ABOUT THIS MANUAL
FRAMEWORK
This is our visual framework for the main UI. Simple plug-and-play, with advanced settings hidden under the hood.
Compatibility
To use our instruments, you need to have the full retail version of the latest version of KONTAKT by NATIVE-INSTRUMENTS.
Our libraries will work with KONTAKT 6.4.2 and above,
(except Plateau and Viewpoint that needs K6.6)
INSTALLATION
Unzip the files and move them to your preferred location. No extra installation is necessary.
To use our instruments, you need to have the full retail version of the latest version of KONTAKT by NATIVE-INSTRUMENTS.
You load the instruments into Kontakt by dragging them in, by using the “Load” menu.
CONTROLS
VOLUME (expression)
The slider labeled “VOL” controls the overall volume of the instrument. It sums all the mix sliders in one master-fader. The slider comes pre-mapped with CC11 as standard.
Wrongtools instruments will always have plenty of headroom, so you won’t risk any clipping.
DYNAMIC CONTROL
The “DYN” slider is mapped to CC01 as default. It will further adjust the dynamics being played.
For patches marked with “[mw]” in the filename, the DYN slider (pre-assigned to modwheel) is used to crossfade between different sounds or dynamic layers. [mw]-marked patches has two, sometimes three and four, layers that you crossfade between.
If you prefer to disable key-velocity, and only use the DYN slider for dynamics, go to settings-view and choose “flat velocity” in the keyboard velocity menu.
AMOUNT SLIDERS
Click and drag the slider to adjust amount of effect applied. For finer increment adjustments, hold down SHIFT while dragging the slider. Holding CTRL whilst clicking on any of the instrument parameters will move the control back to its default position MIX SLIDERS
The number of mix sliders will vary instrument to instrument, and have different sources or microphone signals. They control the playback volume. For finer increment adjustments, hold down SHIFT while dragging the slider. Holding CTRL whilst clicking on any of the instrument parameters will move the control back to its default position. VU meters indicate the volume on each track.
The mixsliders comes pre-mapped with CC nr:
- Mix slider 1 – CC22
- Mix slider 2 – CC23
- Mix slider 3 – CC24
- Mix slider 4 – CC25
- Mix slider 5 – CC26
Rightclick on slider if you need to assign other CCs or remove it.
To un-purge a purged track, just move the mix slider, and the track will go from purge-mode and load its belonging samples.
Some instruments have additional mix-slider in the settings view, for extra trimming of release samples volume.
DYNAMIC ENVELOPE CONTROLS
Clicking on “DYN” or “VOL” reveals controls to adjust attack and release settings.
The release slider influences the ‘decay’ and ‘sustain’ a tiny bit.
SAMPLE START
Sample-start slider controls where playback begins when the sample is triggered. Practical on slow attack/swells and you need a quicker start.
PURGE SAMPLES
Purging tracks unloads the samples from memory, lowers voice-count, and saving you RAM.
To purge a track – click on the square below the mixer fader, and it will become inactive and muted.
Alternatively, drag the mix-slider to zero to purge. If the track is purged, just move the slider a little to un-purge it
You may automate purging by dragging the slider to zero to purge, or move the slider of a purged track to un-purge it. It is not recommended to automate purging (loading/unloading samples) within a session!
By command clicking a purge-button, you purge all the other tracks but the one you clicked. This allows you to preview the mic channel by itself, like a mute-button.
Pitchbend range
Pitchbend range can be set from the Settings view by +/- 12 semitones
ARTICULATION SWITCHING
For instruments that has articulation switching, you’ll see a row of these in the bottom row.
You can switch between these by either clicking on the buttons, or by CC of Keyswitches – that you set in the settings view.
You can also set your own custom host automation CCs by right-clicking the articulation buttons.
OVERLAY ARTICULATIONS
Hold down SHIFT while clicking on the articulation buttons, to play more articulations at the same time.
Or choose “latch KS” from the Articulation menu to turn articulations on and off with key switches.
● CHANNEL STRIPS
Right click on the tracknames to open the channel strip panel for each individual track.
CHANNEL STRIP : PAN
Controls the stereo position of the individual track. Pro-users might use this in conjunction with the width control below.
CMND-click resets to center.
TIP : For creative sound patches and pads with different tracks, it can often sound good to pan the individual tracks differently. For example hard left / right.
CHANNEL STRIP : STEREO WIDTH
Spread the stereo image from mono to 200%. Experiment with the width slider in combination with the pan slider, for a more natural stereo positioning.
CHANNEL STRIP : SWAP LEFT RIGHT
Flips the stereo image so that the Left channel becomes Right and vice versa on selected track.
CHANNEL STRIP : Phase INVERT (Ø)
When engaged, the signal is flipped 180°. Can be a useful tool when mixing.
But be aware that L/R phase inverted channels can cancel each other out if the output is converted to mono.
CHANNEL STRIP : 4-BAND EQ
You assign EQ parameters to the EQ wheel by clicking on the dropdown menu below the EQ wheel. What you dial in, will show as numbers on top of the mixer track while moving the controls.
EQ us bypassed by default – Engage with the EQ ON/OFF button.
RESET CHANNEL STRIP
Click the reset sign to set the channel-strip controls (EQ etc) back to default state on the selected strip.
● EFFECTS
REVERB : ROOM SIZE AND REVERB PRE-DELAY
PRE-DELAY – Adds a short delay before the reverb.
LENGTH – Sets the size of the reverb.
Convolution Preset Menu
From the “REV” button, you’ll get access to the send-reverb setting and a dropdown panel with 16 custom IR reverbs. Each with a different character. Adjust reverb amount, pre-delay and length as preferred
DELAY
The delay controls are amount, rate and length. They control Kontakts Replika-delay with the settings that we think sound best, and that we like to use.
- RATE – Sets the delay to note length divisions.
- LENGTH – sets the feedback.
LFO // PUMPER
RETRIGGER – when ON, and no notes are held, the position of the LFO is reset, starting again when you begin playing
RATE : This adjusts the speed of the LFO – synced to the DAW.
SHAPE : Choose the dynamic shape of the LFO : sine, rectangle, triangle and saw.
VIBRATO
Pitch vibrato can be incredible useful in making sampled instrument coherent. And in making a richer spectrum of sounds. The control can be assigned to its own controller by rightclicking.
FILTER
Filters can be used as an alternative to dynamic controls, so some of our instruments has this implemented. Most often a low-pass filter.
● Sound sculpting [FX]
Our own little coding-playground where we have collected our best sound-mangling experiments.
Consider the FX section a pandoras box and a bonus.
Morph sounds to the unrecognizable. Engage by clicking ‘FX’
You can start up and engage a sound-sculpt bonanza by clicking the “FX” button. It will give you unorthodox ways of morphing the sounds. Most of these are built up by different kinds of random moving parameters that simultaneously triggers Kontakt’s internal envelopes, effects and modulations.
SCULPT PRESET MENU
- Nøkken – cinematic smear I
- Pigment – chops granular fragments
- Huldra – cinematic smear II
- Polygon – cinematic smear III with overdrive
- Tracker – Pitchtracker that follows your moves
- Sadist – hard filtering through XY
- Digidust – adds noise elements combined with a filter
- Flakes – randomly river like triggered notes in octaves
To access the SCULPT settings again, click on the dropdown sign in the bottom row next to the FX-preset name.
SOUND SCULPTING WITH XY PAD
Each sculpt preset has its own corresponding visual look and feel.
Real-time movements in the XY pad can be automated and recorded from the DAW or by assigning MIDI CC from the menu below.
CMND click sets XY cursor to start position.
Use LEARN buttons to quickly assign MIDI CC to X axis or Y axis. Or choose a CC number directly from the number row.
To remove assignments again, CMND click on the ‘LEARN’ button
CONVERT SCULPTS TO AUDIO?
It can sometimes be a good idea to convert these midi regions to audio-regions, if you need them to sound exactly the same on each playthrough. And if you need to save RAM
● SETTINGS VIEW
The settings view gives you control over more advanced parametres and calibrations.
VELOCITY RESPONSIVENESS
Choose between four different pre-made velocity presets, or draw your own. In the keyboard responsiveness dropdown menu you’ll find :
- CUSTOM VELOCITY BYPASSED (sets velocity to Kontakt 50% linear default)
- FLAT VELOCITY
- CONCAVE VELOCITY CURVE
- SHELF VELOCITY CURVE
- LINEAR VELOCITY CURVE
- CONVEX VELOCITY CURVE
- you may also freely draw your own lines directly onto a curve, save if needed.
- LOAD / SAVE VELOCITY CURVE – Custom velocity curves can be loaded and saved, and shared between wrongtools instruments.
The velocity curves allows dynamics to be biased towards louder or softer sounds, and to adjust instrument to your keyboard sensitivity and playing style.
ARTICULATION SWITCH SETUP
For instruments that’s set up with with several articulations, you will see the different articulations in the front user interface. To switch between them, you can click directly on them, or you can switch between them using Key Switches or CC. You’ll find the alternatives in a dropdown menu in settings view.
Latching KS, means that you have to press the same articulation key to turn it off. With this setting, you can overlay several articulations on top of each other.
You can do this anytime with the buttons in the GUI too, just hold SHIFT while clicking.
Articulation switching by Key Switch (KS). Set ROOT note for Key switching row.
Articulation switching by MIDI CC. Choose CC number to control swapping of articulation
TRANSPOSE
Transpose instrument +/- 24 semitones. Kontakt’s keyboard graphics is updated to show the new range.
RELEASE SAMPLES VOLUME
For instruments with release-samples, you’ll usually find a dedicated volume slider on the front user interface.
On some multitrack instruments, there is also a trim slider in the settings view, for further calibration.
SUSTAIN PEDAL
Sustain pedal is set to CC64 by default, which is the MIDI standard for sustain pedals. Most of our keyboard instrument have pedal noises sampled. These are mapped to dedicated mix-sliders, and you can easily adjust volume or purge the noise triggered from the pedal.
In the lower right corner, you’ll notice a subtle blink when pedal is in use on instruments with dedicated pedal samples.
SAVE AND LOAD SETTINGS
From the settings view you can store all settings, and import them to a different Wrongtools instruments. Practical if you want to share, for example, your mixer settings between different patches.
RESET TO DEFAULTS
In the load / save menu, there is a “reset” function at the bottom of the menu. This sets all controls back a default state. Save a backup before trying.
MAGNIFY USER INTERFACE
From the settings view, you can resize KONTAKT, and swap between large and small user interface. A larger window can be more pleasing for the eye, great for live playing and practical for visual impaired.
Then click on “!” and voilá!
Save instrument if you want to keep the changes for next time.● OTHER
Inbuilt manual
Click on the book icon at bottom left. Text will vary from instrument to instrument
To see which version your downloaded instrument is, click on the BOOK icon (bottom left). Then you’ll see the version number at the bottom right.
FIND INFO & HELP TEXT
If there’s a control parameter you don’t understand, hover your mouse over it and help text appears at the left bottom of the Kontakt window. You’ll have to have the Kontakt infopanel activated for this to display. The controls in the GUI will also have text that appears nearby when is is moved. A crucial tool for accurate movements and for understanding what the control is doing.
CLOSE WINDOWS
To close a window or any control panel in the user interface, simply click anywhere else.
Assigning midi CC’s to any control
Simply right-click on any of the controls in Kontakt and click on ‘learn MIDI CC# automation’. Tell Kontakt which control you want assigned by jiggling it.
You can also set the automation range for MIDI CCs in KONTAKT’s own MIDI automation tab in the KONTAKT left side browser.
Assignments for the XY FX-sculpt PAD can be done with LEARN buttons or by setting the number manually. This includes aftertouch CC128 and pitchbend CC129. Cmnd-click on LEARN buttons resets the X or Y assignments.
Wrongtools instruments comes pre-assigned with these CCs :
CC01 – modulation
CC03 – vibrato
CC11 – expression
CC22 – mixslider1
CC23 – mixslider2
CC24 – mixslider3
CC25 – mixslider4
CC26 – mixslider5
CC115 – internal (don’t use)
Komplete Kontrol interfaces
Although the instruments are not NKS-player compatible, the controls parameters are automatically mapped out and available on Komplete Kontrol interfaces.
Set up output routing in Kontakt
Routing different KONTAKT tracks to individual tracks in your DAW, can be handy for example if you are working in multichannel surround, and opens up a many creative opportunities. This allows you to utilize third-party plugins or hardware routing on individual tracks.
Rightclick on the trackname (or symbol) above the track mix slider. You need to configure KONTAKT for multiple output tracks. more info here
Changing outputs on trackmixer can change the internal routing of the sculpt effects. Save as a separate instrument.
Troubles?
There’s no sound
A possible reason could be that you have “latch KS” active in the Articulation / keyswitch menu, and that all articulations are switched off from there.
Resolve Issues with Missing Samples and Batch Resave
Batch resaving (theoretically) accelerates loading times and checks that everything is installed correctly.
To perform a Batch resave, select ‘batch re-save’ from the file menu in Kontakt. Click ‘Yes’ then locate the libraries instruments folder on your hard drive and click ‘choose’. More info HERE. This can resolve issues with missing samples message for a Kontakt library.
Should there actually be files missing, the the best way get things in order is to re-download the library.
Changing outputs on trackmixer can change the internal routing of the sculpt effects. Save as a separate instrument.
Audio device not connected
There’s no sound when the instrument is loaded and the interface says : “Audio device not connected”.
First check the track in your DAW if the Kontakt plug-in is turned ON. If yes, then proceed to check settings in Kontakt Option Panel”. Try to reset your output configuration in the Option Panel. Set your output configuration so that it has stereo tracks, and not mono tracks.
If you use VEP, try to send in some MIDI signals, and the “Audio device not connected” dialogue will disappear
More questions answered in the FAQ section