Party's over.

Files created by the upcoming Kontakt 6 (release Oct 1), due to encryption and new NI policies, will not be accessible by any program other than Kontakt 6 itself.

This means that you will not be able to translate, view, operate on, or audition Kontakt 6 NKI files within any third-party product such as Chicken System's Translator, Kontakt Assistant, or Constructor. You can only access/load/use them in Kontakt 6 - nothing else.

The Kontakt 6 extensions will stay the same - .nki/.nkm/.nkb. If you try to access those Kontakt 6 files in Translator, or any Chicken Systems product, you will get an error message.

What You Should Do
If you are interested in using Kontakt for authoring, or place some value in taking your information into some other format - such as EXS24, or SFZ, or your keyboard workstation (Motif, Kronos, Kurzweil, etc.), we advise keeping an older version of Kontakt around for creating accessible files. And if you use Kontakt 6, do not resave those nki's. Best Case: use a version v4.1 or less, giving you complete access. With v4.2-v5.8, you can access much of the information, but not modulators, filters, or effects.

Or choose not to upgrade to Kontakt 6. The majority of improvements are geared toward developers, not users, according to many experts who have seen the initial versions.

We believe this is a mistake on NI's part. This does not serve their user base well. Not all will care about this restriction - but we know, firsthand, that many will. We have strongly advocated to NI on the behalf of all Kontakt users, for the last eight years, about the importance of full access to ALL data, but those efforts have ultimately failed. Perhaps NI will reconsider their new position in the future.

Click here for more information than you wanted to know about the subject...

We're here to help! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email us at [email protected], or call 800-877-6377 or 320-235-9798 to speak with an engineer, or Chat at our link at www.chickensys.com. We'd be happy to talk with you and answer your questions and help in any way possible.