What the problem with Kontakt 2?

[Vyacheslav]

The great sampler NI Kontakr 2 das not working with REAPER yet. No GUI while loading the sampler, and ASIO driver (ESI Juli@ soundcard) is crashing every time.
Unfortunately, I can not understand, why it is happen.

[orabidoo]

seem that it works only with the 1.13 ....

[Ibaxx]

The great sampler NI Kontakr 2 das not working with REAPER yet. No GUI while loading the sampler, and ASIO driver (ESI Juli@ soundcard) is crashing every time.
Unfortunately, I can not understand, why it is happen.


on my pc kontakt works fine with reaper 1.2345

[orabidoo]

in all my host kontakt2 works fine ,in reaper 1.13 too what it s changed in other reapere release? only justin know it

[Frank C.]

Thanks for pointing out version 1.13 - I tried it briefly with Kontakt 2 and although there is some oddness it actually loads up the GUI and makes noise so that's a start. K2 didn't work in any other Reaper build I tried, including 1.24.

Justin: Please revisit the VSTi code in version 1.13. I'd really like to give Reaper a fair go but solid Kontakt 2 support is a prerequisite for me personally.

[Justin]

I'll see if I can get the demo going on my laptop.. can't on my main dev box because I had GR2 demo installed and it expired, which somehow prevented Kontakt2 demo from installing..

of course this would be moot if you could email NI support and mention your problems, and see if they'll send us a NFR version.. most other developers have been responsive to that, but generally it's better for the request to come from an existing (paid) plug-in user.

-Justin

[orabidoo]

with Regcleaner dont are to be able to clean any NI reg entries and restart the demo mode?

[Justin]

hmm just tried installing the kontakt2 demo on a system that had never had _ANY_ NI stuff installed... and the result-- it didnt work either. I guess their stuff is broken.

Waiting for a NFR version.. ;)

[Frank C.]

I've opened a support ticket with NI requesting a collaboration to get K2 working in Reaper, and suggested they send you an NFR version. I doubt I'll hear back for at least a couple days but it wouldn't hurt if other K2 users did the same.

[Frank C.]

Got a chance to play around with Reaper a bit more tonight and found that if you save a project that uses Kontakt 2 in Reaper 1.13, then open it in Reaper 1.24, Kontakt will continue to work in the newer version. I tried saving an FX chain in 1.13 and opening it with 1.24 but that alone doesn't seem to work.

There are still some usability issues however...

1). The Reaper UI becomes less and less responsive as more instrument slots are used up in K2. E.g. any time you click a button on any track the cursor will freeze and half a second later the button depresses and you're back in business. This doesn't seem to have anything to do with CPU usage or the complexity of the instruments - just the actual number of instrument slots in use.

2). Effects inserted on Kontakt's outputs get corrupted somehow - some result in no sound output (as if the internal K2 routings aren't connected) others simply don't sound or work properly - the waveform display on the convolution effect doesn't show up for example. Removing the effects and re-inserting them appears to fix this, but saving and reloading the patch messes things up again so this isn't really a solution.

Not sure if this'll help anyone but I figured I'd post my observations.

[Justin]

weird, the kontakt 2 demo here started working.. seems to work fine.. how do you guys get it to break?

-Justin

[Frank C.]

The demo might be based on an older version, or may a particularly glitchy feature disabled (e.g. perhaps it's the save/restore process that's causing problems).

With the latest release (v2.1.1) the plugin GUI doesn't show up when you add it to an FX chain, so the problems start right there, except in Reaper 1.13, where it displays just fine. I'm not sure if tweaking Reaper/Kontakt settings will fix the other issues I've mentioned but I'll play around with it some more later this week.

BTW: I got a reply from someone at NI support and he said:
I informed the Kontakt-team to have a look at reaper.

[orabidoo]

but why in reaper 1.13 works more vsti that in other releases?where are the difference?

[cyberturbo]

Thanks for pointing out version 1.13 - I tried it briefly with Kontakt 2 and although there is some oddness it actually loads up the GUI and makes noise so that's a start. K2 didn't work in any other Reaper build I tried, including 1.24.

Justin: Please revisit the VSTi code in version 1.13. I'd really like to give Reaper a fair go but solid Kontakt 2 support is a prerequisite for me personally.

Frank, that noise you're referring to can you confirm if that is the noise from floppy disc drive? I've noticed it does it on mine after launching REAPER. Also, I haven't confirmed this as I'm still testing this but if you don't have KONTAKT2 saved as docked in main window, I get an error when I start REAPER and crashes. In some cases when I finally get it to saved with VST docked, volumes in certain instruments gets dropped drastically when I launch REAPER (also still testing this). Have you heard anything back from Native Instrument?

I would love for all the other users to chime in on errors some are experiencing and new errors you're getting. I just got KONTAKT with the KOMPLETE 3 and would love to use this. BTW, I'm currently using the latest REAPER.

[Frank C.]

Frank, that noise you're referring to can you confirm if that is the noise from floppy disc drive?
I just meant that I could load an instrument an "make noise" ;) but yes, Kontakt does check the floppy drive whenever I load it up as well - in Reaper or not.

I haven't heard anything more from NI - I'm sure another user inquiring about Reaper will only help however.

[cyberturbo]

I just meant that I could load an instrument an "make noise" ;) but yes, Kontakt does check the floppy drive whenever I load it up as well - in Reaper or not.

I haven't heard anything more from NI - I'm sure another user inquiring about Reaper will only help however.

I just emailed NI now. We shall see.

[Frank C.]

I just emailed NI now. We shall see.
I got frustrated with the lack of progess and emailed NI again - and got this:

I reminded the Product Management. But I think the Reaper Folks have to improve their vst interface since Kontakt runs fine in all major hosts.

I've reminded NI (again) that they should send Cockos an NFR version for testing (I never suggested Kontakt was the problem, I asked them to cooperate with Cockos to fix whatever the problem might be).

I think the Reaper devs need to be more proactive however. Just looking through the compatibility threads and the recent Guitar Rig (http://www.cockos.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3578) thread it's obvious Reaper has problems with plugins where other hosts do not.

So Reaper devs, if compatibility is important to you please contact NI (http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=contactinfo_us) and ask for NFR versions yourselves - you're in a much better position to discuss the technical issues than us users.

I tried to help out, but it's back to Cubase for me...

[cyberturbo]

I got frustrated with the lack of progess and emailed NI again - and got this:



I've reminded NI (again) that they should send Cockos an NFR version for testing (I never suggested Kontakt was the problem, I asked them to cooperate with Cockos to fix whatever the problem might be).

I think the Reaper devs need to be more proactive however. Just looking through the compatibility threads and the recent Guitar Rig (http://www.cockos.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3578) thread it's obvious Reaper has problems with plugins where other hosts do not.

So Reaper devs, if compatibility is important to you please contact NI (http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=contactinfo_us) and ask for NFR versions yourselves - you're in a much better position to discuss the technical issues than us users.

I tried to help out, but it's back to Cubase for me...

Frank, thank you for your effort in this matter. They did response to me quickly and stated person responsible has been informed previously and advised developer to use the demo version. I agree that REAPER developers need to push matter (if the company wishes) otherwise nothing is going to happen. I hope you stick around for you to use REAPER someday.

[Frank C.]

...person responsible has been informed previously and advised developer to use the demo version.
According to Justin, the K2 demo works, so that's really not enough to get this fixed. NI came through with another email today:
we contacted reaper folks, I think the issue will get solved.
So there's still hope...

[keytar]

I think I figured out how to make Kontakt2 GUI appears in a track. I discovered this accidentally while messing around with reaper. Here is what I did:

1. Insert a new track in a project.
2. In the track control panel, enable "Record Monitoring" by setting it to "ON".
3. In the same track control panel, arm the Record button (record button should be lit).
4. Now, add Kontakt VST to the track FX. Kontakt GUI should should be visible

That's it! By the way, I am using Reaper 1.39 and Kontakt 2.1.1

Have fun!
-KT

[Dstruct]

if that's the workaround, than this should even work more comfortable for you:

preferences -> audio -> enable "always run track fx"

[Frank C.]

Tried both the "always run track fx" and record arming tricks and both times Reaper hung and I had to force quit (no GUI either). This was with K2 2.1.1 and Reaper 1.39...

[aldi]

keytars trick works here but the other way round.
1.insert kontakt
2. close fx window (important)
3. enable record and record listening

no if you open the fx window kontakt is there :)

you dont have to repeat it if you open the project after saving. strange.

[Frank C.]

I don't know if it's the Kontakt 2.2 update or Reaper 1.41 (or both) but that combo works :D (for the record I had "always run track fx" and the new "store as bank" options enabled).

I only played around with it briefly but did see some issues. As I mentioned previously the Reaper UI becomes less and less responsive the more instrument slots you fill in Kontakt 2, and some of Kontakt's internal insert effects still get mangled but it's not 100% reproducible like it was previously - sometimes a patch works, sometimes one or more outputs goes screwy. Only other thing I noticed is that keyboard input is partly broken in the Kontakt GUI (you can't rename instruments at least) but I'm not sure if there's a Reaper preference that's interfering.

Long story short, it's getting better - I wouldn't call it reliable/usable just yet but much better than before.