Kontakt With Macs

Anyone having a really difficult time with CPU using Kontakt
on a Mac? i know that NI stuff is written for PC's and Im wondering if this is why my computer (G4 500 712mram) cant handle more than a few instances of Kontakt

 

plus que ca change

G4 1GHz Dual 1.5GB RAM

Yes, mine is slow, too. I have to bounce a great deal to get anything done, but then I remember typesetting in Finale in 1989 with an SE30, and it seemed all very wonderful at the time.

Reaktor is driving me crazy. It's difficult to think of finished sounds in terms of their constituent pieces. It's probably good exercise.

I am learning that sales pitches are often orphaned aliases to reality.

Will

 

mac problems

wow, im surprised you have that problem as well on such a fast machine. This is not encouraging. I think that the native stuff seems to work much better on PCs for some reason

 

Re: mac problems

I think that was partly his point/question. Quite often, software written for one platform is not well ported to another platform. Usually there a just some missing features or bugs that the developers may not be able to work out, as their expertise is with another platform. With a music program, however, we really need stability and performance, or there isn't much sense in trying to be creative with it.

I'm considering Kontakt or Battery, but many Mac users are frustrated the NI is slow at developing releases for Mac users. Maybe when the RTAS versions of Kontakt and Battery are available, things will work better.

dave patterson / knobville

 

Re: Re: mac problems

Maybe so, maybe not - or perhaps will the brand new Audio Units in Mac OS X do the job like nothing else before? At least, NI brought out Traktor, which runs very smoothly on both 9.2.2 and X, and that on my B&W Mac (see below).

However, I cannot reproduce all these horror stories according to the NI products on Macs. Everything I have from NI is working fine and smoothly, including - not to say, emphasizing - Kontakt.

The only exception is Dynamo, which is eating the CPU alive. For this reason (sic!), I didn't even try to buy Reaktor. But everything else is running fine, even on my 2 yrs. young Pismo G3 PowerBook. My true old G3 on Sonnet G4 steroids can handle them all.

So don't trust the urban legends. As far as you don't try launching a zillion instances of Kontakt, you will be lucky. If you try, yo lose, on a Mac as well as on a Windoze.

Some of the NI folks do not seem to be Mac fans at all ;-) but it's a German company, and in Germany, they want "alles billig", that's all, we have a 2% Mac market share here :-( Considering this all, NI *do* their Mac homeworks well…

ruß
aljen

 

Hi to everyone.....(and greetings to aljen..i know you from the logic audio-forum "logicuser.de")

i have a little problem with Kontakt 1.1 on my Mac....when i loaded a large Sample-Instrument (about 256MB or more)....only this one & nothing more...then i got not more than 10xPolyhon (sorry 'bout my english...it is f...cked up!).....with my EXSP24 i got more than 50xPolyphon before i got some Overloads...not funny!
My Mac is a iBook with G3/500Mhz CPU and 640MB RAM, i use no ASIO-based external Hardware.....

What is wrong...does anyone have the same problem....?!

i have to downgrade to Version 1.0 to read direkt from Ram (i think this is a problem....i got a lazy HD), as Version 1.1 "direkt from disk".....help!!!

Please help me (english or German will be ok!)

Kind Regards from Paco Casanovas, Bern (CH)

 

Hello,

I am not sure if your problem is memory-related. Instead, it sounds as you'd push your G3 PowerBook to it's limits. Overloads in Logic mean that the computer's processor cannot run as fast as the audio-todo-list would require.

Large samples require much more processor time, of course, so you may want to try some "weight-reduced" sample instruments which are also on the Kontakt CDs. These samples are not as large and not as complex as the "big" ones are, and so should help you to get more voices out of them.

Neither Kontakt 1.0 nor 1.1 can read samples directly from disk at the moment, so this won't adress the problem. You can try to assign more RAM to your host application (i.e. probably Logic in this case), because Kontakt as VST-Plug-in makes use of the host app's memory, so you Logic would need about 300-40 MB assigned, but this probably won't help neither.

EXSP is known to be a very smart sample player, not as ressource-consuming as the much more powerful Kontakt. You also most probably don't load as large sample libraries into EXSP, so you get much more voices.

As a long-term solution, you will most likely want to get a newer PowerBook. This will catapult you to new dimensions, because both Kontakt and Logic make use of the G4's velocity engine.

cheers,
aljen

 

Thanks a lot!

about the direkt-from-disk-thing....i guess i got the wrong information from anywhere....?!
Logic 5.5 runs with 500MB and when i load a smaller file (as a rhodes-file from Wizoo's Magnetica...about 12MB, i got the same problem.....maybe i have to wait and buy me a new Powerbook G4or a big "loud" G4 mac....money!!!!!!!

Whatever, now i got a powerfull soft-sampler for years...!

cheers!

 

Kontakt not Mac efficient

I bought Kontakt to use as a more powerful drum sample player in line with Logic 5. Latency is pretty bad even at high buffer rates. I wanted to set up drum kits with effects sub mixed in Kontakt coming up in a VST Logic track......OH WELL. Not this year!

I have a MAC dual gig Quicksilver and it really can't handle it. I use the Logic sampler and it's much more efficient.

I guess Kontakt is a good product.What doe sit do well?

 

I have Kontakt on my main recording computer (Mac G4 and Digital Performer) as well as a dedicated PC (that also has Gigastudio). All run very nicely with no noticeable delays. In fact the DigitalPerformer/Kontakt/Mac combo seems to have the least latency. What audio hardware are you using?

 

Re: Kontakt not Mac efficient

Whoa! Kontakt isn't running well on a dual gig Quicksilver G4 Mac? That's not very encouraging, as I have the same machine, and its a fast CPU. How many instances of Kontakt are you using? Is latency your main problem, or is the Mac just over taxed by Kontakt. I've read a few comments here, and at the Digidesign forums, that NI products are not very Mac-friendly, but I'd like to know if this is true or not.

I've been thinking about using Kontakt for a drum sample player, but think I'll go back to considering Battery. I just wish NI would rethink its lack-of-upgrade policy to the RTAS version of Battery. Its really pathetic that its only available in the ProTools bundle.

dave patterson / knobville

 

G4 1.5 GB 1MHz Dual
Delta 1010LT ASIO2

Kontakt's architecture is glorious, but it bogs down
very quickly on this machine, and the best latency
I've been able to get so far is 23ms (about 1,000
samples). I can get used to playing with the delay
(many churches are that slow from the organ console),
but it's really annoying that the machine can't handle
an ordinary multi of four or five instruments.

It's too bad that most of the demos for high-end audio
software are almost worthless for evaluating what a
program will be like in real life.

and Happy New Year!

Will

 

@ Will,

I've just looked for the Kontakt audio settings here. As supposed, I was never in need of changing the factory settings for the latency, which is 11.6 ms in this case (old B&W Mac G3 mit G4 processor board, System 9.2.2).

I could probably screw it down all the way, but there's no need for, because with these 11.6 ms, I don't notice any delay in the real life. It takes about 10 ms the sound to reach you from your monitoring boxes, IIRC, so you will never eliminate the latency completely ;-)

Just wondering why do you have to set such a high latency.

best regards,
aljen

 

Aljen, how are you using Kontakt.Dir Conn, VST, RTAS?

11 ms sounds good. I'm no where close to that.

I'm using an original 2408 which would add to the latency I guess but damn!

 

kontakt works like a dream on my mac so this might be a dual processor related issue. im using a g4 933 (not a dual proc. mac) and kontakt has been amazingly efficient so far.

 

funny, I have an old G4 400 with 512Ram,OS 9.2, Digi001...and Kontakt´s cpu performance is not more than exs24´s..

my only issue is the lack of ram to load multiple ram-heavy patches...so I hope disk streaming is coming soon...

never had a problem since my purchase and like I said, I was astonished how light kontakt is on my grandfather cpu..

peace, moritz

 

Sorry for this being a little off topic....

funny, I have an old G4 400 with 512Ram,OS 9.2, Digi001...and Kontakt´s cpu performance is not more than exs24´s..


Hey, I was wondering maybe you can help me

I have an G4 dual processor. Digi001 and 9.2
Also running logic...and Kontakt!
but i can't seem to get output of logic
routed to the 8 optical outs on the digi001

Only the main analog outputs work. 1-2

I tried installing the Digidesign direct i/o 5.1
Also i have the digisystem init 5.1 installed
I don't seem to be able to see
the 'enable from direct i/o submenu to use 16 in/out'??

Any ideas?

Thank you for your time,

Steve Pittoors
Belgium

 

Don't thrust the latency-preferences in the standalone-version!
11,6ms is never 11.6ms in real....

My test:

my old korg m1 (has about 5ms latency) give is signal to my midi interface (emagic mt4) then into Logic 5.5 to an instance of kontakt (plays a snare-drum for example)....the output from my mac goes straight into my Korg D12 HD-Recording Workstation on Track 1. The M1 goes on track 2. Put the D12 in recording mode, play one note on the M1 (plays also a snare sound)...and stop the recording after a few seconds....rewind and compare the waveformsignals on both tracks.....i see a diffrence...about 20ms (!!!!)...that means in real: 20ms plus 5 from the natural-latency from the korg M1-Hardware....gives me at least 25ms!

I compare my test with a U24 from Egosys in ASIO mode.....it's true!
With the standalone-version the latency is bigger as with the VST-mode.....

Please recheck!

Kind regards to all Mac-ies on this forum!

 

i try to make a little max/msp-patch..that makes it easy to check the true-latency.....give me a few weeks (maybe a few months...i'm new with max!)

greetz

 

Kontakt with Mac

G4.1.25ghz.....Digi Performer......MOTU2408.......Yamaha O2Rs........etc
Having great results with Kontakt, except for the upcoming, much needed features, very little problem. I do know that some Giga samples sound ridiculous when you import them, however, if you just go into the editor, you might see a filter module. Select it and hit delete! That's it. Otherwise, some programs are panned to one side......go to Mapping editor.....select all and set pan to ZERO....it's probably at 100, which puts it to one side. I've noticed basic response, etc is actually a bit tighter in Kontakt than in the Giga environment. Just need the new version for the streaming and layers, etc...........then it's just a matter of learning curve through time spent with the program.
Hope it works well for the rest of you out there!
bruce
ps: most problems for me have been "pilot error". Stupid, but when you hit the 0 key on a mac for a sequencer function, and then realize Kontakt is active window, you're actually "stopping audio". yYou then must go to the Menu and select "start audio". Also, like a moron, I was writing an episode the other day and wasted 45 minutes not getting sound output, till a realized I had the wrong outputs selected in my aux tracks in DP. duh!