How do I load a SATB choir?

[Marko]

Would someone tell me how to load a full SATB choir into Kontakt 2? (I am assuming this is possible.) I am using Symphonic Choirs and WordBuilder in stand alone mode. I have 2 gigs of ram.

I can load the Full men (tenor and bass) or the Full women (alto and soprano), but I don't know how to do the full SATB. Does it require a special multi for Kontakt 2? Does it depend on WordBuilder being configured a certain way?

Thanks.

Marko

[Sam Fischmann]

Hello Marko,

Using the default Multis, you cannot load a SATB choir into Kontakt 2. This is because each section of the choir requires 5 MIDI channels. If we were to load each section that would be 20 channels, but MIDI only lets us have 16.

It's true that Kontakt 2 can listen on multiple MIDI ports, but when loaded as a plugin, it can only use one. The multis created for Kontakt 2 are made to run in any situation, so they take the 16 channel limit into account.

If you want to load the whole choir, you must create your own multis by saving the patches found in the men and women's choirs, and then loading them up into one big new multi, keeping channels intact (but changing the ports). You can then open up two WordBuilder voices, enable just two virtual MIDI ports in Kontakt 2, and play with the whole choir. This can only be done with Kontakt running standalone.

If anybody else is interested in this procedure, please post a reply here, or send me a PM.

-Sam

[Marko]

Thanks Sam.

I'll give this a try and will let you know what happens.

Marko

[petermidi]

Thanks for offering some help on this Sam,
Having got my 2gb Ram I've finally got my satb working with Kompakt - albeit slowly - the system only just copes - so I'd love to try it in Kontakt - it may be more efficient on RAM use - and I've not had much luck with the Kontakt only multis thus far - I just loaded the mens into one instance of K2 and the womens multi into the other - with a separate wordbuilder for each...
Thanks again
P

[jphilpit]

And, just for the record, when a project does not need WordBuilder, there's also the "Full Chorus, Church" that uses only 5 MIDI channels for the whole SATB choir. It's described on page 40 in the manual.

[Sam Fischmann]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

It's much easier to work with two instances of Kontakt 2, but I figured it was worth posting that it's theoretically possible to use one standalone instance of Kontakt 2 if necessary. I don't know about how much it will affect performance, but perhaps it's a test I should run soon.

-Sam