more bugs/feature requests

I emailed this to NI support but didn't get a response so I thought I'd post it here to be sure all this typing went somewhere.

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I picked up Kontakt a few weeks ago. Seems like a great program so far, and I'm very excited to finally have a softsampler that might replace my trusty (and well-worn) Akai s3000xl.

Here are some suggestions after the short time I've been using the program. I'm sure I'll have more later...

1. The explorer window's text is very difficult to read. I run 1600x1200 on very good 19" monitors and most VSTi's are a little small, but this text is *extremely* small and perhaps not high enough contrast. I know you're trying to get as much info as possible on small screens, but those of us with big screens would really welcome being able to change this font to something bigger (possibly much bigger). It'd also be nice if I could select the text foreground and background colors.
   
2. Resizable window is brilliant (please put this in Reaktor! please!) but I find myself wanting to drag the vertical divider to resize the right pane. I know most of the modules don't make sense to resize but the keymap editor *definitely* does -- the more I can see there, the better.
   
3. Similarly, you can't zoom out enough on the keymap editor.
   
4. The "refresh" button re-opens my C:\ drive instead of just refreshing the directory I'm looking at. Really, refreshing should happen automatically when I revisit a folder anyway, or it should happen automatically without any change (you know, like Windows Explorer does). Having to dig through a menu every time is annoying.
   
5. Need a way to say "only solo this instrument I'm clicking". Something like ctrl-Solo. Check VST's behavior on this and mimic it.
   
6. Should be able to press "mute" on a soloed instrument and have it un-solo.
   
7. Should be able to select multiple instruments at once, so I can delete a number of them in one operation.
   
8. Akai/sf2 import is cool but I really need to open MESA/Millenium Akai files from my HD. I *know* I'm not the only Akai user that went to a PC-only approach a few years back, and if I'm to port my libraries into Kontakt, it has to read my Millenium files.
   
9. Should be able to control the panning/tuning of individual zones somewhere on the "right side" of the UI. Otherwise I have to dig through the "structure" interface (which is slow to navigate and hard to read) to find individual zones and change their panning/tuning.
   
10. Controlling overlapping zones in the mapping editor is confusing. This is important if I have a "left" and "right" file and need them to both play for the same keys.
    
11. Need to be able to use multiple filters on an instrument. For instance, I might have a resonant lowpass filter doing its thing but I want to always be able to add a shelving hipass at 100hz or so.
    
12. Need to be able to play instruments with the keyboard keys, a la Reaktor and SynC Modular. This makes instrument editing/creation *much* easier!
    
13. Is sample mapping information displayed anywhere? Sometimes it's quicker to just type "C3" for the root key of a sample.
    
14. Right-clicking the empty area in the "rack" should allow me to create a new blank instrument. Ctrl-Clicking (or right-clicking) and dragging an existing instrument should allow me to copy it.
    
15. Colors: It'd be cool if I could select the color for each instrument. Say I select Red; then all of the rack components for that instrument could be a light red, and the main instrument would be dark red. This way they would all be visibly part of the same instrument but it would be clear who was the "boss". And it would allow me to differentiate between a number of open instruments.
    
16. Open/save dialog isn't resizable.
    
17. Open/save dialog should open in the directory the file browser is at.
    

 

Some good points here

 

yes - it's displayed below the EDIT button; Velociy, Root,etc.

 

Damn, some very fine points there. I can hardly think of anything to add... Good work!

 

A tiny little tweak that would be really useful would be to allow you to merge a multi into the open multi. Really useful for layers...

 

I think it would be just dandy if Groups were color-coded, or some kind of symbol indicating which Zones are grouped together - so much of the Groups are hidden and it's so easy to make mistakes.

just a thought.

 

While we're at it - I'd like to see a modifier section Waldorf style, where different mod sources can be combined via operators like SUM, DIFF, PRODUCT, >, <, MAX, MIN etc. This helps to create great flexibility.

Actually, what I miss most is a LFO*MODWHEEL modulation source.

Tammo

 

Good suggestions, and it feels like someone from NI might at least be listening.

Couple of things to add: ability to use the mouse wheel to edit parameters (like in sx). That would be so useful in Kontakt.

And, maybe hoping for too much, but it would be very nice to be able to open Kontakt's filters and fx as VST effects.

 

> The explorer window's text is very difficult to read.

This can’t be emphasized enough. Every review I’ve read of Kontakt makes the same point.

Also:

- Windows users would expect F5 to refresh the browser list.

- It would be nice to cut down on the clutter. For instance, if you’ve turned off wav file display, why not filter out folders that have wavs? Why not filter out all folders that have unrelated files?

 

Good suggestions... I'd like to make one more... How 'bout when you open the rescaler, it stays open when you go back to that specific group? I've just been playing with some of the ideas in the new feautures tutorial and when I got to the part about setting up a 4x mod-wheel cross fade using the rescaler, I quickly discovered what a pain it is to visually set the appropriate rescaler curves when selecting a new group closes the rescaler view even if it has been previously opened and activated. If the modulation routings stay open when switching groups, so should the rescaler.

 

The colours idea is genius

 

Just to add a little to the mix, I'd like to see the following adjustments to Kontakt's implementation:

1. Currently, changing the number of voices in use on an instrument requires multiple clicks on a tiny up/down arrowhead icon. Last night I was changing the number from 32 to 256 voices (admittedly for test purposes), cue a hefty dose of RSI. Any chance of being able to type a number into Kontakt instead, or perhaps have a right-click then select from a range of suitable options?

2. I've noticed that since 1.2 arrived, everything now defaults to DFD, even when I'm loading samples from CD-ROM. Whilst I realise it's possible to change the global default for nki's (effectively turn off the use of DFDs), it would be far more useful if you could save the choice of using DFD or loading to RAM with each intrument as part of its nki file - this doesn't appear possible at the moment.

Soneone tell me if I've missed something obvious wrt #2...

>;o))

 

Chris,
You know you can click & drag the number up or down? Still not ideal but wrist-friendlier. I agree, though, double click to type numbers in would be good. And as I said before, mouse wheel is the way forward.

 

Um... you can double click and directly enter values in many fields, the voices field is one of them.

I too though would like some mouse wheel action.