MIDI control of articulations Sonar and Kontakt 5

One of you using Kontakt 5, could you please walk me through one instrument, I got as far as creating a bank header, loading ( for example) violin ensemble into slots, each contains the same instrument but the articulation set differently. Now I save it as a bank file and it does not work, the articulations did not change. How should I handle this in Sonar Professional? We used to have Program Changes, I can not find them anymore.
Any help will be appreciated.
(Windows 7, Lexicon Alpha, 8 G m, M-Audio KeyStation 65, GPO4,5, Kontakt Factory Lib., GPlayer.)
Ted

I think it can but I never use it this way.  Here's a quick guide:
 
Inside Kontakt choose New Instrument Bank (from the Diskette menu icon)
The click on the wrench on the Bank Instrument and you'll see a bunch of slots for instruments.  Drag .nki instruments into those numbers. 
 
This is the main reason I don't use this method, if you want to setup an instrument you have to load it, set it up (with it's GUI) and then save as it as yet another .nki.  Since there is no way to get to the instruments UI from the Instrument Bank.
 
But lets ignore that.  Say you load something into slot 001 and another instrument into slot 002.  To test this I recommend loading two vastly different instruments so you can tell.  Articulations can be tricky to tell the difference.
 
On the MIDI track inside SONAR (I almost always use a separate MIDI track not a Instrument track in SONAR) you can insert a bank/patch change (use the Insert Menu item).  For the bank/patch change choose "Normal" for the Bank Select Method.  Choose 0-bank 0 for the bank.  and the Patch you want <unknown> for slot 001 and 1 for slot 002.  There may be some way to "teach" SONAR the names of the patches but I'm not sure how.
 
If you open the event viewer you can see the bank/patch changes
 
Here's a screenshot which might help (https://snag.gy/2aW4Nl.jpg for the full sized version)

I should also point out there are a few Kontakt scripts that can work with this process.  I have Orange Tree Samples "Mind Control" https://www.orangetreesamples.com/products/mind-control it will let you trigger the Kontakt patch selection using MIDI notes (aka key switching).  There are also some free Kontakt scripts that can do similar things.  (Google should be able to find them). 
 
Mind Control is interesting because it works and has a couple of really nice videos showing this way of using Kontakt.  I'd say the videos for it are good/worthwhile even if you don't buy the product.
 
But again, I don't think the bank implementation in Kontakt is very good since you can't get at the instruments in the banks.  Which, given how Kontakt instrument these days are all about their GUI, not being able to get to the GUI without a separate load/save is a real killer.

Thanks a lot, will digest all your suggestions and try things. It give me also some satisfaction that I am not yet complete nuts, the problem is not easy to tackle even for you guys. Thanks again!
Ted

As I look at the simple Cal script, I'm reminded that it will fail if used on a note right at 0:0:0 ... must be out at least 5 or 6 ticks from 0 .   I always use a buffer space of a few beats, so never am reminded of the potential for script failure.
 

Here's his script as copy & pasteable text

; add_patch.cal
;
; Set patch for selection of notes or existing patches
;

(do
 (int adjval 1)
 (int new_bank 1) ; New Bank Number
 (int new_patch 1)
 
 (getInt new_patch "New Patch Number: " 0 126 )
)

;; Body
(do
 (if (== Event.Kind NOTE)
  (insert (- Event.Time 5) Event.Chan PATCH new_patch new_bank)
  
  (if (== Event.Kind PATCH) (do
    (delete)
    (insert Event.Time Event.Chan PATCH new_patch new_bank)
   )
  )
 )
)

 
It does have a nice replace the patch change feature which is kind of handy.  Might be able to expand it a bit to handle the early offset so it can work at 0.