I have amassed a pretty massive Kontakt Library collection, and I'd like to be able to have it run on a dedicated computer with NAS storage that can be used over a network by the DAWs (Logic mainly) that need to be clients to it. I believe this is possible - I read about BlueCat or something like Vienna Symphony being able to do this. My DAW clients are all Macs, but I don't care what the central network Kontakt thing is. Is this possible, or is there a better way? My main requirement is that the Kontakt libraries be available to the DAW quickly, and there is probably over 10TB of stuff there, so I don't want to store it on the DAW directly if I can help it.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

 

Look at this. It's free Open Source and has rave reviews.
https://audiogridder.com/

 

Yes as stated above about Audiogridder. You have to do your own homework about it and I believe development on it has halted but it does work well. Not perfect but we'll.

 

I understand you dont want a second computer for processing, but just to host the Big Kontakt Library files you have?

I would think it is rather easy. Perhaps you would need to set the network storage up as a Network-Drive to make it work in Kontakt.
It would be treatet like a big external harddrive.

But if you mean an extra Audioserver, that loads and processes Kontakt instances and that streams audio over to you main computer running the DAW, then yes, AudioGridder is really easy. I use it myself. Just dont use the automation with it, it will spike the CPU of the main computer to max.

A major advantage with audiogridder is: it will screencapture the kontakt instument (it will do is with any plugin) and stream the gui over to your main computer, so you are able to actually click the intrument directly.
The developer did not work on it for a year wich is unfortunate.
My experience anyway.

I also have Ensemble Pro 7 wich is also completely able to do what you want. Since the company is active, bugs will be adressed in the future.
You would need a monitor and mouse+keyboard, because it cant stream the plugin GUI over to the main computer. But if you save a project in your DAW, the Ensemble Pro 7 Server configuration is stored with it, and on next load, it will recall the Kontakt Server.

There is a great tutorial available to download. thats how I learned it.
groove3 vienna ensemble pro 7 explained tutorial synthic4te

you would need to find it yourself.

 

Last edited: Nov 25, 2024

it's a great topic and there are few aspects to it:
1) you mentioned NAS - do you mean you want to stream libraries from (centralized) networked storage? if so, I'd expect you to have proper 10Gbe networking at least, with NAS storage pool capable of sustaining that speed (SATA SSDs at least)
2) you mentioned Vienna (Ensemble Pro) - which indeed is a plugin host that can offload VSTi/AUi's like Kontakt across multiple computers - you would install and run it on your Mac clients as a cluster (not excluding the possibility of centralized NAS storage as mentioned above) - free/trial version of VEP7 won't let you save the session but apart from that it'll work fine for any testing you need
3) MacOS itself features MIDI over network (within Audio & MIDI Setup you can configure MIDI network streams) and there are various solutions for AoIP (audio over IP) handling, I can recommend Reaper's ReaStream plugin (but that's VST, so no support for Logic I'm afraid), and if I remember correct there's also built-in AUnetSend and AUnet Receive plugins in MacOS (or maybe that's part of Logic?)
4) AudioGridder is an open-source free solution for network bridging plugins and audio and MIDI, not as polished as VEP from my experience (not all plugins work), but definitely worth a check for sure - do note, one of its advantages is ability to stream plugin GUI from a remote instances into your DAW (but again, it's not 100% reliable)

 

The VSL version is called VEP (vienna ensemble pro). The last version I see is v6 from VR, and some users were complaining that v5 worked better for them. The Bluecat plugin version is probably Connector and Fader Hub.

I think the * big external hard drive would be best, then Audiogridder next. The best option might be to identify your favorite and most used libraries, from only the most current versions of Kontakt; and stick them on a nice sized external SSD.

 

Thank you all for this incredible information! I'm a big open source supporter, so I'd probably go with AudioGridder as my first option. I have multiple DAW machines that need access to the Kontakt library - it is just that it is huge, and I just can't see myself spending weeks loading all the libraries one by one into each DAW. If I can do that on a central server, and have a single point of management for them, that would be fine. I can direct install any plugins that are used for DSP & audio manipulation on the local machines, but I can't afford the Apple tax for storage on each machine with such a large set of Kontakt libraries that I've collected. I have a spare 2012 Mac Pro machine with 128GB of memory in it, and I have 10Gb Ethernet in the studio, so I'm thinking of just loading up the internal SATA drives for this on the Mac Pro and making it the server to the network for the Kontakt libraries. Does that make sense here?

 

kontakt can works with network drive but you have to mount them in your system. assign a fixed drive letter & name.
then add libraries with this location.
it will only goes slower to load samples than a physical drive, because of the network speed limitation, but it works as an external drive.

 

Last edited: Nov 26, 2024

What version of Kontakt do you plan on running? As the 5,1's aren't running Kontakt 7 or 8 with their macOS/osx cap to my knowledge (clone would know more then I on that, but at least to my memory)....

And if you are running it just as a server to access the data and libraries, not actually run Kontakt etc, you still are going to have to authorize/add all those libraries (if they are licensed ones anyways, not simply open) on every single system you plan to access it with...and that's honestly probably the bulk of the time you talking about in regards to "and I just can't see myself spending weeks loading all the libraries one by one into each DAW.", and it's not per daw obviously , it's per cpu.... perhaps cloning them (the cpus) would work from system to system, but I've only had that working with older osx, I haven't tried with more modern macOS, and they have tightened down the hatches a lot since then...

 

Blue Cat Audio PatchWork and Connector works very well on my Gb network. My "server" running PatchWork hosting Kontakt (and other Windows VST/VSTi) is Windows. My DAW (Reaper) is MacOS running Connector, sending MIDI to and receiving audio from PatchWork(Kontakt) on the Windows server. "Minimal latency, with full control over buffering" is what Blue Cat states. I've had no problems with latency so far. I did have some problems with AudioGridder 1.2 not finding or loading some VSTs. Unless that project gets updated soon it will fall further behind the plugins it's trying to host. Also Reaper dropped its ReaStream plugin a few versions ago. I had success with it back then, it's a shame it was discontinued.