Instruments, Kontakt and the browser

Blazar Core is made for composers who work with large sample libraries. Your Kontakt programs are one drag away, articulations are learned by playing them, and tracks you aren't using can sleep to free memory.

Load an instrument#

A new instrument track is silent until you give it an instrument.

1. Click Load instrument... on the track. (When you add an instrument track, this list opens as soon as the track is made.)
2. Type in the search field, for example Kontakt.
3. Select the result and click Load instrument.

The instrument's window opens. Load a sound or library inside the instrument, then play your MIDI keyboard. To open the instrument's window again later, click the instrument name in the track header.

Where plugins come from#

The plugin list shows the VST3 plugins installed on your computer. Blazar Core finds them without running them.

• On Windows, VST3 plugins usually live in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3.
• On the Mac, Blazar Core looks in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3 and ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3.
• For a plugin somewhere else, click Browse files... and choose the .vst3 file or bundle folder (select the bundle itself).

Only 64-bit VST3 plugins are hosted, plus ARA 2. VST2 plugins (.dll files) are not, and on the Mac, Audio Units are not hosted yet. Kontakt libraries (.nki and .nkm files) are not plugins: load them inside Kontakt, or drag them in from the Programs tab (below).

The browser#

The browser sits at the right of the window. F4 shows or hides it. Its tabs:

Tab	Key	What it lists
Instruments	F5	Your VST3 instruments
FX	F6	Your VST3 effects, including Blazar Core's own
Presets	F7	Your track presets
Programs	F8	The Kontakt instruments (.nki) in your libraries
Audio	F9	The audio files on your computer's drives
Aevum		Your session time

While Blazar Core is in front, F5 to F9 stay Blazar Core's, even if another program has claimed one of them as a system-wide hotkey.

Each tab has a search field. Drag an item to where you want it.

Bring in several at once#

In any tab, Shift+click chooses everything from the row you chose last to this one, and Ctrl+click adds or removes one row. With several chosen, the footer shows how many, with an Import key. Click it, press Return, or drag them where they should go. Each kind lands where it belongs, in one undo step:

• Instruments: a new instrument track each (inside the folder you drop them on).
• FX: all on the same channel, in its free inserts in order: the selected track, or the track or mixer strip you drop them on, starting from the slot you drop them on.
• Presets: each adds its track.
• Programs: a new Kontakt track each. A Kontakt track you drop them on takes the first.
• Audio: Blazar Core asks whether you want one track, with the files one after another (on the audio track you chose or dropped them on, else a new one), or a track each, all starting at the same time.

The Audio tab#

The Audio tab lists the audio files on your computer's own drives: WAV, AIFF, FLAC, OGG and MP3. System folders are skipped. The first look can take a while; the list is kept for next time. Folders adds folders or looks again.

Drag a sound onto an audio track to place it there (on the grid), or onto empty space for a new audio track.

Load Kontakt programs by dragging#

The Programs tab (F8) lists every Kontakt instrument in your libraries, found through Native Instruments' own list of installed libraries. Folders adds others.

• Drag a program onto empty arrangement space. Blazar Core makes a Kontakt track, opens Kontakt and loads the program into it.
• Drag it onto a track that already has Kontakt, or straight into Kontakt's window, to load it there.
• You can also drag .nki files in from Explorer or the Finder.

The track takes the program's name: the library in three capital letters, then the patch. For example, "Nucleus - 01 2 Bassoons - Staccatissimo" from Nucleus becomes NUC 2 Bassoons Staccatissimo. A name you typed yourself stays. Names Blazar Core gave ("Kontakt 8", "Instrument 3", or an earlier program's name) are replaced.

Programs you load from Kontakt's own browser can't rename the track, because Kontakt doesn't tell the host what it loaded.

Learn an instrument's key switches#

Orchestral libraries switch articulations with key switches: keys outside the playing range. Blazar Core learns them as you play them.

1. Open the instrument's window and click Learn key switches. You can also click the articulation chip on the track's header and choose Learn key switches. While Blazar Core listens, the chip reads Learning....
2. Press each key switch once on your MIDI keyboard, one after another.
3. Click Done in the instrument's window.

Each key becomes an articulation, named after what the library's window shows for it: Legato, Spiccato, Tremolo, Pizzicato. A key that plays a note is left out. Blazar Core keeps the key switches with that program, so they are there the next time you load it. To add key switches you missed, click Learn more in the instrument's window (or Learn more key switches in the chip's menu).

The articulation chip on the track's header shows the articulation in use. Click it to switch to another: its menu lists the articulations with their keys. In the piano roll, the articulations appear as buttons you can drag onto the articulation lane (see Articulations in the piano roll). Blazar Core keeps each note's articulation and sends the key switches during playback, so the part plays back as written.

Kontakt's key colours#

Kontakt colours its keys: the key switches red, the playing range blue. Blazar Core shows the same colours on the piano roll's keys and on the touch keyboard. It reads them out of sight when a program loads, or the first time its track shows in the piano roll. There is nothing to set.

Track delay and slow patches#

Many sample libraries, especially legato and slow-attack patches, sound late: their samples or scripts take a while to answer a note. Blazar Core can play such a track early so it sounds on the beat.

Set a track delay by hand#

The value at the right of each track's name (for example "-120 ms") shifts that track in time. A negative value plays it earlier.

• Drag it up or down. Hold Shift for finer steps.
• Double-click it to type a value.
• Right-click it to set it to 0.

Its tooltip also shows how much the track is played early for plugin latency (see Latency compensation).

Let Blazar Core measure it#

With Automatic delay compensation on, each sample library patch is measured once as it loads. The measurement takes about 5 seconds and you don't hear it. Its track then plays that much earlier, so its notes sound on the beat. A patch like Pacific Strings needs about 180 ms.

Nothing is cut from the samples. A delay you type yourself always wins, and is kept for that patch too. To switch the measurement off, go to Settings > General.

Free up memory and CPU#

A big orchestral template can hold many instruments you aren't using right now. Two features let them rest without losing anything.

Disable a track#

The power key beneath a track's badge switches the track off or on.

• Off, the track's instrument is unloaded and all its effects and Morph processing are skipped. Its notes, clips and settings stay in place.
• On again, the instrument comes back as it was, and the effects keep the bypass settings you chose.

A disabled track can't record. Switching a track off or on stops playback, and recording must be stopped first. The state is saved with the session and can be undone.

Put unused tracks to sleep with Cryosleep#

Cryosleep notices instrument tracks you have left alone and offers to put them to sleep. It never does it by itself, so nothing freezes while you render, mix or open an effect.

The offer. A track counts as unused after 10 minutes without being selected, edited, armed, listened to, shown in the piano roll or open in its plugin window. Then a snowflake key appears in the top bar, beside the tools and the grid, and gently pulses red. Its tooltip says how many tracks it offers.

Putting tracks to sleep.

1. Click the snowflake. A window lists the unused tracks, each ticked.
2. Untick any you want to keep awake.
3. Click Put to sleep. Not now rests the key for half an hour.

Asleep. Each sleeping track's sound (its instrument, effects, Morph and channel strip) is rendered and plays exactly as before, while its instrument is unloaded and its effects rest, so their memory and CPU come free. Its fader, pan, sends and volume automation stay live. A sleeping track shows a faint ice wash and a snowflake on its badge, and the snowflake key stays ice blue while any track sleeps.

Waking. Select a sleeping track (click it, or anything on it) and it wakes by itself, its instrument loaded again as it was. During playback, it wakes as soon as playback stops. Wake all in the snowflake's window wakes every one.

Saving. A session saved with sleeping tracks keeps their instruments' settings and opens with them awake.

Kilonova, the sampler#

Kilonova is Blazar Core's own sampler. Drop any sound on it, and it works out what the sound is and how to play it.

Add a sampler track#

Add a sampler track with Add track > Sampler track in the top bar (or the + menu in a narrow window), or from the round menu over empty space. Then drop a sound on the track, from Explorer, the Finder or the browser, or onto Kilonova's window.

What Kilonova hears#

Kilonova listens to the sound and finds:

• Its tempo: written in its name ("Drum Loop 93 BPM", or a number alone such as "PL_Drums_93_Am" when the sound agrees), the tempo an ACID loop carries, or heard from its drums (the snare on two and four decides between a tempo and its half or double).
• Its hits.
• The note it plays: heard, or read from its name ("Choir F2", "Pad Fmin").

Then it opens the sound in one of two faces, chosen by the sound itself. Pad / Chop switches between them.

Pad: play a sound across the keyboard#

Every key plays the sound in tune.

• Drag across the waveform to move Position, the part of the sound the pad is made from.
• Stretch blends in a Paulstretch of that part, drawn out into an endless wash.
• Grain blends in grains of it, some backwards, scattered across the stereo field.
• With Stretch and Grain at 0 you hear the sound itself.
• Hold sends the sound into a hall that rings for as long as you hold a key, and dies away over Release when you let go.
• Attack, Tone and Level shape the rest. The sustain pedal holds too.

Chop: slice a loop across the keys#

The sound is cut at its hits (Grid: Hits) or on a grid of the song's notes (1/4 to 1/32), one slice per key from C3 up, each slice's key shown under it.

• Click above the waveform to add a cut. Drag a cut to move it. Drag it away, or double-click it, to remove it.
• Click a slice to hear it.
• A loop with a known tempo plays in the song's tempo, stretched with its pitch kept.
• A gate (Attack, Gate, Release, Curve, as in Gap God) shapes each slice.
• Turn on any of the sixteen stutter steps, and a held slice starts again on each step that is on, in time (at a rate of 1/4 to 1/32, straight or triplet).
• Write as notes puts the slices on the track at the playhead, in their order: the loop as it was, ready to rearrange.

Tempo#

The tempo key in Kilonova's window offers half, double, the song's tempo, or one you type. A button such as Song to 93 sets the song's tempo to the sound's.

When you save, the sound is copied into the session's media folder.