Silence + other sounds install procedure

TonyF said:

Just purchased Helen and Omen. Really like the content of the libraries from the YT demos I've watched but the install procedure is "other worldly" (pun intended).

What gives? Why aren't they using Native Access?

All of my other NI / Kontakt content is on an external SSD which is where I want these libraries installed.

Not a Kontakt "power user" so I'm really not familiar with the folder hierarchy.

I have X:\kontakt in Native Access preferences as the default Kontakt content folder.

If anyone has any installation troubleshooting tips, I'd appreciate the help.

Click to expand...

It's a Kontakt full library meaning it will only work with the full version of Kontakt, not Kontakt Player and cannot be downloaded via Native Access

I have full version of Kontakt 7.

OK. I'm getting sounds through kontakt 7 (stand alone and as a plugin in cubase).

Is this what it's supposed to look like or do I still have something wrong?

You're loading wav files into kontakt, go to the "kontakt instruments" folder.

TonyF said:

OK. I'm getting sounds through kontakt 7 (stand alone and as a plugin in cubase.

Is this what it's supposed to look like or do I still have something wrong?

Click to expand...

EDIT: as chillbot said, above, and first, and more handsomely....Try looking in "Kontakt Instruments" folder. Look for an .nki file.

This is normal for Full Kontakt libraries, by the way. Same with not being in Native Access.

The files for EVERY Kontakt library to load the instruments are the NKI files.

Why don't we read the library manual when we're beginners, guys?

It's certainly helpful

As I said, I'm not a kontakt power user. Had only been using the cello and violin libraries which DL'ed via native access and are displayed in the library view of kontakt 7 and kontakt player 6.

The DL instruction pdf's for these two libraries only touched on the snapshot issue. A big part of my job was writing work instructions and I gotta say silence+other sounds need to hire someone if they can't provide more detailed documentation.

The browser in kontakt 7 doesn't seem to function like windows os. Clicking on the kontakt instruments + sign only disclosed subfolders. I had to click directly on "kontakt instruments" to reveal the nki files. Must have done it by accident in the above example.

Thanks for the help.

Hi there,
thanks for purchasing Hellen and sorry for not replying to your questions earlier but I've happened to find your posts only now.
Seems like you managed to solve the problem? (thanks a lot to the other members of this thread ).

Btw, we offer almost instant assistance if you write us at [email protected] or just use the contact form on our website. I'd be more than available to solve all the issues you have.

TonyF said:

The browser in kontakt 7

Click to expand...

In a few respects, Native Instruments made a mess of browsing with Kontakt 7.

I think the issues you are experiencing are generally about being new to K7, which you'll certainly face again since many amazing developers do not build for Native Access/Kontakt Player. It comes with benefits, but also some negatives.

GiuseppeS+OS said:

Hi there,
thanks for purchasing Hellen and sorry for not replying to your questions earlier but I've happened to find your posts only now.
Seems like you managed to solve the problem? (thanks a lot to the other members of this thread ).

Btw, we offer almost instant assistance if you write us at [email protected] or just use the contact form on our website. I'd be more thabig timen available to solve all the issues you have.

Click to expand...

It was the weekend so I perhaps mistakenly thought your tech support wouldn't be available and that's why I initially came here.

I really like the content of these libraries. I have a piece that needed something like this.

As popular as kontakt is, I'm just not a big time kontakt user and I've never come upon a manual install kontakt library before. Always just used the native access app. As I stated above, the DL instructions emphasized the snapshot issue and the embedded video is six years old and didn't seem to apply insofar as kontakt's folder heirarchy is concerned, at least not in my case, as I run all my VSTi's from an external SSD.

Just a suggestion but you might want to consider an additional "release notes" pdf that spells out simply extracting the relevant files to a disk location of the user's choice and that native access will not be used.

One thing if you could clarify regarding the snapshot issue.

I don't have a "C:\Users\<your username>\Documents\Native Instruments\User Content\Kontakt\" folder. Should I create one and copy the snapshot files there?

Thank you.

Hi,
no problems at all, I will consider you suggestions.

In regard to your question, yes, several customers have solved this issue by simply manually creating the folder and pasting the snapshot folder in it, as you mentioned. Once again, in case you need assistance the best way to get fast support is to write me at [email protected].

Best,
Giuseppe

PS: this might be useful for possible future purchases from any non-Player developer. Manually opening a file in Kontakt is simple as opening a document from Open Office or Microsoft Word. You need to use the "Files" tab, which is basically a file browser for the content on you computer, head to the "Kontakt Instruments" folder of X library and double click on the nki files. That's it.

Giuseppe,

Thank you.

Evans said:

In a few respects, Native Instruments made a mess of browsing with Kontakt 7.

I think the issues you are experiencing are generally about being new to K7, which you'll certainly face again since many amazing developers do not build for Native Access/Kontakt Player. It comes with benefits, but also some negatives.

Click to expand...

This is on the developers as well. For example, recently grabbed some Ethera stuff, and the snapshot / instrument / sample / documentation, etc. folder structure is a complete mess. Tutorial video in root folder, another in the "data" folder, instruments over in this folder, multis over in this folder with other single instruments, pictures over here, manual in another folder, licensing in another, box cover artwork in another, samples spread across 18 different folders, often mislabled, snapshots in folders with mixed ALLCAPS and lowcaps, with...in some cases...no identification of what instrument the snapshot is for. This last one is always fun, because the snapshot must follow the instrument name, which often has no product identifier.

Silence + Other Sounds is mostly a mess as well. Sorry, devs are here, clean up your folders please!

So many devs do not gaf about the end user experience, or how it might cripple their product when not installed correctly - which many users won't even be aware of.

Have often had to manually reorganize libraries and then batch resave, and then double check that all presets / snapshots are connecting properly.

NI has lead the industry in terrible file management and awful standardization (they've gotten much better), and unfortunately this allows 3rd party devs to carry what is likely horrible file management on the development end into the user experience.

I can't even imagine what some users like the OP, who are likely unfamiliar with non-Native Access libraries, will feel like when trying to to use these libraries. I'm guessing many users will never see the presets / snapshots, or will never see the multis or understand what they are.

august80 said:

This is on the developers as well. For example, recently grabbed some Ethera stuff, and the snapshot / instrument / sample / documentation, etc. folder structure is a complete mess. Tutorial video in root folder, another in the "data" folder, instruments over in this folder, multis over in this folder with other single instruments, pictures over here, manual in another folder, licensing in another, box cover artwork in another, samples spread across 18 different folders, often mislabled, snapshots in folders with mixed ALLCAPS and lowcaps, with...in some cases...no identification of what instrument the snapshot is for. This last one is always fun, because the snapshot must follow the instrument name, which often has no product identifier.

Silence + Other Sounds is mostly a mess as well. Sorry, devs are here, clean up your folders please!

So many devs do not gaf about the end user experience, or how it might cripple their product when not installed correctly - which many users won't even be aware of.

Have often had to manually reorganize libraries and then batch resave, and then double check that all presets / snapshots are connecting properly.

NI has lead the industry in terrible file management and awful standardization (they've gotten much better), and unfortunately this allows 3rd party devs to carry what is likely horrible file management on the development end into the user experience.

I can't even imagine what some users like the OP, who are likely unfamiliar with non-Native Access libraries, will feel like when trying to to use these libraries. I'm guessing many users will never see the presets / snapshots, or will never see the multis or understand what they are.

Click to expand...

This is a post from another developer. But you are talking also of my libraries..so:

If you encounter any issues with my libraries, please don't hesitate to reach out.

If possible, specify the library you are referring.

So it's quite strange what you're saying. Moreover, in the latest releases, I provide installers for the automatic installation of snapshots, and also for the image for Kontakt 7's browser (which, among other things, is an additional thing I do, considering that most libraries for Kontakt FULL do not have this feature.

In general many system folders, you shouldn't even navigate inside them to use the library.


I can provide clearer explanations for any concerns you may have, and I would be more than happy to do so.


I have never received a message from you; I am very active on the forum and respond to everyone also in case of doubts and problems.

Feel free to contact me; I am confident that I can help you understand that it's all quite straightforward, and you've probably missed some information.

august80 said:

This is on the developers as well. For example, recently grabbed some Ethera stuff, and the snapshot / instrument / sample / documentation, etc. folder structure is a complete mess. Tutorial video in root folder, another in the "data" folder, instruments over in this folder, multis over in this folder with other single instruments, pictures over here, manual in another folder, licensing in another, box cover artwork in another, samples spread across 18 different folders, often mislabled, snapshots in folders with mixed ALLCAPS and lowcaps, with...in some cases...no identification of what instrument the snapshot is for. This last one is always fun, because the snapshot must follow the instrument name, which often has no product identifier.

Silence + Other Sounds is mostly a mess as well. Sorry, devs are here, clean up your folders please!

So many devs do not gaf about the end user experience, or how it might cripple their product when not installed correctly - which many users won't even be aware of.

Have often had to manually reorganize libraries and then batch resave, and then double check that all presets / snapshots are connecting properly.

NI has lead the industry in terrible file management and awful standardization (they've gotten much better), and unfortunately this allows 3rd party devs to carry what is likely horrible file management on the development end into the user experience.

I can't even imagine what some users like the OP, who are likely unfamiliar with non-Native Access libraries, will feel like when trying to to use these libraries. I'm guessing many users will never see the presets / snapshots, or will never see the multis or understand what they are.

Click to expand...

Hi there,
I hear your point. Many Kontakt users of Player compatible libraries are accustomed to a standard experience for installing , opening the instruments etc.
However, let me just show here the instructions video of our latest library Maleventum Pompeii, which is 3 mins long and perhaps might change your mind about the fact that we don't care about the customer experience.



As stated above, I'm always available to help out. We even offer live-chat assistance no matter the problem.

For the record, we're in the process of moving all our catalogue to Pulse, in order to avoid confusion with samples, snapshots etc.

I hope this clarifies!

StefanoM said:

This is a post from another developer. But you are talking also of my libraries..so:

If you encounter any issues with my libraries, please don't hesitate to reach out.

If possible, specify the library you are referring.

So it's quite strange what you're saying. Moreover, in the latest releases, I provide installers for the automatic installation of snapshots, and also for the image for Kontakt 7's browser (which, among other things, is an additional thing I do, considering that most libraries for Kontakt FULL do not have this feature.

In general many system folders, you shouldn't even navigate inside them to use the library.


I can provide clearer explanations for any concerns you may have, and I would be more than happy to do so.


I have never received a message from you; I am very active on the forum and respond to everyone also in case of doubts and problems.

Feel free to contact me; I am confident that I can help you understand that it's all quite straightforward, and you've probably missed some information.

Click to expand...

Sorry in advance for the novel:

I don't really want to hijack the OPs thread more than I already have - but it's not about how the instruments look / load on the Kontakt side. Although this is a concern as well (more on that later), it's about folder / file management on the drive side. Anyone with tons of libraries who looks in the user/documents/native instruments/user content/kontakt folder will understand what I'm talking about.

And anyone who looks inside some developers instruments folders on the sample drive side will also know what I'm talking about. Things can be extraordinarily messy, mislabeled, misfiled, misspelled, weird folder names, etc. This is why, when you search on the net, you'll find literally thousands of forum posts asking "Where are my snapshots at", "where are my presets at", "why is my instrument not displaying properly", "why are some samples missing" and so on.

This is the fault of both Native Instruments, for it's absolutely horrendous file management (which forces developers into overly complicated file management), and the developer side having poor internal file management tacked on.

As for Ethera specifically, I would invite you to do a fresh install of a library - say, Ethera EVI 2.0, and look at how the library is presented when it's freshly download / installed by the Conduct app. It's an absolute mess.

Examples of some documents you're greeted with:

_Ethera EVI Manual.pdf
_Ethera EVI SNAPSHOT INSTALLATION - HOW TO CREATE USER FOLDER.mov
_ETHERE EVI SNAPSHOT INSTALLATION MAC.mov
_ETHERA EVI SNAPSHOT INSTALLATION PC.mov
_ETHERA EVI What's New 2.0.rtf
_READ ME_IMPORTANT.pdf
_READ ME_ IMPORTANT.pdf

This is a sign of bad things to come...

Go into the instruments folder it gets worse. Some stuff in all caps, some in smallcaps, some with ETHERA EVI identifiers, individual nki's with no identififiers in smallcaps (or the opposite).

Load the Synth 2.0 A patches, you get preset pulldown and snapshots. The preset pulldown is not organized by folder, or in alphabetical order, it's just a giant long scroll list that starts with "bass" and ends with "ancient" at the bottom. Not so bad, can just use the Snapshot pulldown, which is organized by category folders.

However - if you load Synth 2.0 B, you don't get the snapshots. You get an even longer pulldown preset menu from the instruments UI that must be 100+ presets long. Insane.

So I tried to search for these presets to see if there was an install problem. The instrument defaults to a snapshot "Acoustic Guitar Arp 01". Which is odd, because this doesn't seem to be a snapshot or preset for this nki. But tried to search for that...as it was the first one to come up, couldn't find it anywhere on the drive. Until I realized it was mispelled as "Acoutic" with no S for every instance of the word. Then find tons of other misspellings making searching for these files fun times.

Go inside the samples folder - inexplicable sub directories, files labeled "1 - Test.wav", "2 - Test.wav". Folder directories with nothing in them except a folder to another directory, which leads to another directory with sub directories. Version 1.0 and 2.0 hidden inside one another. To get to the EVI 2.0 legato files you have to go:

Ethera EVI 2.0 > Samples > ETHERA EVI True Legato Samples > 2.0 > TRUE LEGATO 2.0 > LEGATO AH > EVI _AH_LEG_RIFACIMENTI_2 - 1-01.wav

(not a joke - that's the path and file name.)

However, if you go into another sub folder, you get file names like "Uh_ALT_Sustaint_A - 4". I.E. There's no consistency to the naming anywhere in the library, nor the directory structure. It's all over the map, with TONS of misspellings or complete mislabeling.

Why does this matter? 1) Bugs 2) Updates 3) Archiving 4) These habits carry over to how presets & snapshots, and instruments & multis are organized & named, which directly affects even novice users. It's all connected. It all leads to the same place "why can't I find my presets!".

This wouldn't even be so much of an issue EXCEPT that Native Instruments has so many bad habits. For example, forcing Snapshot files to mirror .nki file names, which creates an absolute catastrophic mess in the snapshots folder. This is solved mostly with authorized libraries (they auto install everything into the right place, and under instruments names. Easy.

However - for non-authorized libraries, depending on the developers labelling, they ALL get filed into the same root folder. I have over 250 snapshot folders....probably 150 of them have no identifier. I have no idea what those snapshots belong to ("31 Hybrid Vocals"), ", meaning I can only know if certain ones are installed correctly by opening each .nki file and seeing if the snapshots exist / link. And you can't put those folders inside a custom folder (usually) or Kontakt will completely implode. Explained here:


(I'm not saying anything new here - these problems are well understood, going back 20 years.)

Silence + Other Sounds have actually done a good job of this - despite also not being registered libraries - their snapshots are clearly identified at the root folder, with snapshot categories in properly categorized subfolders. Well some. It's not consistent. I had to manually rename all their Maleventum library's .nki & snapshots so it had some semblance of logic. (And remove all the use of ALLCAPS, which seems to something devs love for some reason. ALLCAPS leads to misspelling and mislabeling, and makes it a nightmare for doing collaborative work. It's one of the first thing you learn in coding school.)

Some of the Ethera are identified at the root folder, some are not, it's completely inconsistent.

Now, from experience, most of the community doesn't care about this stuff usually, even if it negatively affects the products they buy. It's one of the weird things about this industry. Developers get away with consistently bad habits...

But when you're running 3 mirrored systems, including a mobile rig, and need everything running smooth as silk, this kinda stuff becomes a nightmare to deal with. It's why I generally reorganize everything myself then batch resave. I go as far as to rename & reorganize both the NKI files and the snapshot files, as well as organize the sample directories so it's clean af. But this is something that should be done on the developer end. I can't even imagine the nightmare it becomes trying to keep track of, say, multiple evolutions of the same product, where you're dealing with 1.0, 2.0 A, 2.0 B type folder structures, where vocals & instrument samples are all mixed together and not consistently labeled, files are mispelled, in random locations, file paths exceed 100 characters regularly, etc. It doesn't surprise me why, for example, some instruments in the SAME library have entirely different nki / nkm naming (don't get me started on multis), snapshot & preset logic. I don't even think that's intentional sometimes - I think it's just plain disorganization.

If you want to see a developer who understand organization at an almost Rain Man level, check 8Dio. Every single library is clean af - and consistent in folder structure and naming schemes going back 10+ years. Every library, 4 folders:

Documents
Instruments
Resources
Samples

Each subdirectory crystal clear. Multiple versions are clearly separated by folder and instrument identifiers. Samples and instruments are so well organized I can, in about 5 minutes, create slimmed down versions of their 7+ mic position libraries to 2 mic positions and not even worry whether I deleted something I shouldn't have. This means I take all of their libraries on the road, as I have less drive space.

I can't do this with Ethera libraries - well I have after days of work - because when I try to slim down some libraries (eg. removing the "instruments" from some, or the "vocals" from another) I immediately start destroying patches that have unexpected dependencies. I have created slimmed down versions (eg. a vocal only version of EVI 2.0, without any of the instruments), but it took forever, when it should have taken 5 minutes. (I don't expect developers to organize things on my behalf, it's just an example of how organization has unintended benefits.)

If writing this convinces even one developer to take this stuff more seriously (even making their lives easier on the developer end) I've done a good job here. :D Honestly, your life will become 1000x easier with beautifully organized projects. :D
Also - Pulse app with not help with this. Riffendium is through Pulse...it's also a mess. (Another developer that loves no-space ALLCAPS for everything.) It's not the downloader - it's the product's organization at the developer end.

august80 said:

Sorry in advance for the novel:

I don't really want to hijack the OPs thread more than I already have - but it's not about how the instruments look / load on the Kontakt side. Although this is a concern as well (more on that later), it's about folder / file management on the drive side. Anyone with tons of libraries who looks in the user/documents/native instruments/user content/kontakt folder will understand what I'm talking about.

And anyone who looks inside some developers instruments folders on the sample drive side will also know what I'm talking about. Things can be extraordinarily messy, mislabeled, misfiled, misspelled, weird folder names, etc. This is why, when you search on the net, you'll find literally thousands of forum posts asking "Where are my snapshots at", "where are my presets at", "why is my instrument not displaying properly", "why are some samples missing" and so on.

This is the fault of both Native Instruments, for it's absolutely horrendous file management (which forces developers into overly complicated file management), and the developer side having poor internal file management tacked on.

As for Ethera specifically, I would invite you to do a fresh install of a library - say, Ethera EVI 2.0, and look at how the library is presented when it's freshly download / installed by the Conduct app. It's an absolute mess.

Examples of some documents you're greeted with:

_Ethera EVI Manual.pdf
_Ethera EVI SNAPSHOT INSTALLATION - HOW TO CREATE USER FOLDER.mov
_ETHERE EVI SNAPSHOT INSTALLATION MAC.mov
_ETHERA EVI SNAPSHOT INSTALLATION PC.mov
_ETHERA EVI What's New 2.0.rtf
_READ ME_IMPORTANT.pdf
_READ ME_ IMPORTANT.pdf

Click to expand...

Hello,

Well, as I suspected.

In fact, I had asked you about which library. Ethera EVI is a rather old library.

But, you can't apply this reasoning to everything.

You will notice that the new versions, such as Ethera Gold Series ( Atlantis III, Prometheus etc ), for example, are completely different, as well as the Elements series.

In life, one improves, and I have also refined some things over the years as a developer.

Therefore, you are pointing out something that I have already addressed over time and in the new libraries.

With this, I would conclude the discussion here since this is not my place.

If you have any other needs or questions, you know where to find me.

Thank you

StefanoM said:

Hello,

Well, as I suspected.

In fact, I had asked you about which library. Ethera EVI is a rather old library.

But, you can't apply this reasoning to everything.

You will notice that the new versions, such as Ethera Gold Series ( Atlantis III, Prometheus etc ), for example, are completely different, as well as the Elements series.

In life, one improves, and I have also refined some things over the years as a developer.

Therefore, you are pointing out something that I have already addressed over time and in the new libraries.

With this, I would conclude the discussion here since this is not my place.

If you have any other needs or questions, you know where to find me.

Thank you

Click to expand...

I spent at least an hour reorganizing Atlantis. I agree, it's MUCH better than the older libraries. Absolutely. But I'm pretty OCD as you can probably tell.

Just to note that Atlantis is the library that files snapshots from one particular .nki under "31 Hybrid Vocals" in the snapshots folder. This is a good case where NI should allow devs to have a more customized folder structure (or do it automatically), because this should really be inside something called "Ethera Atlantis 3" or "Atlantis Hybrid Vocals" as a root folder, to differentiate it from everything else in the root folder. I've done this manually by renaming the nki and the snapshot folder. But I also do this because I create a lot of my own custom .nkis and snapshots / presets, so try to ensure everything is clearly identified and easy to backup / mirror to other systems.

Ideally, none of this would be stored in the documents folder on the system drive, but inside the instrument's folder as "Snapshots" and "Presets", so the entire library, and all associated files are together and backed up easily as one folder. That's for NI to allow though, no choice in the matter for devs / users. And it's still better than the cluster**** that is Reaktor and Absynth.

If I remember correctly, I also reorganized everything into vocal types. So on the sample drive, and inside QuickLoad it's categorized by "Chants", "Effects", "Legatos", "Pads", "Phrases", 'Phrases (Reverse)", "Sustains", "Syllables". This makes things like loading specific Legato voices much easier, as Romantic, Elven, Valhalla, Heroic, Fantasy, etc. legatos are together in one folder, and not mixed in with effects, phrases, sustains, etc. I suppose this could also be done by grouping specific vocal types together, but...I may do this. Ha.

Also - the reason I'm familiar with all the file names is because I do convert-export the .wav files so I have access to the raw samples in Cubase's MediaBay. I apologize if this is illegal. but I do like how devs like Keepforest give a loop / one shot sample collection along with all their Kontakt libraries. This is very handy.

To be clear - I love these libraries more than my own family. I use them all the time. You do absolutely incredible work. (Same with Silence + Other Sounds). Just spectacular work. This is why I spend so much time making them as organized as possible and get frustrated when things aren't organized. And the process of organizing this means I go through every single sound at least once, so know these libraries like the back of my hand.

Take care! Thanks for the replies as well. Sorry again to hijack the thread.

One added note - have you ever considered doing a children's solo vocal library? Male or female? It's an area that is almost non-existent in this industry. Tons of children's solo / group choir libraries (Strezov, 8Dio, etc.), that are very formal and basically vowel based. But very few phrase based solo libraries with a more emotional slant like the Ethera libraries.

It's very effective in scoring, a good example if from Spielberg's Empire of the Sun: