Maybe someone here is experienced. I do not mean a complete system migration on Mac (with Carbon Copy Cloner or Migration Assistant or something), but would like to know what everything has to be copied (cloned) in which location, so that on a different machine (Mac) everything works, appears and looks exactly as on the source machine. All the hard work (for days, weeks, month...) with all the libraries (in the same order), batch processing, Favorites and stuff. I´ve got 4 different machines (home, studio, Live-Band, mobile - 2 different Mac Pros, Mac mini, Macbook), configured for different tasks, installations, on different places. Access to the libraries is either on the same HD (12TB external Thunderbolt drive) or a carbon cloned copy of it (the most important on 8 or 4 TB).
What I need:
- all Favorites (nki, nkms etc)
- all Libraries in the same order
- all batch-processing (do once on the the source mMac)

for example what to copy (i think):
/Library/Application Support/Native Instruments (everything in Kontakt 4 + Kontakt 5 for pictures and ?)
/Library/Application Support/Native Instruments/Service Center (all *.xml for Library Activation)
/Users/<Name>/Documents/Native Instruments (Everything in the Folders Kontakt 4, Kontakt 5, User Content for presets etc)
/Library/Preferences - Everything with name: com.native-instruments.<NAME>.plist, for example "com.native-instruments.Box of Tricks.plist"
Preferences Kontakt??

what else, someone experienced?

 

Library in same order is complicated with large libs; it even changes without migration
Remember that are so many folder i USER and library. also many hidden that you can find with free EasyFind... a nightmare.
It never worked for me in this way, unless you fix after.

 

I'm kind of confused as to what you're asking. If you have a master TB drive with your Kontakt libraries that you're sharing over four different machines, just take a day to set up all four configurations the same way. You'd have to do it repeatedly, anyway, assuming you continue to get more libraries (i.e. - every time you install a new Kontakt library on your TB drive, you'd have to set it up in Kontakt across four machines). I've only ever had one machine at a time, but I've had a few different Mac laptops and replaced many an internal drive and I've always either used Migration or the one app apparently no one uses: Time Machine.

 

ok, what will help would be a list of all paths and files that are associated with Kontakt (installation etc), maybe an app? Ithink EasyFind isn´t such an app

 

Tried it with AppCleaner Scan, with this result, but I think this isn´t it really what I need:

 

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If I understand what you're asking, there are several different issues to address. As Iggy said you will need to spend some time tweaking from the start (ideally with all four CPUs side by side, though it sounds like that's not practical for you), and yes, libs can move around within the list even in the same system, though I'm finding they do that less now than on earlier Kontakt versions.

There are some critical variables to consider. If you're running legit Kontakt it's very hard to avoid manual authorizing every lib separately. For this reason I have downloaded shared versions of every legit library I own - I find this makes things much easier to administer. Another variable is the overall volume. If you're dealing with a couple of dozen libraries the easiest approach may be to manually install every library on every system. But if you're talking a couple of hundred that can get pretty laborious. Here's how I'd handle it, at least with an all-shared lib setup:

1). Make sure you're running the same version of MacOS and have installed the same version of Kontakt in all four systems.

2). Start with the one system first - the one with the least amount of other stuff on it - email, internet, etc. Ideally dedicate a separate login account that's only used for music and audio stuff - make sure it has admin access. Completely configure Kontakt exactly as you like it - check every lib and make sure it loads properly and it finds all the resource files and displays normally.

3). Dupe the following folders to the same location in each system:
• (user)/Documents/Native Instruments/Kontakt 5
• /Library/Application Support/Kontakt 5
• /Library/Application Support/Service Centre

4). Select and copy the entire contents (not the folder itself) of the main library Preferences folder (/Library/Preferences) and paste the files into the same folder in each system. When prompted how to handle duplicate files, choose Skip (I'm assuming you haven't already installed any libs in the other systems - prefs for those you would want to replace, but you don't want to mess with prefs from unrelated apps)

5). Select and copy the entire contents of user library Preferences folder ((user)/Library/Preferences) and paste the files into the same folder in each system. For duplicate files, again choose Skip.

6). Boot Kontakt on each system and check what does and doesn't show up in the libs tab. Manually install anything missing.

7). Boot a couple of instruments in each library and check links. Batch Resave libs as needed to restore linkages.

8). If instruments are looking for resources that aren't in the main library folder, click Search Folder and select the Native Instruments folder within your Documents folder - this is fastest. Also, especially for older libs, have it look in /Library/Native Instruments/Kontakt - it helps to temporarily install both of these folders into your Finder sidebar.

Bear in mind that some (though not all) of the file location metadata in the various files saves absolute file paths - ie including the volume name - so there's no way to avoid some manual tweaking to redirect these paths. That's why if you're dealing with only a relatively small number of libs it's probably easier to manually install each lib on each system.

All this is for configuring for a single HD that moves among systems. Whenever you swap it out for a clone you will have to Batch Resave every lib - there's no avoiding that.

 

Last edited: Aug 20, 2017