Kontakt Player 2 vs. 4

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for all the great information here!  I've got a quick question about Kontakt Player 4 and how this differs from Kontakt Player 2.

Through the last several years as the compatibility between Sibelius and Virtual Drumline has been strengthening, I've been trying to keep up and stay educated about how to fully understand what there is to know about the application and the library, respectively.  I've recently read on the Sibelius website that Sibelius no longer needs Kontakt player 2 to run Virtual Drumline.  Is this true?  I've currently got my 'playback devices' using Kontakt Player 2 as the active device for my VDL sounds.  Everything seems to work fine.  My question is, I've just updated to Kontakt Player 4 and would like to know if I should use this.  Will my files still playback correctly if I make the switch?  Also, what is included in this updated player?  Are there a library of sounds available with the update as well? 

I've not been understanding why Kontakt is necessary at all.  However, if there are additional sounds/patches/libraries that are available I would assume it's good to have..??

Any information would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

As far as I know Kontakt Player is necessary.

KP4 loads sounds faster than KP2, and with the latest VDL library update KP4 is fully supported. I highly recommend it.
Yes, Kontakt Player is necessary if you're using the full version of Virtual Drumline. It's possible that what you read on the Sibelius site was referring to the small collection of VDL sounds that come included within their ";Essentials"; library that comes with Sibelius. Essentials went from being a Kontakt Player library (in version 5), to a library integrated into their own ";Sibelius Player"; (in version 6).

If you're only using Sibelius Essentials for playback, then you wouldn't need Kontakt Player. Those sounds are all integrated within Sibelius Player. However, if you're using the FULL version of VDL, it requires Kontakt Player. And yes, Kontakt 4 player is probably a more robust choice in terms of performance, and it's fully supported with the latest updates of VDL and Sibelius.
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