There are several strategies for using Kontakt 5/6 with NOTION, and configuring everything correctly is important . . .

THOUGHTS

As other folks have indicated, it's important to configure both NOTION and Kontakt correctly, and this includes setting the Audio Buffer sizes, sample-rates, processor usage (Kontakt), memory usage, and so forth . . .

There is some useful information in this topic from a while ago, and in general my remarks are focused on the Mac, but it also applies to Windows . . .

Kontakt instruments bogging Notion Down (PreSonus NOTION Forum)

The optimal Audio Buffer size will depend on your computer, and another aspect involves system memory . . .

On the Mac, it's good to have 16GB of system memory, and this probably is the same with Windows . . .

Kontakt has a memory server on the Mac, and you can configure it based on how much system memory you have, and there is a setting for the number of processors or "cores" you want to allow Kontakt to use, although this tends to be for when you are running Kontakt in standalone mode . . .

Settings that affect computing need to be the same for NOTION and the Kontakt engine, which are specified in "Preferences" for both applications . . .

For example, if the Audio Buffer size in NOTION is set to "512 Samples", then Kontakt needs to be set to "512 Samples" . . .

All these configuration settings are highly dependent on the specifics of your computer, and for the most part the best way to optimize everything is to do experiments . . .

Try different configuration settings and determine which ones work best . . .

ANOTHER MORE ADVANCED STRATEGY

Folks tend to presume that NOTION is not doing a lot of computing, but this is not the case . . .

Basically, NOTON is a MIDI sequencer application that takes music notation and converts it to MIDI which in the case of VSTi virtual instruments is communicated to the VSTi virtual instruments' engines . . .

This requires a LOT of computing, and there are limits to the amount of work NOTION can do without becoming overwhelmed . . .

There is no one-to-one mapping of music notation to MIDI and vice-versa, which is important to understand . . .

Music notation essentially is based on the twos, which in a sense makes it analog; but MIDI is all digital . . .

This is more important when importing MIDI to NOTION and then converting it to music notation, but it's also important in other scenarios . . .

Note durations in MIDI are specified internally in "ticks", and the exact definition of these "ticks" is a bit complex, but so what . . .

In contrast, music notation specifies note durations in multiples or fractions of twos, where for example there are whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and so forth . . .

You can use dots to modify note durations, and to a certain extent you can use tuplets to do syncopation, where the goal is to make the durations less "twos" and more odd numbers, which for example is the way you create and adjust drumkit and percussion syncopation, as well as any instrument, of course . . .

This bit of Cuban Jazz shows the use of tuplets to add synchronization . . .

[NOTE: There are some synchronization discontinuities in this version, and it's due to the combination of (a) having too many instances of Kontakt in the NOTION project and (b) recording the audio and video using Screenflow, which is a bit of what mainframe programmers call a "core hog", where in this context "core" refers to system memory that half a century ago were tiny magnetic "cores" through which three wires were run . . . ]



This is the version that uses the generated audio in Digital Performer (MOTU), and it's smooth . . .



The strategy I know use here in the sound isolation is to focus NOTION on music notation on ReWire MIDI staves, where all the VSTi virtual instruments are hosted in Studio One Professional . . .

This allows NOTION to focus on what it needs to do (music notation and MIDI), while Studio One Professional is focused on hosting and managing the VSTi virtual instruments . . .

Even though it might appear that Studio One Professional is doing a lot more computing than NOTION, this is not the case . . .

NOTION is very efficient for doing music notation and MIDI, and Studio One Professional is very efficient for doing VSTi virtual instrument hosting and managing audio; so each application is focused on doing what it does best in this strategy . . .

This strategy is explained in detail in the following topic in this forum . . .

Project: Rewire ~ NOTION + Studio One Professional

The key to making it as productive and simple as possible is to create your own virtual project "templates", which takes a while but saves time once it exists . . .

I create songs in layers, and I have a well-defined set of instruments for this purpose . . .

After much experimenting, I determined that for the Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio, it works best to have 10 VSTi virtual instruments per layer, which I then record to Audio Tracks and create a new layer with another set of VSTI virtual instruments, plus the already-recorded Audio Tracks from the previous layers . . .

It can take 15 to 30 minutes to create a layer from scratch, with most of the work being focused on configuring the Instrument Tracks, VSTi virtual instruments, ReWire MIDI staves in NOTION, and so forth; but when you have a well-defined "sound", you already know this stuff, hence can save a layer and use it as a template via opening the Studio One Professional ".song" and the NOTION score, followed by doing a "Save As . . . " to create the layer for a new song . . .

I have a "go to" basic rhythm section done this way; so when I start a new song, everything is configured--except for the music notation, of course . . .

Open two files; do a "Save As . . . " for each file; and then everything is ready to start composing . . .

Lots of FUN!