Here’s what we know about the Kontakt Player VST3 support in Sibelius…..
I think the problem with VST3 support in Sibelius may have less to do with Avid, and more to do with the way the VST3 versions of Kontakt handle the loading of instruments. It’s apparently on Native Instruments’ radar, but no sign of them fixing it yet.
In the meantime, we’ve been recommending people fall back to the VST2 version of Kontakt. I believe Kontakt 7+ are VST3 exclusively, so in this case, Kontakt 6 is the likely solution. My understanding is that as of Kontakt 6.6.0, Kontakt installed both VST2 and VST3 versions. They have a legacy installer page here, however there appears to be a typo in the Windows link to Kontakt 6.6.1. Looks like that link should actually point here:
cdn.inmusicbrands.com/Support/Native Instruments/Kontakt Installers/Kontakt_661139_PC.zip
It’s possible that Kontakt 6 might still show up in Native Access, so long as the user has “Show legacy versions” toggled on.
If you have the gumption, I would encourage you to reach out to Native Instruments to inform them that many of your customers are being hampered by the missing patch-loading mechanism in the VST3 version of Kontakt. The more they hear about this, perhaps the more likely they’ll consider fixing it. I’d encourage your customers to do the same. I think this is a vital component to how Sibelius implements Kontakt, but it may not be a function that most of NI’s typical customers need. So it’s important for them to hear about it from Sibelius users.
And to clarify, I believe the VST3 issue primarily affects Windows users. The Mac version also installs the AU version which seems not to exhibit the same issue with patch loading mechanism. My understanding is that it was a problem with how they ported VST2 to VST3.
Yes, there is no problems for Mac users and the AU version of Kontakt Player.
Thanks for the info, Jim!