Native Instruments Kontakt 1.1 Creator Tools

A suite of tools developed to support

the instrument creation process

Application Manual

CREATOR TOOLS ��4

DEBUGGER ��4

INSTRUMENT EDITOR �� 6

GUI DESIGNER ��8

Scripting Reference

INSTRUMENT STRUCTURE ��14

SCRIPTING BASICS �� 15

SCRIPT PATH��15 READ PROPERTIES AND PRINT THEM �� 15 ITERATE OVER CONTAINERS ��15 WORKING WITH CONTAINERS ��16

BINDING REFERENCE

TYPE �� 17

OPERATORS ��17 FUNCTIONS �� 17 PROPERTIES ��18

SCALARS �� 18

PROPERTIES ��18 FUNCTIONS �� 19

VECTOR �� 19

CONSTRUCTORS��19 OPERATORS ��20 PROPERTIES �� 20 FUNCTIONS �� 21

STRUCT ��22

CONSTRUCTORS��22 OPERATORS ��22 PROPERTIES ��22 FUNCTIONS ��23

Contents

ALGORITHMS ��24

FREE FUNCTIONS ��24

FILE SYSTEM ��25

EXAMPLES ��25 FUNCTIONS �� 25 OPERATIONAL ��26

POSIXTIME �� 28

EXAMPLES ��28 FUNCTIONS �� 28 CONVERSIONS �� 28

MIR FUNCTIONS ��29

PITCH DETECTION ��29 PEAK, RMS & LOUDNESS DETECTION �� 30

Application Manual

Creator Tools

A suite of tools developed to support the instrument creation process� It consists of the Debugger, the Instrument Editor and the GUI Designer� Switching between the tools is possible from the top tabs, or by using the shortcuts F1 (Debugger), F2 (Instrument Editor) and F3 (GUI Designer)� Creator Tools actions can also be triggered via their dedicated shortcuts� Shortcuts act according to which panel the user is focused on�

Debugger

The Debugger connects to all running instances of Kontakt, both plug-in and standalone� It logs messages, warnings and errors coming for KSP, supports inspecting script variables,

provides timestamps per notication and some basic ltering options.

VARIABLE WATCHING (⌘/CT R L- E)

Clicking on the eye icon reveals the Variable Watching area� This is where the current values of all watched variables and arrays are displayed, in order of appearance� For every variable or array that is inspected, an entry is created upon initialization and updated every time a value change occurs� All value changes appear also in the Log above, in chronological order�

Inspecting a variable or array is possible via the dedicated KSP commands watch_var and watch_array_idx�

For example watch_var($count) inspects the value changes of the variable count and watch_array_idx(%volume,5) inspects the value changes of index 5 of the array volume�

Please also refer to the KSP Reference Manual for more details�

FILTER (⌘/C TR L- F )

When active, it reveals the ltering options and applies them.

• Filter by type (Variable Watching, Message, Warning, Error)

• Filter by text (characters in the Message column)

• Filter by Instrument

• Filter by Script slot

Application Manual

PAUSE (⌘/CTRL-P)

Suspends the debugging session� While active, the Pause button blinks� Once the session is resumed, all messages that were received during pause will appear�

CLEAR (⌘/CTRL-BACKSPACE)

Clears all content of the Debugger log�

SETTINGS

Denes the behaviour of the Log.

LOG

This is where all notications from Kontakt appear. The Log contains 7 columns:

• Type

• System Time

• Engine Time

• Message

• Instrument

• Script

• Line Type and Message are set, but all other columns can be hidden� Right-clicking on the column header reveals the column menu�

Application Manual

Instrument Editor

The Instrument Editor connects to a running instance of Kontakt, either plug-in or standalone, and offers programmatic access to parts of a Kontakt instrument’s structure through Lua-based scripting�

It loads and runs Lua scripts that have been created in a text editor and saved to disk� In

this way an instrument structure can be modied. One can now easily rearrange, add or

remove groups and zones, edit their names and some of their properties, like tune, volume,

and mapping. Limited le system access also allows the creation of new instruments based

on samples on the disk� The added MIR functions (like pitch and RMS detection) assist or automate parts of the instrument creation process�

Some Lua example and tutorial scripts are provided for the above in the application folder, to help you get started if needed� Ideally, the content of the scripts’ folder can be copied to “*user*/Documents/Native Instruments/Creator Tools”�

MULTI RACK MENU

Sets the focus of the tool on the multi rack of one of the connected Kontakt instances�

INSTRUMENT MENU

Sets the focus of the tool to a specic instrument that is loaded in one of the connected Kontakt

instances� Note that instruments with locked edit views, cannot be selected�

PUSH (⌘/CT R L-Shift-↑)

Applies all changes from the Tools‘ side to Kontakt� If changes are not pushed, an indication on the button appears to notify for the pending changes�

PULL (⌘/C TR L- Shift-↓)

Overwrites the current Kontakt state to the tools� Whenever a change takes place on the Kontakt side, Pull needs to be manually pressed in order to apply the changes in the Tools� If changes are not pulled, an indication on the button appears to notify for the pending changes�

CONNECTION INDICATOR

The connection indicator on the top right corner, indicates whether a successful connection between the tools and the Kontakt instances is established�

Application Manual

INSTRUMENT TREE VIEW

The instrument structure is displayed in the form of a nested tree� The tree view shows the basic

instrument structure and instrument properties that can be modied.

SCRIPT PANEL

Changes within the Tools happen exclusively via running a Lua script� A script can see and

modify the instrument copy in the Tools. Scripts can be created and modied with an external

editor� The script output will appear in the console output� All console output can be copied to system clipboard via the command ⌘/Ctrl-Alt-C�

LOAD (⌘/C TR L- L)

Opens the le explorer in order to locate a .lua le in disk and load it. The lename of the loaded le will then appear in the lename area.

[Currently the Creator Tools Lua runtime on Windows does not support lepaths that contain Unicode characters. Please rename the script’s lepath accordingly to successfully load it.]

OPEN IN TEXT EDITOR (⌘/CT RL- O)

Opens the loaded script le in the system’s default editor.

RUN (⌘/CT RL- R )

Executes the loaded �lua script� Changes are immediately reflected in the Instrument Tree View�

STOP (⌘/C TRL- I)

Stops the execution of the running script� The Instrument Editor state is reverted, as if the script never run�

CLEAR

Clears all content of the Script Output Panel�

Application Manual

GUI Designer

The GUI Designer allows one to assemble, customize and reuse Kontakt performance views and

controls without the need to write code. It can generate two types of les, the performance view les (.nckp) and the control les (.nckc).

The performance view les (.nckp) contain all the information about an instrument’s graphical interface. These les are created when a GUI Designer project is saved and can then be loaded

in a KSP script (see also Loading in KSP)�

The control les (.nckc) are les that are created by exporting a single control or a container of controls (see also Panels). These les can then be imported in a later GUI Designer project, shared with collaborators or set the foundation for building custom UI libraries. Control les

cannot be loaded in KSP�

The two main areas of the tool are the Tree View and the Properties�

Tree View

The structure of a Kontakt performance view is displayed here in the form of a tree� A new performance view has one hierarchy level; the root level� More levels can be created when controls are added in panels (see Panels)�

Actions on one or more selected controls can be performed from the Tree View’s context menu�

The context menu actions are:

• Cut (⌘/CT RL-X)

Copies selection to the clipboard and deletes it from the tree

• Copy (⌘/CTR L- C)

Copies selection to the clipboard

• Paste (⌘/C TR L-V)

Pastes the controls from the clipboard above selection

• Duplicate (⌘/C TR L- D)

Duplicates selection

• Rename (↵)

Enters renaming mode for selection

• Delete (⌘/CT RL- )

Deletes selection

⌦

Application Manual

• Import (⌘/C TR L- I)

Opens the system’s le browser in order to locate and import a control le (.nckc) from the

disk� The imported control will be placed above the currently selected control

• Export (⌘/C TR L- E)

Opens the system’s le browser in order to save the selected control’s le (.nckc) in a

desired location

Adding a control

INSERT CONTROL MENU

A new control can be inserted in the performance view tree from the Insert Control menu� The menu lists all the known Kontakt UI controls, plus a new control called Panel (see Panels)�

IMPORT

Previously exported controls can be added in the tree via the Import function of the context menu� Select a control and right click to reveal the context menu� Click on Import and locate the control’s .nckc le in the system’s le browser. Select Open and the control will be added in the tree, on top of the currently selected control�

PANELS

A panel is a control that can contain one or multiple controls� Unlike the rest of the controls, panels don’t have size� They are very useful for grouping controls that are meant to be handled together� Then one can simultaneously modify the Show, Position or zLayer property of all the controls contained in that panel� The position of a contained control is relative to the panel’s position� This means that the control’s (0,0) position is the current (x,y) position of the panel�

Panels can be nested, so they can contain other panels� If panelA is contained in panelB, then panelA will appear in front of panelB� This is because children panels have a higher zLayer value than their parent panels� One could use this logic to easily create hierarchies in a performance view�

Panels can also be used to keep the tree view organized� They can be expanded or collapsed� When a panel is selected and expanded, new controls will be added on top of the panel’s contained controls� When a panel is selected but collapsed, new controls will be added above it, on the same hierarchy level as the panel�

Application Manual

PANELS IN KSP

Panels, like any other control, can also be used with pure KSP outside the GUI Designer, using

the following new command and control parameter:

declare ui_panel $<my_panel_name>

Creates a panel

set_control_par(<control-to-add-ui-ID>,$CONTROL_PAR_PARENT_PANEL,<panelui-I D >)

Adds a UI control (or panel) in a panel

Example: Adding the volume knob in the mixer panel.

declare ui_panel $mixer declare ui_knob $volume (0,300,1)

set_control_par(get_ui_id($volume),$CONTROL_PAR_PARENT_PANEL,get_ui_ i d ($ m i xe r))

PROPERTIES

On the right side of the GUI Designer is the Properties area� Here, one can modify the properties of a selected control� Depending on the type of the property, editing can be done via text input, numeric input or dropdown menu selection� When an invalid value is entered, the property will be set to the last valid value� Pressing TAB takes the focus from the Tree View to the Properties area and vice versa�

IMAGE

Image elds take as input the lename of a picture (.png) that is contained in the pictures subfolder of the Resources folder�

Note: The Resources folder is the place to store les that an NKI can use, which are not samples.

For more information please check KSP Reference Manual - Working with the Resource Container.

COLOR

Color elds take as input the hex code (six-digit, three-byte hexadecimal number) of a color. A preview of the set color is displayed on the right side of the color input eld.

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