Is there a way to access individual files for each instrument?

Say I only use the snare drum tap, and rim shot for example, is there a way to access those samples and make my own AU so that it takes up less ram than loading all the snare sounds?

Hi Charlie,

The only way to do what you are suggesting is to open the instrument in the full version of Kontakt, and edit it yourself. There is a ";purge"; unused samples feature in Kontakt 2, however, I don't know how reliable that is when operating in standalone mode. I think it may be more useful when hosting Kontakt as a plugin.

We've thought about offering a customization service which might offer instruments that were specific to users' customized desires, and would operate directly in the VDL2 player. Any thoughts on how useful something like that might be? It would save folks the worry about purchasing Kontakt, and moreover, learning how to program which can be a tedious process.

When you say service, do you mean pay per usage? I'm not sure too many people would want to do that, but if there was some easy to use plugin that would let people do it ";on the fly"; (like making an instrument with the Snare sounds, cowbell, egg shaker, and bird call for example) I think people would really dig it.

For example, I'm working on a score right now for a local drumline + pit. I don't own Kontakt, I use Sib4 with AUlab. I had the choice to make my 4 pit players read 10 staves of music and have it play back right with VDL2 on my computer, or make 4 staves with their names on them and just type the instrument I want them to play above the staff and have it not play back with the correct instruments.

I know that with Kontakt, you can set up multis for this sort of thing, but I neither have RAM economy or money to buy Kontakt. So being able to create a custom Instrument with say vibes, tom, sizz sym, and windchimes would be great!

Hope this helps :)
Charlie

This may seem like a whole lot of extra work, but you could create one file that had all ten or your staves, get it to sound right with VDL2 and then do whatever recording you wanted with it. Then go back and either create a new file or edit that one down to four staves. No, it wouldn't playback correctly, but it'd be a lot easier on your players.

I fought that a little last summer before I bought Kontakt. One thing you might consider (because you are using Sibelius) is trying to utilize the ";hide empty staves"; feature. I'm not sure it's the be all end all answer to your stituation, but you might be able to manipulate it to work to your advantage.

ER

I routinely have ";playback"; scores and ";print"; scores - to echo Eric - I don't know if this is the  end all be all but it works for me...