Effective Use of Kontakt in Sonar

You have more horses than I and I usually use multiple instances of Kontakt rather than build a rack. I only do that on instruments that have "multiple" instruments in one program. ie Mojo Horns which has (I think) trumpets, saxes, and some other brass assigned to split areas of the keyboard. If that's the I'll use one instance of Kontakt and assign the individual brass to different MIDI channels.

Separate instances, always.

For me, I "see" things better that way.

I've even done that with Sampletank.

But to be fair, I mostly only use one or two. Rare is three instances.

If you have the horsepower, it's more resource-efficient to use a single instance of Kontakt for all instruments. However, you lose the ability to freeze each instrument independently, which can get you into trouble even on a powerful computer.

I have used as many as ten instances of Kontakt in a single project, because my underpowered computer often requires freezing instruments as I go.

However, I sometimes combine related instruments into a single instance as a mixing convenience. I mix them internally within Kontakt and treat them as a unit when mixing the song. Usually that means violins, violas, cellos and bass in one instance. MIDI automation sets instrument levels and adds dynamics, reserving audio automation for the overall level of the strings. 

Here's what you don't want to have happen: you build a monster multi that plays fine early in the project, but later kills your system after you've added CPU-draining buss effects. I try to prevent that by being conservative from the outset.

John, I highly recommend the Groove 3 video for Kontakt. It's covered pretty well on all the available functions.