The Kontakt Player allows you to load and customize Garritan Jazz & Big Band sounds to be used for playback. The Kontakt Player consists of several main parts: the Virtual Rack, the Instrument Header, the Controls and the Virtual Keyboard. This section will familiarize you with the Kontakt Player interface. It can get a little technical but stay with it.
1. Virtual Rack
When you first start the Kontakt Player your will see a strip across the top where Instruments 1 through 8 are represented. Each of these eight boxes in the virtual rack can be selected in order to load an instrument or “Multi” (several instruments). Each Kontakt Player can load up to eight instruments or individual Multis at one time. The number of Kontakt Players you can load depends on your host application or sequencer and the power of your computer.
2. Instrument Header
The Instrument Header is where most of what you will be doing with Kontakt Player will take place. Here you can select system instrument information and adjust the instrument parameters. When you first start Kontakt Player, no instruments are loaded and “Empty Instrument” will appear in the header.
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To load new Instruments, select an empty box in the virtual rack so that it becomes highlighted. Then press the large button labeled “Load.” A drop-down menu appears with all available instruments. Clicking on the desired instrument from the list loads it into the selected slot. The loaded instrument’s name will appear in the Instrument Header and in the instrument strip above. The up and down buttons that appear above the “Load” button allow the user to quickly scroll through the available instruments within an instrument group (i.e. winds, brass, keyboards, etc.) without loading them through the menu.
There are various parameters in the Instrument Header:
• Load: Drop-down menu of all available instruments to load. The “load” button has up and down arrows for choosing “next” and “previous” instruments from the list for rapid sequential loading.
• Name: Shows the name of the instrument currently loaded.
• Options: Clicking on this button opens the “General Options” dialog window where you can adjust additional settings.
o Sustain/Sostenuto Pedal Mode: Use this to set the behavior of any foot pedals. This is set by default to “No Sustain/Sostenuto Operation, but MIDI controller.” to engage the legato sustain feature for winds and brass instruments, To play sustain instruments, such as a piano, the first option “Normal Sustain/Sostenuto Operation” must be selected. All Kontakt Player instances must be set to the same configuration
o Master Tune: Adjust the overall tuning of Kontakt in cents.
o Auto-Convert Samples to 32-bit: Enable this to convert all loaded samples to high resolution 32-bit format.
o Display Mapping on Keyboard: Enable this to show the keymapping of each Instrument via colored keys.
o Lock Memory (No Swap): If you have sufficient RAM, disabling this will allow for quicker loading.
Garritan JAZZ & BIG BAND Users Guide o Library Directory: Clicking on this button allows the user to point the Kontakt Player to the default location of the GPO library on the user’s computer in the event that they are installed in a location different than the default. This is useful if you need to move the library to another location due to hard drive storage issues. This will ensure that all of your saved performances load and play back correctly.
o Use Computer Keyboard for Playback: This is meant for auditioning purposes only. This option allows you to play your computer keyboard as if it were a midi keyboard. Your notation/sequencing software will not respond to this, it is meant to audition the sounds of GPO through the Kontakt Player only.
o Use Std. CC#7/CC#10 Volume & Pan: Sets Kontakt Player to recognize the standard MIDI assignments for volume and pan controllers.
o DFD Options: Direct from Disk streaming (DFD) is not required nor is it recommended to run the library if you have sufficient RAM. In fact, there are certain performance drawbacks to using streaming because the library was specifically designed to run in RAM. If you choose to use it here are the settings:
Active/Inactive Button: Toggles the DFD function on or off.
Presets: A list of commonly used DFD settings presets for your convenience. Most users will need to tweak the DFD settings to get the best performance on their computers. The presets are: Normal (medium polyphony/medium memory), High Performance (medium polyphony/high memory), Large Instrument (low polyphony /high memory) and Small Instruments (high polyphony/medium memory).
o Preload Buffer Size (Per Sample): This controls the amount of data is preloaded into your computers RAM when using DFD. The higher the value, the more sample data preloaded into RAM. Depending on hard drive speed, this can be set to a higher value for better performance while loading more data into RAM.
o Voice Buffer Size: This is the amount of RAM that each instance of the Kontakt Player will take up with no instruments loaded.
o Reserved Voices: This controls the amount of voices the player will attempt to play at once without ‘stealing’ voices. This process is retroactive and will steal the earliest played notes.
o Bypass the Disk Cache: Only used when using a large preload buffer, this will bypass the disk cache when streaming the samples with DFD. This can give you a performance increase when using a large preload buffer.
o Mem. Total: The total memory loaded into RAM for this Kontakt Player instance.
• CPU Usage: Shows the amount of your processor being used in percent.
• Key Range: This represents the keyboard range covered by the instrument. The range can be restricted by scrolling the numbers.
• Total Memory: This is the total amount of memory used by all samples for all slots.
• MIDI IN: Here you can choose a MIDI channel on which the Instrument receives MIDI data. By default, instruments load in consecutive MIDI channels. The user can select a MIDI channel (or OMNI) by clicking on this field and selecting the desired MIDI channel from the list.
When the Instrument receives MIDI data, the small MIDI icon will flash.
• Polyphony: The left digit indicates the number of notes being played at any given time. Click on the right field and drag up to increase the number of notes the instrument can play, or drag down to decrease. Most solo instruments are automatically set to “1” for mono mode operation.
• RAM Usage Indicator: Displays the size of all samples loaded into RAM for the current instrument. This is not an editable parameter.
• Instrument Output Channel: Kontakt Player offers multiple outputs with flexible routing possibilities. The Output selector chooses an output for the instrument. The number of outputs you can choose depends on the hardware you are using.
3. The Virtual Keyboard & Pitch Wheel/Modulation Wheels
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The Kontakt Player virtual keyboard will allow you to audition the sound of each instrument in the score by simply clicking on the keys on the screen with your mouse. Note: Clicking on the graphic keys, moving the mod wheel, etc. in the player will not be recorded to your sequencer. This must be done from your sequencer tracks or an external keyboard controller.
If you have a MIDI keyboard connected, you may play the samples using your keyboard as well. To the left of the keyboard are standard pitch and modulation wheels. To transpose, use the arrows below the Mod Wheel to transpose the keyboard up or down one octave.
4. Control Knobs
Most of the controls are operated with knobs. There are standard knob controls (Volume, Pan, and Tuning) for all instruments as well as additional controls that affect specific instruments. To
change a knob value, click on it and drag up to move the knob clockwise, or drag down to move it counter-clockwise. Some knobs can be fine-tuned if you hold down your computer keyboard’s Shift key as you move the knob. Ctrl + Click (Mac: Cmd + Click) resets a knob to its default value. Some parameters allow changing the type of units displayed; click on the unit, and choose another type from the drop-down list that appears. It is recommended that you use a midi controller or sequencer to control the instrument specific controls. These standard controls can also be automated through a sequencer or midi controller if needed.
The five knobs in Garritan Jazz and Big Band can be given default load values in the accompanying instrument text files. Initial values have been supplied by us but the user is free to modify these settings. The text files are located in the same folders as the instrument files. Each instrument has an identically named text file. In the text file the knob names are listed (in order) followed by the values for the knobs (in order.) Most users will never need to modify these values but they are available for advanced users who wish to make custom modifications.