Ableton Live & Kontakt Tutorial | Multiple Outputs & Instruments | The Definitive Guide
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This is the definitive tutorial guide to setting up multiple instruments and multiple stereo outputs for Kontakt in Ableton Live!
This tutorial works for the Kontakt Player and the full version of Kontakt from Native Instruments.
Along the way you will learn how to setup multiple outputs in Kontakt (the easiest, best, correct way) and then how to use the External Instrument device in Ableton Live to receive those outputs. You will also learn how to set up multiple instruments within one instance of Kontakt and control them with combined or separate MIDI signals.
There is a lot to cover and the entire video / process is important to understand. There are some finicky bits along the way that cause people issues, so follow along closely and do everything exactly as I do it.
Go ahead and load Kontakt in Ableton Live. Any version is fine for this and the process will be the same for each of them. Don’t load an instrument yet.
Make sure you can see your outputs.
How to See the Outputs Panel in Kontakt
Next, in the Outputs panel, click the + button. This will bring up the Outputs menu. Look at the picture below and make yours look the same. This will set up 4 stereo outputs (8 mono channels total).
Outputs Configuration in Kontakt
Quantity 4
Number of Channels 2
Soundcard / Host output Kt. st. 1[1] (*this is very important)
Ascending output Assignment CHECKED
Delete existing channels… CHECKED
Make this your default… UNCHECKED
Multiple Outputs Configuration in Kontakt
Once you click OK, you should see what is pictured below. There should now be 4 Stereo Channels and 4 AUX Channels. At the bottom the first four channels (st.1-st.4) should be ascending in order by pairs 1|2, 3|4, 5|6, 7|8
If they are not the same, you’ve missed something in the last step.
New Stereo Output Configuration in Kontakt
The next thing to do is save this as the default preset. You can do this by click the big “Presets / Batch Configuration” button next to the + - buttons.
I suggest doing this, so these outputs will be set up every time you launch the Kontakt VST Plugin. You can also just save the output section preset as.. and save it somewhere else. That’s up to you. The with the former, Kontakt will still function as normal even if you are not using multiple outputs.
IMPORTANT: Now delete the Kontakt VST Plugin and re-launch it. If you don’t do this you will run into issue in the later steps. DO THIS!
Next we need to add the External Instrument device in Ableton Live. This is available in the Standard and Suite additions of Live. If you are using Live Lite, you are out of luck.
This device does two important things. It can send MIDI information to a Kontakt instrument on another channel and receive audio from any of the newly created audio outputs.
There are two drop downs in the MIDI To are. The first is the actual Kontakt Instrument. If you only have 1, choose 1-Kontakt.
The second drop down is for the instrument in the instantiation of the Kontakt instrument container. If you have more than one isntrument loaded, you will want to choose whichever it is in the order from Top (being #1) to bottom.
If you are using an instrument in Kontakt that has multiple outputs of its own, just leave this on 1-Kontakt as well.
The Audio From drop down is where you will select the Stereo Output in Kontakt. Which ever audio you route to that particular output in Kontakt will come out on this channel.
If you didn’t delete and re-launch Kontakt in the early steps, you would see Kt. St.2 or Kt. st. 3, etc.
You will want to load 3 Ext. Instruments and make sure the Audio From options are for st.2, st.3 and st.4
The MIDI channel that the actual Kontakt VST lives on will by st.1
External Instrument Device Setup
Now you will have complete control over each instrument and stereo output and you will have to route the actual instruments loaded in the Kontakt plugin.
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#KontaktTutorial
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This couldn't be more straightforward, clear and simple. Thank you bro!!
Glad it helped!
except for all the parts that aren't clear, or straightforward. not that this is a complicated exercise, but i suspect joshua casper smokes a bit of jacky jasper. there are mapping issues ... mapping of thoughts to mouth.
Best tutorial I've ever see in this platform. Thanks now i can produce music in peace
Thx so much!!! I was sitting there for hours trying to fix this myth, not knowing about these particular and important steps.
Awesome!!!
You have nothing but my overwhelming gratitude right now. Thank you so much, Josh!
Thank You for making this tutorial Joshua, byfar the best one explaining this!! I think of the time wasted watching others that do not explain this clearly, or trying on my own.....clicked here and now it's clear!! I have it saved in case I need to see something again, and I've subscribed and following as you know your stuff and know how to explain in a consice way
Just want to say thank you so much man I was struggling with getting the routing fixed like you showed here for my Access Virus Emulation vst's Osirus, Ostirus and Vavra Synths and they work perfectly now. One Plugin, 16 separate instrument channels for these awesome quality sounding synths.
this is like the very best music related tutorial outthere... thank you dude!!
I was gonna click the top video but I knew from the thumbnail this one was gonna be way more straightforward.
oh my god, thank you so much. you are a great teacher.
Thanks, points and prizes, really easy to follow even with & where they make it trickier to find. Much appreciated.
Thankfully, external Instrument is also in Standard version (2:38). Thanks for the tutorial, this is really helpful for me as I make the switch to using Ableton.
DUDE YOU ROCK!!!
THANKS THAT'S EXACTLLY WHAT I MISSED
I googled this, and as soon as I heard your voice introducing it I was like, "Ah it's Joshua", good man
thankyou so much,, this is the easiest explain I've ever watch,, really help me out this issue
Thanks for this. I’ve been working on projects by loading Kontakt separately on each track because I could never get this to work properly. I scored a whole feature film like that. Haha. I’m sure the next one will be a ton more efficient.
Finally someone cracked the safe open thanx man
That solved all my problems. THANK YOU for this organized and CORRECT explanation.
so simple, thanks!
Thank you a lot! Truly helps.
thank you so much man, i didn't knew i needed to close kontakt and re-open it
This is absolutely fantastic
THEEEEE BEST VIDEO EXPLANATION!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!
Thats the right guide..really thank you!
Awesome! works fine for me... good job. Thanks for sharing
Woah this was awesome to finally see someone using Ableton with big Kontakt libraries. Most of the tuts I've seen online are using logic (ala Spitfire's peeps) and it's kinda frustrating. I never knew how to do this til seeing your video. Thank You! I'll be checking your current uploads but I would love to see how you deal with Dynamics & Expression in Ableton. I always see Christian Henson using his two assigned faders as he plays but I'm limited to the mod wheel on my Bass Station2 and also haven't found an efficient way to use my APC40's faders as dedicated dyn/exp controllers. It would be awesome to see how you apply dyn/exp to something like a string library. I always end up drawing them in and honestly never feel like I'm doing it correctly. I either fade the dynamics down too much or not enough and then they end up sounding fake. Lastly if I want to use more than 4 stereo instruments in the Kontakt Player (free) version can I do 8? Or I have to resort to 2 instances of 4? I couldn't find anything online noting the max # of stereo outputs Sorry for the long winded question thanks again for this eye opening tutorial.
I'm pretty sure you can go 8 and even more... the process would be the same as that of this video tutorial. Try it out. Let me know your results. :)
@@JoshuaCasper Woohoo! I probably should've tried it first but yes it def works with 8. Thanks for the quick reply. I'm hoping this cures my crash rate too. In most projects I'd have an instance of Stratus then maybe three more instances with Albion One. Every time I'd exit Ableton or try to open a new project it would hang with the beach ball indefinitely. Either way my mind is blown from this tutorial. Thank you!
Thanks a lot ! understandably and intelligibly, very few people can explain at this level
So much awsome man! Thank you
A million Thanks !!.
Thank you 😊
Really big thanks for this!
No problem!
Finally some fucking good tutorial.
Having Ableton and trying to trigger articulations in SSS was a pian :D
Yes, that was "the missing step", thank you!
Great help 👍🏼 thank 😎
2:37 this is the magical step. This is what helps you route the outputs from whatever plugin that has multiple outs to single tracks in ableton. You can do it other ways, but this is truely the way one should chose. There is a but to this though... if for instance you have a compressor on the "master" within the plugin - that affects all tracks that you want to route out - usually the effect of this compressor is not applied to the individual outs - they bypass it. So you should really decide to set up your multiple outs before you create/finetune your sound.
Thank you! It works!!!
Thank you very much for this great tutorial! ;)
THANKYOU BRO!!!!!
Helped a lott
Changed my life. & My CPU's
Subbed for this. Wow.
MASSIVE Thanks!
We thank so much
Bro, you the best!
Most appreciated!
THANK. YOU.
Thanks for the tutorial
I don't see Kontakt as an external instrument :(
Might not matter as I can set the output type to the track with Kontakt in channel 1 set the output from additional instruments to channel 2-Kontakt. Your video helped clear something up so thanks much
I was stuck there too.. it helped
Thank You once again bro.. 👍👍👍
muchas graciaaaas , tu a sauvé ma nuit
Thanks for the tutorial. I guess there is no way to do this without using the external instrument device? I have Ableton Intro which doesn't have it.
Answer to self: The way to do it is to create a multi-rack instrument in Kontakt, assign each instrument to its own output, as the video shows, then create additional midi tracks and select the corresponding Kontakt instrument using the dropdown "Midi To" on each new track (2-Kontakt, 3-Kontakt, etc).
I've been searching around and watching a lot of videos until this and it is just the real deal! Thanks to you for that
But there is a downside to this method, or is it the Ableton/kontakt issue.
Imagine having multiple instruments and some of them having a keyswitch. If I change the channels on the ableton live, the Kontakt window vanishes except for the main Kontakt channel.
Is there anyway you can keep the Kontakt Channel visible I am afraid it probably isn't possible.
Thanks in advance
Thanks for this, Will having various instruments on one Kontakt save my cpu as oppose to having different channels of Kontakt instruments on my daw?
I cannot thank you enough
just the one thanks and maybe a like on the video... all i ask :)
Great video! I've been honestly wondering what the main difference is between putting a contact player on each track, versus doing something like this. I've heard back and forth that it the ability to be more efficient, but I haven't figured out how. What's the primary use case for this?
For me, it's more about getting multiple channels out of 1 instrument, more than using two or more instruments at one time.
I believe it mostly saves CPU if you're using multiple instances of the same instrument with different settings.. it only loads the instrument into RAM once but you can have different presets etc..
I believe Steve is correct. If you're using a beefy sample library, like some high quality strings or orchestra, you can save a ton of RAM by doing this. So if you want to have an instance of Kontakt for your violins, you can have your legatos, pizzicatos, and such all loaded in at the same time and not use xGB of RAM however many articulations you have open.
So If I'm understanding correctly, Kontakt cannot be used in any versions of Ableton below Suite? Because of the lack of an "external instrument" option under "Instruments".
A bit late, but I have standard and it totally works the same.
many thanks bro
Thanks for the info, but Kontakt isn't showing up on the "midi to" menu, it just shows my midi controller outputs. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
Followed this step by step but can't seem to get individual hits from Butch Vig loops too play out to separate channels (16). I opened the "wrench" and set outputs there to each of my 16 stereo outputs on Kontakt and the meters hit the stereo outputs in kontakt, but no signal in the external instruments channels (even though the stereo outputs show up in the dropdown).
Hi..
How to use One Instance of Kontakt with Multi Instruments in Chain Selector ?
This is great, but Kontakt isn't showing up on my midi to in my external instrument plug in. Do you know how to fix that?
At 1:50 if you keep Kontakt nested inside a rack by default, make sure to save the rack or the changes won't be there with your additional outputs. Even if you click "save as default" inside kontakt.
Can you elaborate this how to save the rack?
@@hendriksahertian5525 Don't think just saving settings in kontakt is enough if you are using kontakt inside a rack.
Save your settings in kontakt first. Then save the rack it's nested in.
2:34 I have Ableton Lite, what do I do? There's no 'External Instrument' there for me
Very helpful but where did your Kontakt libraries go in the 16ch version of Kontakt?
I've kontakted ... lolz... their support team about it. I bought the full version of Kontakt and for some reason when i install via Native Access the don't get installed in the full version. I will probably make a video about it once it's resolved. Good eye though.
the EXACT same thing happened to me what a trip! btw great videos man, what keeps you going - like motivated to make new videos?
Thanks mate. Very helpful.
Is it possible to freeze the Kontakt instrument with multiple routings?
If not, would separate (freezable) Kontakt players on multiple channels be less CPU intensive?
Thanks for video BUT i have a question! How you control the volume if each external rack. The "gain" knob is doesnt work((please help(( And how add effects to each midi track?
The channel fader in Ableton still works bro. That is how you control the volume, the same way you would if the instance of Komplete was on the channel inside the DAW. Pretty simple. Also try setting your mixer channels in Ableton so you can gain stage, put a utility and Voxengo Span (free download on google) on each channel and use SPAN to see your meter and utilities volume knob to attenuate the volume, keep elements of the track between 12-18db of gain. Will really help your mix when you get to the mastering phase.
I'm researching a replacement/supplement DAW and I'm glad I thought to look into multi-out VIs. Ableton is very tedious in this regard compared to others, at least Logic and Studio One. Definitely a strike against Ableton.
Thanks for the vid!
What about looping the kontakt master out into a mixer with external hardware synths then into a looper like boss rc 505 or ableton loop audio channels itself then back into ableton to record! (Mind blown! Aggregated device, multiple audio loopback)
ok i gotta real issue ive loaded maschine as a plugin inside of ableton live 10 standard and ive got knotakt as a plugin in maschine when i go to try to route the sounds nothing is there to click on and send kontakt rack instruments from the session that ive maschine as a plugin
Thank you! Do you know if there is a way to add Ableton control sliders to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th midi channels? I can only find a "configure" button on the main Kontakt instrument (Midi channel 1), not in the "External instruments" (Midi channels 2-4)
I love you
1:37 mine only shows the L and R speakers option, what am I doing wrong?
I had the same problem and I belive it is what happens if you don't load Kontakt up in Ableton but as the standalone program.
I just checked, it's exactly this. He doesn't tell in the video so I checked the written form of the tutorial, there he says "load Kontakt in Ableton".
tutorial didn't really help. /: I was able to set up the outputs but I'II get the dry drum sounds in the audio channels that I set up for some reason. which is almost useless to me. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. /:
Didn't do it for me, i can't find Kontak 6 in my VST folder
doesnt work on mac :(
Works differently with Ableton Lite 😔
that's how the cookie crumbles, my friend :(
This is the only thing I hate about ableton . No premade templates like reaper
Good video, but holy hell this is CRAP from ableton.
Thank you!!!
Thank you 🙂