Unify And Kontakt

Posted by: @jeffp83

Hello unify users

When I switch between Unify presets using Kontakt, it takes almost one minute to change... It seems that unify "quits" Kontakt then reloads it...

As I have many libs, even Stand Alone Kontakt is long to quit so I wonder if other users have the same kind or problem or if there is a way to speed this process...

Sorry for my french english again...

I would believe when you load a Unify layer preset, Unify expects to replace everything previously in the layer. I think it would reload Kontakt each time and the Kontakt instrument. One thing is to resave your Kontakt instruments when you first install them. This makes the instrument at least load considerably faster.

Now if I was loading a series of Unify presets for Omnisphere I would expect delays on my machine.

I guess it is a choice. You could create a very complex layer preset which would be slow to load, but where it might be much slower if you switched the Kontakt instrument and set all the FX again by hand even though you would not have to reload Kontakt. I actually believe Kontakt without any instrument selected loads quickly enough.

I'm planning some code changes, which should improve this situation a bit. However these will take some time and lots of careful testing, so may not appear until later in the year.

Posted by: @getdunne

I'm planning some code changes, which should improve this situation a bit. However these will take some time and lots of careful testing, so may not appear until later in the year.

I think you did get this working well, at least for most instruments. I hadn't had a lot of Kontakt patches until recently... I'm seeing this delay with Kontakt 6. Do you think the magic you did before would apply to Kontakt 6 in a future update?

Check the Unify settings folder (see https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual/doku.php?id=files-folders); it should contain a sub-folder called PluginRules-Unify. If not, unzip the attached folder there. The second ReuseAcceptRules.xml element should ensure that all versions of Kontakt will be retained in memory whenever possible (with some limitations).

Note loading of Kontakt patches can never be instant, because Kontakt needs to pre-load the first (attack) portion of every sample used.

Thanks @getdunne! Found the settings folder (%appdata%\PlugInGuru for anyone wanting a quick jump to it in Windows). The XML file was there, and Kontakt was listed.

I tried some things:

1. Created 2 user patches, Kontakt Test Patch 1 and 2, both with Kontakt 6 loaded, but no Kontakt instrument so no samples would need to load.
2. Switched between Patch 1 and 2 to see how long it took. Overall it took less time than when instruments are loaded but found something very interesting...

If I go to say, an Omnisphere patch, the first one of course takes a bit to load. Any other Omnisphere patch after that takes less than a second to load. Same with Massive (even less time to load initial patch than Omnisphere of course). But here's where things get weird:

1. Load say, a Massive patch for the first time. 2s
2. Switch to another Massive patch. <1s
3. Switch to that empty Kontakt Test Patch 1. 2s
4. Switch to the empty Kontakt Test Patch 2. 4s
5. Switch back to the Massive patch. <1s
6. Switch to the Kontakt Test Patch 1. <1s
7. Switch to Kontakt Test Patch 2. 4s
8. Switch to Kontakt Test Patch 1. 4s

I can post a video of this if it helps. Basically, once Kontakt is loaded once, switching from another synth-based patch to a Kontakt-based patch takes less than 1 second. But switching from a Kontakt-based patch to another Kontakt-based patch takes minimum 4 seconds with no instruments loaded in Kontakt.

No really big deal the feature itself eases switching in like, all other patches so it's fine that for Kontakt it just takes longer. But thought you'd want some details and see if you can reproduce this.

@lowell

Thank you for these most intriguing results. I'm at a loss to explain why "switching from a Kontakt-based patch to another Kontakt-based patch takes minimum 4 seconds with no instruments loaded in Kontakt". Since the Kontakt instances are explicitly retained in memory (as opposed to whatever may happen automatically, due to the operating system's virtual memory management), this is not what I would expect.

I'll keep these results in mind, and if I get a chance I'll bring them to the attention to the Kontakt developers at NI, but I can't promise to act on them anytime soon. Trying to trick or second-guess third-party plug-ins and operating systems to enhance performance can be a black hole I'd prefer not to fall into.

I got around to testing this over the weekend and can duplicate.

Well, this is strange. I just tested removing the line for Kontakt in the ReuseAcceptRules.xml file (so Unify does NOT attempt to re-use Kontakt instances), and switching patches turns out to be much faster, at least on Windows.

See https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual/doku.php?id=layer-reuse for details about where to find this file and how to edit it, if you want to try this. The attached zip file contains a pre-edited version of ReuseAcceptRules.xml you can simply drop in, if you prefer not to edit the file yourself.

Well that's cool, Shane! I'll definitely give that a go. Only you would have thought of that. 🙂

One more data point: I removed the line for Kontakt on my Mac Proc running Mojave 10.14.6 and it definitely feels like it loads quicker. Weird.

Wow. OK, tested removing Kontakt from that XML file in %appdata%\PlugInGuru and now it's almost instantaneous, switching between Kontakt patches. Thanks, Shane!

Can't wait to try this out.  Was working with Noire today wishing I had made this change.  Glad it's working for everyone.

It's counter-intuitive that re-using Kontakt instances already in memory turns out to be slower than flushing them and creating new ones, but such is the world of programming. Things are rarely quite as might be expected!

Thank you to everyone for checking this and reporting your results.

maybe your kontact is in general slow because the virus checker check files. try exclude all folders which contain the kontakt files. i dont know wy, but this speed up instrument load on my system on factor 5 even if this are files that are read only. but the windows defender scan after every start of contact this files.in 21h1 update the defender should be faster, but i still have this files on exclude for check list

@user476565 No, it's definitely the setting that Shane identified above. As noted above, just removing the Kontakt line makes it load almost instantly. Of course, if you're loading a large sample set that will take additional time either way.

Editing the file sped things up for me, too.  Worked great.  Thanks.

I don't get this to work. In my case, the vendor is called Native Instruments GmbH.

• Any rule that matches the plugin is slow ("Native Instruments%", "Native Instruments%" name="Kontakt", and those but GmbH instead of %)
• Having no rule about Kontakt is fast

Loading patches in between makes loading slower again (but not really noticeable with Kontakt), which I asked about here.