I would really love to understand if there’s a solution to this problem. In DAWs like Ableton Live, Studio One and Logic Pro, the integrated sampler allows you to save used samples as part of the project so that the single project directory can be moved to other computers and opened without absolute directory path references for each of the used files. This allows people to collaborate on Dropbox or simply send a project backwards and forwards with no concerns about locating samples which have been used in sampler instruments.
I have tried this with Kontakt, Battery and Groove Agent ONE and all sample references appear to reference the full original path of the WAV file. There’s no way to package used files into the project folder and moving projects to a computer that doesn’t contain the same directory structure and drive letters causes endless amounts of “file not found” dialog boxes.
Based on my questions to Steinberg on a few past forum posts, it seems that Halion also has this limitation and the only suggestion I have come across so far is to use Phalax (by Vengeance) which gives the option to save used samples in the project file itself.
I really hope I’m missing something in this regard and that there’s a solution to this problem that I’m simply unaware of.
Any help at all (even confirmation that there is NO solution) would be greatly appreciated.
When saving with Kontakt there’s an option to also save the samples. If you select this option and then save the instrument to your project folder, the samples will be saved there too.
Thanks a lot for your reply. Although this definitely helps, there are unfortunately two large drawbacks to this method:
One must go through each sampler instance manually to do this
The project is unfortunately still not portable. e.g. If I save my Kontakt instrument to project folder E:\Projects\My Tune and then copy the entire project folder to another computer and place it in location D:\Music Production\My Tune, then Kontakt complains that E:\Projects\My Tune\My Sound.nki doesn’t exist (I just tested this now).
If the samples are protected, then they won’t play on the other system unless they are licensed on that system. For example, if you buy a content set and install it on one computer and copy those sample files to another computer without a license for that content, then they most likely won’t play anyway. And if you have that content installed on the other computer, there is no need to copy the samples in the first place.
As Subpantellis mentioned, if you are using unprotected samples, then you could export that “Instrument” (.nki in Kontakt) or Preset (in HALion) and save it in the project folder.
You could also copy the samples to the project folder in the first place, scan them with Media Bay, and then drop them from media bay into Groove Agent or another sampler.
Lastly, you could just render bounce instrument tracks to audio tracks before transferring the project.
I’ve always thought it odd that Grove Agent One doesn’t do this. A work around is to load the samples into your project first as audio, which will then be copied to the pool, and then drag them into Grove Agent. However, this isn’t ideal as it restricts work flow and could unnecessarily inflate the pool, though the latter is a small price to pay given that hard drive space is relatively cheap these days.
I just had a look at how to do this with Kontakt. Assuming that the samples are not protected and that the instruments are also licensed on the second computer, you can do the following:
In Kontakt klick “Files” and then “Save as…”
Now select “patch only”. This is actually not what you want, but it allows to deselect “absolute sample paths”, meaning that the reference to the samples stored in the .nki file will be relative to the folder where the .nki itself is stored.
With “absolute sample paths” deselected, now click “patch + samples” and save.
Firstly, thank you all so much for contributing to this thread. Just to clarify, the samples I’m using are regular, unprotected WAV files that come on Vengeance sample CDs
This was definitely my initial idea but unfortunately Groove Agent ONE references all samples (including those dragged in from the audio pool) with absolute path names.
e.g.
Create a new project and add some audio files to the audio pool (ensuring they are copied to the project folder)
Create an Groove Agent ONE instance and drag those audio files to the instrument
Save the project
Simulating a collaboration, rename the project folder or change its location (as would be the case on another person’s, computer). Now try to open the project and you’ll see errors relating to absolute paths of those files.
Thanks a lot. This definitely helps in regards to the samples themselves, but when moving the project to another drive or directory (as would be in the case with a collab), Kontakt now fails to find the NKI file since that is still referenced with an absolute path.
Hope you can see why I’m frustrated with this. I’m about to start on a collab with an artist over Dropbox. He specifically purchased Cubase 6.5 to collab with me and since he wants to switch from Logic. But naturally, we have our Dropbox folders in different locations. He’s on Mac and I’m on PC, so having heaps of dialog boxes on my end each time he makes a change and vice versa asking us to point to the sample directory would be a pretty major problem.
I have to admit that I’m greatly surprised that Steinberg haven’t considered this, especially in their own Halion and Groove Agent ONE products. Cubase is about the only DAW I know of that doesn’t provide such functionality.
Confirm you tried this with the Absolute Paths deselected? Select “Patch + Samples” or even “Monolith” (which puts everything in one file). It seems like this should work as it’s purpose is to create “portable” Kontakt instruments.
Yeah. This only ensures that the Kontakt preset file references its samples using a relative path. But the Kontakt instance itself references the preset file using its absolute location.
e.g.
Let’s say I used one of the Vengeance loops and saved the preset in D:\Project, I gut this:
Now if I move the project to E:\Project, it complains that the preset file D:\Project\VEC1 Loops140 003.nki could not be found. The relative path reference relates to the preset file finding the samples, not the Cubase project finding the Kontakt preset.
Click the load/import tab and deselect “write absolute paths instead of relative paths”.
(Better do this step on both the source and target computer).
Now you should be able to save the samples to relative paths as discussed above and the .nki file itself should also be referenced with a relative path.
Thanks a lot mate. I do already have this option un-ticked actually. Have you been able to successfully move a project folder around containing NKI presets and have the project continue to load without error? I can’t seem to get this to work as it always seems that Kontakt is using the absolute reference of the NKI file. This option only appears to affect the samples, not the NKI preset file.
I’ve actually moved loads of projects around and I’ve never had a problem. I always had the feeling that Kontakt doesn’t even need the .nki file, since all plugin settings are stored in the Cubase project anyway. Kontakt will eventually ask for the location of the sample files while loading, but if you’ve exported them to the Cubase project folder, then you can tell Kontakt to look there and to load all further missing samples from there too. This takes 5 secs.
im using Phalanx from Vengeance for my drum sampling, but you can also use it for other poly and synth stuff.
it saves with the projects, and its freakin AWESOME
i open projects from years ago on completely different computers and it just works. They all load with the original samples i used in those old projects.
Thanks for the reply, this is a very old issue that was raised before Cubase had a sampler built in. These days that’s what I use for almost all my sampling needs. It seems that Groove Agent SE 5 still doesn’t save external samples within the project folder so I only use that for included content.
I avoid Vengeance plugins personally as they are tied to a dongle and I only hear horror stories about them (in terms of activation etc.). The fact they’re crashing for you validates my decision too.
