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The main, perhaps obvious, difference is that Multi scripts are loaded and saved with a Multi, whereas Instrument scripts are loaded and saved within an Instrument.   But this also means that they are able to do and access slightly different things.   An Instrument script has access to the synthesis engine within the Instrument itself, you can adjust filters and so on.   A Multi has none of that, because it lives on a higher level of the structure.   It doesn’t really “know” what Instruments are within it, and is only able to adjust incoming MIDI data itself.

  But this is useful for some functions that are not so convenient to do within an Instrument.

It’s very important to remember that you cannot use a Multi script as an Instrument script, nor vice versa.   They will each only work if in their proper location.  Multi scripts have the same extension as Instrument scripts (.NKP) which sometimes adds to the confusion, so be sure you know what type of script you’re dealing with before you try to install it.

Multi scripts also need to be in a different directory than Instrument scripts, they live here:

/ Documents / Native Instruments / Kontakt 4 / presets / multiscripts /

Once you’ve downloaded a new Multiscript from somewhere, drop it into that folder and re-start Kontakt.    You then need to open the Multiscript window by clicking on the little “paper scroll” icon at the top right of the Kontakt window.

Then using the Preset menu on the far left, you can then choose Presets from the “user” submenu, which will list everything you’ve put in your “multiscripts” folder.

KEYBOARD SPLIT

We’ve had several emails requesting this function, so here’s our version of a handy Multi script.

Sometimes it’s convenient to have one sound on the upper part of your keyboard and a completely different sound on the lower part.   Live players often need this kind of feature, and many controller keyboards have this functionality built in.    If you don’t have a controller keyboard that can do it, it can be a bit tedious to edit all your Instruments to the range you want, and also to transpose them how you need, etc.

Multi scripting is ideal for this kind of job.   All the script does is check the incoming note, if it’s above the split point it’s routed to one MIDI channel, if it’s below the split point it’s routed to another.  This means you can have two Instruments loaded in Kontakt, on different MIDI channels, and arrange these as you like on the keyboard.

You’ll notice in the screen grab that you can adjust the split point (default middle C).  You can also shift the octave of the upper and lower sections of the keyboard, which is handy for getting each sound in the desired range.  I’ve layered a Broken Wurli lead type sound with a Novachord Pad in the above example, and for my purposes I wanted to play the Novachord an octave up from my left hand’s input, so I set the left knob to +1.

Controllers (Mod Wheel, Aftertouch, Pitch Bend, etc) are by definition “channel wide”, so you can’t route these based on an input pitch.   The last menu on the right allows you to choose one of three options for the controllers.  They can be routed to the Upper or Lower Instrument, or both.

If you save a multi, the settings of this script will be saved with the multi.   But remember that this script is not saved with the Instruments included in the multi at all.

I’ve left this script unlocked, so curious users can have a look at how it works, and edit it if they like.   It’s conceivable, for example, to edit this script so that each individual note could be set to any output note and MIDI channel, thus allowing you to build large Multi drum kits from many Kontakt Instruments.    I may do that in a future example.

DOWNLOAD THE SCRIPT

LEO Systems Easi-Bow 2000

Several people posted it on our FB page and tweeted us about it in the space of a few hours, and it is clearly an appealing concept : an instrument that bows a string in a very controlled, predictable way, just by pressing a key – rather than the daunting chaos of the violin or the cello. I bet painters wish he’d invented an enigmatic-smile-a-tron as well.

What people may not know is that there are other versions of this idea around; a recent example that leaps to mind is the Wheelharp by Antiquity Music :

Probably the closest DNA match would be the Hurdy Gurdy, the difference being that all the strings on a Hurdy are always in constant contact with the turning wheel.

The Hurdy Gurdy from the Conservatoire Collection

If Da Vinci had Kontakt..

And, as Dan pointed out to me, our own Bowed Piano  (included in the Xtended Piano collection) is a direct virtual equivalent. Using the sustain bow articulation you get the same kind of bowed sound, controllable by a MIDI keyboard. The bowed piano sound is looped in Kontakt, so it directly mirrors the effect of the wheel turning in the Organista.

This script overrides any normal pitch bend that might be programmed into an Instrument.

There are three knobs, and all can be automated. The first is the Pitch Bend TYPE, and the second two are just the range for upper and lower bends in semitones.

There are 6 types of pitch bend included here:

• All – this bends all notes, like normal pitch bend
• Last – bends only the last note played
• Highest – bends only the highest note being held down
• Lowest – bends only the lowest note being held down
• Held – bends only notes being held down (not those in release )
• Release – bends only the notes in release (not those being held down)

The last one, Release, is obviously impossible on a guitar, but can be fun to play with.

DOWNLOAD THE SCRIPT

Works in Kontakt 4.2.4 or later.

We had over 240 entries for our user tracks competition – music composed using Soniccouture instruments, amongst other sounds of course.

It was a hard and lengthy process to whittle those 200+ down to a shortlist – and a fascinating process during which we learnt a lot about the music people make with our instruments. An invaluable exercise for that reason alone.

But, there’s also some great music. There wasn’t really any bad music. Well, hardly any. So, subjective as these things must always be, we tried to take into account, production quality, creativity, interesting use of SC instruments – and stuff we plain old liked – sometimes it’s not so easy to say why. And of course, with any shortlist, it’s fair to say that it could have been a different selection of tracks on a different day – the standard was very high. If your track wasn’t included, don’t take it personally.

Tim York is our winner – here’s a link to his album on Bandcamp

The top 3 tracks as voted for by the public were :

1st Place : Water Stone By Tim York | Skiddaw Stones

2nd Place : Resonance By Rossi Musica | Ondes

3rd Place : Tomie’s Bubbles By Candle Gravity | Konkrete, Tremors

The more common ‘workstation’ approach was always to simply switch the motor to off on the Vibraphone, record it static, then fake the tremolo in the synth/sampler using an LFO with a bit of filter and amplitude modulation. Which, in the context of workstation sounds, doesn’t do too bad a job, in that ‘Mock-Tudor’ style that workstation sounds have.

But about a year or 18 months ago, Dan hit on an idea – whether in the bath, I know not – and like many breakthrough ideas, it was beautiful in its simplicity.

Powell hypothesised that if one recorded the vibraphone twice, in a static state each time, once with the motorised fans fully open, in the vertical position (v) and then again with the fans completely closed, in the horizontal position (h), then by simply crossfading between the two with a simple sine LFO in the sampler, you would get a very natural tremolo effect (Tr).

The only way to test the hypothesis, however, was to actually record the vibraphone – twice – with no real idea if it would actually work ( ie : ‘sound good’) when finished. Bravely we pressed ahead. Enlisting the help of lab assistant Ed, an instrument was sourced (a Yamaha YV-3910M ‘Professional Gold’), and a studio booked for January 2013. For this project we returned to Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studio – a favourite of ours, but one from which we had been away for more than ten years.

The vibraphone session at Real World. Not as much fun as you might think.

It was a long session- two full 12 hour days listening intently to the metallic ring of the vibraphone key takes its toll on the strongest of men. This was not just one vibraphone sampling session, after all – after we had recorded the entire instrument, every key, with 20+ velocities several times each for round robins, damped and undamped – we then did it all over again again, with the fans closed.

Even once the recording was complete, we were still not able to test Powell’s Hypothesis. First, the samples had to be edited – 3,864 of them, as it turned out. Finally, after months of painstaking work, in the summer of 2013, our small but dedicated team prepared to put the theory into practice.

Did it work? You can judge. Check out our Vibraphone Now!