Ableton sampler/EXS24 files

[fastfx]

Hi Guys,

Does anyone here use 'Sampler' in ableton? I'm thinking of buying it, I currently just use abletons 'simpler' for my sampling needs, however i have seen that 'sampler' can map in zones, has a bunch of modulation and morphing options, and most importantly for me can read Exs24 files.

Has anyone had any problems with it reading/loading Exs24 files?

What are peoples experiences with 'Sampler'?

Thanks!

Tom

[skipkent]

To piggyback on this thread, what sort of samples are included with a purchase of Sampler? Where's a good spot to purchase more?

thx,

-Kent

[luddy]

Has anyone had any problems with it reading/loading Exs24 files?

yes. Much/most of the content included in Logic and many 3rd party EXS24 instruments cannot be converted by Live. The conversion process aborts with a message saying something like "no presets can be imported from this preset", or something to that effect.

There is some excellent 3d party content available for Sampler; see the Partner Instruments stuff on Ableton's site.

-Luddy

[fastfx]

Oh I see, that's not too bad for me as I don't really use the logic exs24 banks, it's mainly my own that I want to use, ones that I've made.
However, I was thinking maybe it would be better/easier if I made my own banks in ableton using 'drum rack' and then saving them so I can call on them whenever I want them, just like I would with exs24 banks.

What are peoples thoughts on that?

Thanks for the help and advice, really appreciate it.

Tom

[luddy]

It would probably be best just to test the import operation with your own EXS24 instruments. If they are simple, i.e., relatively simple group structure, then there's a good chance that they would import no problem. My guess is that if your instruments correspond to drum racks, then you'd have a good chance, because you probably don't have a lot of complicated layering of sounds beyond maybe multiple samples on a single note.

Making drum racks OTOH is a piece of cake too. Depending on how complicated a drum rack you want to create, one way to do this is simply to use Logic to record an audio file with one sample per (say) bar, import it to live, and use the built-in slicing operations to create a drum rack (or a sampler instrument). I've imported instruments this way from Logic and it has worked pretty well.

-Luddy

[:Metaphor:]

I have flirted with the idea of buying sampler on an off for years, and have tested it's ability to import exs and .nki files, since this is mainly why I'd buy it.

From what I remember, it does a great job with .nki's and a pretty decent job with exs.

Why not try importing an exs in the demo of sampler and see how it goes?

[fastfx]

Yes I think I will do that today, I'd be interested to see how it handles it.

[toph]

Hi tomf,

just for your information: For both scenarios (Drum Racks and Sampler) consider, that it's unfortunately not possible to convert mapped Sampler-presets to Drum Racks so far!

So there no way to import your EXS24-presets in Sampler and then to convert them from Sampler to Drum Racks. That has to be done by hand, what is a reason why I still often use sampler for my drum kits, because I'm too lazy to map them all new in Drum Racks by hand.

Best,
C.

[fastfx]

You don't have to map them by hand in 'drum rack' - I just shift-click a bunch of one shot samples and drop them onto the drum rack, it then automatically maps them across the keyboard.
That is for 1 shot samples of course.

[3phase]

Has anyone had any problems with it reading/loading Exs24 files?

yes. Much/most of the content included in Logic and many 3rd party EXS24 instruments cannot be converted by Live. The conversion process aborts with a message saying something like "no presets can be imported from this preset", or something to that effect.

There is some excellent 3d party content available for Sampler; see the Partner Instruments stuff on Ableton's site.

-Luddy

You cant load esx files in sampler? you are joking...

is it only for the libary content or are your own esx files unconevrtable too?

[toph]

You don't have to map them by hand in 'drum rack' - I just shift-click a bunch of one shot samples and drop them onto the drum rack, it then automatically maps them across the keyboard.
That is for 1 shot samples of course.

Yes, I know - but if you have a preset with your one shots sorted over the keyrange, than it would be nice to have the option to convert the Sampler mapping to Drum Racks. When I just multiselect the samples and drop them to Drum Racks, the samples get arranged by name ascending. So it doesn't do the trick completely.

[fastfx]

Oh I see what you mean. I will test out sampler today but personally I don't think I'm going to buy it, I'm not prepared to pay all that money for it just so I can play exs24 files. I will make my the same banks as I have in my exs24 but this time I'll make them with drum rack and save them as patches so I can call on them whenever I need to.

[nylarch]

Simple EXS instruments seem to come over fine. But one's with complex routings won't - whatever algorithm they're using to try to map EXS params to Sampler params isn't that accurate which is a real shame. I have some great GoldBaby sampled synths (Tape SH-101 is great) and I'd love for his presets to come over and they just don't. Sampler is still great but that's a major fail.

[theophilus]

for the exs24 patches that don't import - there is one other thing you could try. Kontakt imports aren't perfect either, but they seem to be better than exs24 imports. So, you could try using Kontakt Player to convert the exs24 to nki, and then import that into sampler. I haven't tried this with exs24 files (and can't right now really), but I have done this with some old emu cdroms that I have - even the free kontakt player will convert samples off of the emu cdroms to nki format, and though it won't really play them (it will, but it times out after 15 minutes) you can import these into sampler without too much trouble. The kontakt import always seems to mess up the main volume envelope though.

[luddy]

You cant load esx files in sampler? you are joking...

is it only for the libary content or are your own esx files unconevrtable too?

I have been able to import some EXS files into Sampler, but most of the Logic content that I have tried fails to import (with an error message). My own have imported fine, because they are quite simple. Actually though I generally have not done this a lot with my own because they tend to be in the form of a single audio file with a sequence of samples, and it is just as fast and more reliable to simply drag that audio file into Live and use the slice-to-MIDI command to create a sampler instrument.

I have also tried it with some third-party EXS24 libraries, and in those cases I got a sampler instrument, but it was so far from working properly (the selection of layering and lots of other stuff seemed to be translated either not at all or incorrectly) that I discarded them.

I have to say, as much as I am a fan of Live, this import option really doesn't work well. Most EXS24 features are pretty straightforward to translate into Sampler + Instrument racks + a few MIDI effects. A few things I'm not sure how they could translate, like round-robin group chaining, but maybe there is a way, not sure. My impression is that it's mostly just a problem of a little of nitty gritty details that haven't been slogged through.

there is one other thing you could try. Kontakt imports aren't perfect either, but they seem to be better than exs24 imports. So, you could try using Kontakt Player to convert the exs24 to nki, and then import that into sampler.

yeah, I have thought the same thing. I have Kontakt so I might try this. I have played a little bit with importing .nki's into Live but I don't remember offhand what the result was ....

-Luddy