I have created a gig with many rackspaces that use Native Instruments libraries. I use the S-88 Native Instruments keyboard as my controller with Gig Perfomer.
At the time I setup my rackspaces I was confused over whether I should use Komplete Kontrol or the Kontakt player VST plugin. My rackspaces are currently using the Komplete Kontrol VST plugin.
I’m thinking I should have used the Kontakt player instead since I don’t think I am using any functions that require Komplete Kontrol. Should I take the time to adjust all my rackspaces to use the Kontakt player instead?
Is there anything detrimental about having the Komplete Kontrol plugin in several rackspaces that would necessitate moving to the Kontakt player?
So far I’ve experienced no problems with my gig or rackspaces. As the gig loads I can see the NI keyboard screen updating several times as the rackspaces load, but that’s it. After the gig loads I switch the S-88 controller to MIDI mode.
I use Kontrol at home with a native keyboard just to choose sounds and effects. When I fix the patch, I save it in the instrument and then I use GigPerformer with that instrument.
This way I am not using live something that on stage has no meaning (for me).
Less software layers, more safety.
@dwhitejazz Komplete Kontrol is specifically designed to work with NI hardware, namely the Komplete Kontrol MIDI keyboards - the integration with those is virtually seamless, and third party devices that adopt and use the NKS Standard. You can use this link to the NI page, click on the NKS icon “More Info” for more information: Komplete Kontrol keyboards and NKS standard. Unfortunately NI only list some of the partner companies and not specific products that use the standard, and as you know if you use KK the plugin doesn’t list other party’s devices. However, your comment does say you are using a S-88, so KK was designed specifically for people like you!
The biggest disadvantage to using KK is that you can only use one instance of Kontakt in the Komplete Kontrol plugin - e.g. only one instrument. To me it’s more like a channel control plugin. Of course you can use more than one instance of KK in GP but KK is more resource intensive that just the Kontact plugin. With the S-88 though this may not be the case.
At the end of the day what you use will be determined by what hardware (like you have a Komplete Kontol keyboard or other NKS device) you use, what you want to do with it - KK has some nifty features that aren’t included in just Kontakt - the quantity of plugins that you normally use and type (e.g. VST3s have lower resourcing requirements) and the processing power of your computer/audio workstation.
Hope the above makes sense and helps. One of these days I’d like to get and use one of the KK keyboards - I currently have a Novation Impulse keyboard, so color me jealous. My own experience though is GP is so flexible that I’m not sure it makes much difference to non-NKS users if you have enough horsepower to handle the CPU loading.