No doubt I will feel quite embarrassed when someone explains, but here goes.
 
• I have Kontakt 5.
• The bundled content (in the Band folder) contains three acoustic guitar patches called Akkord.
• I can make these play various strumming pattens by selecting one of the patterns by keyswitch or rotary knob in the Kontakt interface and then putting MIDI notes in the sequence.  For example, if I put a G in the sequence, the instrument will strum a G major chord in time with the Sonar tempo.  (I did discover that a single note plays a major chord, but you can play two or more notes to define your own chords.)
 
So far, so good.  Now the confusion:
1.  I cannot find a way to use this just as an acoustic guitar without the strumming.  When I turn the Pattern Switch to Off, it doesn't strum anymore, but won't play any single notes I sequence.  (The Kontakt virtual keyboard won't play single notes either.)
2.  All three of the Akkord guitars SEEM to be identical except for having different strum patterns.
3.  One of the Akkord guitars has All Chords in its name, which is confusing if you define your own chords anyway.
 
This instrument is cool but if I am limited to the predfined strumming it is of very limited use.  I would be surprised if the Kontakt collection did not have a way to use "normal" acoustic guitar.
 
I have MusicLab RealGuitar and Vir2 Acoustic Legends, so this is not a crisis, but I use a LOT of acoustic guitar and would like to have another option.  Acoustic guitar drives almost all my country, folk, and rock songs so it is important to me.
 
Anyone Kontakt users out there have any ideas?
 
Thanks!
 

I have not done the above, but do have Kontakt 5, so I will try to play around with this and see what happens.

Bob Bone

konradh



1.  I cannot find a way to use this just as an acoustic guitar without the strumming.  When I turn the Pattern Switch to Off, it doesn't strum anymore, but won't play any single notes I sequence.  (The Kontakt virtual keyboard won't play single notes either.) 
 

I have not spent much time with the Akkord guitar but I suppose given NI obsession with K the "kord" in the name could be a clue. The same question was posted on the NI forums and the answer was it cannot play single notes.
 
If you want more options there are quite a few out there, sticking to the ones I know; Orange Tree Steel Strings is the best of the bunch, Cheaper but still very good is Indiginus Acoustic Guitar Collection. Both have strums and single note options.
 
Cheaper still and OK if you do not want strum functions is the stuff from Lyrical Distortion, basic but only $19 a pop.

BTW - All these need the full version of Kontakt.

Ok, thanks guys.  Really surprising that Kontakt does not offer a "normal" acoustic in its bundled content, but I do have other options so no worries.

It does make me wonder what the pattern switch is for.

That's a bummer.  I always just make my own strums using the nylon guitar in either Kontakt or one of the guitars in Dim Pro.

Sorry Kontakt Kant Kome up with a Kool way to do this.

Bob Bone

konradh

It does make me wonder what the pattern switch is for. 

Hi, Konrad. At work (ahem!), so I can't verify this right now, but I believe with the pattern switch off you can hold down chords and trigger strums/mutes manually with keys those articulations are assigned to. My Akkord is from Kontakt 3 or 4, though. Not sure if it's the same in 5.

Akkord in K5 is the same lib that was in K3 and K4. Still sucks. Between RealGuitar and Acoustic Legends I can't imagine why you'd ever even bother with Kontakt's lame guitar samples.

bitflipper, I do find RealGuitar the ultimate for strumming and although RG will do great solo work, I use Ac Legends quite a bit for solos—but I wish it had some instruments recorded with stereo pick-ups.  Just thought I'd check out what Kontakt had to offer there.

By the way, my Tyros 2 has some acoustic guitars (same as the Motif MegaVoice) that are a little less natural sounding than the aforementioned, but they are cool for certain things.  The nylon is excellent and the steel sounds a little processed but interesting.

Just to wrap this up:

• The Kontakt Akkord guitar does not have a solo mode.
• When you turn the Pattern switch off and on you change the function of the key swithces.
• With pattern mode in ON, the keyswitches select pre-defined strumming patterns.
• With pattern mode OFF, the keyswitches trigger various articulations (down storke, up stroke, mute, etc.)

Still not sure of the differences in the three versions of Akkord.

This is not as cool as RealGuitar, but I could make it work.  I still may use it for some variety.