Using Kontakt Standalone with Digital Performer

I don’t know why these things are sometimes so not obvious to me, but it took me a while to figure out how to connect my MIDI tracks in MOTU Digital Performer to a Kontakt instrument, when Kontakt is running as a separate application (rather than as a plugin on a DP track). I didn’t know what to look up, but it’s easy once you know.

The secret is Interapplication MIDI. Here’s how:
  1. In Digital Performer, select Setup>Interapplication MIDI.
  2. Make sure there is an output listed in the Outputs box. Name it whatever you want. I like to include MIDI in the name.
  3. Configure your MIDI track. In the Tracks window, in the track's Output column, select an output and channel. The format is outputname-channel#
  4. Restart Kontakt so it sees Digital Performer’s MIDI outputs.
  5. In Kontakt 3, load an instrument.
  6. In the Instrument header, select an available output and channel in the MIDI Ch: field. The list will include outputs from your hardware MIDI interface and any programs that publish MIDI outputs. Use the submenu for the output you named in Digital Performer to select the channel you want.

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