After purchasing some sound sample sets from Boulder Sounds, i downloaded and installed the free Kontakt5 VST2 synth player, per instructions. - After some time, the free Kontakt5 plugin for Cakewalk stopped working, with the words "Activate". - Unfortunately, nothing happens when the "Activate Control Center" button is pressed.

I never use Simple Instruments, but to the best of my knowledge, you cannot load multiple instruments into a single instance of Kontakt, when using Simple Instrument Tracks.
 
So, you may be burning through a bunch of memory needlessly - just be aware of that.  As you get into more and more complex projects, memory utilization may become an issue.
 
And really, if you load let's say 4 instruments into an instance of Kontakt, it will automatically assign midi channels 1-4 to them, in the order you added them to the Kontakt instance.  If you then use the batch function to configure each loaded instrument to have its own stereo outputs, rename those outputs, then all you have to do is match up the correct midi instrument to a midi track, set the midi track's midi output channel to match the midi channel for the instrument in Kontakt, add an audio track, and set it to pick up the correct output from the instrument from the Kontakt instance.
 
All of the above takes only maybe 3-5 minutes at most, and you will get that time down to super quick in no time at all, as you do it more often.
 
Bob Bone
 

Yup - I guess that is correct.  I always want to route audio for each instrument separately, so for me, that means never using Simple Instrument Tracks for a multi-rack Kontakt instance with multiple loaded instruments.
 
Bob Bone
 

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I myself always limit the number of loaded instruments in a single Kontakt instance to 5-6, and never have issues.
 
Could it also be possible that the particular Kontakt dll you inserted was the one with only 8 outputs supported?  There are 3 versions, one has 8 outputs, another has 16, and I think the other supports either 32 or 64.  I always use the 16 output one, and then limit my instruments to a max of 6 (12 outputs used out of the 16 it supports).
 
If you look at the properties and then details, for a given Kontakt dll, it will show you how many outputs that one supports, and I think you can see them in a name/desc field too.
 
Bob Bone
 

Glad it helped you.  I LOVE Kontakt.  It is rock steady, and amazingly capable, with zillions of really good libraries available to run within it.
 
Bob Bone

Super stuff in this thread .. thank y'all.
 
In general .. and with latest versions of Kontakt and with 64 bit systems / Sonar and with Windows 10 .. is it more efficient memory wise to load one instance of kontakt with multiple instruments, each instrument assigned to separate midi/audio track combinations OR to add a separate instance of Kontakt for each instrument?
 
 

aidanodr
Super stuff in this thread .. thank y'all.
 
In general .. and with latest versions of Kontakt and with 64 bit systems / Sonar and with Windows 10 .. is it more efficient memory wise to load one instance of kontakt with multiple instruments, each instrument assigned to separate midi/audio track combinations OR to add a separate instance of Kontakt for each instrument?
 

Just a guess here, but I would expect the total of samples used, plus some memory for each instance of Kontakt, would equal the total memory required.  Each extra instance of Kontakt is sure to require some additional memory, so if memory use is an issue for you, it would make sense to use as few instances as possible.  The total sample sizes used should be the same either way.