Welcome to KONTAKT, one of the most advanced samplers available on the market today.
This is a DEMO version of Kontakt, which has the following restrictions:

• save / total recall is disabled
• audio output is distorted from time to time

This document will help you to get started with KONTAKT.

How to Start

For a first impression of KONTAKT please take the following steps:

• Start the standalone version of KONTAKT
• Setting up your soundcard:
  
  Soundcard settings on PC:
  Choose ASIO or Soundcard Audio in the System->Audio Port Menu. If you use an ASIO card, select the proper driver in the Audio Settings in the System menu. If you are using Soundcard audio, please optimize your latency in the Audio Settings in the System menu.
  
  Soundcard settings on MAC:
  Choose ASIO or SoundManger Audio in the System->Audio Port Menu. If you use an ASIO card, select the proper driver in the Audio Settings in the System menu, make sure you have a copy of your ASIO driver in the ASIO driver folder located in the KONTAKT folder. The ASIO driver usually comes with your audio hardware.
  
  
• The browser on the left side of the program window allows you to drag and drop KONTAKT Instruments into the software.
• To play sounds by MIDI you need a MIDI interface and a MIDI controller or sequencer.
• To choose which MIDI ports and channels are active, choose "MIDI Settings" in the "System" menu.
• If you don't hear any sound, please check the "Audio Port" and "Audio Settings" menu and make sure the sound card's configuration is correct.
  
  

Caution

If you hear digital distortion (clipping) when playing many notes, you have to reduce the Volume setting in the KONTAKT panel. Software instruments can produce extremely high output levels, so please take care of your ears!

Dynamic RAM allocation

On the PC you can work with very large instruments even if your computer does not have enough RAM for the whole instrument. In this case KONTAKT will only load the samples into RAM which have already been played once. If you hear some crackles or strange noises when playing a large instrument, the samples probably are not present in RAM at this time. The crackles will vanish when KONTAKT has reloaded the needed samples from harddisk into RAM. Other samples which you don't use will stay on the harddisk. On Mac you will not be able to load samples at all which don't fit into RAM, since it is generally recommended to deactivate Virtual Memory if you work with audio software. Make sure that you always assign enough memory to KONTAKT or the applicaton hosting KONTAKT.

Multiple Instances

One KONTAKT instance can play back 256 voices. If you need more voices and your computer can handle it, simply use another instance of KONTAKT as a PlugIn to obtain another 256 voices. You can use as many instances of KONTAKT as your host program supports.

Emagic Logic Audio Notes

Logic Audio (version 5.1 and earlier) does not support multiple outputs for VST instruments. In case you need to process different KONTAKT instruments independently, you can instantiate another instance of the KONTAKT VST plugin. Multiple output assignments in Logic Audio will have no effect.
Logic Audio (version 4.81 and earlier) has its own method for assigning MIDI controller numbers to VST plug-ins. MIDI automation might not work as you would expect: The channel selector in the instrument parameter box does not work correctly with VST instruments, as the channel of the events is always used. Emagic Logic does not pass any computer keyboard strokes to the VST plugin.

Also important is the "delete-key" issue on Logic. Logic absolutely refuses to give any key strokes to its plugins. So we have made a workaround, which uses Ctrl + DEL to remove a selected zone or instrument. Note that you'll have to enable that feature in the option dialog. (non-Logic users will not need it)

Software Updates

KONTAKT is a powerful and complex piece of software which is constantly being improved by Native Instruments. For optimal performance please make sure that you always use the latest version of KONTAKT. You can download updates from the Native Instruments homepage in the "Products" section.

For more information about other Native Instruments products please visit the NI homepage

www.native-instruments.com or contact NI at info@native-instruments.com

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