Kontakt5 routing to Sonar X1 for Total Newbie

OK starting from a blank new project, with no tracks and no synths, just so we have an exact starting point:

There are also many ways of doing this - I'm just trying to do it to connect the dots.

1.  Insert Kontakt 5 - 8 out or 16 out, depending on how many instruments you are going to be using.  I usually just pick the 16 out version if I am working with multiple instruments.  When the Insert Synth Options dialog box opens, just have the Synth Property Page box checked.  I will explain later - we are just doing it this way to help connect the dots.  When you click OK, an instance of Kontakt 5 - 16out will be inserted into the project, but will for the moment have no association to any audio or midi tracks (we don't have any yet).  But the synth will be present, and that's where we are starting here.

2.  When the Synth Property Page for Kontakt 5 opens, load up all of the multiple instruments you are going to use.  Notice that by default, K5 will automatically increment the midi channel for each instrument.  Do not worry about the routings yet - just get all of the instruments selected.

3.  At this point I do not know if you have the Output view button pressed - we will do our internal routing in that view, so let's see if you have it turned on at this point.  If it is selected for use, you will see some faders at the bottom and a little header row at the top of them that says Outputs at the far left.  The Outputs section will appear at the bottom of the instruments display.  If it is not shown, then you just have to select it, by clicking once on the button at the top that says 'Output'.

4.  OK, now by default, each inserted instrument will be defaulted to output signal to ST1 - the first stereo outputs for K5.  We want to change this, so that each instrument sends its output to a different stereo output.  We will get to the tracks and all of that in a bit - right now we need to address changing each instrument's outputs in K5.  Soooooo, if you look near the top left of each instrument, you will see (under the name of the instrument) the word 'Output' and it will at this point be set to ST 1.  You could change this right now by just clicking on the ST 1 and changing it to something else, but we are going to get them all taken care of in one swoop.  

5.  To change ALL of the instrument outputs in one shot, click down in the Output section at the bottom, where the faders are, ON the arrow in the little box that displays the words 'Preset / Batch Configuration'.  The arrow is pointing down, and clicking on it will open up a drop-down list of choices.

5.  From the drop-down list, hover your mouse down where it says 'Batch Functions'.  This will open a side-view list of some more choices.  Click on the choice that is labelled: 'Clear output section and create one individual channel for each loaded instrument'.  This will wipe out the default output setup and recreate it, with a dedicated channel and assignment for each instrument you had loaded up earlier.  This is a WONDERFUL function for them to have.  It could all be done manually, but this is just easier.

6.  Now if you want, you can rename the name of each output channel, by clicking on the name at the top of the fader, and typing in whatever you want.  This is just a nice display thing to do.  At this point, you will have all of the internal routing stuff taken care of, and it's on to getting tracks set up and assigned.

7.  In the track pane, right-click in the empty space (that's all there should be at the moment), and insert an audio track for each instrument you loaded into K5.  Also, at the bottom of those, insert one midi track for each instrument.  You can place these in any order doesn't matter.  You should now have one audio track and one midi track per K5 instrument.  Now we will make assignments to connect the tracks to the right inputs and outputs for K5.

8.  Rename each audio track to match the instrument we will be associating it with, so if you have a K5 piano loaded, rename an audio track to something like 'Piano', and also rename one of the midi tracks to something like 'Piano Midi'.  Do the same for the other audio and midi tracks.

9.  Now for the associations, let's say you have in K5: Piano on midi channel 1, Rhodes on midi channel 2, and bass on midi channel 3.  We have to connect the piano audio track to the piano outputs, and the piano midi track to the correct synth and correct midi channel.  The same will be done for all three sets of paired tracks and the instruments in K5.

10.  So, piano will be first in this example.  Click once on the audio track for Piano.  It will be default, have 'None' specified for input, and 'Master' for output.  (We will leave the audio outputs all set to Master for this example).  Click on the arrow next to 'None' to open up the list of choices for inputs to the piano track.  Scroll down to the Kontakt 5 choices, which will open up to the side.  Pick St1 stereo, or if you renamed the Output channel in K5, pick Piano Stereo.  This will send the stereo output for the K5 piano to the input for this audio track.  The output of the track will just go to Master, which will allow you to hear it - but not until we connect the midi track to drive the K5 piano and send the output to the Piano audio track.

11.  Sonar is nice on the first one - since here we only have 1 synth present, Sonar automatically assigns the midi track output of each of our midi tracks to Kontakt 5.  (later when you are doing this with multiple synths, you will have to tell it to use Kontakt 5, because it might be set to a drum synth or whatever.  But for our example, it is properly set to Kontakt 5.  But we do have some work to do on the Piano Midi track, and on all the midi tracks.  K5 instruments were set to use ascending midi channels, assigned incrementally as each instrument was loaded.  If you loaded Piano, Rhodes, Bass, then K5 starts them off on midi channels 1, 2, and 3 respectively.  You can of course change that in K5, but we will just use the initial settings for our example here.

12.  There are 3 things to concern us on each midi track.  Input, Output, and Midi Channel.  As I said already, the Output on each of our midi tracks is already set to Kontakt 5, so that part is done, but we still have the other two things to consider.  Let's talk input.  You could assign input on the piano midi track to only accept input from a particular controller, and on a particular channel.  You would do that by adjusting the Input (click on the arrow to the right and pick a controller and channel).  I recommend that you for this example just let the Input be set to All Inputs Omni, which is the default.  We DO have to make sure the midi channel for the Piano Midi track output matches the Piano midi channel assigned to the instrument in K5, and we will do that now.  It turns out that for our Piano midi track, the correct channel output is 1, if that was the order it was loaded into K5.  But what we want to do here is make SURE that our Piano Midi track only sends events on channel 1.  To do that, look on the channel strip for the Piano Midi track, and just below the FX bin (large black empty square), you will see the word 'None' and an arrow to the right of it.  This is where we can control the midi output channel for the midi track.  Click on the arrow next to where it says 'None' and set it to '1: Kontakt 5 16out'.  This will tell it to only output to midi channel 1 for playback, which is what we want.  At this point, you will have completed the setup for the audio track for piano, and connected a midi track to the piano you loaded in K5.  The audio will play the output from the K5 piano, driven by midi events recorded on the Piano Midi track on channel one - matching the midi channel in K5 for the Piano.

13.  Now do the same for the other 2 instruments.  For the Rhodes, assign the input for the Rhodes audio track to receive signal from Rhodes Stereo output from Kontakt 5 (or whatever you called the output channel in K5).  Then connect the midi track for Rhodes, by making sure the Output is set to Kontakt 5, and that the Midi Channel (below the FX Bin) is set to '2: Kontakt 5'.  The bass would get its audio input to be the Bass output from Kontakt 5, and the bass midi track would get its output set to Kontakt 5, and the Midi Channel (under FX Bin) to Midi Channel 3.

After doing all of the above, you will have set the internal routing for Kontakt 5, using in our example Piano, Rhodes, and Bass (substitute whatever you really want to use for doing it for yourself).  You will also have associated audio tracks to pick up the outputs from each loaded instrument in K5, and will have set midi tracks to output only on the midi channels that correspond to each instrument in K5, channel 1 for piano, channel 2 for Rhodes, and channel 3 for bass.

Now to test it all out, click on and arm the first midi track (Piano in this example).  Hit record and play some jibberish for a few measures.  It does not matter what you play - we just want to hear it play back piano.  As you are recording, you should hear Piano sounds playing, if the tracks were set up correctly.  Review the above steps if you are not hearing piano while recording.  Stop recording after a few measures, and then playback.  You should hear only piano playing back what you recorded.

Now, unarm the Piano track and arm the Rhodes midi track for recording.  Hit Record, and record a few measures of Rhodes.  You will hear the recorded piano music, but any notes you play when on the Rhodes track will only sound the RHodes sound.  Stop recording after a few measures and hit playback.  You will hear each midi track playing back just the sound for each track's instrument - the piano midi track will just sound like piano, and the Rhodes track will just sound like Rhodes.  Do the same for the Bass.

So sum up - once the internal routing in K5 is setup, associate an audio track and a midi track to each instrument, taking care to get the midi channels set correctly, and this should all work.

PLEASE feel free to ask for further explanations on any of the above.  Everybody has different ways of doing things, and the above could be done differently.  Since I took the time to write out the above steps, it is a reasonable set of steps to get you started with K5 output routings and getting them associated correctly to audio and midi tracks in X2, or whatever version you are running.

If you want me to literally walk you through doing the above, I would be happy to do it over the phone - just send me a private message and I will respond with my cell phone.  It's really not a bother, and I would like you to get this all  figured out.

Bob Bone