outputs from VST.

Signal Flow

Source [i.e. Samples] => Becomes Group              => 

Group Insert Effects (1-8)                          =>          [ Optional Sends FX (1-8) ]

Amplifier                                           =>  [ Output: 1 of 16 Instrument Bus OR Instrument itself ]

[ Optional: Group Insert Effects (7-8)              =>  [ Slot 7 & 8 for Post Amp Effect, but you can change it. ]

Bus Insert Effects (1-16)                           =>  [ Optional Sends FX (1-8) ] 
                                                        [ "Sends" is an insert effect which sends to FX ]

Instrument Insert Effects (1-8)                     =>  [ Optional: send to FX (1-8). ]
                                                        [ "Sends" is an insert effect which sends to FX ]

Instrument Output  = Output(Instrument Insert Effects Chain) + Sum (SendEffects)

Every Instrument has a choice of routing it's output to atmost one master output channel (usually exclusive to that instrument) and 4 aux channels (usually shared between all instruments).

The terminologies "Master output Channel st1, st2, ... and aux1, aux2, ..." are standard for VST and all DAWs. So with-in DAW you can choose to redirect these master output channels and aux channels to DAW's on mixer channels or different audio tracks.

Given the instrument, the dry signal of master output and aux outputs are exactly same. The individual Instrument can apply internal insert effects (max 4) on the master output channel. The individual Instrument can apply internal insert effects (max 4) on each aux output.

The (volume) levels of master output channel and aux outputs are often user configurable. (The other Instrument internal signal flow is rarely changed by advanced users. ]

For multi-instrument, the DAW routes the master output channels to ... :

  • different audio tracks in ableton.
  • different mixer tracks in FL studio.
  • different mixer tracks in cubase ??.

For multi-instrument, the DAW rotes the aux output channels to ... :

  • different audio tracks in ableton. Or dedicated return tracks can pull specific aux channels.
  • different mixer tracks in FL studio.
  • different mixer tracks in cubase ??.

For multi-instrument in Kontakt:

  • the master output channel (e.g. st1, st2 ) can be shared by many instruments.
  • Single instrument can not send to many master output channels. This will not be needed since aux outputs are anyway almost duplicate of master output.

When routing of single master output to multiple physical outputs are desired (for monitoring, or otherwise) ... :

  • Handled easily by FL Studio mixer since one mixer output can go to many other mixer tracks.

  • Easily handled by ableton audio tracks, since multiple audio tracks can "pull" same master output as "input".

  • May be cubase behaviour is more close to ableton.

  • Every Group output can go to atmost one of 16 instrument bus OR directly to Instrument OR directly to physical output. You can choose to send output to both Physical output and (Instrument Bus or Instrument). You can not send output to both instrument bus and instrument (which will never be useful anyway).

  • Note: There are 16 instrument buses. Group : Bus is N:1 relation. It represents another way of grouping sets of groups with some common property. E.g.

    • The original groups are created for articulations. The bus can represent velocity ranges and vice versa.

    - In Drum-Kit the groups exist at lowest level like Top-Snare, Bottom-Snare, Hi-Kick, Bleed-Kick, etc. A group of Snares can be sent to one bus for processing.

  • Lowest level of actor in Signal flow is Group only. The Samples in Group do not have separate control for flow.

  • Samples with-in Group do not have separate signal flow control.

Shortcuts

Purpose                        Shortcut

Reset to Default Value         Ctrl + Click on the control.

Unused Plugins

Omnisphere

Multi capable. Create one Omnisphere instrument track. Enable Multi on it and enable 2 channels A and B. Now create 2 MIDI channels and assign Omnisphere channel 1 and 2 to it. The instrument track does not contain any song. This reduces memory consumption.

The MULTI is at the top of Omnisphere’s hierarchy and consists of up to eight Parts, together with four Aux FX Racks and a Master FX Rack.

The Multi Section contains four pages: MIXER, FX, LIVE and STACK. These allow access to a full-featured MIXER, the Multi FX, and two flexible performance modes: LIVE MODE and STACK MODE, which provide interactive environments for both composition and live.

Saving a MULTI is like saving the entire state of the plug-in for future recall. and load it at a later time into new instances of Omnisphere (or new projects) by loading the MULTI from the MULTI Browser.

  • There are 8 channels.
  • 2 Layers A and B per Channel (or Patch).
  • Each layer can load different sound from sound browser.
  • You can apply 3 FX for each layer A or B or Common(both) = Total 12 FX per patch.
  • Multi - Tab is mainly for mixing all channels. (Either you use this or cubase mixer, not both).
  • Multi=>Mixer: Here you mix all channel using volume levels and PANS. In addition, each channel has 4 AUX sends to be used for selective FX effects per channel. i.e. You can choose combination of 4 effects stacks.
  • Multi=>FX: You define the (Aux) 4 Effects stacks and Master output effects definition here. Each effects stack can have 4 effects.
  • Live and Stack Modes allow real time interaction.

Typically, you use Trillian plugin in Omnisphere for Bass and RMX for percussion.

Misc Other Percussion Plugins

  • (Spectrasonic) StylusRMX vs eZDrummer vs Addictive vs Superior Drummer vs Stven Slate vs BFD
  • Superior Drummer - More realistic
  • Freeware alternatives ... Sonoma DrumCore, Bluenoise Drummix, Sennheiser DrumMic'a (Kontakt); SM MegaReaper Drum Kit (samples); etc.
  • Superior Drummer costlier than ezDrummer (frm same toontrack) but ezDrummer more easier to use.

Sampler - Grace

It is a free sampler. It has factory patches and user patches stored in this dir: D:ProgramDataOne Small ClueGracePatchesUser

A file can have .lpg suffix (an xml file -- for grace loop?) which is a loop or plain .wav file. In the left browse area right click and add any dir you like (e.g. WAV-DIR etc).

Note that the .gig files of G-Player is present in: D:Program Files (x86)SoundlibG-PlayerVienna Simponyic Library

Best Waves Plugins

See http://getthatprosound.com/top-14-must-have-waves-plugins/ * L3 Maximizer -- Brickwall limiter * Metaflanger etc.