AAAAAAAAARGGGHHHHH! (More Kontakt outputs in Sonar 8.5)

configuring outputs in Kontakt has never been "intuitive" IMO.  I have read that NI has "revamped" I/O configuration for Kontakt 5, but I have not upgraded from K4, so I'm not certain.

However, I can tell you what works on K4 and I'm pretty sure it will work similarly on K5.

It's easier once you have inserted at least as many instruments as you have the need for outputs.  it's much messier to configure the outputs before you insert the instruments, so we'll go with the instructions of configuring outputs the easy way.

after setting up Kontakt for 8 stereo outputs in sonar, insert your first instrument.  it is automatically routed to the first stereo output.  shouldn't be a problem there.

insert your next instrument.  now click on the OUTPUT pull down of that new instrument and choose "CREATE SEPARATE MASTER OUTPUT CHANNEL"  Kontakt will automatically create a new output named the same as the name of the instrument you have just created the output from.  you can easily rename that output by clicking on the name area and retyping.

do that for each of the outputs you need.  however, at this point, all of them are still outputing to the first output track, even tho they have separate mixers in Kontakt.

now, on the Kontakt GUI, go to the 2nd output (assuming you have the OUTPUT mixer showing).  at the bottom of the output settings, there's an icon with 1/2 on it.  all of your outputs probably have 1/2 on it.  on the second one, click on it, and when the dialog box pops up, left click on the NAME of the PHYSICAL OUT associated with each channel.  change the first one to the 3rd one and the 2nd one to the 4th one.  then click on the >> to go to the next set of outputs and change them to 5 and 6, then contnue until you're done with all 8.

now what I would advise is that when you're done, you save this as a standard configuration.  click on the OUTPUTS PRESETS/BATCH CONFIGURATION pull down and choose SAVE CURRENT OUPTUT SECTION STATE AS DEFAULT FOR>VST PLUGIN 8 OUT.

one other thing - there's a "quirk" in this with sonar, at least in my setup.  I'm running sonar 64bit and bitbridge windows has a problem with NI's popups.  there will be a pop up when you change the output channels.  it might not show up tho, and you might think that Kontakt has become unresponsive.  actually the problems is that bitbridge is hiding the popup window behind the Kontakt GUI and will not let it be "on top."

if that's the case, then you have to use j-bridge OR if you have X1, you can use benstat's Sonar Plus, OR you can do this in sonar 32bit mode.  unfortunately, I don't know if the default configuration will be saved for when you run it in 64bit mode, but I would think that it would.

   ... Must be Linux users.

 

Thanks for the excellent tutorial, Beagle!!! Not quite intuitive indeed...! ;)

thanks

randy - you can choose 8 stereo or 16 stereo outputs from the insert softsynth menu.

Yes, I didn't put that exactly right: what I meant to say was that I wanted to use the outputs that Kontakt has available and I since you can choose between 1 or 8 or 16, I wanted 8 because I actually only needed 5, as I said. But thanks for adding this!