Ame one Loves You

I had a bit of hard time figuring out how to get Logic 7 and Kontakt 3 to work together. It all came down to just setting things up right. This is something I never really had to deal with when I was using Cubase. In Cubase you just select your VSTi and it automatically creates channels in the mixer. No need to worry about how to set route things. If you try to do it the same way in Logic it just doesn’t work out right. You can assign additional instrument channels in Logic to different MIDI channels in Kontakt. The only problem with this is that Kontakt will have only one output in the Logic mixer..

Here’s the way I setup Logic and Kontakt to work together.

Step 8: In the Audio Object properties, assign the Audio Object’s channel to Auxiliary by clicking on Channel and select Aux and the Aux channel you desire. In our example we assigned it to Aux 1. If you notice in the picture it only shows 3 Aux channels. When you create more, Logic will automatically add more channels.

Now you have Kontakt setup as a multi channel instrument that utilizes multiple outs in Logic that can be accessed from logic’s mixer. But what if you want to do automation on the plugins that you have on the auxiliary channel strips?

If you have any questions or comments don’t hesitate to ask.

I have to give props to Logic-Cafe.com for their Use Multi Channel Audio Instruments as multi timbre synthesizers and Route separate audio channels from Multi Channel Audio Instruments

I noticed that I get a lot of visitors coming to my website looking for information about Kontakt. I present to you answers to many of the search queries about Kontakt 3. At the bottom of the page there are links to some useful websites.

Many of the questions that most users will have can be answered at the following websites.

If you have read previously, you would have seen that I was mulling over whether to upgrade from Logic Pro 7 to Logic Studio or upgrade Kontakt 1.5 to Kontakt 3. Well in the end Kontakt won out over Logic. It was a hard decision but over the past few weeks I began to realize that going with the kontakt purchase was a better idea.

I realized as I was working in Logic, ProTools LE and Cubase SX 2 recently that I’m constantly using different samplers. I was using Kontakt 1.5 for Cubase. Unfortunately that version does not work on my macbook. So I ended up using EXS24 in logic and for ProTools I tried the Structure Free.

The EXS24 is a cool and efficient sampler that integrates well in to logic, but I just don’t like the way samples are loaded up in it. It didn’t really fit in my workflow. To import a sample you have to open the EXS editor and then create zones, then import the sample and after all that you have to save your instrument. It really reminded me of using Mesa when I had an Akai S2000. I didn’t like that thing that much. The EXS24 is a great sampler and pretty powerful, but there was just too many extra windows and clicks that seemed to slow down the workflow for me.

Digidesign’s Structure sampler seems pretty powerful, however I only got to experience the free version. The reason I downloaded it in the fist place was so that I would have some sort of sampler available in ProTools sessions. Since I don’t really use ProTools for production, I figured the free version would suit my needs. I thought it would be useful for whenever I need to do some last minute additions or small changes when I am doing mixdowns. The lack of being able to edit sample maps was the deal breaker. It’s really just a sample player. I only tried it a couple of times, and it seems decent, but it just doesn’t fit my work style.

The main reason I decided to go with Kontakt was that I realized it would help if I had a universal sampler that I can use in any of the sequencers that I have. Structure can only be used in ProTools and EXS24 can only be used in Logic. Although both can import quit a bit of sample types, I just feel like I will end up converting a sample in 3 different formats, one for each sampler.

I can’t really say I am happy with Kontakt 3 yet. I have barely used it. So far I just used it to tweak some samples and create a multi instrument for a remix I have to do. Usually I can’t wait to open and play with my new toys, but this time I was not really excited. Truthfully I was pretty happy with version 1.5. It did everything I wanted and was not full of extra things. Some things appear a bit more complicated now like the whole mixer section and routing. I do miss the simple routing options of 1.5. However this is something that can be taken care of if I setup the program to be a certain way when it loads. Although the program is more complex and I need to learn some of the new features, it still fits my work flow style. When I write I like to try different samples all the time. Especially with drums. Keep the part playing and just load up different samples to hear if I like it. This is the problem I had with the EXS24 I couldn’t do this unless I premade instruments. At this point in time I don’t feel like spending a great deal of time turning all whatever amount of gigs of samples I have into EXS instruments. Truthfully I don’t know how many gigs of samples I have. All I know is I have a hard drive that has only samples and a cd case full of cd’s that are either sample cd’s or just backups of sample packs I downloaded. I prefer to have a file browser available and to be able to drag and drop samples.

One last note on samplers. I just downloaded the free DiscoDSP High Life sampler. Although it’s only a Windows program it has a feature that I am interested in. It is supposed to be able to auto-sample from vsti’s. This seems pretty useful. I can sample patches from my favorite windows only vst instruments and use them in logic. Also if there is a cool patch on some demo I can easy sample it. I will report more on this sampler later.

Today I was out in Umeda, doing some Christmas Shopping and was thinking about how I would like to upgrade some certain music softwares. The choices are upgrading to Logic 8 or Kontakt 3. The prices are about the same here in Japan. Both cost about ¥22,000. I’m still not sure which would be the better choice. I am kind of leaning toward the Kontakt 3 upgrade.

What are the benefits of upgrading from Kontakt 1.5 to Kontakt 3? First off, a ton more samples. It comes with so many samples that I don’t even have enough hard drive space for it. The second advantage is that it would seem to be a bit more useful than Logic in the long run. I can use it in all of my sequencers. Just to let you know, I actually use Cubase SX2, ProTools Le 7 and Logic 7. Which seems like a plus because I can always switch platform and still be able to have the sampler work, instead of the way it is now. If I am doing something in Cubase SX2 which is running under Windows and make a sample for a song that would go better with another song that I am working on in Logic, I can just switch over to logic and load up the sampler instead of having to deal with importing or recreating the sample in the EXS24 editor or slap it in to that free ProTools sampler called Structure. Which I have yet to use so I don’t know how easy or difficult it would be. The third reason to upgrade would be that I could use Kontakt on my Mac finally, and utilize all those samples I made using Kontakt in the past. The fourth and last reason is, It’s version 3 vs 1.5. Lots has changed. If you are wondering why I didn’t get Kontakt 2, the reason is, I just never got around to it. When I finally started to really consider upgrading, version 3 came out.

Now here is the reasons to upgrade to Logic Studio. First new workflow enhancements. Although I was not to impressed with the whole everything available in one screen when I saw the Sonar 7 demonstration, I think the Apple idea of it using tabs seems much better. The reason why I didn’t care much for it in Sonar was, when I was I watching the demonstration the guy was constantly resizing the little window area in the arrange window. Second reason for upgrading Logic is…. it has all that stuff. How can you go wrong with all those things included. I don’t know if soundtrack is really useful, but I’m sure I can find someway to use it. The soundstage app, looks interesting, but not too useful because I don’t play live. Waveburner?? Well I got that already in L7. The third reason is that I can dump the dongle. Recently I have been feeling that dongles are kind of a drag. After using them for about 3 years, only now it seems to me to be that way. The reason is that my situation has changed with the way I write music. Since I don’t have a studio I am writing at a couple of different places and sometimes I want to write in my spare time between jobs while I am out. Because of this, the fear of losing or breaking my dongle is real and kind of scary.

Those are my reasons for wanting to upgrade. Although upgrading Logic seems good, I can always do that later. The same could be said about Kontakt too, but I think I would like to be able to use Kontakt again. I do miss it. I’m not that big of a fan of the EXS24 sampler in Logic. It’s a good sampler and all, but I always liked Kontakt and it’s features.