Kontakt snappier and easier-to-view & use: possible?

Scaler 2 General Discussion
41

Kontakt’s UI is pretty crappy.

Hi Bernd and Richard

I feel myself consoled I am not the only folk to think that :grin:

that said, after having checked the stock Ableton Live manual, I bought a dedicated book of about 100 pages to (hope to) deepen my knowledge of the tool, but despite that huge tome I never found what I was searching for :rage:

I think that manuals made these last few dozen of years are almost useless, because they are often stuffed with trivial information (for example a dozen of pages for installation and activation) and they lack practical examples to let one understand the logic behind (that is a sine qua non to me)

The same applies to most YT tutorials (apart Davide videos that are a rara avis), with the further drawback of speakers not using plain English and talking faster than a machine gun, so making automatic subtitles also useless

Now, I am quite sure it is made by purpose, to sell courses, webinars, and build-up likes, and this is why I avoid them like The Plague

42

That is exactly the double of mine…
Now, add that my PC (the same age of your) is an office Dell, so a castrated PC made to be reliable and durable, not a high-performance device, and both are a huge difference in sample-based tools :wink:

Anyway, leaving KK use all my 8 CPU cores made it a little snappier

43

I did it, but I just wasted my time because I found that bigger fonts are asked from users since a dozen of years, but devs are totally deaf to this request

And I think they also seem to be quite oik (I write this thinking to @panda who should know the meaning :rofl:) because no dev was ever able to suggest what I found by myself, i.e. increasing the fonts in the OS itself, that is a perfect solution if you use the device only for music

44

Very interesting. My i5 CPU only has 4 cores, and no hyperthreading.
And when I just run music software, the RAM never gets utilized over 16GB either.
I have that much RAM mostly because I do other things on the side, in parallel to the music/DAW/synths.

45

All joking and leg pulling aside, and with due respect, I suggest that it’s worthwhile having a quick audit of what’s running on your machine. I say with respect because you may well be familiar with all the tools in what follows, and might be an Ace systems tuner, so please ignore it.

I mention this because you have installed (and uninstalled) a lot of stuff, and (as I am sure you know) the uninstallers in the majority of software have flaws and leave a lot of ‘ordine’ on your PC. Since the programs on your PC can be somewhat , ahem, ‘volatile’, this will build up over time, and you need to have a clear out. Again, if you regularly do this, ignore me.

{A} A good starting point is to download ‘autoruns’ It’s Microsoft, so probably safe (?)

I mentioned this before to you in

I think you were in a different place then, though.

It’s not only obvious unwanted tasks in the background that can slow you machine and take your memory, it’s also ‘services’. As just one of many examples, MuseScore does not delete a background service

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{B} Corel, Google, Epson, HP, McAfee and music apps all start up tasks as scheduled jobs (many not actually required) or services. E.g., If you have ever used a Logitech webcam it’s sitting there as a service not deleted. Skype, TeamViewer all do the same even if you now never use them.

{C} Installers all leave crap in your registry, which doesn’t help. I’ve just cleared 78 entries in 3 days just from routine updates. You can get rid of these with CCleaner ; free at

Finally it’s worthwhile bookmarking a wonderful site (which I’ve also mentioned before) at

which has over 100 free utilities to keep you PC running safely and efficiently.

Also check out the audio tuning guide at Glitch Free - Cantabile - Software for Performing Musicians

1 Like
46

I just upgraded to K7 and like it well enough. I’m hardly a sophisticate when it comes to this stuff, but I have to say that The Free Orchestra presets as they show in K7 really annoy me.

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47

How did you get Kontakt 7 @DaveK58 ? I looked in my NativeAccess software upgrade center, and did not see Kontakt 7 available there. Do you have to
purchase it separately, meaning it is not part of the Komplete Kontrol Suite anymore?

48

Hi Bernd, well, it was an upgrade from the free Kontakt 6 Player, and I didn’t pay anything for it. It may have been special promotion. So I think this is just the player, rather than the full suite.

NI is still kind of a mystery to me, tbh. :slight_smile:

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49

Why? Project SAM stuff is great. I’ve used their stuff for years. Why does it annoy you? I don’t get it.

50

Hi pal

the background service that sucks more RAM is Bit Defender, and I am clearly unwilling to kill it

Then, I have some tool I use at work (skype, email) so again they must stay there

I used CC cleaner (licensed version) in the past, but I stopped using it after some severe crash :cold_face:

Up to Windows XP I used to format my HD one-two time/year, but since Windows 7 I don’t need doing that any more, and this is a good thing because formatting and reinstalling is a nightmare when you have tons of tools to install & activate

I checked the Cantabile post after you mentioned it to me some time ago, and I followed all possible tips

The only thing I never tried is using ASIO4ALL, or the Steinberg low-latency Asio

As a matter of fact, the only tools that stress my system are sample-based, so I must use them with caution

51

Kontakt 7 Player appeared in my Native Access portal, and invited me to down load.
It looks like 6->7 full is a chargeable item.

52

@jamieh

The text-available real estate in the preset description window is wasted on redundant prefixes, and it cuts off the actual preset description. That’s all. I like the sounds themselves and use TFO a fair amount.

I couldn’t see a way to expand that column to see the full description of the preset. Maybe I’m missing something.

53

Just checked, I can upgrade for €89. It’s tempting, the new factory library is fantastic.

54

But you probably have Kontakt 6 Full. If not, it would be much more from K6 Player to K7 Full.

55

Yeah, had to wait for sale to get it. You can get a significant reduction just by owning some third party Kontakt libraries. I started with an Orangetree Samples guitar, which qualified me for a crossgrade.
It’s worth investing in the full version, as it opens up more choice of libraries and also a lot of quality free libraries, like Spitfire’s Pianobook.

56

You don’t need it. Windows Defender is currently one of the best antvirus SW and is easy on resources.

BTW, samples are heavy on RAM, not on CPU.

Audio advice tips

57

the best antivirus maybe, but BD does many other useful things

samples are heavy on RAM, not on CPU.

YOUR samples
MY samples are different, sucking all resources, coffee and petrol included :rofl:

58

BTW, I just found that the option to edit NI guitar riffs was stripped last year…

Bad move by KK devs indeed :poop:

59

Where did you find that info? I had it since it came out and it’s not in there. Did they strip it before the release?

60

I found the information in their website…
I’ll search for it
one here

and another