How to Save Custom Presets in Kontakt (FULL and PLAYER)

In this article, we explain how to save your custom Instruments or Presets in Kontakt.

After you've made some edits to a Kontakt instrument, there are 3 ways that you can save your sound.

  1. Saving your DAW Project
  2. Saving a User Snapshot File
  3. Saving a User Instrument File

1. Save your DAW Project

Note: This option is available in the Free PLAYER and the FULL License version of KONTAKT.

If using Kontakt within a DAW, you would just need to save your DAW project. All edits to the Kontakt instrument are stored and recalled within the project file.

This is the quickest way to save your edited Kontakt Instruments, but sometimes you may need to save and store a Kontakt preset file (e.g. if moving the tracks to a different DAW). Please see the next section below to learn how to save a Kontakt Snapshot (preset) file.

2. Save a User Snapshot File

Note: This option is available in the Free PLAYER and the FULL License version of Kontakt.

  1. Click the Camera symbol on the Kontakt Player instrument display. The Snapshot options will appear.
    PLYR_Camera_Snapshot_Options.png
  2. Click the Snapshot Save (i.e. Floppy Disc) icon to the left.
    PLYR_Disk_Icon_Snapshot_Options.png
  3. Type in the name for your custom snapshot and click Save in the pop-up window.
    PLYR_Custom_Preset.gif
  4. Your custom preset will now appear in the Snapshot Loading Menu on the left. All of the snapshots you saved for the respective Library Instrument will appear in this list.
    PLYR_Snapshot_List.png

    Note: Your custom snapshots will also be available in other instances of Kontakt Player, e.g. when loading Kontakt on another track or in a different DAW.

2.1. Accessing Your Snapshot Files

If you need to access the snapshot files directly (e.g. to back them up), you will find your custom Snapshot (.nksn) files at the following location of your computer:


macOS:
Macintosh HD > Users > *Your User Name* > Documents > Native Instruments > User Content

Windows:
C: > Users > *Your User Name* > Documents > Native Instruments > User Content

A folder representing the name of the Kontakt Library is created in the User Content folder leading to your Snapshot (.nksn) files. In this example, we find our custom Snapshots for Retro Machine MK2 (ARP Quadra) in the computer's Documents (on macOS and Windows).

Important: If moving your custom Snapshot files to a different computer, the same Kontakt Player library must also be installed on the other computer.

PLYR_NKSN_User_Content_Folder.png

3. Save a User Instrument File

Note: This option is available only in the Full License version of Kontakt.

Users of the Full version of Kontakt can save new copies of Kontakt library Instrument (.nki) files. Keeping with our example library Retro Machine MK2, this chapter will show you how to save a custom Instrument file in Kontakt.

  1. Click the Files tab (floppy disk icon) and choose Save as. From there, the menu points to the name of the Instrument loaded into Kontakt. Click the Instrument name, as seen below.
    FULL_Save_As.png
  2. Use the pop-up window to name your Instrument (.nki) file. Type the new name and choose a location where the new instrument will be saved. In this example, the instrument (.nki) file will be saved on a dedicated hard drive.
    FULL_Preset_Location.png

    Note: You can save disk space by ticking the boxes labeled Patch Only and Absolute sample paths as seen above.

  3. You can load your instrument (.nki) files back into Kontakt via drag-and-drop from your computer's file systems (on macOS and Windows).
    FULL_Drag_And_Drop.png

    Note: You can also access your custom instrument files through the Kontakt Database and Quickload menus. Please see the related articles linked below, for more details.

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