Is it better to have separate instances of Kontakt? Libraries choking...

I have a totally noob question that anyone can help me with. I was watching this video:



He seems to have each patch (string sound) loaded through a separate instance of Kontakt. Is this a better way to run libraries than to have say 16 loaded into Kontakt? I'm still new at this, but I thought having many instances of Kontakt open was supposed to be harder on the system.

I'm partially asking because sometimes my system chokes when playing samples. I bought a separate Samsung external SSD for libraries, I have Logic on the iMac internal HD and I have projects saved to a separate drive altogether. Yet.... my performance doesn't seem to be any smoother.

Thanks so much for the help.

 

You need to find your own balance in how you'll load things for your own configuration. In general, it helps to spread the load across multiple tracks in a DAW.

 

Thanks. I definitely have different sounds running on different tracks, but are you saying it is better to have fewer tracks per Kontakt, or more tracks per Kontakt?

For instance, let's say I have a track with 8 sounds. Which is better:

1 opening of Kontakt with the 8 sounds loaded OR each sound loaded into its own instance of Kontakt?

The video is doing the latter, which is thought was not the preferred way, but I don't know.

 

Whatever works on your system better is better. The only thing that you have to know is with multiple instances of Kontakt you get a bit of a RAM overhead (50-90 MB per instance or so).

 

Okay. Thanks. If anyone else has any suggestions on how things work smoothest on their system, I'd love to hear it.

 

It's also much about how your DAW manage this when Kontakt is used as a plug-in. It's for example a question on how your DAW distribute the load to the CPU cores. So i suggest you ask in your DAWs forum to find out how your DAW handles it. In many cases my DAW run best using one instrument pr Kontakt instance. But sometimes it don't matter.

In other DAWs it can be best to use one Kontakt instance with many instruments. I have seen recommendations to do it like this, but as said, it's noy allways the case in any DAW.

So as EvilDragin say "Whatever works on your system better is better".
It's like that - what works best, on your system and in your DAW etc. actually do works best for you.

 

Evil Dragon and LBH are right, there are no common rules what is working best for you, except these:
First try to find out what could cause these problems, have a look at the Kontakt instances CPU and disk meter. You should try to find out if it is dedicated to Kontakt or Logic.
For Windows there are some good tools showing you what causes audio crackles and dropouts (DPC Latency Checker, Latency Mon), but for Mac I don't know any.
Try to change the latency buffer size in Logic and look for other hints there.
Have a look here as well: https://support.native-instruments....445-Mac-OS-X-Tuning-Tips-for-Audio-Processing

Instead of wasting hours and days for finding some information that could be helpful (and then perhaps finally find out it wasn't), I'd say you are on the safest side if you simply use a very high performance system always.
As much RAM as possible, powerful CPU, of course SSD usage only (also for OSX), with SSD for your Kontakt library separated from OS (as you did) etc. Mac is not that easy to enhance I guess, but anyway.
In your case you should also try to use internal SSD's only instead of any external, as well there should be no other USB devices connected when you're using external SSD for Kontakt (as I don't know what iMac).
Not to forget it is also recommended to have (when possible) a separated system for your high performance audio usage only.
If you cannot have, you finally should try to keep your system as clean and lean as possible, with as less services running at the same time (you can use activity monitor on your Mac).
Also do all the recommended things for Mac like repairing permissions, check volumes etc.

Maybe you still know all of this, it is just what I got in mind...good luck!

 

Thank you everyone. That definitely helps. I'm going to experiment with this stuff and see what I can figure out.