SPITFIRE AUDIO HZP Hans Zimmer Piano User Manual
- June 6, 2024
- SPITFIRE AUDIO
Table of Contents
USER MANUAL
HZP
HANS **ZIMMER
PIANO**
CONGRATULATIONS
Thank you for purchasing Hans Zimmer Piano. In his fourth collaboration with Spitfire Audio, the legendary trailblazer Hans Zimmer presents the ultimate piano library. Recorded in the Hall at Air Studios over many weeks, with Hans’ crack team of engineers, and the award-winning Spitfire crew. This library embodies what Hans described as a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to create a top-of-its-class writing tool for discerning composers the world over.
Quick Specs
- 88352 samples
- 452.7 GB Uncompressed WAV
- 211.2 GB Disk space required
- 422.4 GB Disk space required during install
- Free Kontakt Player Included
- Essential microphones
- Detailed sampling:
– Multiple dynamics
– Multiple round robins
– Release Triggers
WELCOME
The task was simple. Over the last two decades of producing Oscar-winning and
world-renowned scores, Hans had often stolen a rare moment of downtime to play
the glorious piano in the inspiring setting and luscious acoustic of the hall
at Air Studios. These brief solitary sojourns at the piano often produced a
spark of inspiration for his next Oscar-nominated blockbuster score. It had
happened time and time again. So Hans pondered, what if I could capture that
degree of inspiring potential, box it and take it anywhere?
Over a series of impassioned phone calls with Spitfire director
Paul Thomson, it was agreed a no-holds-barred approach was required. With Hans
having used and favored certain piano VIs over the years a careful plan was
calculated to make sure this once-in-a-lifetime project would yield success.
That this project would give him what he needed as a composer, to inspire, to
write, and to create masters from a wonderfully recorded and performed set of
recordings.
HZP features the combined signals of over 60 microphones passing through the
unique Air “Montserrat” pre-amps via a Neve 88R desk into Prism AD converters.
The piano, a world-class stretch concert grand, was played utilizing a mixture
of technical wizardry and dogged performing talent to produce literally days
of recordings. From a huge array of round robins, dynamic layers, staccato and
long notes to some extraordinarily detailed studies in the quietest layers of
the piano, and a vast collection of effects and additional techniques. The
Spitfire team of over a dozen highly qualified editors has spent nearly 12
months treating each sample like a little rough diamond, carving and polishing
it by hand. Every sample has been cut, cleaned refined, and placed gently in a
queue waiting for implementation, experimentation, and review by the whole
Spitfire team and Mr. Zimmer himself. With recall sessions booked in the hall
for more days of recording to make sure the full timbral ‘gallery’ of sounds
was captured, the Spitfire team then cut and polished again. The final version
of the piano was then further refined by expert technicians working side-by-
side with esteemed piano players testing on a number of different controllers
(including Hans’ preferred Deopfer LMK4+) to make the most responsive, true,
and inspiring set of instruments.
BACKGROUND
Hans Zimmer is one of the most successful, influential, and prolific film
composers of his generation. Having won countless awards (including an Oscar
accompanied by an embarrassment of academy nominations). HZ’s scores have
underscored a generation of hugely successful films, that have turned over
billions of dollars, countless awards, and critical acclaim. Hans has defined
not only a compositional style but also a production approach and sonic
innovation that has influenced a generation of composers.
FEATURES
Balanced to give you an ultra-realistic experience that is robust and
scaleable to differently powered systems. Use more than one mic selection and
multiple round robins on your main rig, scale them back for use on your laptop
for that trip on the redeye from LA to New York. You can hype the quieter
layers in a specially prepared “soft” patch and we have some extraordinarily
quiet articulations for you to investigate. With the release edition there are
16 mic positions with the tree offering up a lush contextual position ideal
for larger orchestral arrangements, highly useful ‘mid range’ that couples the
intimacy of the piano with the beautiful widescreen effect of the hall, to a
series of close “spot” stereo mic pairs, engulfed by the huge instrument to
give you a pure and intimate recording. There is also a huge array of effects
and playable “additional techniques” instruments that feature the talents of
first-call pianist Simon Chamberlain and percussion supremo Paul Clarvis
utilizing many different techniques and a large supply of cotton buds and
paper clips!
This is a big-daddy of a tool, the Bugatti Veyron of virtual instruments, the
Concorde of sample ware. If you write scores on, or for piano, and feel you
deserve a piece of production history that has cost considerably more than
buying a concert grand of your own. If you feel respect and admire the
craftsmanship that goes into making something truly special? Then you deserve
HZP.
DOWNLOADING & INSTALLING
Thank you for buying Hans Zimmer Piano. If you are a total newbie to this kind
of thing you can get up to speed here:
http://www.spitfireaudio.com/info/basics/
First, though, grab the ‘Spitfire Audio App’ from this link. The app will
enable you to download the library http://www.spitfireaudio.com/info/library-
manager/
THE SPITFIRE AUDIO APP
When you launch the app you will be prompted to log in using the same details you use at our site. Then you’ll see the page pictured below:
If this is your first time using the Spitfire Audio App for a download you may
wish to first navigate to the Settings tab and make sure that the Default
Content location is set to the location where you wish to download your
libraries and that the VST2 install location is set to the folder where your
DAW expects to find VST files.
Here you can also enable Auto Login to save time in the future.
Once you are happy with your Settings, click the Install button, either
directly on My Products tab, or by clicking on the library image you wish to
install and then clicking the install button on the page that appears.
Clicking either of these will prompt you for a location, the default content
location in your settings will be suggested but you can select any suitable
location.
Once you are happy with the location click Download.
After clicking download you will be directed to the Downloads tab where you
can watch the progress. You can leave the Downloads tab and start other
downloads but at this
point, you should leave the Spitfire App open until the download completes.
As this is a Kontakt player library, once it is downloaded you will need to
activate it by following the steps on the
REGISTERING WITH KONTAKT PLAYER
If you’ve never used one of our libraries before and you don’t own a copy of
Native Instruments Kontakt, you’ll need to
download the free “Kontakt Player” here:
https://www.native-
instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-6/downloads/
If you’d like to find out more about the differences between Kontakt and
Kontakt Player (we know, very confusing!) go to Appendix B.
If you’d also like to know what we recommend as an optimal set up please go to
Appendix A.
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Install Kontakt Player and Native Access (skip this step if you already have them)
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Open the player (or Kontakt 5 full version if you have that) and click ‘add library’ in the library browser window:
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Native Access will open and you will need to log in or create an account if you do not have one already.
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You will be prompted to enter the serial number in this format:
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
…This can be found in your ‘ready to download’ email. -
Once you have added this you will be asked to browse to the folder containing the library. Click on “BROWSE” to direct Kontakt to the correct location.
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Navigate to and select the Spitfire Hans Zimmer Piano library” folder and click “open”.
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Click “Install” and your library is authorized. If the library does not add to the library’s pane or disappears when you re-open Kontakt, see Appendix E – Troubleshooting and common problems.
If you have never used Kontakt before we wholeheartedly recommend that you familiarise yourself with the basics of patch (or instrument) loading, multi- management,
outputting and midi routing detailed in the Kontakt user manual and native instruments website:
https://www.native- instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-6/downloads/
If you are an established Kontakt user please make sure you absolutely have
the latest version of it downloaded via NATIVE ACCESS. Our libraries are
frequently updated and often simply won’t work on any previous versions. We
cannot describe the multitude of painful symptoms you will experience if you
don’t do this!
For more information about NKS and integration with Native Instruments
hardware controllers and keyboards please check out their online instructions:
https://www.native-
instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-6/downloads/
FOLDER STRUCTURE
Hans Zimmer Piano is arranged into the four main patches at the top level of
the instruments folder and four separate folders for those that wish to delve
deeper into the options available.
The four main patches are mirrored elsewhere and include:
Hans Zimmer Piano: The main patch.
Hans Zimmer Piano (Various FX): The piano played in an assortment of
ways: timp sticks, nail plucks and paper clip plucks amongst others.
Hans Zimmer Piano (Super Soft): The quieter layers of the piano are
prepared in their own patch.
Hans Zimmer Piano (Percussive FX): Some percussion performed using the
body of the piano, separated into articulations for ease of use.
In “Individual Signals” separate microphones are available to enable you
to create your own mixes or use individual signals
Within “Distance Compensated Signals” you get separate microphone signals
but the delay is associated with the distance between the piano and the
microphone has been removed. “Mic Selections” contains sets of curated patches
allowing you to find a good mix of signals quickly and easily.
“Mic Sets” contains the mid mics together and the spot mics together in
separate patches
OPENING YOUR FIRST INSTRUMENT.
Simply double click a ‘nki’ file (this is Native Instruments’ file extension
for a Kontakt instrument) to load, or indeed drag the instrument (it’ll have
the little keyboard icon and the suffix .nki) from the left pane into the
right pane.
If you can’t hear anything double-check first that the midi channel you are
transmitting on with your keyboard is the same as the one in the Kontakt
Instrument!
A QUICK LOOK
All of the libraries that we track at Air Studios are recorded via priceless ribbon and valve mics via Neve Montserrat preamps, the largest 88R Neve console in the world, and into Prism AD converters at 96k and this library is no different. Each of the mic signals presented to you by this library is a combination of any number of the 60 microphones that we used when recording.
ASSIGNING CONTROLS IN KONTAKT
All GUI controls can be assigned a unique controller number so you can
automate or adjust via an external controller. To un-assign, assign, or just
to see what CC number is assigned to any control RIGHT or CTRL CLICK.
You can then alter the controller parameters in the “Automation pane” if for
example you want your mod wheel to go all the way from top to bottom but the
control to have
restricted bandwidth change from the default of 0-127 to 20-100. Or if you
want the controller to make the GUI control in the reverse direction change
from the default of 0-127 to 127-0.
THE MAIN PANEL
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EASY TWEAKS
Pitch: Pitch shift the piano up or down 3 octaves
Boom: Low pass filter to bring out the low-frequency elements
Crack: High pass filter
CMD/Ctrl-click to reset these controls -
MICROPHONE MIXER
Giving you greater control over the blends of microphone positions for your work.
Use the chips beneath the faders to load & unload different microphones and the faders above to tweak the balance of them. Turning a fader all the way down will also unload the mics, conversely turning the fader back up will reload. Right-click on the faders to assign CC controllers so you can mix this life for fantastic shifts in the spatial nature of the samples. Left-click on the mic letters to change the Kontakt channel/output assignment.
On the top right of the mixer controller section are some deeper mixing options.
2a VELOCITY RESPONSE
Pick from 4 different velocity curves to suit your controller.
2b CLOSE PAN MIC COLLAPSER
The close mics are a stereo mix and this collapse allows you to refine how the stereo image is handled. All our musicians are recorded in-situ, ie. where they would be seated on a standard scoring session, giving you a fantastic spectral spread when putting all the elements together, which helps define the detail. This panning tool helps you to manage and tweak this to your own tastes/ needs.
STEREO WIDTH – This allows you to control how far the stereo image reaches. All the way to the right would be like having your two pan pots panned hard. All the way to the left would be like having both pots center,
STEREO PAN – Then allows you to control wherein the pan field in the center of this image is placed.
2c MIC MIX TO ARTICULATION LINKER
The small notation symbol locks the microphone mix or tweaks you’ve made to an articulation. Since articulations are not used in this library, it has no effect.
**2d MIXER PRESETS
A new way to transfer mixer settings between patches, or save and load
presets to disk.
AUTOMATING MIXER FADERS – Each mixer fader has a dedicated #CC. To change
this to suit your MIDI controller or surface, simply RIGHT or CTRL click on
the fader itself to “learn” the new controller.
ROUTING MIC MIXES – To route each mic mixer channel to unique Kontakt
channels simply click on the mic letter. Great for putting your ambient mics
in the surround for example. Also good for tracklaying individual mics for
your engineer to control in your final mix sessions.
**
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OPTIONS
PURGE UNUSED – This control keeps unloading any samples you are not using to keep your memory usage as low as possible.
TRANSPOSE – Toggle this on and tweak the number to the right to transpose your instrument. Note this is not the same as tuning, the instrument will actually offset the samples to the selected pitch.
USE CC FOR VELOCITY – Click this to control note velocity with the Dynamics slider. If a user has customized the dynamics slider, that same customized CC will control velocity now.
AUTO PEDAL VOLUME – Leave this selected if you would like the physical sound of the sustain pedal to be controlled by the velocity of your playing, unselect to control directly with the “Pedal Dyn” control. -
ROUND ROBIN
NO EXTRA FUNCTIONALITY(NEIGHBOURING ZONES)-
****Next to this lies a pop-down menu with some amazing new functions:-
“No extra Functionality” – Is the standard default where round robins are used as they were intended.
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“Neighbouring Zones” – pulls from neighboring zones, so for a ‘5RR’ instrument, you effectively cycle through up to 15 different sounding notes when pressing a key. It’s still just playing the one RR at a time, though giving you more of them.
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“Layer x2 round robins” – plays two RR simultaneously, so you get a thicker sound, it’s the equivalent of plopping two notes on top of each other in your DAW (and it drops the overall volume ~6db so that the levels remain the same but it just sounds thicker). This plays the pairs and moves ahead by 2 RR. In this mode, RR is effectively halved. eg, if you press a note it would play RR1/RR2 then RR3/RR4, etc.
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“Layer 2x Round Robins With No Skip” – As above this plays a pair but doesn’t move ahead by 2 so that RR isn’t halved. So if you press a note it would play RR1/RR2, then RR2/RR3, then RR3/RR4.
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“Layer +2 (transpose)” – As above this plays a pair artificially generated by transposing neighboring notes and layering them on top of the ones you are playing.
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“Layer +2 (transpose)” – As above but transposing in the other direction. Both of these methods have the effect of reducing the range of the instrument.
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ROUND ROBIN x 5 – This refers to the number of rounds robins (multiple
recordings of the same notes that cycle around as you repeatedly play a note)
your instrument uses, the number can be dragged up and down (1-5) to save you
memory.
RESET FROM F0 – This enables you to control the round-robin cycle (so it
sounds identical every time you play) toggle on & play the key selected
(default F0) to reset to RR#1. You can reset to RR#2 by playing the key above
the one selected (default F#0), RR#3 by playing the key above that, and so on.
Click and drag on F0 to change the key that resets the rounf robin, CMD/Ctrl-
click to only reset to RR#1
RESET ON TRANSPORT – As above but resets every time you press play!
Genius!
- EXPRESSION CONTROLS
DYNAMICS – CC#1 This slider displays and controls which dynamic layer is
live. On a piano obviously, this would normally be controlled by velocity so
this control is not used.
SOFT PEDAL – CC#67 Allows you to control the soft pedal on the piano
PEDAL DYN – CC#2 Controls (or displays if “auto pedal volume” is
selected) the physical sound of the sustain pedal is pressed.
EXPRESSION – CC#11 Displays the overall instrument volume (0-100%).
Remember you can also trim your instrument volume with CC#7.
APPENDIX A – RECOMMENDED TECH SPECS
F YOU PLAN TO USE THIS LIBRARY WITH THE FULL VERSION OF KONTAKT PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE LATEST VERSION OF KONTAKT 5 INSTALLED.
RECOMMENDED SPEC:
The better your computer, the better the performance of any Spitfire module.
But not to worry if you’re not spec’d up to the hilt. All programs are
provided with a set of parameters that enable you to dial back the CPU demands
of any given patch. But moving forward, we’re confident this module will keep
your computer busy for many years to come! We recommend a combination of high
processor speeds, a good chunk of memory, and a devoted 7200rpm SATA, USB2 or
3, or Thunderbolt audio drive. The more memory you have, the less demand is
placed on your drive, and having a totally devoted drive gives you the chance
to load less into memory and reduce load times. The higher the speed of your
CPU, the more capable your computer will be to deal with some of the amazing,
but complicated scripts we’ve written.
PCs:
We recommend Windows 7 or later (latest Service Pack, 32/64 Bit), Intel Core
Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2, 4 GB RAM (8 GB recommended).
MACs:
We recommend Mac OS X 10.10 or later (latest update), Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB
RAM (8 GB recommended).
DRIVES:
USB2 or USB3, Thunderbolt, or eSata, 7200rpm. Ask your dealer for drives that
are suitable for “AV use”. If you can afford an SSD drive, this will massively
increase the power of your system. Instead of 7-9ms seek time, the usual seek
time is <0.1ms. These are fast enough to run a patch ‘Purged’ of all its
samples, and they can load on the fly as you play the notes. You can also
reduce your sampler’s “pre-load” buffer tenfold meaning you’ll be able to load
enormous orchestral palettes into a single machine.
HOST:
The Kontakt 5 platform should work comfortably on most commonly found
platforms and DAWs. As always make sure you’re as up-to-date as you can
afford! If your main DAW is not a newish machine or has a limited spec, and
you’re planning on building or adding Spitfire to an already large orchestral
palette, you could consider running your library independently of your DAW,
either on your host computer (e.g. via Re-Wire) or on a slave device (e.g. via
Midi or MOL). This will assist your loading times, and will allow your DAW to
do what it does best, sort out all your note and note-offs! We heartily
endorse Plogue Bidule (http://www.plogue.com) as a virtual rack/ routing
system.
APPENDIX B – KONTAKT vs KONTAKT PLAYER
Kontakt Player is a free version of the Kontakt sample playback engine available to download:
https://www.native- instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-5/downloads/
It works with libraries that the developer has paid a license fee for.
Essentially, you’ve bought this playback engine along with your library.
The Kontakt player gives you full access to all the sounds and all the
editable parameters on the front panel. Also, unlike non-Player libraries,
these libraries will also have a banner that appears on the Kontakt Libraries
pane.
If you want to go deeper into editing you’ll need a full version. As you will
already own the free Kontakt player and have bought one of our ‘player’
libraries you will be eligible for a discount upgrade to Kontakt via the NI
website. See here for more details:
https://www.native-
instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-5/pricing/crossgrade-
offer/
If the library you want to use is NOT a ‘Player’ library then you need to buy
the full retail version of Kontakt.
Then you can also load ‘non-Player’ libraries like some of our other ranges,
Spitfire LABS, Harp, Piano, Harpsichord, Solo Strings, etc. Please note that
non-Player library instruments will not appear on the Kontakt libraries pane
and so can’t be added as a library as Player libraries need to be. Instead,
these libraries will simply need to be loaded via the Kontakt files browser or
alternatively you can add the library as a favorite to the Kontakt Quick Load
window.
APPENDIX C – PRESETS AND MIC LIST
INSTRUMENTS:
Hans Zimmer Piano – Full and Bright (Percussive FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Full and Bright (Super Soft)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Full and Bright (Various FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Full and Bright
MIC SELECTIONS:
LIGHT AND BRIGHT:
Hans Zimmer Piano – Light and Bright (Percussive FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Light and Bright (Super Soft)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Light and Bright (Various FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Light and Bright
LOW AND WEIGHTED:
Hans Zimmer Piano – Low and Weighted (Percussive FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Low and Weighted (Super Soft)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Low and Weighted (Various FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Low and Weighted
WARM AND ROUNDED:
Hans Zimmer Piano – Warm and Rounded (Percussive FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Warm and Rounded (Super Soft)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Warm and Rounded (Various FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Warm and Rounded
MIC SETS:
MID MICS:
Hans Zimmer Piano – Mids (Percussive FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Mids (Super Soft)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Mids (Various FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Mids
SPOT MICS:
Hans Zimmer Piano – Mids (Various FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Spots (Percussive FX)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Spots (Super Soft)
Hans Zimmer Piano – Spots
DISTANCE COMPENSATED SIGNALS:
Hans Zimmer Piano (Alt room)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Bottle)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Far Gallery)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Mid A)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Mid B)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Mid C)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Mid D)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Near Gallery)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Outriggers)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Room)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Spot A)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Spot B)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Spot C)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Spot D)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Surround)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Tree)
INDIVIDUAL SIGNALS:
Hans Zimmer Piano (Alt room)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Bottle)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Far Gallery)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Mid A)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Mid B)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Mid C)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Mid D)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Near Gallery)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Outriggers)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Room)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Spot A)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Spot B)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Spot C)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Spot D)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Surround)
Hans Zimmer Piano (Tree)
MICS & MIXES
MICS:
Spot A
Spot B
Spot C
Spot D
Mid A
Mid B
Mid C
Mid D
Tr e e
Outriggers
Surrounds
Room
Room Alt
Gallery Near
Gallery Far
Bottle
APPENDIX D – FAQS & TROUBLESHOOTING
Q: HOW DO I AUTHORISE A KONTAKT PLAYER LIBRARY ON A MACHINE NOT CONNECTED
TO THE INTERNET?
You have to use the Native Instruments Service Centre. There is an offline
system. Copy it over to the offline machine, add the library as usual, then
run Service Centre – it will generate a file that they can copy back to the
online machine. It’s explained as you do it.
Q: HOW DO I DOWNLOAD AND AUTHORISE A KONTAKT FULL LIBRARY ONTO MY MAIN RIG
IF IT ISN’T CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET?
Simply use our download manager on a computer that IS connected, transfer over
either over your LAN or via a shuttle driver. No further authorization is
required.
Q: THE LIBRARY KEEPS DISAPPEARING FROM MY KONTAKT ‘LIBRARIES’ PANE OR I
CAN’T ADD THE LIBRARY – IT FAILS EACH TIME I TRY?
This is a known Kontakt bug. Please contact our support team to obtain a small
file that should enable you to work around the problem.
Q: “NO LIBRARY FOUND” ERROR MESSAGE
If you are getting the error message “No Library Found” in Kontakt when trying
to add a new library, it’s because the product you have purchased isn’t a
“Player” library (also see appendix B) You will therefore need to load the
files manually into Kontakt to load them. This can be done via the ‘Files’
browser, top left-hand side of Kontakt, or by simply dragging the instrument
files over the Kontakt window to load them.
Q: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KONTAKT AND KONTAKT PLAYERS?
See Appendix B
Q: HOW CAN I REDOWNLOAD A PRODUCT?
With the continuous improvements to our Library Manager app, we have
incorporated the ability to reset your own downloads, be it the entire library
of the most recent update!
This can easily be done via your Library Manager app. To reset both your
entire library download or the latest update;
Open up the Library Manager app and log in with your account email and
password.
- Select the download you wish to re-download
- In the toolbar under Library > Reset Download > Entire Download/Latest Update
- This will reset your whole download/your latest update
You can repeat this process for any of the libraries you own.
Note that there is a limit to how many times you can reset your downloads
in a certain time frame. If you do exceed your reset limit please get in
touch.
Q: DIFFICULTIES IN DOWNLOADING / INSTALLING
Customers may find that they have some difficulties in the downloading
process. If you find that you are having some trouble, please check the list
below for possible causes.
- The formatting of your drive, if it is FAT32 will cause errors because there is a maximum file size with this format of 4GB and our download files will exceed this limit. To solve this problem, reformat your drive to a more modern format, or use a different drive. We recommend NTFS on PC and Mac OS Extended (journaled) on Mac.
- Free space on your hard drive, please allow at least double the space for the respective library. This is because your library is downloaded compressed, then uncompressed into a separate location, then the original is deleted. So briefly during installation, there are two copies of the library on disk. To solve this problem use a drive with more space (the size you’ll need during installation is listed on the website page of the product you bought). Other issues;
- Library Manager freezes in the “Extracting” stage for hours. This may be because our libraries are often very large files, and this is the stage where the compressed files are extracted and placed in their final locations on the hard drive. There could be hundreds of GB of content to unpack, so it really can take hours. If you’re unsure whether it has crashed or is simply extracting files, visit the installation folder you chose when you started the install. If everything is working normally you’ll see various files appearing in the folder (or one of its sub-folders).
- If you see a “Download interrupted” message, this may be caused by a change in IP, usually the case with people using a VPN, or people who for some reason started a download in one country and tried to resume it in another. In this case, please submit a support ticket and we can unblock you.
- If your download gets stuck and is continually cycling and not resuming, please get in touch with us, giving us as much detail as possible about your setup. It would be helpful if you can tell us: Your operating system, where you are downloading from (your country, and also whether you’re at home or work), your ISP, and whether there are any proxy servers or firewalls between your computer and the internet.
Q: I’VE LOST MY INSTRUMENT FILES.
In some cases, instrument files may get lost when transferring libraries
from one place to another, or if an update has gone wrong. If this happens,
the best way forward is to re-download the library in question. It will ensure
you will get all of the content you are missing
Q: I HAVE FAST INTERNET, WHY IS MY DOWNLOAD SLOW?
We have no direct influence on your actual download speeds, our libraries are
hosted on Amazon S3 servers which are normally very quick but it may well be
that at certain times of the day when traffic is particularly busy, your ISP
may throttle your connection speeds. We would advise you to leave your
download running overnight as speeds should ramp up at less busy times. Our
Library Manager downloader aims to use as much of the available bandwidth as
possible to give you the quickest possible speeds and may take several minutes
to reach its peak.
Q: CAN I INSTALL IT ON MORE THAN ONE COMPUTER?
With our products, you have two licenses. This means that you are allowed to
download and install on two computers you own, say your main rig and your
mobile rig. The best way to get your library on both of your machines is to
copy it from one to another via an external HDD. It saves you from having to
re-download the whole library again!
Q: CAN I TRY BEFORE I BUY?
No – it is not currently possible to demo our products. If you go to our
YOUTUBE CHANNEL you’ll see many many walkthroughs containing detailed info
about all our products — you can hear them being played in real-time with no
smoke and mirrors!
Q: MY LIBRARIES ARE NOT SHOWING UP IN MY LIBRARY MANAGER
A handful of customers may find that when they log into their Library Manager,
some of their previously purchased products do not show up in the ‘Installed’
section or in the ‘Download Ready’ section either. It may be that you have
purchased these under another email address. Checking other possible email
addresses for your previous purchases may help to find these missing products.
If this is not the case, and these missing products were purchased a few years
ago, please create a support ticket telling us your account email address, and
any serial numbers you may have to go with these missing products. Our support
team can also merge one or more accounts together if you’d like to consolidate
all your purchases in one place. The more information, the quicker we can get
you back up and running!
Q: HOW DO I UPDATE MY PRODUCTS?
The main premise of downloading our products is that our library manager
downloads into the folder you choose, so it is always good to choose the
folder above where you want the download to go. The best file path for our
products is something very simple, a long file path will cause errors as there
is a character limit on how far the library manager can read. We advise a file
path of something along the lines of:
Samples Drive > Spitfire Audio – always point the downloader to the folder
‘Spitfire Audio’ (the folder above the library) for all downloads and updates.
When it comes to downloading / updating – if you have a folder called
‘Spitfire Audio’ always point the library manager to the folder Spitfire Audio
– never go into this folder and choose the actual library in question.
Q: HOW DO I REDOWNLOAD THE LATEST UPDATE?
With the continuous improvements to our Library Manager app, we have
incorporated the ability to reset your own downloads. This can easily be done
via your Library Manager app. Open up the Library Manager app and log in with
your account email and password. – Select the download you wish to re-download
– In the toolbar under Library > Reset Download > Latest Update – This will
reset your latest update You can repeat this process for any other updates you
wish. If you do not see the option to reset your download in your Library
Manager App, we would advise downloading the latest version of the library
manager from spitfireaudio.com/ info/library-manager/.
Q: I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR AGES FOR MY DOWNLOAD LINKS…???
We run all our orders through a fraud-checking process. The automatic fraud
check takes 20 minutes (but can take up to an hour during a very busy period,
eg. Black Friday), but if your order gets caught at this stage, we run a
manual order check, and this can delay the processing of your order for up to
24 hours (though this would be a rare and exceptional case). You should
however receive an order confirmation email IMMEDIATELY upon placing your
order. This confirms that your order has successfully been logged in our
system and that your payment was successfully taken. Please check your junk
folders before contacting our support. The message will come from
[email protected] if
you’d like to add us to your whitelist.
Q: CAN I DOWNLOAD ON A PC, THEN TRANSFER TO A MAC OR VICE VERSA?
All of our libraries are compatible on both PC and Mac computers (as they run
inside Kontakt). You can download all of our libraries on either PC or Mac and
they will work if you need to transfer them across to the other operating
system. We advise doing this by copying the library you want to move across to
an external HDD and then copying it to your other machine.
Q: ‘SAMPLES MISSING’ ERROR MESSAGES
In some cases, samples files may get lost when transferring libraries from one
place to another, or if an update has gone wrong. You may also get this error
in some cases if you installed your library on a drive with just under the
minimum necessary amount of space to install the library (remembering that you
need DOUBLE the size of the final library to install successfully – see
above). If this happens, the best way forward is to re-download the library in
question. It will ensure you will get all of the content you are missing. For
more information on how to re-download a product, please see the question
above.
Q: HOW DO I DOWNLOAD PRODUCTS ON MAC OSX 10.6.8?
Our Library Manager only supports Mac OSX 10.7 and upwards. If you do not have
a system with 10.7 upwards installed, or do not wish to update your system
there is a way of creating an external boot drive that will work with our
Library Manager app. Alternatively, you can download the library to any other
Mac or PC that is compatible with the Library Manager and then simply copy
everything over to your own machine. We suggest doing this via an External
Hard drive.
Q: NON PLAYER INSTRUMENT OPENING IN ‘DEMO’ MODE?
If you are seeing the ‘demo’ button and your patches are timing out, it means
you are trying to run a non-player library in the Kontakt Player software. You
need to upgrade your Player to the full version of Kontakt. We try very hard
to ensure at all stages of our website that everyone understands which
libraries need full Kontakt and which need the Player only. Essentially our
Player libraries don’t need the full Kontakt because we have paid the license
fee on our customers’ behalf. This is more financially viable on our higher-
priced libraries. If you have any of our Player libraries you can qualify for
a discount on the full version of Kontakt. See the following page for more
information:
https://www.native-
instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/Kontakt-5/pricing/crossgrade-
offer/
HOW TO BATCH RESAVE A LIBRARY
There are two main reasons to batch resave: Firstly it greatly speeds up
the loading of patches once you have batch resaved them. Secondly, it can help
you find missing samples and relink them to the patches so that you don’t need
to search every time you load a patch. Bear in mind that it can sometimes take
a few attempts to batch resave, and if Kontakt crashes the first time you try,
you could go into the instruments folder and batch resave a bit at a time — go
by subfolders, for example, just to lessen the load on Kontakt.
Q: I WANT TO BUY A COLLECTION, BUT I ALREADY OWN ONE OR MORE OF THE
PRODUCTS IN IT
Our cart will intelligently deduct the proportional cost of any products you
already own from the total price when you get to the checkout.
Q: I’VE LOST MY SERIAL NUMBER FOR PRODUCT ACTIVATION
Emails get misplaced and you might find that you are out of luck when you need
to find a past serial number. The best place to find all of your serial
numbers would be to log into your Native Instruments account here:
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/, and traverse to the My Products,
Serials, And Downloads section. Under there you will find all of your serial
numbers, including your Spitfire Audio serial numbers. If you find that the
serial number you are looking for is not there, please contact us with all of
the relevant information.
Q: I HAVE FOUND A BUG
In some cases, we can’t squash them all and bugs shamefully make their way
through. If you think you have found a bug, please contact us with all the
relevant information;
- A description of the bug you have found
- A screencast (video) of the bug happening, or an audio example
- The exact patch name (or patches) in question and also the library giving us as much detail as possible will help us get to the bottom of the issue.
Q: WHAT IS THE NCW COMPRESSED FORMAT?
This is Native Instrument’s new lossless compressed sample format – we have
managed to reduce the sample data pool by around 55% and this also shows a
benefit in streaming for you, along with reduced hard disk space required.
Q: WHAT IS YOUR REFUNDS / RETURNS POLICY?
If you have NOT completed the download/installation process, then we CAN
refund/return your product, please contact support with your account email
address and order number so we can handle this quickly. If you HAVE completed
the installation process (even if you’ve not yet registered your serial
number), please see our EULA in regards to why we do not accept refunds and
returns. We can refund hard drive orders up until the point when the drive is
dispatched from our office. This is usually 2-4 days after your order.
Q: I’VE FORGOTTEN MY PASSWORD?
If you have forgotten your password, please go to spitfireaudio.com/my-
account/login, and click ‘Forgotten Password’. If at some point in the past
you asked us to merge two or more accounts but have since forgotten, you MAY
find that the forgotten password isn’t working for the email address you asked
us to merge FROM. In this case, please contact support with your name, and any
email addresses you think we might know about, and we’ll work out what has
happened.
Q: VEP – CONTROLS / GUI HAS DISAPPEARED!?
You need to ‘connect’ the instance of VEP to your sequencer, and send it some
MIDI – then the controls will reappear. Unless the instance of VEP is ‘booted
up’ by actually connecting it, Kontakt will not complete the setup of the
instrument which includes drawing the GUI.
© SPITFIRE AUDIO HOLDINGS LTD
MMXVII
HZP – USER MANUAL
Documents / Resources
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SPITFIRE AUDIO HZP Hans Zimmer
Piano
[pdf] User Manual
HZP Hans Zimmer Piano
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SPITFIRE AUDIO HZP Hans Zimmer
Piano
[pdf] User Manual
HZP, Hans, Zimmer Piano, HZP Hans Zimmer Piano