CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1

TOOLS REQUIRED 2

PROCEDURE 3

CONCLUSION 16
 INTRODUCTION

In the recent times, it has been observed that the sizes of KONTAKT libraries have been
increasing. While this increased size generally means more features and options for the user, it
does result in the handling of libraries becoming more difficult for those users who don't have
a very powerful machine. Often these libraries have multiple mic positions, which is great for
flexibility and for the experienced user. But beginners and hobbyists might simply have no
need for them. Also, for those with slow hard drives like myself, the instruments take a lot of
time to load as well. So for all these reasons, using a lighter version of the library might be
beneficial for such users.

There are mainly two operations in making light versions of libraries:

1. Removing unwanted mic position sample groups while keeping only the necessary
ones.
2. Sample bit-depth reduction from 24-bit to 16-bit.

Consider a library that has four mic positions, of which two of them are not needed. In my
experience, after performing both the operations listed above, a size reduction of at least 72%
is achieved. While some people may dislike the idea of bit-depth reduction of the samples,
IMHO the size reduction of about 50% is too large to leave on the table. Also, in my experience
this has neither led to audible sound quality degradation, and nor has it raised the noise floor
so much so that it's an issue even when playing multiple notes. A null test between the 16-bit
and 24-bit sample typically results in a peak of -85dB.

In this tutorial, we'll be learning how to make a Lite Version (LV) for a KONTAKT library
and I'll be explaining all the steps in detail. We'll be making an LV of the Cinematic Studio
Strings library by Cinematic Samples as an example for this tutorial. I'll be performing both
the operations viz. removing unwanted samples and bit-depth reduction in this example. By
the end of this tutorial, you should be on your way to making your own LVs!

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 TOOLS REQUIRED

1. KONTAKT
KONTAKT is the industry-standard sampler from Native Instruments. This is obviously the
most important requirement! For convenience, it's preferred to work in KONTAKT standalone.
It's fine to use the latest version of KONTAKT, but that might not necessarily be the best idea.
If you plan to share the library, consider making the LV in a version that's the same or close to
the minimum supported version of the original library. Also if the original library supports a
minimum of KONTAKT version 6.1.1 or lower, it is recommended to use v6.1.1. The reason
for the same will be discussed later.

2. Total Commander and inNKX

Before doing anything to the samples, you need to have access to them first. Most commercial
libraries these days pack the samples in NKX “containers”. These containers store a large
number of sample files together and have a size limit of 2GB. These aren't archives, so they
don't compress the samples any further.

The only way to extract the samples from these containers is to use a plugin called inNKX for
the program called Total Commander. Total Commander (TC) is an "orthodox" file manager
program. inNKX is a plugin for TC that handles various operations like packing, unpacking,
etc. related to the various file formats used by Native Instruments, like NKX, NKR, etc. The
interface of the plugin is in Russian, but thankfully you don't really need to do anything in the
plugin itself. The links for the same will be provided. The archive contains a text file with
installation instructions.

3. conNCW
conNCW is a command line-based utility that handles conversion between WAV and Native
Instruments' proprietary NCW audio format. Earlier, these conversions could only be done in
KONTAKT, and the process was very time consuming. But thankfully this utility exists now
which makes the whole process a lot easier. It doesn't require any installation. The archive
contains a text file that contains the instructions for usage.

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 PROCEDURE

Before we proceed, it is important to note that the process of making an LV takes up a lot of
space! In my experience, if you're not deleting the unnecessary files after each step, the total
space occupied can go upto 3-4x the size of the original library! And if you delete the
unnecessary files after each step, you'd require free space of at least around 2.5x the size of the
original library. So ensure that you have enough space before you start!

Following is the step-by-step procedure for making an LV:

Step 1:
As the first step, it's a good idea to create a few folders so that all the samples remain organised.
I like to organise my directories as shown below. Also note that the conNCW utility is placed
in the top-level directory. This will come in handy in the later steps.

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Step 2:
The next step would be to extract the samples from the NKX containers of the original library.
i. Fire up Total Commander and go to the "Samples" sub-directory of the directory
where the original library is stored on the left panel.
ii. If you created the folders as mentioned in Step 1, then open the "ncw" subdirectory
of the "CSSconv" directory on the right panel of TC.
iii. Select all the NKX files on the left panel and then go to "Files > Unpack
Specific Files..." or hit "ALT” + “F9" to extract the contents of these NKX
containers. It should look something like this.

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As you can see in the picture below, the developer of this library has followed a very clear
naming convention for all the samples. Not all developers do this, and sometimes it takes some
effort to figure out the naming convention to identify the samples to be deleted.

However, one thing not so great about this library is that all the samples have been placed in a
single directory. This is not very optimal. If there are too many files in the same directory, the
unpacking speed will take a hit. It's a good idea anyway to divide the samples into smaller
chunks to make handling them easier. In this case, I'll make subdirectories for the various
sections, namely "Basses", "Celli", "Violas", "Violins 1", and "Violins 2".

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Step 3:
After you finish extracting the samples, it's now time the delete the unnecessary samples. For
this conversion, we'll be getting rid of the "Room" and the "Mix" sample groups. This library
has a clear naming scheme so it's easy to identify the samples to be deleted.

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However, if you're unsure, you can verify by opening up KONTAKT. Following is the process
for verifying the naming convention used for the library:
i. Load the instrument in KONTAKT and select the mic position you want to remove.
ii. Then click on the wrench icon, which will bring up the Edit Mode.
iii. Next click on the "Group Editor" and "Mapping Editor" buttons. It will open up a
window as shown above.
iv. Now play a note and look in the Group Editor panel to see which group is playing.
v. Clicking on the appropriate group name in the Group Editor panel will show the
said group's mapping in the Mapping Editor.
vi. Click on any one of the samples, which will bring up its name. By looking at that
you can be sure of the naming convention used for the samples.

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Step 4:
Now that you've deleted the unnecessary samples, it's time to convert the NCW files to WAV
for further processing. Open a Command Prompt or PowerShell window in the main directory
and type the following command:

1. ./conncw -n2w -r ./ncw ./wav

Here, the "-n2w" parameter tells that the conversion is happening from NCW –> WAV, and
the "-r" parameter instructs the utility to recursively scan the subdirectories. The "./ncw"
denotes the source directory and the "./wav" denotes the destination directory. It should start
processing as shown below.

Note that for conNCW to recursively scan the subdirectories and perform the conversion, there
should at least be one sample in the top-level source directory. So you should copy any random
sample and place it there. Otherwise it won't perform the conversion at all.

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Step 5:
The next step is to perform the bit-depth reduction from 24-bit to 16-bit. For this, any DAW or
standalone audio editors like iZotope RX can be used. Earlier, I used to use REAPER, but
these days I'm using iZotope RX 8, as it allows batch processing and is more convenient to
deal with large number of samples.
Since we're performing a bit-depth reduction, you should perform dithering. I use the iZotope
MBIT+ dither as it is integrated into RX 8. You can see the settings in the image below. I like
to process one section of the library at a time so that it's more manageable. Here, the processed
files will be stored in the "wavconv" directory.

At this point, a question may arise that if it's worth it to convert the sample rate from 48 kHz
to 44.1 kHz for a little extra size reduction. The answer is that it may not be the best idea. Any
sample rate change will mess up the loop points completely, since KONTAKT stores the loop
points as sample numbers. It may be feasible in those libraries where there are no looped
samples, like piano and drum libraries. However, the size reduction is really small and it's not
really worth the increased time taken during the processing.

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Step 6:
After the processing, it's now time to convert the samples from WAV back to NCW. Run the
following command in Command Prompt/PowerShell:

1. ./conncw -w2n -r ./wavconv ./ncwconv

Here, the "-w2n" parameter instructs conNCW to perform the conversion from WAV –>
NCW. The "./wavconv" denotes the source directory and the "./ncwconv" denotes the
destination directory.

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Step 7:
Now we need to pack the NCW files into NKX containers.
i. Open Total Commander and open the "ncwconv" directory in the left panel and
another directory in the right panel.
ii. Select all the subdirectories and then go to "Files > Pack..." or hit "ALT" +
“F5". A new window will pop-up.
iii. In that window, under the "Packer" panel, select the last option and then select
"nkx" from the list. It will start packing the samples into NKX containers as shown
below.

As mentioned earlier, NKX containers have a size limit of 2GB. So do check the sizes before
packing, or else Total Commander will show an error. Personally, I like to keep all the samples
of a specific section in the same NKX container, even if it means that the containers are less
than 2GB in size. This makes keeping track of samples easier in case you need to unpack them
again.

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Step 8:
Now create a new directory with the appropriate name and place all the NKX containers in a
subdirectory named "Samples". Then copy all the other files from the original library directory
and paste them here. Once you're done, it should look something like this.

Step 9:
The next step is to resave all the KONTAKT patches so that they recognise the new file
locations and the mentions of all the discarded samples are removed from the patches. But
depending on the version of KONTAKT used the process is different. Proceed according to the
version of KONTAKT you’re using.

For KONTAKT v6.1.1 and below:

i. In KONTAKT's interface, click on the floppy icon and then select "Batch re-save".
ii. Press "Yes" on the prompt and then on the next window, navigate to the directory where
the library files are stored. It will then scan for missing samples and display a prompt
named "Content Missing".

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iii. Since the paths have changed it will show that all of the samples are missing, even those
which haven't been deleted. Click on the "Browse for folder" button and click OK and
it should find the remaining samples.
iv. After it has scanned for some time, it will find the remaining samples and then display
a list of missing samples which are those that have been deleted. Now click on the "Skip
Missing" button. KONTAKT will then re-save the patches without the missing samples.

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For KONTAKT versions above 6.1.1:
Unfortunately, KONTAKT has since removed the "Skip Missing" button displayed during
batch re-saving, so unfortunately it's now no longer possible to simply batch re-save patches
without missing samples. Instead, now each NKI has to be saved individually without the
missing samples. Use the following steps for that:
i. Load up an NKI in the KONTAKT window and it will display the "Content
Missing" window. As described above, KONTAKT will list the remaining samples
along with the missing ones since the paths have changed.
ii. Click on the "Browse for folder" button and click OK and it should find the
remaining samples.
iii. After it has scanned for some time, it will display a list of missing samples. These
are the sample which have been deleted. Now click on the "Ignore this time" button.
The instrument will load up.
iv. Then click on the wrench icon to go into Edit Mode.

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 v. Click on the "Mapping Editor" button. Now in the Mapping Editor, right click on
the mapping area and then click on "Remove all zones with missing samples" in the
pop-up menu. This will clear all the references to the missing samples from the
NKI.
vi. Finally, click on the floppy icon on the top and then click on "Save edited
instrument..." and then save it. Now you'll need to repeat this process for all the
NKIs in the library.

Step 10:
Finally, you should now have the LV ready! Load up the instruments in KONTAKT and play
through the instrument to check that everything is working fine. Now go ahead and have fun
with your new LV library!

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 CONCLUSION

After finishing the conversion of this library to an LV, it was seen that the conversion process
took the size of the library down to 8.32GB from the original 32.1GB, which is a 74%
reduction!
With this we come to the end of this tutorial on how to make your own Lite Versions. Hopefully
after completing this you'll be able to go ahead and make your own Lite Versions of various
libraries. I hope everything was clear and easy to follow. Feel free to contact me via PMs in
case you have any doubts and I'll be happy to help.

Have fun!

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