I have the same problem and reverted to 5.3.0 fixed the issue. It only happens when Kontakt is hosted in VE Pro - directly loaded in Logic for example, Berlin Woodwinds plays back fine. And no, it is not soundcard related. So it seems to be a VE Pro issue with the latest Kontakt somehow.

I sent a report, but only sent the VEP project of the LASS instance with all the porta scripting that was displaying the problem. May not happen on it's own, I forgot to check.

I run VEP 64 bit 4 threads, kontakt mem server off and mutliprocessor off. But my problem may be that there are 9 instances in VEP server. Finally shut off my gigas and each one of those is a VEP instance. That is probably not recommended, but it was working in K4.2.4 VEP4.1.11889 with only 2 threads per instance with those versions. There is a bug in VEP4 that it does not search for missing samples in kontakt. Upgrading was the only solution for that. Both NI and VSL didn't want to look at the older versions.

@DG said:

Has anyone contacted Native Instruments about this issue? If VE Pro is a supported host, NI should be able to guarantee that their applications work when hosted in it. Also, have you narrowed down whether or not it is an OSX problem or a Windows problem?

Another couple of thoughts, if you're using OSX, have you switched the Kontakt memory sever off? Also, have you switched off Kontakt's multi processing?

I can confirm this as well . The issue is with Kontakt 5.3.1 hosted in ve pro not logic . 5.3.0 fixes it but ... It crashes when auditioning and means we can't use new updated libraries , so a fix is needed. 

I find it weird that all of you only seem to have this problem when using kontakt 5.3.1 inside of VEP. I am having, well maybe not very clear CPU spikes, but I can´t load more than about 70 instruments track in logic pro x using kontakt 5.3.1. When I reverted to kontakt 5.3.0 (and also had to go back to Moutain Lion) I can load around 150 instrument track in Logic Pro X. So Kontakt 5.3.1 is messing up my logic pro x template even if I don´t really get CPU spikes when using 5.3.1. 

If I load my 150 channel template with kontakt 5.3.1 (well I can´t really load it because the cpu hits the top almost all the time, and get stopped samples etc etc..), I get CPU spikes when using berlin woodwinds samples, unplayable. 

Well I reported to NI several weeks ago and no response, no updates...

I'm having stutter issues too in 5.3.1 within VE Pro. Majorly annoying. I've worked around this by using 5.3.0 for now, but the problem is that newer Kontakt libraries are requiring 5.3.1 and it's becoming frustrating.

Native Instruments is aware of the problem. See their email to me below:

Hello Sam,

This issue seems to be caused by a bug in the current version of the application.

Thanks for your report. We have referred this issue to our developers and will try 
to fix it in a future version.  As a workaround we’ve found that changing the 
buffer setting may fix the problem. If not, the only fix is going back to 5.3.0 
for the time being.  

Nicholas
Native Instruments Support Team

Has anybody tried the newest version of Kontakt (v 5.4.1)? Does that improve the CPU spiking issues? I'm working on several projects right now and can't afford downtime if something goes wrong. 

Edouard

I should provide an update:

Ever since I updated from Mountain Lion to Mavericks, Kontakt 5.3.1 now works perfectly. So I'm hesitant to upgrade to 5.4.1 ;) I didn't even know it was out! I guess I can always easily downgrade to 5.3.1 in case there are problems. Thanks for the heads-up.

Hi, Just thought I would try Kontakt 5.4.3 to see if crackles are gone and because of newer library requirements. The crackles are there. Was just in K 5.3.0 and no crackles. Noticing it on LASS v1.5 (I think)

OSX 10.8.5

VEP 5.4.13715

Kontakt 5.3.0 no audio glitches

Kontakt 5.4.3 audio glitches

Model Identifier: MacPro5,1

Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon

Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

Number of Processors: 2

Memory: 48 GB

@MDesigner said:

I should provide an update:

Ever since I updated from Mountain Lion to Mavericks, Kontakt 5.3.1 now works perfectly. So I'm hesitant to upgrade to 5.4.1 😉 I didn't even know it was out! I guess I can always easily downgrade to 5.3.1 in case there are problems. Thanks for the heads-up.

I didnt know that Kontakt 5.3.1 has a bug when batch resaving libraries. did you know that?

I still find that Kontakt 3.5 and 4.2 performed better. I would love to go back to Kontakt 4 but I am on yosemite.

Sam

UPDATE: 5.5 doesn't help at all. still clicks. i'll try to revert to 5.3 and hope my gear can all still run.

How about again the newest update of Kontakt to 5.5? I just upgraded now and am hoping this solves my problem. I noticed that when I took out requiem, berlins strings and cinebrass my crackling went away! I'm happy to know this isn't a DP issue, but rather frustrated to know that it is a kontakt+VEPro issue. Fortunately, i just finished my latest project and have a couple of days until the next one.

If 5.5 doesn't work, i'll revert to 5.3 and see if that works. Thank you all for posting his thread!

I'm running K 5.5.0.409, VEP 5.4.13741, OSX 10.8.5, Logic 9.1.8 and 10.0.7, Protools 10.3.9. Only problem occurs after some idle time. Then I just quit and reopen everything.