Amazing tutorial! I was always using two channels pers instrument: one for audio and another one for midi. This is way better and simpler in every aspect. Thanks!
Thank you so much, i searched for awhile for this. Truly easy to understand and no nonsense. I paused it and kept writing down each step. Finalllllly its working!
I know this is an old video, but thank you so much for this clear tutorial. I've been racking my brain trying to figure this out and now I get how easy it really is. Thanks again.
This is great. The CPU strain save, and being able to have mix ready control for whatever combination I think up is a time saver. Thank you for sharing this set up.
This is mind blowing thank you so much! DO you know if its possible to disable a track in Ableton so that you save ram ? I can't find any answers on the internet...
Great video. Question: How do I isolate sustain(pedal) in Ableton on one instrument with multiple instruments like in your video. So for instance in Ableton I have1 track with 2 instruments (piano and flute) and I only want to use my sustainPEDAL for the piano and not trigger the flute as well.
I have been trying to figure this out for SO LONG and I finally have done it!! Okay. So. Set everything up the way he tells you to. Then right click the midi track you want to add effects to and choose "Insert Return Track." Then, you'll see a thin track show up above the master track (assuming you're working in arrangement view). If you're in session view, it will show up just to the left of the master track. Okay, so. Add the desired effect to that Return Track. THEN, you might have also noticed that a third "-inf" has shown up on all your tracks in the Mixer Section. If you don't see it, no worries. Get on arrangement view if you're not. (it's easier to explain where it is for me on arrangement view, but it's all also available in Session View). Look all the way to the right of your midi channel. Play your music. Just to the left of the green volume indicator is the group of "-inf" buttons. Adjust the volume on the third one until you hear the desired level of your desired effect. You can use that effect for any of your tracks, and it will only effect the audio of the midi in the channel, not all the instruments in your instance of Kontakt. Hope this helps and I explained everything well enough!
Thanks. This helped me out with Omnisphere as well. Most daws allow you to do this within the tracks. I would have never figured out that it required an additional plugin!
Nice video ! I'm still trying to understand why would I want to do this rather than create a new kontakt instument for each track I need ? Does it make a significant difference on the CPU / RAM... or is there another use that I'm not getting ?
Thank for the video but I have a problem, I use fl studio but I can't' make the setting in the DAW, I can do what you showed for Kontakt but the fl has a very different way to operate, can you help me in any way?
I’m having trouble seeing more than two options for soundcard / host output. It only shows me stereo 1 and 2. Everything else is not connected. It only shows st. [1] and st. [2]. The list doesn’t even drop down like this with AUX options. So it keeps me from outputting more than one instrument channel in my DAW. How do I add more soundcard / host output options?
thanks, but where are the graphic automations on the external inst? it only graphic at the principal track, and I can´t asign one knob to control the dinamic but in external inst, but it asign 1st knob for the 1st trank, 2nd knob for the 2nd track and I want to use 1st knob only for dinamics in all the external inst... HELP!
I'm not able to select St.2 on the 2nd midi track. I can only see Aux (Although on track 1 I could see St.1 - St.8). Any ideas why it is not showing up ?
Channels 1 & 2 work great but I tried getting assigned audio out of the 3rd midi channel with no results. I'm using output 3 and midi 3 in Kontakt. Any ideas? I'm on Ableton 10 Kontakt 6
Good stuff. Thank you Joshua ! I only struggle with External instrument settings. I did setup 8 stereo channels and in the External Instrument I see just fine Midi To 1- Kontakt5 to 2 or 3-Kontakt5 however when I click on Audio from I do not see the Stereo channels I've just setup. I see only 1-4 Aux plus Unassigned 1-11 Kontakt 5 so what am I doing wrong ? In other words when I add the 4th midi channel and wanna choose Audio From and I choose Aux 4 it still looks like it's having information provided from Aux3.. Thank you !
OK, I think I got it. The moment I'm creating all of those stereo channels before dropping another vsts into Kontakt it's having problems in recognizing them by External Instrument - don't know why - probably I've missed something on the way. Now, when I add VST and then setup master channels one by one in each and every VST I'm adding then External Instrument sees them just fine. Anyways, thanks again for your tutorial mate, cheers !
There is a way that when u load a new instance on kontakt automatically change to a new stereo output? i found that it's a little bit tedious and i want to improve my workflow, thanks : )
Well, somehow it doesn't work in Reaper, at least for me. I have to open up another track to recieve the sound from 3/4. I'd like to send the Midi-Ch#2 signal with one track and recieve the audio on 3/4 on the same track. Is this possible?
is gravity in komplete 10? I'm lazy I should just check... My cpu is pretty able to handle alot doing on but rounds in reactor is rediculous for high usage...
Sorry long reply, but this video keeps coming up in my RUclips feed. It's debatable actually, whether multi-instrument will be better for a given computer system, or depending on the DAW, and the specific project. Check the NI forums for any number of discussions about it. One thing that may be misleading in Ableton Live is the way the Ableton CPU meter works. I'm told the Ableton CPU meter is showing the CPU usage of the busiest single core. Here's an interesting a quote from Ableton's support pages, "Live uses one thread per signal path, a set with just one track could potentially result in high CPU load if the track contains, for instance, a CPU-intensive instrument followed by a large chain of CPU-intensive effects". Threads are bound to a single CPU core, so a large multi-instrument instances is bound to one thread and one CPU core, which is definitely a bottleneck that doesn't exist using multiple instances. Again, this may vary based on your system, are you running a 15 year old dual-core CPU with two logical cores, or the latest i9 with 20 logical cores? Likely you are somewhere in between, which is why it's important to understand YMMV. I've gone back to using predominantly individual instances, not because of any issues with CPU or memory, but because I was never able to figure out how to separately automate multi-instrument instances in Ableton Live. For example, say I assign an Ableton macro to the filter cutoff of one instrument's filter, well any other instruments with a filter and a parameter named "Cutoff" also get modulated. Even if there's a work around for this, and it's just my lack of knowledge for how to "properly" do it, I immediately found my workflow improved after returning to separate instances. Finally, whenever I have CPU issues, I can freeze only the track or tracks that have CPU intensive instruments. Think about how this contrasts to what happens if you try and freeze your track that contains a multi-instrument, it's not possible and you'll get a warning about the routing. So, I would caution anyone from adopting multi-instrument just because it's possible, and definitely not because someone else says it works better for them.
Joshua Casper yes the area at the top of Kontact, mine doesn't show that whole left portion that yours does that has the output source, the browser etc. I can send you a screenshot if we need to. That's strange. I do find the out puts.
You should read the written tutorial - link in the video description. But, the options you're looking for, I think, can be shown by click the area higih lighted in red in this image. i0.wp.com/www.joshuacasper.com/contents/uploads/multiple-outputs-midi-channels-kontakt-istruments.png
Oh nevermind. It's different than I'm used to. Instead of saying kontakt, it says the track name. I have to click that in order for kontakt to show up. I was looking for it to just say kontakt and then I'd click on that for the first midi to option.
interestingly I found having one instance of kontakt for each instrument uses less cpu power than having one instance of kontakt and routing them into separate channels. try it out!
Thank you Joshua Casper! Thank you for this super important lecture but also thank you for your professional and respectful style of presentation. Please, please keep doing a good job, I can't take anymore 'characters' doing their schticks! Or Advanced level tuts which spend half of the time explaining 'warping' for example. Or other basic stuff. I apologize if I sound like an entitled snob, I do understand these are free, un-curated videos without sponsors or production companies. God bless all the content creators! I wish them the best from the bottom of my hearth. But not to point out the difference between your style and majority other on YT/Ableton trend, would be pretending and lying to everyone involved. While I'm ranting to an empty audience floor, let me finish with my biggest issue which on regular basis throws me off and turn off YT altogether: Not being able to filter out old/irrelevant videos from my searches or YT recommendations! Why da faq would I want to see tuts featuring Live 8 or earlier? And why, oh why Google not just insists on showing me Live lectures from 5+ years ago (again and again) but also makes it super inconvenient to find out when was the video made, using which version? Is it the revenue? Well, like I said, nothing, not even schysters doing infomercials wrapped up like tutorials, can make me tune out faster then repeated hits of outdated videos! In case you were wondering... God, noone will ever read any of this... I'm arguing on YT comments - with myself... ... and I used to be a cool dude! I swear! This is what 'bottom' feels like... Obama!!!
The problem is I cannot see the automation knobs I've set up inside the external instrument track no matter what I select. I can only see the automation knob in the kontakt track itself.
ok, thanks Joshua. Just one last thing: I'm pretty sure I followed every step but under "Audio From", in every External Instrument menu, stereo channels don't appear (screenshot: i.snag.gy/pc6k2L.jpg). Do you have an idea why this happen? Thanks anyway
i don't know why , but some times , this doesnt work ... I'm doing exactly what you did , but nothing. after restarting Ableton . its working .. do you know why ?
This problem has been reported before. I mentioned it in my earlier version of this tutorial and, after you reminding me, I have updated the written tutorial for this one as well. I am not sure why that happens though... I almost never happens for me.
Brandon Garcia, CPU mainly. also, kontakt is designed to be set up like it is in the video. having to launch a new instance of it every time you want to edit some would be tedious. having multiple instruments in one instantiation of kontakt is gold.
This seems so pointless, if I wanted a new instrument on a new track I'd create a new instance of Kontakt. What I really wanted was to be able to switch between instruments in the same instance of kontakt by changing the midi channel on my keyboard with the push of a single button. What you seem to be saying is that every time you want to do this, you need to create a new midi track with an "external instrument" plugin on it. This basically makes what is supposed to be a convenient way to switch quickly between instruments via your midi keyboard into the most ridiculous hassle.
Almost 8 years later this is still helpful! Short, precise, and exactly the help I needed.
thank you. Clear and no bla bla. Thumbs up
thanks for that!
Amazing tutorial! I was always using two channels pers instrument: one for audio and another one for midi. This is way better and simpler in every aspect. Thanks!
Thanks for this Video, you really saved me from a severe migraine!
Thank you so much, i searched for awhile for this. Truly easy to understand and no nonsense. I paused it and kept writing down each step. Finalllllly its working!
Wow, can't believe I never went out of my way to learn this.
It's gonna save my ass for the large orchestral write-ups.
Thank you for this!
What the heck I found you here lol
Perfect video! Straight to the point. Thankyou so much.
I know this is an old video, but thank you so much for this clear tutorial. I've been racking my brain trying to figure this out and now I get how easy it really is. Thanks again.
Thank you for this very clear/short tutorial. Really helpful. Cheers
no problem !!
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I've been searching for this for days!
hahaha, just sub to my channel. I posted this one is Aug 2016 :)
Just Subscribed Man! ;)
excellent. dummyproof and straight to the point explanation. thanks man.
This is great. The CPU strain save, and being able to have mix ready control for whatever combination I think up is a time saver. Thank you for sharing this set up.
Hey thanks, ...it's really an excellent tutorial! By far, the best I've seen on this subject!
August Sartori nice one!!
This is mind blowing thank you so much! DO you know if its possible to disable a track in Ableton so that you save ram ? I can't find any answers on the internet...
you can freeze it
Really nice tutorial, had a problem understanding the midi routing part, but you cleared all that out ! cheers mate ! :D
glad to hear it!!
Great video. Question: How do I isolate sustain(pedal) in Ableton on one instrument with multiple instruments like in your video.
So for instance in Ableton I have1 track with 2 instruments (piano and flute) and I only want to use my sustainPEDAL for the piano and not trigger the flute as well.
I have been trying to figure this out for SO LONG and I finally have done it!! Okay. So. Set everything up the way he tells you to. Then right click the midi track you want to add effects to and choose "Insert Return Track." Then, you'll see a thin track show up above the master track (assuming you're working in arrangement view). If you're in session view, it will show up just to the left of the master track. Okay, so. Add the desired effect to that Return Track. THEN, you might have also noticed that a third "-inf" has shown up on all your tracks in the Mixer Section. If you don't see it, no worries. Get on arrangement view if you're not. (it's easier to explain where it is for me on arrangement view, but it's all also available in Session View). Look all the way to the right of your midi channel. Play your music. Just to the left of the green volume indicator is the group of "-inf" buttons. Adjust the volume on the third one until you hear the desired level of your desired effect. You can use that effect for any of your tracks, and it will only effect the audio of the midi in the channel, not all the instruments in your instance of Kontakt. Hope this helps and I explained everything well enough!
Thanks. This helped me out with Omnisphere as well. Most daws allow you to do this within the tracks. I would have never figured out that it required an additional plugin!
This helped me finally tackle this Kontakt stumbling block I've had. Setting up a Multi Rack of all my old Hollow Sun instruments. Subscribed!
You know what ; you are a pro , no blablabla but diving in depht in the subject
Excellent. Thank you for your explanation; very much appreciated. 😃👍🏻
Thank you. This has been driving me nuts! I was using 5 different kontakt Windows!
glad to hear it helped !!
great tutorial, been racking my brains for ages now with setting up separate audio outs in kontakt in Ableton Live , this helped me no end thanks :-)
Nice video ! I'm still trying to understand why would I want to do this rather than create a new kontakt instument for each track I need ? Does it make a significant difference on the CPU / RAM... or is there another use that I'm not getting ?
yes... way less CPU strain.
thnks dude, straight to the point
Thank for the video but I have a problem, I use fl studio but I can't' make the setting in the DAW, I can do what you showed for Kontakt but the fl has a very different way to operate, can you help me in any way?
Hey Joshua! Great video. I have a problem. In the MIDI TO, at external instrument, i cannot find the other stages (st.3,4,5,etc.). Any idea?
Thanks for the help, this is a really well explained video, cheers to you man
Routing wise Is it possible in to have these separate channels to respond to a the same midi information?
Great video! It really helped me understand this task.
cool! good to hear!
clear and great job! thank you very much!
Looks great inside of Kontact, but why use the midi instrument instead of just setting the MIDI To settings on the midi track's IO?
I’m having trouble seeing more than two options for soundcard / host output. It only shows me stereo 1 and 2. Everything else is not connected. It only shows st. [1] and st. [2]. The list doesn’t even drop down like this with AUX options. So it keeps me from outputting more than one instrument channel in my DAW. How do I add more soundcard / host output options?
Thanks for that. Super helpful.
thank u so much from Brazil
thanks, but where are the graphic automations on the external inst? it only graphic at the principal track, and I can´t asign one knob to control the dinamic but in external inst, but it asign 1st knob for the 1st trank, 2nd knob for the 2nd track and I want to use 1st knob only for dinamics in all the external inst... HELP!
I'm not able to select St.2 on the 2nd midi track. I can only see Aux (Although on track 1 I could see St.1 - St.8). Any ideas why it is not showing up ?
Arthur Klisiewicz read the blog post.... should help
Channels 1 & 2 work great but I tried getting assigned audio out of the 3rd midi channel with no results. I'm using output 3 and midi 3 in Kontakt. Any ideas? I'm on Ableton 10 Kontakt 6
Just what i needed, thank you ! :)
Good stuff. Thank you Joshua ! I only struggle with External instrument settings. I did setup 8 stereo channels and in the External Instrument I see just fine Midi To 1- Kontakt5 to 2 or 3-Kontakt5 however when I click on Audio from I do not see the Stereo channels I've just setup. I see only 1-4 Aux plus Unassigned 1-11 Kontakt 5 so what am I doing wrong ? In other words when I add the 4th midi channel and wanna choose Audio From and I choose Aux 4 it still looks like it's having information provided from Aux3.. Thank you !
OK, I think I got it. The moment I'm creating all of those stereo channels before dropping another vsts into Kontakt it's having problems in recognizing them by External Instrument - don't know why - probably I've missed something on the way. Now, when I add VST and then setup master channels one by one in each and every VST I'm adding then External Instrument sees them just fine. Anyways, thanks again for your tutorial mate, cheers !
Thanks mate!! Amazing video
thanks to you!
My window external instrument doesn't show the option kontakt on "Midi to"outputs how can I configure it?
There is a way that when u load a new instance on kontakt automatically change to a new stereo output? i found that it's a little bit tedious and i want to improve my workflow, thanks : )
Well, somehow it doesn't work in Reaper, at least for me. I have to open up another track to recieve the sound from 3/4. I'd like to send the Midi-Ch#2 signal with one track and recieve the audio on 3/4 on the same track. Is this possible?
thanks man ...you deserve to be subscribe
samuel lalduhawmas cool!!
but what about if i want to do some automation on an external instrument via kontakt ?
thank you so much it helped a lot...!!!!
I actually just did an updated version of this process with more/better info. Check it out. ruclips.net/video/Ma0VctIkmfY/видео.html
is gravity in komplete 10? I'm lazy I should just check... My cpu is pretty able to handle alot doing on but rounds in reactor is rediculous for high usage...
no... but, gravity and all other heavyocity stuff is on sale until may .. check this out ... www.joshuacasper.com/blog-post/heavocity-end-summer/
does this help save cpu?
Hey Bro! It’s been a minute! We have to catch up!
Yeah, man. Hit me up... facebook.com/djjoshuacasper
Ooooo thx you so much for starting this
yeah, man!! I am looking forward to it too
Sorry long reply, but this video keeps coming up in my RUclips feed. It's debatable actually, whether multi-instrument will be better for a given computer system, or depending on the DAW, and the specific project. Check the NI forums for any number of discussions about it. One thing that may be misleading in Ableton Live is the way the Ableton CPU meter works. I'm told the Ableton CPU meter is showing the CPU usage of the busiest single core. Here's an interesting a quote from Ableton's support pages, "Live uses one thread per signal path, a set with just one track could potentially result in high CPU load if the track contains, for instance, a CPU-intensive instrument followed by a large chain of CPU-intensive effects". Threads are bound to a single CPU core, so a large multi-instrument instances is bound to one thread and one CPU core, which is definitely a bottleneck that doesn't exist using multiple instances. Again, this may vary based on your system, are you running a 15 year old dual-core CPU with two logical cores, or the latest i9 with 20 logical cores? Likely you are somewhere in between, which is why it's important to understand YMMV. I've gone back to using predominantly individual instances, not because of any issues with CPU or memory, but because I was never able to figure out how to separately automate multi-instrument instances in Ableton Live. For example, say I assign an Ableton macro to the filter cutoff of one instrument's filter, well any other instruments with a filter and a parameter named "Cutoff" also get modulated. Even if there's a work around for this, and it's just my lack of knowledge for how to "properly" do it, I immediately found my workflow improved after returning to separate instances. Finally, whenever I have CPU issues, I can freeze only the track or tracks that have CPU intensive instruments. Think about how this contrasts to what happens if you try and freeze your track that contains a multi-instrument, it's not possible and you'll get a warning about the routing. So, I would caution anyone from adopting multi-instrument just because it's possible, and definitely not because someone else says it works better for them.
Joshua my contact GUI doesn't have that left portion of it that has the output get it how can I pull that up. I have Ultimate 11.
can you explain a little better what you are talking about?
Joshua Casper yes the area at the top of Kontact, mine doesn't show that whole left portion that yours does that has the output source, the browser etc. I can send you a screenshot if we need to. That's strange. I do find the out puts.
You should read the written tutorial - link in the video description. But, the options you're looking for, I think, can be shown by click the area higih lighted in red in this image. i0.wp.com/www.joshuacasper.com/contents/uploads/multiple-outputs-midi-channels-kontakt-istruments.png
Dude thank you!!!
thank you great tutorial
you're welcome
How come Kontakt isn't showing up in my external instrument? I set it up just like you have it. thanks!
read the post.. there is something in there about this ...www.joshuacasper.com/ableton-tutorials/kontakt-player-multiple-instances/
I didn't see anything there.
Oh nevermind. It's different than I'm used to. Instead of saying kontakt, it says the track name. I have to click that in order for kontakt to show up. I was looking for it to just say kontakt and then I'd click on that for the first midi to option.
thnx for this video sir
any time!!
Nice thanks!
THANK YOU.
interestingly I found having one instance of kontakt for each instrument uses less cpu power than having one instance of kontakt and routing them into separate channels. try it out!
Thank you Joshua Casper! Thank you for this super important lecture but also thank you for your professional and respectful style of presentation. Please, please keep doing a good job, I can't take anymore 'characters' doing their schticks! Or Advanced level tuts which spend half of the time explaining 'warping' for example. Or other basic stuff.
I apologize if I sound like an entitled snob, I do understand these are free, un-curated videos without sponsors or production companies. God bless all the content creators! I wish them the best from the bottom of my hearth.
But not to point out the difference between your style and majority other on YT/Ableton trend, would be pretending and lying to everyone involved.
While I'm ranting to an empty audience floor, let me finish with my biggest issue which on regular basis throws me off and turn off YT altogether:
Not being able to filter out old/irrelevant videos from my searches or YT recommendations! Why da faq would I want to see tuts featuring Live 8 or earlier? And why, oh why Google not just insists on showing me Live lectures from 5+ years ago (again and again) but also makes it super inconvenient to find out when was the video made, using which version?
Is it the revenue? Well, like I said, nothing, not even schysters doing infomercials wrapped up like tutorials, can make me tune out faster then repeated hits of outdated videos!
In case you were wondering... God, noone will ever read any of this... I'm arguing on YT comments - with myself...
... and I used to be a cool dude! I swear! This is what 'bottom' feels like... Obama!!!
You're welcome!!
The problem is I cannot see the automation knobs I've set up inside the external instrument track no matter what I select. I can only see the automation knob in the kontakt track itself.
that what i looking for can it be done ?
is 16 the max number of channels you can create?
What if I need more than 8 instruments?
Gianluca Murru I believe. .. per instance of kontakt.
ok, thanks Joshua.
Just one last thing: I'm pretty sure I followed every step but under "Audio From", in every External Instrument menu, stereo channels don't appear (screenshot: i.snag.gy/pc6k2L.jpg). Do you have an idea why this happen? Thanks anyway
Gianluca Murru save and restart Live. sometimes that helps.
Didn't work, but that's ok. I will search for a solution. Thanks again
Gianluca Murru check my other video on this topic.. its blog post has a solution. the title is something similar. ..
Nice one dude.
+1
Ryan Akeley thanks!
i don't know why , but some times , this doesnt work ... I'm doing exactly what you did , but nothing. after restarting Ableton . its working .. do you know why ?
This problem has been reported before. I mentioned it in my earlier version of this tutorial and, after you reminding me, I have updated the written tutorial for this one as well. I am not sure why that happens though... I almost never happens for me.
thank you for your answer and keep upload videos .. :-)
thx bro
OMG THANK YOU
thank you!!!!
Thank you!
you're welcome!
Aha!!! Thanks a lot!!
thank u bro
welcome
thank you
thanks a lot
you're welcome
my kontakt have only st1 and st2 outputs...
check the blog post for the fix
Thanks
you're welcome!
ableton intro doesnt have external instrument... dear god help me
I don't get it... Why not just load a new instance of Kontakt on each midi channel?
Brandon Garcia, CPU mainly. also, kontakt is designed to be set up like it is in the video. having to launch a new instance of it every time you want to edit some would be tedious. having multiple instruments in one instantiation of kontakt is gold.
4:10 set up 2nd midi channel
Как же все в аблтон просто
This seems so pointless, if I wanted a new instrument on a new track I'd create a new instance of Kontakt. What I really wanted was to be able to switch between instruments in the same instance of kontakt by changing the midi channel on my keyboard with the push of a single button. What you seem to be saying is that every time you want to do this, you need to create a new midi track with an "external instrument" plugin on it. This basically makes what is supposed to be a convenient way to switch quickly between instruments via your midi keyboard into the most ridiculous hassle.
SUPER USEFUL!!!! Thank you!