Ableton Forum

I did live7 suite download, so I missed EIC2 and session drums......is it worth it for me, come upgrade-to-8 time, to do box instead of download and grab these two (for an extra 70 bucks) ?

what do you think of the EIC2 ? use it much? what about session drums?

bear in mind, I have and regularly use Kontakt3......so would I even care about what EIC offers?

thanks,
-M.

I'm also interested in this.

I've never had the Suite, but I already have Dimension Pro for a general "instruments library"...is EIC2 something I'd want instead, or is it worth skipping comparatively? (compared to a 3rd party library like Kontakt or DimPro that is)

I´m interested in this too.

A quick search on EIC2 revealed what I suspected... there seem to be amazingly few opinions floating around on EIC2. Either very few people own it or no-one's willing to pass a verdict on it. Or my search is faulty...

http://forum.ableton.com//viewtopic.php?t=96378
http://forum.ableton.com//viewtopic.php?t=96048
http://forum.ableton.com//viewtopic.php?t=88121
http://forum.ableton.com//viewtopic.php?t=92534

I've got EIC 1 which is basically the same thing.

It's competent but not exciting. I generally prefer the SampleTank XL library, but EIC has the benefit of being very stable in Live whereas SampleTank + Live is a crash fest. Also sample tank has hundreds of samples, but only about 10% are really good whereas EIC has only a few dozen sounds but they are of a consistently good quality.

I have used an accoustic grand, accoustic guitar and a viola out of it in this noise. (Its a little bit over compressed and only a preview pending some vocal work so it doesnt really do the sounds justice. The stabby sound is a gated and highly compressed+EQd version of the same piano as well and a little bit of viola around 3m - ignore the other sounds - synth strings, bass etc - that all Virus TI).

They are actually quite pleasent and the piano is one of the nicer sounding sampled pianos I have come across and probbaly more pleasent and lively than anything similar in my fantom X, Motif ES , Triton Rack and Alesis Fusion and I would say the same of the strings. Sampled guitars never really do it for me anyway unless you are really careful about their use.

Im just not really convinced of the whole packages value at the asking price and the messing about over the Live 6 to Live 7 Suite upgrade not including the EIC2 license (only the upgrade license) probably jaded me a bit as well. But then Ive allways thought the Ableton addons were a bit expensive for what they were - I guess its just the premium you pay for integration and a captive audience etc.

I have EIC2 and Session Drums and I have reviewed it some times ago.
Generally, depending on the music genre you're upon, especially, Pop, Rock, R&B, Ballads, EIC2 sounds great. The piano is very good, the Ensemble Strings add drama to every composition. They lack a trumpet but I was able to complement it by buying some soundfont samples from SoniVox, good sounds at a right price.
Regarding Session Drums, they are very well sampled according to my friend-the-drummer and come in a variety of sounds and colors. Personally I have only used the ColdTight Kit that comes with EIC2 so far, with some inclusion of other dry presets.
Since I bought the boxed suite I never used my MIDI modules, except in one occasion.
Drum is not a problem anymore. I guess this will happen with Latin Percussions.
With EIC2 + Session Drums, it's music right out of the box and its Integrated with your environment. With Session Drums I would have avoided some very dark sounding kits, but that's my taste. I do not like fat snares and big bass drums and toms...

- Best
- Pasha

I agree with those who posted regarding the Grand Piano sample, it is much nicer than any of the other acoustic piano samples that come with Live. It is actually usable.

Session drums is my goto drum tool now. I only use one or two kits from it, but I like them very much. They are mapped weirdly though. I bought some patterns from Groovemonkee and he had to remap them for me to work with Session Drums. He did so quite willingly which was great.

K.

Kilroy wrote:I agree with those who posted regarding the Grand Piano sample, it is much nicer than any of the other acoustic piano samples that come with Live. It is actually usable.

Session drums is my goto drum tool now. I only use one or two kits from it, but I like them very much. They are mapped weirdly though. I bought some patterns from Groovemonkee and he had to remap them for me to work with Session Drums. He did so quite willingly which was great.

K.

I have smartloops midi loops, they worked fine!