Adding multiple instruments at a time to instrument rack and automatic chain selection mapping

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Post Reply
tommy two tweez
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2025 2:15 am

Adding multiple instruments at a time to instrument rack and automatic chain selection mapping

Post by tommy two tweez » Fri May 02, 2025 1:42 pm

Just got Ableton Live 12 Suite.

Goal
  • Have a instrument rack on channel 1
  • Map the chain selector to one of the macro knobs on the instrument rack
  • Hook up APC 40 mk2 to Ableton Live
  • Use the APC 40 device control knobs to switch between long list of instrument rack instruments
  • Repeat on other channels so that I have CH1 = mallets, CH2 = kickdrums, CH3 = ? etc etc

The Problem

1) I can't figure out how to add more than one instrument at a time to an instrument rack
2) After I add a list of instruments to a rack, I then need to manually go through each one in the rack and tediously drag its chain selection parameters to be 1 chain wide and then align wr.t. other instruments in the chain. This allows each instrument in an instrument rack be selected (solo'd) for each value of the chain selection parameter

I can't seem to figure out how solve either of these problems.

Here is a video showing how I only seem to be able to add a single instrument at a time to an instrument rack:

https://youtu.be/KdEYysDaPO0

Does anyone know of an alternative workflows or alternatives to instrument rack entirely that I could employ to achieve my goals?

I can achieve them through painstaking creation of multi-instrument racks, but this is not practical...

Also, is it generally advised not to have lots of instruments on an instrument rack? Is there a performance/CPU penalty for doing so? What resources to non-selected instruments in the chain take up?

Post Reply