2000+ Samplers in a drum rack?

[cabletone]

I am considering racking up all my samples (mostly drum hits) on to separate Samplers, then assigning a macro to the chain selector so I can flip through them like presets.

So I'll have a chain of up to 128 samplers on each pad of a drum rack, figure times like at least 16 pads, thats over 2000 samplers.

Using individual samplers in a rack will allow me to tweak each one so I can have variations of one sound in a rack. This is preferable to just having 128 samples in one sampler selectable with the Chain Select tool, as that would not allow me to tweak each sample.

I'm wondering if Samplers will tax my CPU in this kind of situation.

Does a Sampler use CPU if it is not being played?

Does a Sampler use CPU if it is not selected in a chain?

[Trent]

That's a really good idea! The only way to see if it will tax your cpu is to try it. I'll be trying it tonight in my studio!

[JuanSOLO]

It's not too bad on CPU, but it takes FOREVER for the set to load.

They say if your not using a "Live" device, that it does not use CPU. However my "idle" Drum Rack still adds to the CPU meter, sometimes 12% at idle.

Personally I abandoned the idea of having that much tweaking possibilities. You could, tweak each "sampler" and when satisfied, covert it to a simpler, or render the sample.

I've also experimented with putting multiple DrumRacks in an InstrumentRack.

Currently I am settling for an InstrumentRack with a DrumRack inside filled with Simplers for 8 different tracks, Kick, Snare, Hat, etc. I use a dummy DrumRack on a channel by itself with blank InstrumentRacks in 8 cells. The InstrumentRacks are just for naming the cells, Kick, Snare, Hat, etc.. This dummy DrumRack's, cells, are routed to the corresponding tracks with DrumRacks containing the Simplers. It's difficult to explain, but the way I have it set up, I can play my drums in realtime with pads or what ever, simultaneously using the dummy DrumRack with pre-sequenced pianorolls, OR sequence each track individually, giving the ability to variety the samples by clickin different notes in the piano roll.

ALSO, I have added a "Pitch" & "Random" MidiEffect in front of each DrumRack containing the simplers. I can turn these on and off. Using the Pitch as a sort of sample selecting override, and the random for random sample selection.

As I said, I feel like I am settling for Live's limitations. Still havent figured out how to store and recall presets using program changes and M4L. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat in Live. But I have yet to find one that covers all the angles.

[cabletone]

fyi my idea was inspired by this video:
http://vimeo.com/10599396

ill gates/thephatconductor talking about putting 128 samples in a Sampler selectable by the Chain Selector.

[JuanSOLO]

Right, I've seen that. Good Video.

I used to be hooked on the idea of having 2000+ samples ready to go. I found it better to focus on less samples, better sound quality, and usability. For me anyways. I found having that many samples just gives me that much more room to get lost. And like I said, it takes a hell of a long time to load the set.

[joshspoon]

Use Drum Rack with Sampler managing audio.

[cabletone]

I just created a rack with 127 simplers...

(is there a user default for samples dropped onto a instrument rack? so they turn into Samplers rather than simplers? I know you can do this with drum racks [Library>Defaults>Dropping Samples>Drum Rack] but there's no option/folder in the Dropping Samples folder for Instrument Rack)

...and copied it onto 14 drum pads in a drum rack.

While the CPU meter is showing only 1-2%, live is acting sluggish.

512 samples buffer, 44.1 sample rate, Live 8.2.

I am on a recent macbook pro with 4gb ram.

I think this may not work.

[Dr. Fluffenstein]

I've tried this and I found it very hard not to skip samples with the macro selector. What I ended up doing is creating a bunch of 'sample banks' with no more than 40 samples each. I had one macro for selecting samples and a second one for selecting different banks. It was pretty convoluted since I did it with simplers. But you can use one instance of sampler and put as many samples in there as you want (Using a combination of midi and sampler's chain select). Helpful when you want to quickly preview samples... But in hindsight it was a pretty bad idea. First of all I wasted time making sample racks (it's very time consuming) and now I don't even use them because they really don't offer that big of an advantage. Second of all, waiting for all those samples to load just so you can use one of them is a pretty big pain, especially if you put them in your default template.

ps: There's no point in having so many samplers in a rack. Use the sample select option, combine that with MIDI select and you'll have a maximum of 128x128 samples per sampler. But it'd probably take half an hour to load the whole rack .

[JuanSOLO]

I'm not sure if this answers you questions, but you right click on a simnpler and choose simpler>sampler. And it sort of works vise versa too.

[JuanSOLO]

@Dr. Fluffenstein - I made an incremental up and down knob/button in M4L for sample selecting. I can use 2 buttons on a controller, one for up and one for down.

[Trent]

Awesome idea! It works great! For fine adjustments why not just hold down control?

[Dr. Fluffenstein]

@Dr. Fluffenstein - I made an incremental up and down knob/button in M4L for sample selecting. I can use 2 buttons on a controller, one for up and one for down.

I've always wanted the option of swapping samples in live's library with the press of one button. Too bad I don't own M4L



@Trent: Thanks for the 'ctrl' tip! Didn't even know that option existed.

[Andymann]

i would recommend testing this in a small configuration at first.

i already tried this approach a few months before but in the end it's not that perfect.
background: you will experience some serious disadvantages when trying to record clips. the (chain-)selected sampler/ instrument won't necessarily stay active, etc....

hard to explain.... please try it yourself first