Using Instrument tracks with kontakt

I have been used to work with midi tracks and kontakt but now I want to switch to Instrument tracks.

Can I use the same kontakt for several instrument tracks or do I need to open a kontakt VST plugin for each track.

Regards Dr Tolle

You can run multiple kontakt instruments within a single kontakt instance, but it is generally not advised

TL;DR
Cubase has the so-called “ASIO Guard” which basically processes all tracks that are not in record mode in a more efficient way because it doesn’t have to play these tracks in real-time. This can save a lot of cpu performance. That advantage is gone if there’s only one instrument track but several instruments that use it.

mk1x86 : Oh interesting…

In my case I am building a new template with around 100 to 150 instrument tracks (for orchestral setup)
so in my case I would have 1 instrument per kontakt instance right. ? It just felt that it would be a lot of kontakt instances to have running but if the ASIO guard works best with that I guess thats the solution.

Except maybe if you play multiple instance combined. For example male + female choir

When you have 10 instruments running in 1 instance of Kontakt vs. 10 instances of Kontakt running 1 instrument each - the second will allow Cubase to more effectively distribute the CPU load across multiple cores. In the 1st case all 10 instruments would be on the same core.

That said if running several instruments in one instance of Kontakt makes it easier for you do do something, then absolutely do that. But in general spread the load.

I totally agree,be kind to your computer. :slight_smile:

Well this is very new to me and very eyeopening as well. It makes sense though. Thanks !

Now I will manually start converting my midi tracks into instrument tracks with only one instrument pr kontakt instance.

Do you guys know any trick regarding moving all the instruments from Midi tracks to Instrument tracks ?

Regard Dr Tolle

I wouldn’t recommend creating busywork for yourself. The reason to spread the load is to minimize the risk of overloading individual cores. But if you have structured a Project differently and that Project is not having any performance problems there is no reason to go back and restructure it just because. No reason to spend time fixing a problem that doesn’t exist. But if a Project was having performance problems then it would be appropriate to make some changes.

Raino : I am creating a new template from an old project. It has nothing to do with the old project. Only because I am building that new template.
And that includes around 200 instrument tracks.

No tricks to convert the tracks from MIDI to instruments tracks ?

Best - Dr tolle

No, there really is no Track Type conversion capability. The only tool that could conceivably do this is the PLE and I’m 99.9% sure it can’t.

Take care when creating a Template from an old Project as it is easy to let something you don’t want or notice to slip through. I do recommend saving Templates as regular .cpr Project as a backup or starting point for a new Template. My first template started as a blank that I added elements to. Every Template after that is based on that initial Template or its progeny.

Good luck.

Thanks for the concern. However, I have created some templates from old projects before and I am pretty good at ‘cleaning’ them.

Regarding track conversion. That was also my guess that it was not possible. Now I have converted 50 tracks manually so far, so well on the way.

Dr Tolle