I am trying to test a temporary version of Evolution Strawberry with Music Creator 6, but getting nowhere.  My computer is a 2 year old Dell and I want to take Evolution Strawberry for a test drive to see if my CPU is strong enough to use that product or if I will find myself in "latency hell" and have to come up with some other solution (like maybe a new, more expensive computer). Orange Tree sent me a temporary version that works for 15 minutes at a time.  I put a copy of the Evolution Strawberry folder under C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Vstplugins and then I rescanned the VST Plugins.  But I still don't see Evolution Strawberry as an option in Music Creator 6.  My questions at this point are:

- How do I load Evolution Strawberry into Music Creator 6?  Is it a VST Plugin?  If so, why doesn't it appear in the plugins list?
- Do I have to buy some base product from Kontakt to be able to use Evolution Strawberry?  I think the promotional material says it comes with Kontakt.  Since I don't understand fully what Kontakt and Strawberry are, I am confused about what I need.
- Should I switch to Cakewalk by BandLab (which I see is free) instead of Music Creator 6?

Hi Steve,
 
Evolution Strawberry is a Native Instruments Kontakt library, so requires Kontakt or Kontakt Player, which functions as the VST instrument.  You were on the right track, but you need to install the Kontakt Player (not the Evolution library) to your VST folder. 
 
Music Creator 6 has full VST support so should work just fine.
 
I found this YouTube video which explains how to download and install the free Kontakt Player.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZY74Xz3yNw
 

Jon
 
Thanks for the reply.  I've invested more time on this today and still nothing.  I contacted Orange Tree support.  At their suggestion I installed Native Instruments Native Access and then I installed Kontakt Player 6.  I re-scanned and still nothing appears.  I installed the new Cakewalk DAW by BandLab and I looked there - nothing.  So when I saw your reply I created a new folder under the Cakewalk VST folder and copied the Kontakt.dll file there (in Music Creator 6).  I re-scanned, and still nothing.  I can't believe this is so complicated.  I'm about to give up.  This is just no fun.  Do you have any idea how I solve this problem?  I may have to just settle on using the VST instruments that come with Cakewalk and give up on Strawberry.  It looks really cool, but I'm losing faith that I can ever get it to work.
 
Steve
 

Jon
 
I went back to the new Cakewalk by BandLab and after I re-scanned the VST Plugins I see a Native Instruments node and under that is Kontakt.  So I can add a Kontakt Simple Instrument track to my project, but how do I get it to be Evolution Strawberry?
 
Thanks, Steve
 

Jon
 
I have discovered two more things:
 
It looks like none of my soft synths are working in Cakewalk by BandLab.  I can play an audio track and I hear the sound.  I can play a MIDI keyboard connected to the computer and if I select Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth as the output I hear the notes.  But if I select Cakewalk TTS as the output or Cakewalk Sound Center I hear nothing.  So maybe my audio is not set up correctly, but I can hear the audio clip play in the audio track.
 
Also, I found how to view Kontakt libraries in Native Access and the Evolution Strawberry does not appear.  When I try to add it by browsing to the instrument file on my computer it gives me an error message that the library is not installed.  So I have contacted Orange Tree help desk with that problem. 
 
But if you have any idea why my soft synths are not working that is probably a separate problem.
 
Steve