Setup; Using Kontakt Player As A Stand-Alone Application - Native Instruments KONTAKT PLAYER Getting Started

2 Setup

Once the installation process has finished, you should find the KONTAKT 4 installation direc-
tory on your hard drive. It contains the KONTAKT 4 / KONTAKT PLAYER application and the
documentation resources.
Before you start KONTAKT for the first time, it's worth explaining that it has two fundamen-
tally different modes of operation. You have the choice of running KONTAKT:
•
as a normal application, in which case it will behave like any other program on your com-
puter—we refer to this as the "stand-alone mode" in the documentation
or
•
as a virtual instrument plug-in within your sequencer or DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)
application.
The most important difference between these modes concerns the way in which KONTAKT
handles MIDI and audio streams:
•
In stand-alone mode, KONTAKT will address your MIDI and audio hardware directly (which
requires you to specify some details about your hardware and drivers).
•
When using KONTAKT as a plug-in, these details will be taken care of by the sequencer
host application.
The following sections will explain both modes in more detail.

2.1 Using KONTAKT PLAYER as a Stand-alone Application

To start KONTAKT PLAYER as a stand-alone application, locate the application folder labeled
"Kontakt 4" on your computer and double-click "Kontakt 4.exe" (Windows) or "Kontakt 4.app"
(Mac OS X). Alternatively, you can use the shortcuts created during the installation process
in the usual locations on your operating system.
When you launch the KONTAKT application in this way, KONTAKT will start as a stand-alone
program that provides its own application menu, just like any other application on your com-
KONTAKT PLAYER Getting Started – 8