can't use Kontakt & Reaktor on two systems

I have one room for recording live instruments, drums & percussion, and another for mixing. Both rooms have MacPros. The record room has a 3,1 that maxes out at OSX El Capitan, and the mix room has a 5,1 running High Sierra. Up until just recently, I was able to prep music in my mix room, and send it to the record room, do my recording, and send it back to the mix room.

But, after doing a recent upgrade to Kontakt and Reaktor in my Mix room (High Sierra), I get an error message in the record room (El Capitan) "This project was made using a later version of Kontakt / Reaktor. Please upgrade." Then the project will open, but none of my VIs from the mix room are saved.

I presume this is because the NI VI's are optimized for more recent builds of OSX, and there's a limit to how high a version one can upgrade on El Capitan. The Native Access in my record room says my VIs are all up to date.

So, my Question is: How can I downgrade my Mix room versions of Kontakt and Reacktor that will be compatible with my El Capitan system? If there is an archive of installers, I haven't been able to locate it.

My workaround in the meantime is to do a stereo track submix of my Mix room tracks, and use them for overdubbing in the Record room. But, I'd rather have that old compatibility back, if possible.

Thank you!

 

Ideally both of your systems should be on the exact same version of Kontakt and there's no problems. The way as it is now, you cannot really downgrade your newer machine to an older version, because your DAW projects won't open in that case (since the NKI files you load into Kontakt are actually stored in the DAW project file, their version flag is included there - and older versions of Kontakt cannot load files from newer versions of Kontakt).

 

Thanks for your reply, but my systems were compatible a couple of weeks ago. I'd be happy to downgrade, and fix up the few projects I've done since then, than not be able to access any future project in my Record room again.

True, ideally both systems would have the same versions, but apparently there are limits to what versions can run dependent on the OS version.

I'd have to buy another MacPro5,1 (or other hardware beyond 3.1) in order to run High Sierra.

The easiest solution overall would be to downgrade Kontakt and Reaktor. Do you know of a way to do that? Such as, are there downloadable standalone installers that work outside of the Native Access app? Adobe and Apple have these that work outside of their Creative Cloud and Apple Store apps; so I'm wondering if NI does as well for their products.

Alternatively, NI could fix the Kontakt and Reaktor apps to be compatible with El Capitan. But, that's a big ask, and I'm not holding my breath.

 

Only up to version 5.6.6, here:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/support/downloads/update-manager/?q=kontakt&t=updates

Kontakt 5 goes up to 5.8.1, by the way.

For Kontakt 6 you cannot get any prior versions, it's only available from Native Access, and only the latest available version that's valid for your system. Well, you could try contacting NI support and ask for some of the interim version installers.

Not gonna happen. macOS compatibility charts are kinda set in stone.

https://support.native-instruments....lity-of-KOMPLETE-Instruments-and-Effects-Mac-


To me it seems like the best way for you to keep interoperability between your two machines is to keep them both on El Capitan. This will get you up to the latest version of Kontakt 5 (5.8.1), but not Kontakt 6, for K6 you'll need Sierra at least.

 

I guess I'm stuck with my workaround, which isn't that onerous anyway. Might even end up saving me time in the long run.

Retrograding to El Cap in my Mix room isn't feasible. Music is a sideline. I use the Mix computer mostly for my video post production work with the Adobe Creative Cloud. Might instead look for a cheap 5,1 to install High Sierra on in my Record room.

Haha. I thought this WAS NI Support! I'll see if I can get through to some folks there at NI.

BTW, I see no benefit to Kontakt 6 over 5 on either computer. I don't know what I'm missing, and didn't notice any improvement after I installed 6. Those three new instruments that were supposed to be with it are nowhere to be found.

Thanks again for the info and the links!

 

You should be getting serials for them in your account, here:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/my-account/my-products-serials-downloads/

They need to be added to Native Access and activated individually.