At a Standstill: The "Reload" Bug in Logic w. Kontakt 3

Due to an apparent incompatibility/bug between Kontakt 3 and Logic, known as the "reload" bug, a critical project has now sadly come to a standstill:

Symptom: Every 10 minutes or so, usually when moving regions (MIDI or audio) in the Arrange, the cursor become frozen, an intermittent spinning beachball, and then Kontakt slowly reloads all samples currently being used in the Kontakt 3 multi (with a stuttering Kontakt window showing the samples being reloaded). This hang usually lasts for close to a minute. Additionally, every couple days or so, usually right after one of these hangs, a horrific shriek at max volume is emitted when initiating playback (perhaps suggesting that audio is getting mangled in the buffer?), which shriek usually disappears after 1 or 2 playback attempts.

Causes:
There may be an inherent conflict between how Logic and Kontakt each handle audio that's causing this (something about how each buffers audio?) according to some folks, but Native Instruments has recently said the following:

"The issue with reloading samples is a quirk in the Logic undo history saving mechanism. It is worked around by using Logic 8.0.1. As far as using fewer instances [of Kontakt 3], that also is very important. Logic's convoluted multi-output routing process, seems to be the problem."

What I've Done:
Per Native Instrument's recommendation, I have only 1 instance of Kontakt in the project -- a Kontakt multi that is set up in Logic as a multi-timbral instrument (with separate auxiliary tracks in Logic and separate audio outputs in Kontakt's mixer for each Kontakt instrument in the multi). I have used "New Track with Next Midi Channel" to create different tracks for the Kontakt channel strip so as to allow independent track automation for the different tracks/instruments.

Request:
1. Can anyone help me find Logic 8.0.0 or 8.0.1 so that I can revert, per NI's suggestion? I've already tried installing off of my Upgrade Disks (for Logic 7 to 8, the Logic Studio Upgrade) but Logic 8.0.2 was not replaced. I also could not find Logic 8.0.1 on Apple's site.
2. Does anyone have any insights on/work-arounds for the Reload Bug?

My setup and audio settings are set forth below. If anyone can recommend anything or anyone that may be helpful, I would be hugely grateful. I am also happy to engage anyone professionally who can help. Thank you.

Arana marana35 at gmail
__________
Logic 8.0.2
Quad G5 PowerPC w/4GB RAM
OS 10.4.11
Kontakt 3.0.2 / Battery 3 / UAD-2 / Waves / PSP VW
2408mkII + Trak2 frontend/clock
Logic Settings: I/O buffer: 512k; Process buffer range: Small

 

Very strange. I had never heard about this, and if this is accurate, I'm surprised it's not happening to more people.

Have you tried simply trashing the Logic app (in your Applications folder) then reinstalling from your discs? I would assume that would get you back to 8.0.

I note you're on 10.4. I'm completely grasping in the dark here -- but it's possible 10.5 might not have this issue. Maybe that's why this isn't more widely reported. I know there are thousands of Logic/Kontakt users out there so if no one else is complaining, maybe there is something specific to your system.

What's the "process buffer range"? I'm not familiar with it. Have you tried it on a larger setting?

Can't think of anything else to try, unfortunately.

 

Thanks David. There are others on Apple's Logic forum and the LogicProHelp forum who are experiencing the same thing.

The advice the NI has initially given (to revert o 8.0.1) is apparently not the right way to go, since 2 people have confirmed this same issue occurring on 8.0.1.

Anyone at NI (Josh?) -- could you please chime in here?

I currently can't do anything in my Logic/Kontakt project because of this reload thing.

Thanks to anyone who can help. MA

 

I am also experiencing the reload bug. Right now, it's in a project that does have quite a number of Kontakt instances, but below the 2GB memory limit. The project has become impossibly slow (this may or may not be related to Kontakt), with spinning beachballs after nearly any operation. Often the beachballs do not stop, and a force-quit is necessary. When they do resolve, often a message appears with "reinitializing core audio", followed by the reloading of ALL the Kontakt samples.

It's not clear yet whether only this single project is affected, or whether this is a system-wide phenomenon. None of the other projects use as many instances of Kontakt (about 20 in this one).

This project has now become unworkable. I will troubleshoot further, and do the obvious repairs (permissions, disk, preferences, reorganizing memory in Logic, etc) and try to discover more.

Painfully frustrating.

 

Zeno,

Please contact NI directly to let them know about the issue. For the many folks experiencing the reload bug, it's a fatal flaw (as you noted), one that makes Kontakt 3 unusable.

By the way, you shouldn't be running multiple instances of Kontakt 3 (running a single multi-instrument instance may help a bit, but will NOT solve the issue unfortunately).

 

Yes, I have let NI know about this. Hopefully it's being worked on. Going back a version in Logic is far from ideal, as many bug fixes and improvements were taken care of in the 8.01 and 8.02 releases.

I always use multiple instances of Kontakt: one per Logic track. The instruments become too large and unwieldy otherwise. If the use of a multi doesn't solve the problem, then what is the advantage? I don't like splitting out instruments into Auxes in Logic anyway - I believe there are still delay compensation issues also in that approach.

 

One way to temporarily get around this until they fix the problem could be to run Kontakt standalone. I gave up running Kontakt3 as a vst or audio unit about a year ago, it just suits my way of working to run it on it's own on the desktop. You gain advantages like being able to bounce the sample editor window out floating and much larger, making good use of screen real estate.

The catch is that you need a tool for routing audio on the same machine. In my case I run a PC for sequencing duties, with Reaper as the daw. It comes with a built in audio driver like Rewire, but called Rearoute. I run Kontakt3 standalone, and it's driver is assigned as Rearoute, 16 channels in total, 8 stereo busses. These show up inside reaper and I have 8 buss tracks in Reaper that are 'always on' monitoring the Kontakt3 standalone. This way it's as though Kontakt is a hardware sampler in the studio, you get the advantage of being able to apply realtime fx (e.g. in your case Logic's great plugins) to the standalone Kontakt. But you can also arm audio tracks and capture parts once you are happy with them, without any question marks over whether an offline bounce will sound the same as the live audio does.

On top of all this, I find this operation way more reliable for reloading existing material since, I'm saving a multi .nkm, and for the small price of having to manually load that into Kontakt3 for each song project, I never lose samples any more when a song project is moved on disk, or samples are moved from the location they were in when the song was first saved.

It's easy to load a multi to the standalone anyway, since if you are just browsing to your project folder and can see the .nkm file you just drag and drop it onto Kontakt's window and Kontakt will prompt you to replace the currently loaded multi.

I use one or many midi channels in the sequencer to send different midi channels to K3 (in my case I simply loop back a physical cable with the AMT8 midi interface, but you could use the mac's internal app-to-app midi driver for this). This way I only need 1 instance of standalone and I can load up to 16 instruments and send them to their own busses for different effects in the sequencer, or just gather them to one buss if I don't need to make them discrete.

On the mac you could achieve something similar by running Plogue Bidule, the host, and using rewire as plogue's audio driver. This way the channels would show up in Logicand you could use Logic's 'live' INPUT type channel objects, which you could add to your autoload, or add to an existing project, enough to cover the busses coming from Kontakt. Unfortunately on the mac this means you aren't running Kontakt standalone but, as a plugin still, just in another host.

I know this sounds kinda complex but once it's set up once it is pretty effective.

Another alternative, which I haven't tested, is to create an aggregate audio device using your real hardware plus soundflower, and assign logic to use this aggregate device. Meaning that you could run Kontakt standalone and send it's audio via soundflower. They'd just be higher up channels in Logic you could record and monitor from.

 

I think this deserves a bump. I too am plagued by this bug...

It started when I began to use Galaxy Piano under Kontakt Player 2. I just put up with it because it rarely was a show-stopper, and the reloads completed themselves rather quickly.

Now that I am using Kontakt 3.5 with a string library (LASS), this reload thing occurs all too often, sometimes crashing Logic. And if it doesn't crash, it takes a long time to reload the LASS samples.

This is occurring in projects where I am running Kontakt Player 2 (for Galaxy Piano) and Kontakt 3.5 (for LASS). It occurred to me that maybe I should either try upgrading the Kontakt Player to 3.5 to run my Galaxy Piano, or just try to run the Galaxy Piano in Kontakt 3.5 itself.

Don't know if this would change things or not. Maybe worth a try?

Any help or thoughts would be appreciated....

Kontakt 3.5, Logic 8.02, OS X 10.5.7, Mac 8 core 2.8 w/10 gigs of ram

 

Still experiencing the reloading in Logic 9 with Kontakt 3.5.
Very frustrating and quite an interruption to a session!

 

Hi
I too am still experiencing this highly annoying bug in Logic 9 and Kontakt 3.5.

 

The trick I've seen reported as working (not having had this problem yet myself) was to limit the number of undos to something between 5-10 levels.

 

Logic or Kontakt undo levels? I didn't think you can change the number of Undo steps in Kontakt, but maybe I just missed that setting....

 

Sorry, Logic undo not Kontakt.

 

I am still getting this problem in Logic 9.0.2 and Kontakt 3.5.

To all NI administrators -Can we please get some feedback/fix for this?

Thx

Felix

 

“Ticket#2009102310005792” KONTAKT Loading BUG
Hello Freddie

this is not a known issue, I could not reproduce it in Kontakt 4 and I need
more information. Please describe the issue as detailed as possible and send
us a Sonar Project to make further investigations.

Best regards
Andreas, Native Instruments Support Team



Agree, I'm with you! I got this back.
I guess I need to send them more information and Instruments!

I will send more information and also “Instruments” so they can try it out for them self !
It is a bug...even though NI can't reproduce it.
I heard about this kind and other kinds of “Loading”-problems. It happens in all versions of SONAR from 8--> and up x32bit and x64bit and same kind of problems in FL, Logic, Cubase, Reaper.

I'm also pretty sure its not a SONAR bug, 100 %. Otherwise, apart from this, Kontakt 3.5 are rock solid.

“This my work around right now in the studio”. After I re-open a project in SONAR 8.5.1 x32bit, I need to manual drag and drop all Instruments to make sure all settings/programming of the “instruments” plays back correctly. I guess all this problems started after---> Kontakt 3.5.
I reported the same bug with ADSR-section in the BETA version. I have also re-installed the Kontakt 3.5, x64bit and SONAR 8.5.1 x 64bit, didn't help

Regards
Freddie

 

+1 for another user who struggles with this bug daily in a number of sessions. Logic 9 has some serious memory issues. This may or may not be a culprit but some of my issues have been reduced by ensuring that all older Kontakt 2 instances are replaced.

 

Any news on this issue?
I am using logic 9.0.2 Kontakt 4.0.3
Every konakt instance reloads with every save or randomly or after I open the project first time. Thinking about switching to another host if this is a Logic problem.
It also happens with Play libraries but not with other libraries like superior or bfd etc..
So it's hard to decide where the problem is unless we get an official reply.
This has been going on since Kontakt 3 and Logic 8.
Oz

 

Curious, is anyone using the Kontakt memory server and still experiencing these problems?

 

Yes I am using memory server
I tried both auto and manual. no difference
Oz

 

Is there any change with the memory server off?