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Q: Is there a way to record audio from Kontakt?

A: The best/easiest way is to use Kontakt as a plug-in within a DAW.

Q: I use Kontakt in standalone mode because I don't need a VST host. I shun complexity.
   When playing, I normally feed Kontakt's audio into my Presonus audio interface.
   But Audacity cannot "see" that.
 
   I could instead feed Kontakt's audio into the PC's internal sound card.
   That gets duplicated into the PC Stereo Mix device.
   Audacity can see that and can record it.

   But as I'm playing in that mode I can only hear the sound on the cheap PC speakers.
   What's worse, the latency through that audio channel is quite bad.
   Latency is no issue for the recording, but it makes playing nearly impossible.

   So I opted to ...

   1. Run Kontakt standalone, feeding sound through the Presonus box as usual.
      That's what I listen to. Sound quality is high and latency is low.

   2. Run another instance of Kontakt, this time using the Minihost Modular VST
      host with Kontakt attached as a plugin. I can feed that VST host's sound
      into the PC sound device, and I can record that as described above. (I would
      just turn down the volume on the now-useless PC speakers.)

   But all of this is annoying. I assumed there would be a cleaner solution.

A: You can route audio in and out of a sound card or audio interface. Check
   the hardware buffer settings to get latency as low as possible.

   If all this is absolutely not for you, there are probably PC utilities that
   can route audio from one program to another. I'm not a PC guy so I don't know
   exactly what they are. On the Mac, we have free extensions like Soundflower
   that can do this.

Q: Your proposed solution works well on a Mac. But not on a PC.
   Yes, I can use an audio routing program for the PC.
   I have one: Voicemeeter. I can send Kontakt's output to that.
   And I can have Audacity read from that.
   But I'm stuck with the latency, and I can only listen through the PC speakers.

   To get good latency, I have to use an external sound card (the Presonus).
   But Audacity cannot see that output (unless I route the Presonus analog output
   back into its analog input). Audacity can see that, but it suffers from
   digtai-to-analog-to-digital reconversion.

A: Why so opposed to using a DAW? It is MEANT to be used for recording.
   Audacity, while having some recording features, is really more of a waveform
   editor tool, with multitrack recording and plugin support bolted on afterwards.

   There's the very small SAVIhost you could also use for hosting Kontakt as
   a plugin (it's really just a standalone plugin wrapper), and it has rudimentary
   recording features, as well as support for ASIO.

Q: Tried that. I was using Presonus Studio One. But it's much too complicated.
   What I want is one button for record, one for stop, and one for saving the audio file.

   Studio One has a one-button record and a one-button stop. Easy. But when I try to
   save, it tells me "Nothing to export. Please set Loop or Markers first."
   What would I "loop" and why would I "mark"? It's not clear how or why.

   I just want to save everything from when I pushed record until I pushed stop, just
   like any other recording device.

   So, is there something else that fits? I've not yet found it.

A: Download Reaper.

Q: OK, tried Reaper.

   For me, unfortunately, it's a big step in the wrong direction. It's way more complicated
   than Studio One, which in turn is more complicated than Minihost Modular. Too many buttons.

   I only want the three controls I mentioned earlier: record, stop, and save.