Solved Using kontakt 5 for live playing

Guys,
I need help on trying to achieve using midi control(keyboard) to use Kontakt for playing instruments Live

Lets say i have 3 instruments ,a piano and a string library, and organ loaded in kontakt ( but in reality lets assume we have atleast over 20 instruments )
I would want to sometime play one or even play combinations of these instruments .
The only way i do this now is by manually reaching for the mouse and muting the instruments i dont need , this is not ideal while playing live .

Creating Banks would not make sense in this scenario as sometime is would prefer playing two instruments in the same bank itself.

I have a Novation Impulse keyboard and it would have been ideal to assign a instrument one button to mute / unmute . iam not finding that possible to do .
Any ideas ?

 

I use Kontakt for live playing. I make instrument banks and then just solo the instrument I want to play - I still need the mouse but its only one button to push. I just use the computer, but you could set this up to use patch changes sent from your keyboard to select sounds. You can also get by without a bank, and just load all your instruments and then solo the one you want to solo.

I think you should be able to make two banks, and then select one instrument in each one so that both selected instruments play simultaneously. You'd probably have to make "null" instrument so that you easily have *no* instrument playing in the 2nd bank.

 

I don't do any live playing. But I load 8 pianos into Kontakt, and I can switch from one to another by either:
1. Clicking buttons on the UI to select a piano.
or
2. Using pedal and key press combinations on the keyboard to do the switching.
I can even select multiple pianos for simultaneous "chorus" play.
This is handled in a custom multi-script.

 

Hi Guys ,
Thanks for the reply but unfortunately i dont see that either of you have really answered the question in context.

Like i said no touching the computer , its not ideal while playing .selecting a solo instrument or even trying to play 2 or more instruments together
using midi is what am looking for .
Why kontakt does not have an ability to assign midi to solo or mute buttons , if that was possible then it will probably be a start to solve such an issue.

 

If you have a bank set up in Kontakt, then the MIDI patch select messages sent from your keyboard will select one of the NKI's included in the patch - no need to touch the computer. If you have two keyboards you can load two banks and have the patch select from each keyboard select two NKIs from the two banks. I don't know if there is any easy way to select more than one NKI to play simultaneously from only one controller keyboard.

 

As I said ... I have a multi-script that enables me to switch instruments at will, using pedal and keys on the piano. No need to touch the computer.

 

Sorry for the late reply .
It may be good if you could share your script to help us try if this works . Though i have never used any scripts before .

Atleast i would like to understand why Kontakt does not allow us to assign midi to the "Mute" , "Solo" buttons .
I felt atleast having such a simple feature would have easily helped a lot while playing live. Iam talking about midi navigation and usage inside the "instrument navigator" section at the left bottom which lists all instruments

Layering instruments seems to be a hassle .

 

Here's my multiscript (attached).
It produces an interface that ...
-- Has 10 instrument selector buttons. Click any button to select an instrument.
-- Has a Multi button that allows me to select multiple instruments for a chorus effect, instead of just one.
-- Instead of using the buttons I can select any instrument by holding down the sostenuto pedal while pressing any one of the lowest ten white notes on the piano. There's no need to mess with the computer screen and mouse for that.
-- It has a Velocity knob that allows me to select any one of four velocity curves.
-- It has a Load Velocity button that allows me to load a velocity curve from data in a file.
-- I can edit (draw) the velocity curve and then save that to a file (Save Velocity button).
-- It has a Redirect button that allows the input on MIDI channel 2 to be directed to a DIFFERENT instrument than the one selected by the buttons for MIDI channel 1. (I use this for playing MIDI files. The MIDI file plays on one instrument while I play another.)

The attached file is called eight.pianos.txt (though it's been updated to handle ten pianos).

And ... a thank you to Evil Dragon in the NI scripting forum for getting me started in multiscripts.

 

Looks handy- I get an error in Kontakt 4 - it looks like sync_id is not supported in Kontakt 4 (but I know nothing about scripting )

 

Yep, it's a K5 script. The problem is not $sync_id, the problem is lack of async_complete callback in K4.

 

Interested in this, but the script is coming up as not available when I try and click on it - anyone able to repost it or has something similar that allows patch change control in Kontakt from the keyboard? Thanks.

 

Interesting.
Is it possible to assign the solo button, to a midi command on the keyboard?
I have an M-Audio keyboard with a few sliders and buttons that are available to be assigned.
I suppose not on the player, but only on the full version of Kontakt?

 

Not possible.

 

Wow, the fact that this is not possible is mind boggling...it's such a basic function, and for the price one has to pay for this piece of software, crucial functions like these really should be mappable to MIDI!

I registered here in hope to find a solution to the problem that's been bugging me with MIDI mapping.... I am trying to find a way to MIDI map buttons in certain Kontakt instruments, which don't seem to be mappable by default (please see attached screenshot).

It's also really frustrating that Kontakt doesn't remember MIDI mapping when the instrument is switched and then loaded back into same place. I still haven't found an acceptable solution for live playing in situations where I want to use unmappable parameters without touching the mouse. Is there any known way around this??

Also, in the attached screenshot, the loaded instruments has several presets which I can only change with the mouse. Is there any way to map these?

 

You can use instrument bank to have multiple instruments loaded, then switch between them using MIDI program change.

Regarding buttons you're showing in that image, this depends on the script... if ui_button was used, those buttons are then NOT automatable, but if ui_switch is used, then it can be automated. So, if you can reach the script, you would need to find where those buttons are defined, and change "declare ui_button" to "declare ui_switch". Not all developers know this fact.

 

Thanks for the swift response.

About the script issues...that's very valuable info, can't believe some developers are ignorant to such a crucial thing! Do you have any idea where to even begin to look for the script for that particular instrument on Mac OS?

And in regards to instrument banks...i tried it but as far as I can see there's no option to open GUI of the instruments loaded into instrument banks, and therefore the MIDI mapping can't be done once again...

 

You can do your MIDI mapping in the regular NKI, then save the NKI, THEN load that NKI in an instrument bank. Rinse and repeat.

Also you can double-click an instrument loaded in instrument bank and go in instrument edit mode, then if you go to Script Editor (there's a hint for your other question) you will see the GUI, at least partially (no background graphics) and you can do your assigning there.

 

You seem to be a NI god of some sort ...thanks for the awesome tips, I'll go and try them out.

 

Been around for quite some time

 

The script thing works!! if I had money I'd reward you right now
Thanks to the hell and back mr., Evil Dragon